Tiny Buddha

Tag: resistance

  • Awareness and Self-Compassion: Two Powerful Tools for Chronic Pain

    Awareness and Self-Compassion: Two Powerful Tools for Chronic Pain

    “Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the tangle of emotional resistance against what is already happening.” ~Tara Brach

    The wooden meditation hall creaked softly as sixty people shifted in their seats, trying to find comfort in the silence. Outside, winter rain tapped against the windows, a gentle metronome marking time. I sat cross-legged on my black cushion, watching sweat trickle down my temple despite the cool air. My legs burned as if I’d been running for hours, though I hadn’t moved in forty-five minutes.

    It was day three of my first six-day silent meditation retreat, and I was learning my first profound lesson about physical pain—not from my meditation teacher, but from my protesting body. Little did I know that this experience would become a crucial foundation for navigating a far greater challenge that lay ahead.

    The pain started as a whisper in my lower back, a gentle suggestion that perhaps I should adjust my posture. Within minutes it grew to a shout, then a scream. While other practitioners appeared serene, their faces soft and bodies still, I was waging an internal war. Every few minutes, I’d shift my weight slightly, trying to find that elusive comfortable position. The cushion that had felt so perfect during the orientation session now seemed as unyielding as concrete.

    The meditation instructions echoed in my mind: “Just sit and observe your breath.” But my body had other plans. Each inhale brought awareness of new discomfort—a sharp knife in my hip, a dull ache in my shoulders, pins and needles racing down my calves. The physical sensations became my entire world, drowning out any hope of focusing on my breath.

    I tried everything. Different cushions borrowed from the prop closet. Various positions—Burmese, half-lotus, kneeling. I even snuck to the back of the hall to lean against the wall, feeling like a meditation failure as I watched the straight backs of more experienced practitioners ahead of me.

    Then, on day four, something shifted. Perhaps it was exhaustion from fighting my experience, or maybe it was the wisdom of surrender, but I finally heard what my teacher had been saying all along: “Don’t try to change what’s arising; just be with it with kindness.”

    For the first time, I stopped trying to fix my discomfort. Instead, I got curious about it. What did the pain actually feel like? Was it constant, or did it pulse? Where exactly did it begin and end? As I explored these questions with genuine interest rather than resistance, something remarkable happened—while the physical sensations remained, my suffering began to decrease.

    “In the midst of pain is the whole teaching,” Pema Chödrön’s words would become my lifeline two years later, when a back injury transformed my relationship with pain from a periodic challenge into a constant companion. I would join the ranks of millions living with chronic pain—a silent epidemic that affects more than one in five adults globally.

    While medicine can sometimes dull the sharp edges of physical suffering, many of us learn that managing chronic pain requires more than just medication. It demands a complete reimagining of our relationship with our bodies and with pain itself.

    The lessons from that meditation hall now played out in vivid detail through every moment of my daily life. Simple tasks became exercises in mindful movement. Getting out of bed required a careful choreography of breath and motion. Picking up a dropped pen became a practice in patience and body awareness. Each movement called for the same careful attention I’d learned to bring to meditation.

    The physical pain was just the beginning. In the darkness of sleepless nights, lying on my floor because no other position brought relief, my mind raced with endless worries: Would I ever recover? Could I continue counseling my clients in person? How would I pay the mounting medical bills? These thoughts circled like hungry wolves, testing the limits of my newfound practice of acceptance.

    Working as a therapist brought its own unique challenges. I vividly remember sitting across from clients, maintaining my therapeutic presence while searing pain radiated from my tailbone through my entire spine. Each session became a practice in dual awareness—being present for my clients while acknowledging my own experience. Some days, the effort to maintain this balance left me depleted, with barely enough energy to drive home.

    There was also the exhausting social dance of chronic pain. The simple question “How are you?” became complicated. Telling people about the constant pain felt burdensome after a while. No one wants to always be the person who’s suffering. So instead, I’d smile and say, “I’m fine,” swallowing the truth along with the discomfort. These small acts of concealment created their own kind of fatigue, a lonely space between the public face and private reality.

    I invite you to pause and reflect on your own relationship with pain. When discomfort arises, what stories does your mind create about it?

    Notice how your body responds—the subtle tightening, the wish to push away what’s difficult. Consider what it might feel like to create just a little space around your pain, like opening a window in a stuffy room.

    Sometimes I think of pain as an unwanted house guest. We didn’t invite it, we don’t want it to stay, but fighting its presence only creates more tension in our home. Instead, we can acknowledge it’s here, set appropriate boundaries, and continue living our lives around it. Some days we might even discover unexpected gifts in its presence—a deeper appreciation for good moments, increased empathy for others’ struggles, or the discovery of our own resilience.

    Working with pain mindfully reveals that healing happens on multiple levels. When we respond to physical discomfort with gentle awareness, we start noticing how our thoughts create narratives about the pain, how emotions arise in waves, and how our nervous system responds to kind attention. Through this practice, we can learn to expand our attention beyond the pain, discovering that even in difficult moments, there is also the warmth of sunlight on our face, the sound of birds outside our window, the taste of morning coffee.

    Years later, my pain isn’t as severe, but it remains a daily companion. I carry a back pillow everywhere as if it’s an accessory, mindfully choosing which events to attend and for how long. Gardening, once a carefree joy, has become an exercise in presence—each movement an opportunity to listen to my body’s wisdom. Some days still find me lying on the floor, being with whatever my body is expressing in that moment.

    But there’s a profound difference now. Where I once pushed through pain with gritted teeth, I’ve learned to respond to my body’s signals with care and compassion.

    This shift feels especially valuable as I age, knowing that new physical challenges will likely arise. Each twinge and ache is no longer an enemy to vanquish but a reminder to pay attention, to move more slowly, to tend to myself with kindness.

    The clock in that meditation hall taught me about impermanence—how even the most challenging moments eventually pass. My back injury taught me about acceptance and resilience. Together, these experiences showed me that while we can’t always choose what happens to our bodies, we can choose how we meet these experiences with awareness and compassion. In doing so, we discover that peace isn’t found in the absence of pain but in our capacity to be with it skillfully.

  • How I Learned the True Meaning of Strength After My Son’s Death

    How I Learned the True Meaning of Strength After My Son’s Death

    “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    I tried to stay strong after my fifteen-year-old son Brendan died in an accident. It shattered my world. The shock of it numbed me but when that wore off, I knew I needed to be there for my husband and two other children. Zack and Lizzie were only ten and thirteen and needed my strength. So, I built a wall around my heart and pushed through my day. I went back to work, teaching piano students in my studio.

    But at night my throat burned from unshed tears. My neck muscles ached from holding myself rigid. I had half-moon bruises across my palms; I didn’t even realize I spent the day with my hands clenched in fists, my nails digging into my flesh.

    Still, I stayed strong. Until Matthew ran into my piano studio and I discovered the real meaning of strength.

    Each week he burst into the room, eager to play me his new song. He was a six-year-old boy with freckles bouncing across his cheeks. He threw his bag onto the table, uncaring that books and pencils slid out. He wiggled onto the bench and grinned at me before crashing his hands into the keys.

    He played me his own story about aliens and a spaceship that hopped from planet to planet. He threw his whole body into his song, attacking the keys until he built a wall of sound that screamed throughout the room.

    I smiled. “I love your story.” I gave him a sticker that he proudly placed on his shirt. But then I reached for my lion.

    Leo the Lion was a stuffed animal that sat on the shelf above my piano. He was so soft that students couldn’t resist reaching up and stroking his velvety fur. His arms and legs—filled with tiny beans—drooped over the shelf.

    Sometimes, he sat on the side of the piano, listening to a student play when they felt a little shy. Other times, I put him on a student’s shoulders. Make him fall asleep, I’d whisper, a gentle reminder to keep their shoulders relaxed and down.

    With Matthew, I reached for the lion so I could teach him how to play loud and soft. Playing soft requires a lot of control. Students lean in gently, their fingers brushing the keys, like tickling with a feather. They’re so tentative they barely make a sound. But not when it comes to playing forte.

    Most students love to play loudly. They crashed their fingers into the keys, digging into the note until it sounded like a punch. I wanted the note to sound full and rich, but not like a scream.

    I pulled down Leo and wiggled him so that his arms flopped around. I lifted one lion arm up and let it drop down on its own. “Leo doesn’t try to attack the  keys,” I said. “He just lets the weight of his arm fall into the keys.”

    I let his paw fall a few times on Matthew’s arm so he could feel the weight. Then I put a rubber bracelet around Matthew’s wrist and gently lifted his arm up by the bracelet. I held it up in the air. “Don’t try to fight it when I let go. Just let your arm fall.”

    It was hard for him to let me direct his arm. He couldn’t let it just flop around. “You have to give up control,” I said. “Let me move your arm and then just let it go.” After a few times, he surrendered to the weight of his arm and let it fall into the keys. He looked up at me and grinned.

    “That’s the secret to playing forte,” I said. “Forte actually means strength in Italian. And in order to play a note with strength, we need to give up control. We lift our arm and then let go.”

    And that’s when I realized I was doing strength all wrong

    I tried to stay strong by controlling my grief. I stood tall and stiffened my shoulders, my muscles tight. I swallowed my sorrow until I could barely breathe. And still, I didn’t surrender to the weight of grief. I stayed strong. And if I couldn’t, I hid inside my house and let myself shatter. I refused to let anyone see me without my shields.

    But Leo the Lion reminded me that I had the wrong definition of strength. Staying strong can mean surrendering to the pain. It can mean being strong enough to let go and show my heart even when it’s filled with sorrow.

    I needed to learn how to let go. It didn’t come easy for me. Just like Matthew, it was something I needed to practice over and over.

    I started with becoming more aware. I scanned my body for signs of tension, knowing it was a sign of emotions trapped within my tissues. I stayed patient with myself, just like I did when Matthew played with too much force. I reminded myself to be aware of the tension without judging it.

    I no longer swallowed my emotions. Instead, I leaned into them, naming each one, acknowledging their presence. I felt the tension in my shoulders. Yes, this is grief. I felt the muscles in my arms quiver. Yes, this is anger. I felt my stomach tied in knots. Yes, this is anxiety.

    Once I acknowledged my emotions, it became easier to release them. Some days, I meditated and then journaled. Or I walked in the forest, listening to the leaves whispering in the wind. I wrapped myself in a blanket and listened to music, sinking into each note until it melted away some of my feelings. And some days, I simply let myself sit in sorrow without judging it as a “bad day.”

    I’m not perfect. There are days I forget and put on my mask of strength and pretend everything is fine. But just like my students, I’ve learned it’s a practice. When I forget, I remind myself to stay patient. And I keep Leo the Lion on my shelf as my reminder what strength really means. I stop trying to stay in control. I surrender to my feelings.

    I stay strong by letting go.

  • How Releasing Control Opened Me Up to a Limitless Life

    How Releasing Control Opened Me Up to a Limitless Life

    “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” ~Richard Bach

    I have always wanted to create a family.

    As a child, I lovingly cared for my dolls and fell head over heels for my college boyfriend. Kneeling before me with a ring, he said, “I want you to be the mother of our children.” I swooned as we walked down the aisle at the tender age of twenty-two, convinced I was set for life. I had the husband, and I would have the family.

    I entered into our marriage with the expectation and security of certainty. We had vowed to be together for life, so I believed that was the truth.

    But I had another love besides my husband.

    I was in love with performing.

    After a childhood of classes in the arts, I was accepted into the BFA Musical Theater Program’s inaugural year at Penn State University. I soaked every minute up and graduated with summer work already booked and the plan to move to New York City with my new husband and dive into my career.

    Creating a family could wait. Broadway was calling.

    Except I found myself hitting a ceiling. Despite working consistently as a professional, Broadway eluded me. With the exception of two Broadway shows that closed before I would have joined them, I would choke when I was invited back for a second or third audition, and never make it any further.

    I was a true triple threat, strong in my singing, dancing, and acting, but I didn’t know how to deal with the loud and critical voice in my head. When I needed to deliver my best at these big moments, the critic would become deafening and my voice would crack or I would spontaneously “forget” which leg to step forward on while I was dancing. In those moments, it was as if all my training went out the window.

    Over time I was losing confidence. I literally worked at every level except Broadway. I worked off-Broadway, regionally, did national tours and commercials, and kept auditioning in hopes my break would come.

    And then I found myself at the age of thirty-seven staring into my husband’s eyes as he told me, “I don’t think I love you anymore. I don’t think I want to be married anymore. I don’t think I want to have children.”

    The security and certainty I had clung to in my twenties evaporated in smoke. I lost my marriage and the ability to create the family I had desired for the last fifteen years.

    In the face of my divorce, I felt a great urgency arise. It fueled me to heal emotionally, spiritually, and mentally from my heartbreak and to seek the right support to guide me as a single woman. I worked with love coaches and therapists and joined women’s groups to help me make sense of how to find a life partner.

    And then four and a half years later, I went on a first date with a kind blue-eyed man who took me to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and gently opened an umbrella over my head as rain began to fall. In all the dates I had been on, I had never felt like this before, and we quickly fell in love.

    Before I became exclusive with him, I asked how he felt about creating a family and was thrilled when he shared that was his biggest desire as well. We were married a year and a half later and began to try naturally to get pregnant.

    Creating a family was now. There was no more waiting. I had the husband and the security. Certainty had returned to my life again.

    Except after a year of trying, nothing had happened. So, we entered into IVF as I had frozen my eggs after my divorce for this very reason. We followed all the steps, and I was convinced this was going to work. With the number of fertilized eggs, I imagined we had two tries and I was completely open to twins. But on the day of the transfer, only one egg was ready, and the other three became unusable.

    The pressure was unmanageable. I was experiencing migraine headaches from the synthetic hormones and was terrified it wouldn’t work. Which it didn’t.

    I vowed I was done with the drugs and our family was either going to happen through natural causes or through adoption.

    A year later, I found myself staring at a positive pregnancy test.

    My husband and I were giddy beyond belief, and began to read children stories to the growing life inside me.

    Creating a family was now. There was no more waiting.

    Except just before my eleventh week, I stared at an ultrasound with no heartbeat. The white light that had fluttered with such ferocity at seven weeks was now a static white dot.

    While we went back to trying, my heart was broken. Nothing was happening, so we entered into the process of adoption.

    Within two months we were matched with a birth mother, and I wept when we got the call. The birth mother had just entered her second trimester, so we had several months to wait.

    Now we could prepare! I dived into podcasts, books, and workshops, learning everything I could about adoption, about being a trauma-informed parent, and what products felt most aligned with our values. I created a registry, and we both planned to take time off work.

    Everything was set.

    Creating our family was now. There was no more waiting.

    And then a month before the baby’s due date, the birth mother changed her mind. In adoption, they call this a disruption, and that is exactly how it felt.

    I found myself reliving every pillar of my journey. Choosing Broadway over family. The divorce. The failed IVF. The miscarriage. And now the disruption. I wasn’t just mourning the recent loss; I was mourning decades of a desire that had burned in my womb.

    I thought it was the end of the world. End of certainty.

    I found myself feeling completely disoriented. I had planned maternity leave from my business and set up an elaborate schedule for my approaching book launch all around the adoption. I had a nursery filled with a stroller, changing table, clothes, and a glider. I had thought of everything.

    I had planned it all out, because I wanted to believe it was going to happen. I wanted to believe there was no more waiting. I wanted to believe in certainty.

    I pulled an Oracle card from Alana Fairchild that read, “This comes with special guidance for you. More love is rushing towards you like a great cosmic tsunami. You will struggle with this blessing to the extent that you will attempt to hold onto what has been. So don’t. Let go. You’ll perhaps get some water up your nose, but nothing will come to you that you cannot handle. Instead, you’ll have no idea what is going on. Oh, how the tsunami will deliver you into your divine destiny!”

    So I did something new. I surrendered. I surrendered all my plans.

    I started coaching my clients again. We went back to being active again with the adoption agency. I started my book marketing tasks again.

    But none of this had any certainty or definitive timeline. After decades of knowing the exact day and time things were going to happen, I embraced not knowing.

    I embraced waiting. Because it seemed there was nothing else to do.

    It felt like a part of me was dying, the part that had planned my family with such ferocity and certainty.

    In my grief, I turned to the Oracle deck’s guidebook and saw Robert Brach’s quote. As soon as I read it, I began to weep in resonance.

    How I had strived to stay the caterpillar.

    The caterpillar of certainty. The caterpillar of timelines. The caterpillar of planning.

    But the caterpillar couldn’t transform with these values. It needed to be washed up on the waves of love, and finally enter the cocoon to grow into a sacred butterfly.

    Robert’s words speak to that profound moment when we recognize that the way we’ve been living our life doesn’t work anymore. If we want to grow, we have to let go of our clinging, specifically our clinging to certainty.

    Because the truth is, our greatest power comes in the acceptance of not knowing.

    If you “don’t know” then you are actually opening yourself to a limitless life, one that is led by divine timing, instead of what your ego wants to believe is “right.”

    What if experiencing the same thing over and over is actually a divine tap on the shoulder to try something new?

    What if being disoriented and not knowing when your desire will arrive is the softly spun silk surrounding your most vital soul?

    For me, the tsunami washed me up on the shore with sacred wisdom. No longer holding onto a timeline was actually a deep relief. Going through the cycle of trying to control every aspect of creating my family had been so taxing and exhausting.

    I had formed a castle of certainty with bricks and stones, only to discover it was actually made of sand. And when the waves crashed through, I saw it was never meant to last. It was always meant to wash away.

    Now I’m opening to something far more powerful than certainty. I’m opening to trust.

    I don’t know when my family will come. I have no idea how my desire is going to manifest. Perhaps my life has actually been working out beautifully, creating a divine path I may not have “planned” but one that has sparked a vital inner transformation.

    One that has opened me to the possibility of my life unfolding in a new direction. And with that, I can let go of crawling on the ground in vain as the caterpillar. Now I can just open my wings and fly.

    Now I can simply receive.

  • Surrendering Isn’t Giving Up: Why We Need to Accept What’s Happened

    Surrendering Isn’t Giving Up: Why We Need to Accept What’s Happened

    “The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden

    I remember the last time I saw him before my world crumbled. I held up my hand with the ASL sign for “I love you” through the window to him as he mouthed the words back and got in his car to leave for work. I found out an hour later that he—my fiancé—had begun cheating on me a month before he had proposed.

    He never fought for me. Even during the course of our relationship, when he would run away due to his insecurities, I would perpetually be the one fixing everything. That should have been a sign. But even as I stood before him and confronted him about his infidelities, telling him we could work it out, his pride was too wild. He didn’t fight for me.

    I am an impulsive and drastic person when I have been hurt. I have a tendency to pick up and move when things have gotten too emotionally rough, looking for the magic pill to happiness in the new places, faces, and experiences. It works for a while…until it doesn’t.

    So I left again. I went from a home-owning, engaged woman in New England to a renting, single, almost middle-aged chick back in my hometown of Los Angeles within three weeks.

    Then everyone around me waited for the other shoe to drop; they watched me closely and expected me to lose it in the middle of dinner, or start crying while watching TV. But nothing of the sort happened, and that’s because I was completely dissociated from the environment around me. I had not accepted a thing that had occurred.

    A month later, I got COVID. I remember in the midst of purging my guts out, I asked the universe to either end it for me or make me better. I was at the mercy of the cosmos, and it was in this total surrender that I began accepting where I was and how I got there.

    In full surrender mode, acceptance has a strange way of finding you without you seeking it out. I began accepting that my relationship was over. I began accepting that I wasn’t, in fact, a failure because I was back in my hometown. I began accepting that I was going to have to pick up what was left of me off of the bathroom floor and start anew.

    More importantly, along with acceptance came personal accountability. I made the choice to end my relationship when push came to shove. I made the choice to sell my house and move across the country. And I was making the choice to pick said shell of a human off the bathroom floor, accept who and where I was at that moment, and move forward.

    I think our natural instinct is to think in circles instead of accepting. We’ll obsess over why something happened, try to find ways to undo it, and exhaust ourselves trying to control the uncontrollable so we don’t have to admit defeat.

    We mistakenly believe acceptance means we can’t feel how we feel—maybe angry or disappointed—or that we’ve given up. Worst of all, we assume acceptance means what happened was okay.

    But that’s not what acceptance means. It simply means you acknowledge reality for what it is and surrender instead of resisting. You lost your teaching tenure because of financial cuts? It’s not okay, but it happened. Your partner left you for someone twenty years younger? Still not okay, but again, it still happened. Your best friend got diagnosed with an incurable disease and is suffering? Nowhere near okay, but it happened.

    Understanding and surrendering to the situation because it happened does not mean that you have to be all right with it or do nothing about it. But at this current moment, what has transpired is already past, and therefore, any move you make is just future planning and action. You cannot change the past; you can merely accept it and go from here.

    As the days continued and my body got stronger, my mind wanted to retreat again. I had to continuously remind myself that I had made these choices, and even though my brain didn’t want to acknowledge that it could do something to hurt itself, I repeatedly told it the situation to get it to finally sink in.

    I sat in my desk chair one day and looked around my new apartment. Even though I had moved most of my stuff with me, nothing seemed familiar.

    I realized that for the months of being in this new space, I still felt like I was just visiting and waiting to go home to my ex-fiancé. Trying to grapple with my new reality, I simply began talking to myself out loud:

    “This is your apartment.”

    “You live in Los Angeles.”

    “You moved here two months ago.”

    “You broke up with so-and-so, and the relationship is over.”

    “You are home.”

    I spoke to myself out loud for about twenty minutes, repeating these phrases over and over with different intonations, until I felt them really settle into the cracks of my cerebral cortex. Since that day, I have not had to do it again, nor have I felt dissociated from my current reality. I was finally able to entirely accept the setting of my life and truly initiate the changes I desired.

    Is it okay that my ex cheated on me? Absolutely not. But it happened. And I can say that now without cringing at the thought. Is it okay that I allowed him to make me feel so unloved that my trauma response flung me back to the west coast? Nope, but at least I’m aware of it and can do things to control my own reactions from here on out.

    All of this means that I am in control now, and it’s purely through taking accountability via acceptance of the situation. Surrendering on the bathroom floor during my bout with COVID may have initiated the wheels of acceptance, but it is continued mindfulness and submission to the present moment that actually ensures that acceptance.

    Whatever happened to you is not okay, but it’s okay to accept it. Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re weak; it means the opposite: You are strong enough to face the reality of the situation you’re currently in.

    Acceptance doesn’t mean you forgive and forget what befell you, but rather that you understand where you are, how you got there, and that you now have the control to make a change.

    And surrendering doesn’t mean you’ve given up. In actuality, it exemplifies that you’re willing to roll with the punches, trust something outside of yourself, pick yourself up off of the bathroom floor, and move forward.

  • The Childhood Wounds We All Carry and How to Heal Our Pain

    The Childhood Wounds We All Carry and How to Heal Our Pain

    “As traumatized children, we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves as adults.” ~Alice Little

    Like most people, I used to run away from my pain.

    I did it in lots of different and creative ways.

    I would starve myself and only focus on what I could and couldn’t eat based on calories.

    I would make bad choices for myself and then struggle with the consequences, not realizing that I had made any choice at all. It all just seemed like bad luck. Really bad luck.

    Or I would stay in unhealthy relationships of any kind and endure the stress that was causing. Again, I didn’t see what I was contributing or how I was not only keeping my pain going but actually adding to it.

    These are just a few examples of the many ways I ran away from my pain. The real pain. The one below it all. The one that started it all. The core wound.

    The wound of unworthiness and unlovability.

    The wound that stems from my childhood.

    And my parents’ childhoods.

    And their parents’ childhoods.

    But this is not a piece on how it all got started or who is to blame.

    No. This is about me wanting to share how I got rid of my pain.

    Because discovering how to do that changed my life in ways I never thought possible.

    It is something I would love for you to experience too because life can be beautiful no matter what has happened in the past. I don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity. Especially because I know it is possible for you too.

    Hands on the table, I am a psychotherapist and I have been for almost ten years. I also train and supervise other psychotherapists, so I should know what I’m talking about.

    But, let me fill you in on this: There are plenty of professionals who haven’t done ‘the work’ on themselves. I know, I’ve met them.

    And I have met hundreds of people who don’t have any qualifications, but they have done the work on themselves. I know, I’ve felt them.

    Doing the work, in the shortest possible summary, is all about facing your pain. It’s when you stop—or when you’re forced to stop, which is so often the case—and you’re done with running away from it.

    It’s when you finally give up.

    Sounds like a bad thing, right? But it isn’t.

    To heal, you have to see the pain.

    We all think we see it or feel it or know it, but we don’t.

    We know what it feels like to run away from it and the pain and stress that causes. The constant anxiety, the pressure, the breathlessness, the numbness. That’s what we know.

    But that’s not the pain, not the pain of the core wound. Those are the symptoms of not dealing with the wound, of not healing it because you’re too afraid to even look.

    It’s fear that stops us from healing.

    It’s not the process of healing itself that scares us; it’s what we imagine healing means. And it usually is nothing like we imagine it to be!

    Healing just means facing the pain.

    Let me try to make it more practical:

    Do you remember a time when you were very little, maybe three or five, or maybe a little older?

    Do you remember, in your body, how it felt to be misunderstood? How to want something and then not get it? How to be punished for something you didn’t do? How to be shouted at for no reason at all just because someone else was stressed out and couldn’t control themselves?

    Do you remember how that felt?

    I do.

    That’s the origin. All those little incidents when we were too young to understand what was going on, but we made it mean something negative about ourselves.

    Because what was reflected back to us by the world, by the people we loved the most, was that something was wrong with us, that in some way we were flawed, wrong, or bad.

    Our brains were too young to take a different perspective, to defend ourselves from unfair judgments and punishments, and so we took it all in.

    And believing something horrible about yourself that isn’t true hurts. Believing that you’re not good enough hurts. Believing that you’re unlovable hurts.

    It also scares us, and so we no longer feel safe.

    Safe to be ourselves. Safe to love. Safe to be loved.

    We start to hide from ourselves and our pain. We start to hide our truth and inhibit the great humans that we actually are.

    Because in those moments, those moments of misunderstanding, we receive the wrong message—that we are not worthy of being heard, trusted, held, or loved.

    We are pushed away, through being ignored, threatened, or punished.

    And then we start doing that to ourselves.

    We want or need something—just like we needed it then when it was inconvenient to a parent who shouted at us and invalidated what we wanted or needed—and we deny it or minimize it.

    We want to say “enough” and set a boundary with someone—just like we wanted to when we were little but were told we didn’t know what was good for us—but we don’t do it.

    We want to choose what we like or are excited by—just like we tried to when we were young but were told we were being stupid, childish, or silly—but then go for the boring, reasonable option instead.

    We carry the pain on.

    We don’t stop to ask ourselves whether that’s actually what we should be doing.

    We try to avoid re-experiencing the pain from our childhood by treating ourselves in exactly the same ways as we were treated back then.

    We don’t realize that we’re keeping that usually unconscious pattern going.

    The most obvious example I can give you from my life is that I didn’t grow up surrounded by emotionally available adults. So obviously I didn’t become one either. I wasn’t emotionally available to myself, and I didn’t choose emotionally available partners in my relationships.

    As a result, I got to relive my childhood experiences over and over again while not understanding why I kept feeling so depressed, unloved, and worthless.

    I kept the pain going by being closed off to how I was feeling and by choosing partners who would shame, reject, or ignore me and my feelings the same way my parents had.

    But I broke that cycle.

    I broke it when I faced my pain.

    I broke it when I stayed within myself when I felt something, no matter what it was.

    When I felt disappointed that I didn’t get the grade I wanted on an important university assignment, I stayed with that disappointment.

    I didn’t talk myself out of it. I didn’t talk down to myself and tell myself what a useless waste of space I was. I didn’t pity myself or blame my lecturer. I didn’t numb myself by binge-watching Netflix and eating chocolate.

    No, I stayed with the disappointment.

    It was like I was sitting opposite my disappointed three-year-old self, and I stayed with her.

    I didn’t shout, mock her, invalidate her, leave her, or make her wrong for feeling how she was feeling.

    I stayed with her. I saw her disappointment. I saw her pain. I knew what she was making it mean and I stayed with her.

    I didn’t push her away. I didn’t push the pain away.

    And guess what happened?

    It started to speak to me! And it made sense!

    It wasn’t scary or weird or awkward or crazy! It made complete sense.

    And it needed me to hear it, to understand it, and to parent it.

    Just like I parent my children.

    “Of course, you feel disappointed. You have put so much work into this, and you didn’t get the result you wanted. I get it. I’m here to listen to you. I want to understand you.”

    Do you know what that does? It calms you down. Truly.

    It calms you down. It’s such a relief!

    Finally, someone wants to listen! Finally, someone doesn’t turn away from me like I am the biggest threat they have ever encountered. Finally, someone looks at me with understanding and compassion.

    This is what I do with all of my feelings.

    If there is jealousy, I am there for it. I’m not shaming it, not judging it—I’m just here to listen, to soothe, to understand, and to act on it if it feels like that’s what it needs.

    So I turn toward the pain, the feeling; I try to understand what it’s all about and see if there is anything it needs from me, something more practical.

    Does my disappointment need me to ask my lecturer for feedback to improve my work for the next assessment?

    Does my jealousy need me to remind myself how worthy and lovable I am? Or does it need me to choose something beautiful for me to wear because I’ve not really paid that much attention to my appearance recently? Or does it need to speak to my partner because he’s much friendlier with other women than he is with me?

    A lot of the time the pain tries to alert us to doing something we need to do for ourselves.

    By not facing the pain, by not tending to it, we can’t know what it is that it needs us to do—and it’s always something that’s good for us.

    And so we go without what we want and need, and the pain only grows bigger and louder like the tantruming toddler that is only trying to express herself in an attempt to be heard, held, soothed, and taken care of by their parent.

    It’s time to stop doing that to ourselves.

    I did many years ago, and I feel like a different person. The way I live my life is different. The way I feel about myself is different. I no longer go without what I want and need.

    That can’t happen as long as you use up all your energy to run away from the pain.

    The pain is your invitation to do the healing work. It invites you to stay and listen, to find out what’s really going on below all distractions and symptoms.

    What is the feeling that needs to be felt?

    What is the pain that needs to be witnessed and understood?

    And what does it need you to do for it so the core wound can finally heal?

    You have the power to heal it. You are the only one you need to heal it. But you have got to stay and learn to be there for it, learn to be there for yourself.

    That’s it.

    Unlike other people, you don’t walk away. You don’t say no to yourself. You don’t go against yourself and make yourself wrong.

    You stay. You feel it. You give it what it needs.

    And that’s when it heals.

  • How Befriending My Anxiety and Depression Helped Ease My Pain

    How Befriending My Anxiety and Depression Helped Ease My Pain

    “‘What should I do?’ I asked myself. ‘Spend another two miserable years like this? Or should I truly welcome my panic?’ I decided to really let go of wanting to block, get rid of, or fight it. I would finally learn how to live with it, and to use it as support for my meditation and awareness. I welcomed it for real. What began to happen was that the panic was suspended in awareness. On the surface level was panic, but beneath it was awareness, holding it. This is because the vital first step to breaking the cycle of the anxious mind is to connect to awareness.” ~Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

    I have suffered with anxiety and depression for at least fifteen years. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. They both almost killed me, but I have learned that living with them, rather than fighting them, is far more fortuitous in bringing relief.

    Fortunately, at no stage did I act on suicidal thoughts, but I would be a liar if I said I never had them. Not in terms of making plans, but the general idea did creep up on me, and for a while it was all-consuming. I also reached a stage where I didn’t care if I died.

    Alcohol became a crutch and, in a strange way, beer actually may have been responsible for saving my life. The one day I ever seriously had intentions of ending everything, I walked past a pub after leaving work, went in, and proceeded to get exceedingly drunk. I reached a stage where I was incapable of doing anything worse to myself, and my inebriated state led to my wife telling me I needed to get urgent help.

    Trying to put my finger on precisely why I started feeling anxious and depressed would be like trying to pick up mercury with a fork. It would be equally impossible to pinpoint at what age I began to suffer. I think I was always a worrier, even from early childhood.

    In many ways I had a blessed upbringing. I had loving parents; we weren’t a wealthy family, but we didn’t struggle either. There was always enough food, and I was warm, clothed, and felt cherished.

    That said, things weren’t perfect, as my dad worked away from home a lot. He did it to provide for his family, us; I am proud of him and in no way resentful. It did leave a hole in the home, though, and put a lot of extra responsibility on my mum, and maybe I have separation issues as a result.

    My parents had high standards when it came to behavior. I recognize this now as having made me the person I am today. They gave me strong principles, for which I am grateful.

    It wasn’t always easy to live up to my mum and dad’s expectations, though. I remember being stressed quite often about this and having a fear of being shouted at. In comparison with what some children sadly have to tolerate, I feel a little silly saying that, but I’m trying to give an explanation for my anxiety in later life.

    Bullying was also an unwelcome companion throughout my childhood. Ridiculing, name-calling, and physical abuse all left their indelible mark. I can clearly remember the indignity of being drowned in another, older, bigger, stronger child’s spit.

    The main focus of my tormentors was that I was “ugly”, “nobody would ever fancy me,” and that I would “never find a girlfriend.” I managed to disprove all three as an adult. Well, maybe I am “ugly,” but, frankly, as a happily married man, as long as my wife doesn’t think I am, I’m not sure it matters all that much.

    What does matter, though, are the scars this taunting left. I’ve never really regained my confidence after them. I’m not sure I can, and they cause me to be hard with myself, leading to anxious and depressed thinking.

    Maybe it was the bullying that really fed my depression and anxiety. I’ve been the victim of domineering, abusive behavior as an adult too, and there is a fragility inside me when faced with such onslaughts. I also have a very keen idea of justice and don’t enjoy seeing it being compromised.

    Notwithstanding, I have never felt able to definitely put my finger on bullying as the cause of my, at times, poor mental health. Without the ability to do that, I believe I’m destined for anxiety and depression to be lifelong companions. That may sound defeatist, but my reality isn’t as gloomy as that last sentence might suggest, and the reason for this is something I can definitely point to.

    GPs treated me for years for depression and made no mention of anxiety. The day following my escapism from suicidal thoughts through inebriation, my wife made me go to the A&E Department at our local hospital. There, finally, a doctor listened attentively, made a first, tentative diagnosis of anxiety leading into depression, and suggested things I could do alongside taking medication to aid real recovery.

    Of all the advice that medic gave me, the suggestion that has been most instrumental in regaining my health was to meditate. I’d dismissed meditation in the past as “hocus pocus,” laughing at and pouring scorn on it. Something in me reacted positively to the suggestion that day, and I am eternally grateful for that.

    The hospital, among other things, gave me a list of places where I could find helpful tools for meditating. Apps, recordings, videos. I decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so I started following their guidance.

    I burned through the resources the doctor gave me within a few days. That was enough to convince me that this could really help. I still felt anxious and depressed, but for the period of time while I meditated I got, for the first time in years, a real sense of relief that wasn’t alcohol-fueled.

    Unsure of where else I could find guided meditations, something triggered in my brain and a thought emerged: “I am sure Buddhism has something to do with meditating.” I went onto YouTube and typed in “Buddhist meditation” and got a huge number of results. So began my real journey with mindfulness practice.

    Meditation didn’t miraculously cure my anxiety and depression. As I said, I still live with them. But it offered a glimmer of light through which I felt certain I could better learn to cope and give a quality to my life that had been missing for years.

    I can’t say specifically how meditation has changed things for me. I just know it has. I have read that the brain is plastic. That it can develop and change over time. The idea that activities like meditation help develop new, healthier, neural pathways makes sense to me. It’s almost as if the change has happened subconsciously. What I do know is that, as a result of meditating regularly, I’m calmer and better able to deal with crises than I had previously been.

    As I made meditating a daily practice, I began looking more into Buddhist philosophies. They are what worked for me and it is eminently possible to get the same benefits from other philosophical teachings, both religious and not. One idea I hit on was the concept of not fighting negative emotions but rather befriending them.

    This sounds counter-intuitive. When we get a feeling we don’t like, whether it be anxiety, depression, or anything else uncomfortable, we naturally want to run from it. This only strengthens the emotion, though, and does nothing to relieve it.

    Perhaps that’s why people get locked in cycles of negativity. They fight the uncomfortable feeling, thereby strengthening it, so they fight it all the more. Round and round goes the vicious circle.

    Instead, by accepting the emotion, letting it be, and recognizing that the feeling isn’t inherently wrong, that it’s just a sensation, it somehow softens it.

    The first person I ever heard talking about this process was Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche whose quote I have cited above. He often speaks about how revelatory it was for his panic attacks, and so it has proven to be for me with my anxiety and depression.

    It was this charming, charismatic Nepalese Buddhist who got me hooked on meditation. I specifically remember the moment I found his video “A Guided Meditation on the Body, Space, and Awareness with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche,” on YouTube. With his gentle and humorous approach, I could almost feel his arms holding me as he guided me through the process. Despite meditating daily for the last four years, I still return to this video when I feel I need to get back to basics.

    The belief that somehow anxiety and depression will up sticks and leave me is not something I possess. However, they don’t frighten me anymore, and I have learned to cope with them. I would wish them “good riddance” if they did pack their bags and go, but they don’t dominate me anymore. I live with them and they aren’t going to prevent me from enjoying a positive existence.

    There is a wealth of resources available online that both talk through this novel concept and provide guided meditations on it. Some are religious or spiritual, though plenty of others are purely secular. It is an idea that can be used by anyone in whatever format they wish.

    My life has changed because of these few, simple practices. I’m more content than I can ever remember being and like to think of this transformation as proof that anyone who suffers similarly can regain happiness. I would be lying if I said it isn’t hard work, or that there aren’t periods that are more difficult than others, but it is so worth it.

    As a result of these improvements, I was able to kick my alcohol habit over three years ago, something that has also benefitted my mental health. Again, I found I felt better from not drinking, but this is not to say that being teetotal is an elixir for wellness. Plenty of people find a beer or a glass of wine actually helps how they feel, and if this is you, go for it.

    This article is not prescriptive. I don’t believe anyone can offer a recipe for wellness, as it is dependent on the individual, and I strongly doubt that two people would ever find that what works for one, works exactly the same for the other. If the above text offers hope and nothing else, the writing of it will have been worthwhile.

  • How Overthinking Ruined my Relationships and How I Overcame It

    How Overthinking Ruined my Relationships and How I Overcame It

    “Overthinking ruins you. It ruins the situation. And it twists things around. It makes you worry. Plus, it just makes everything worse than it actually is.” ~Karen Salmansohn

    I grew up with parents who believed a kid shouldn’t have friends and should be indoors always. Because of that, I never had real friends in my childhood, except those I met in school and church.

    Since my early teenage years, loneliness has been my forte, and I have learned to pay too much attention to details. When people talk, I look at them, how they react, their facial expressions, etc. I try to draw out details from the tiniest cues and put a lot of thought in them.

    Conversations, of course, are meant to be enjoyed; however, for me, that isn’t the case. During a discussion, I think of a million ways it could go wrong. I wonder what I’ll say next after I get a reply. And a slight change in a listener’s facial expressions makes me think I’m bothering them—they dislike me, I’m boring, I need to stop talking.

    Having real friends has been difficult for me. I find it challenging to maintain a friendship for long. When I meet with someone for the first time and we both “connect,” I start fantasizing about how we might become everyday gist mates, lifetime buddies, and even in a romantic relationship (for ladies).

    Sometimes, I get tired and want to stop overthinking, but it always seems impossible. The tiniest of details always want to be thought of and processed. And instead of taking action on what I think, I continue thinking about it.

    So many opportunities have slipped through my fingers, making me not confident enough to take action. Except this one time I wanted to enroll in a writing competition. I tried every possible way to discourage myself from applying. I reminded myself of harsh critics and writing rejections I’ve faced in the past, but I never gave in to the voice. I tried to shut it up and applied for the competition—and I won.

    I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop overthinking. I’ve accepted it as a part of me I have to live with, but I’ve also made great progress in getting past it.

    If overthinking has affected your confidence and held you back as well, perhaps some of my techniques will help.

    1. Acknowledge that you’re overthinking.

    When overthinking starts ruining your mood or stops you from taking action, acknowledge it. Don’t beat yourself up or hate yourself for it.

    If you’re anxious to do something because you’ve been obsessing about it, acknowledge that you’re afraid. When we acknowledge something, our brain has a way of providing solutions for us.

    In fact, I started making real progress when I accepted myself as a big overthinker and this helped me love and accept myself instead of hating myself.

    2. Declutter your mind regularly.

    Decluttering your brain is the key to having a settled mind. You could speak to someone—it helps—or write down every thought running through your mind (my favorite technique to calm my mind).

    If, for instance, someone offends you and you can’t get it off your mind, talk to them about it. If you’re obsessing about an interaction with someone you can’t talk to, journal about it. The goal is always to take action whenever possible instead of ruminating on things that are bothering or worrying you.

    3. Don’t expect too much from people.

    The truth is, people will disappoint you. And this will hurt you even more when you place high hopes on them.

    To be on the safer side, don’t place so many expectations on people. People change; things happen, and people go back on their words.

    If you expect that people will disappoint you sometimes, you’ll be less likely to overthink things when they do. Instead of wondering why it happened and if you did anything to contribute to the situation, or if you should have done something differently, you’ll simply accept that people often don’t keep their promises, and you don’t need to take it personally.

    4. Work on developing self-confidence.

    Most times, overthinking is caused by a lack of self-confidence.

    There were times when I found it hard to connect with people. I believed I was a boring conversationalist, so whenever I was talking with someone, I’d always try hard to prove my belief wrong—sometimes unnaturally—to keep a pointless conversation going when I could end it.

    If you aren’t confident in what you bring to the table, you will always overthink your way into believing it’s always your fault if a conversation or something doesn’t go as expected. So instead of telling yourself that you’re lacking in some way, work on believing in your worth, and this will help you question yourself less in difficult situations.

    5. Know when to take a break.

    During a stressful day, it’s normal to have a lot running through your mind.

    Whenever you start worrying about mistakes you’ve made with other people or find the thoughts in your head feel overwhelming, take a break. Take nap, take a walk, practice deep breathing, or do an activity you enjoy to help you get out of your head.

    6. Resist the urge to impress people.

    Most overthinkers have a strong urge to impress and please other people. When in a conversation, they may carefully pick their words, and then obsess about whether they’ve said anything stupid or wrong.

    That said, a friendship based on trying to impress or please another person will be one-sided and may not last.

    People don’t want to feel like they’re being worshipped in a friendship. They want to know the real you—both the exciting and boring parts of you—so it turns them off when you make a conversation about them alone.

    When talking with people, say what you mean in the way you want to say it and trust that the right people won’t pick apart everything you say and will actually appreciate you for being you.

    7. Accept that you can’t be friends with everyone.

    Even as you try to make friends, you should know that not everyone will like you.

    You may try hard to make someone acknowledge you and be friends, but you won’t click with everyone, and you don’t have to overthink it.

    You aren’t meant for everyone, so if someone disrespects or ignores you, it isn’t your fault. You have to find people who like you and let go of the ones who don’t.

    8. Enjoy the moment and try not to think about tomorrow.

    In all you do, make sure you’re present in it. You can’t be in two places at the same time. In the same way, you can’t expect to enjoy the present if you worry too much about the past and future.

    Make it a rule to always be in the moment, focusing on the people right in front of you. If you let yourself be fully in the moment with them, you’ll worry a lot less about what they’re thinking of you (and about everything else, for that matter).

    —

    Ever since I started practicing all I mentioned above, I’ve been happier in life than ever before. Making friends with people and holding conversations has become much easier for me.

    I failed many times when trying to rewire my brain, but I never gave in. I made the end goal, to make good friends and enjoy life as much as possible, my mantra. Now I overthink a lot less and connect with people more, and I believe you can do it, too!

  • How Life’s Daily Challenges Can Actually Be Gifts in Disguise

    How Life’s Daily Challenges Can Actually Be Gifts in Disguise

    “Smile at your patterns.” ~Tsoknyi Rinpoche

    Partway through Eckhart Tolle’s Conscious Manifestation course, I furiously jotted down his teachings about challenges and obstacles to remind myself that they’re not only a normal part of the human experience but necessary for spiritual growth. “Yes!!!!” I wrote in agreement.

    When faced with difficulty, the human tendency is to react and resist, and when we do this, we add suffering to an already difficult situation. This tendency is reflexive within me, and my mindfulness practice has enabled me to either observe the cascading habit pattern as it unfolds, which disentangles me from its snare, or to gently accept what is happening and proceed with calm action and a quiet mind.

    When we can practice acceptance and equanimity, when we can say, “Okay, this is my present moment experience, and I can allow it because it’s already here,” we soften and open in the most tender way. And with this opening, we can receive a bounty of lessons and wisdom that our obstinance so often obscures.

    A few days after listening to Eckhart’s talk, I had to see several doctors and get lab work done to address symptoms I’d been experiencing. The entire week was pockmarked with small difficulties.

    First, the doctor’s office lost my lab sample, so I had to go back and give another one. Then the lab work process got delayed, and in an attempt to access my results, I spent two hours getting transferred between multiple staff members who ultimately said they couldn’t help me.

    At the end of the week, I confronted my last hurdle: I arrived for a follow-up appointment, only to be told that the automated system had canceled it and that the doctor was not available.

    After I explained my situation and expressed my discontent, the medical assistant managed to rebook me with another doctor. I softened, thanked her, and sat down, acutely aware that I’d lost my (spiritual) way.

    With each setback, I was upset and resistant. Like a snake releasing venom, I texted my husband flurries of frustrations, spoke exasperatingly to hospital staff, and felt my body tighten with stress.

    I realized that I only softened to the medical assistant because she told me what I wanted to hear, and within moments, this insight allowed me to look back on the entire series of events with a compassionate and non-judgmental eye. 

    I saw with clarity that in cloying for ease, I only created more difficulty. I saw that I had been behaving as if everything were a threat—like the healthcare system was out to get me—and that the real predator was my own mind. Immediately, I felt an internal release, like a nearly bursting balloon slowly deflating with the prick of a pin. I realized I could stop fighting. I realized that I could choose to surrender.

    After my appointment, I had to go to the lab, and I arrived at what felt like a crowded DMV: people everywhere, red ticket numbers glaring overhead, and a wait that seemed unending. I took a deep breath, pulled a number, and decided that I was going to use the wait—which I now perceived as an opportunity, not a threat—for mindfulness, presence, and spiritual practice.

    I looked around me at all the people. I watched as children caringly pushed their elderly parents in wheelchairs, as a pregnant woman patiently engaged her three children, and as a person laboringly limped to the ticket machine, burdened by a massive leg brace.

    I thought: Everyone is here because they are experiencing some difficulty; everyone has health scares; everyone is taking time out of their days to be here; everyone is waiting.

    I was so touched by the kindness and patience I witnessed. Suddenly, my story became enveloped in everyone’s story. I was them and they were me. I felt a deep kinship—a tenderness that made me feel enveloped in, rather than targeted by, the human experience. 

    As my awareness expanded further and further outside myself, I began connecting with those around me. I told the pregnant woman sitting beside me that I admired her patience, and when she shared that she was fasting for a half day of pregnancy-related lab work, I became even more aware that mindset is a choice.

    I made eye contact with a man whose gentleness I perceived underneath his masked face. We didn’t say anything, but we said everything.

    I kept scanning the room, and I noticed it had transformed from a chaotic, undesirable place, to somewhere I wanted to stay, somewhere I felt deep meaning and connection. Then I noticed that the space did not transform; I simply changed my relationship to it.

    When I left the lab, I was buoyant. I felt energized, connected, and light. I was overwhelmed with the experiential realization that the entire week was a skillfully designed lesson on challenges. I saw what happens when I fight to make them go away, and then I saw what happens when I invite them in, with an open heart and an open mind.

    “Challenges as gifts” left the theoretical world of quotes and concepts and burrowed into my lived experience. It stays there, and reminds me of itself, when I allow it to shine its light.

  • Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    “If our hearts and minds are so unreliable, maybe we should be questioning our own intentions and motivations more. If we’re all wrong, all the time, then isn’t self-skepticism and the rigorous challenging of our own beliefs and assumptions the only logical route to progress?” ~Mark Manson

    I often hear people encourage others with the following advice: “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.”

    Don’t get me wrong: I see where they’re coming from when they say it. Far too often we are dissuaded from listening to our gut feelings. Often, we follow the tyranny of shoulds. We compromise on our true needs and desires. We talk the inner voice away in favor of what’s expected of us.

    And yet I also see how this well-intended nugget of wisdom eliminates grey area. The more black-and-white view of the world that it inadvertently espouses may not be entirely helpful to everyone, especially those who struggle with depression or anxiety.

    Sometimes a maybe or an underwhelmed response means I don’t really want to do this. Other times it can mean I’m having complicated feelings that are worth unpacking and investigating.

    We often feel ambivalent about taking part in experiences that are outside of our comfort zones, even if those experiences may help us to grow. Our moods or current struggles can affect our commitment to activities we might ordinarily enjoy.

    Back in college when I was in the throes of a serious depression, for instance, I felt no pull to do anything—not even hobbies that I used to love. I said no to jogging and running. No to preparing nutritious meals. No to any experience that might bring me outside of my safe cocoon.

    The only activities I said hell yes to were invitations to go out and get wasted at house parties with friends—which, needless to say, made my depression even worse and perpetuated a vicious cycle.

    I wasn’t hell yes about healthy things. Drinking and escaping my pain were the only activities that elicited anything close to a passionate response from me.

    If I had misapplied the above advice, I might still be drinking in problematic ways and eschewing more mindful activities that align with my values, simply because I don’t always feel hell yes about doing them.

    Another example: a friend of mine told me there are weeks when she reads an hour before bed, and that the experience is lovely. When she becomes embroiled in a Netflix show, though, that habit dissolves. The thought of reading loses its appeal. Does this mean she doesn’t like reading? Is it a sign that she inherently prefers TV?

    I don’t think it is. What I do think it means is that activities involving passive consumption often have addictive properties.

    As David Foster Wallace wrote: “Television’s biggest minute by minute appeal is that it engages without demanding. One can rest while undergoing stimulation. Receive without giving.”

    Other examples: I’m drawn to sugar. Consuming it “feels right.” Picking up a celery stick feels more difficult. It doesn’t come as naturally.

    At certain points back in 2012 (before I moved to Uruguay), I wavered in my decision to teach abroad in South America.

    In 2019, when I considered the work and planning involved (as well as the money it would require), I even felt hesitant to take a vacation to Mexico City. Doubts and conflicting feelings dampened my “hell yes” into a “I don’t know, maybe….” shortly after my friend invited me.

    Did I still go, though? Yes! Did I have an amazing time? Also yes. Do I wish I could go back? One hundred percent.

    My point is this: don’t let ambivalence or a lack of “hell yes” convince you that you must just not really want to do something.

    It’s important to develop trust in our inner knowing; however, it’s also important to remember that our not always benevolent impulses sometimes masquerade as wise intuition.

    Even though we might pick up on a bad feeling, we never know what that bad feeling means. It could mean so many things. Instincts never come with clear instructions.

    That’s why it’s so hard to “just listen to them.” Listen to what? What action do we take in response to “this feels bad”?

    As for the hell yeses: especially for those of us with mental health struggles, immediate impulses and strong instantaneous reactions at times warrant further unpacking before being acted upon or blindly obeyed. It’s just not always true that they unequivocally have our best long-term interests in mind.

    A lack of an instant “hell yes” doesn’t necessarily signify that something isn’t right for us. It’s important that we allow room in our lives for the grey area, so as to ultimately act in alignment with our highest selves.

  • The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward

    I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in the wind? Or better phrased, how do we live with the hard things that blow our way?

    This research can shed some light.

    The Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment in the Arizona desert conducted in the eighties and nineties. A vast (and I mean massive) glass dome housed flora and fauna in a perfectly controlled environment. It held all of nature: trees, wetlands, deserts, rainforests. Animals, plants and people co-existed in what scientists thought was the perfect, optimal environment for life—purified air, purified water, healthy soil, filtered light.

    Everything thrived for a while.

    But after some time, the trees began to topple over. When the trees reached a certain height, they fell to the ground.

    This baffled the scientists at first. That is until they realized that their perfect environment had no wind, no stormy torrential weather. The trees had no resistance. The trees had no adversity.

    The scientists concluded that wind was needed to strengthen the trees’ roots, which in turn supported growth. The wind was the missing element—an essential component in the creation of tall, solid, and mighty trees.

    What can this science experiment teach us about real life?

    Everything.

    A life without storms is like the Biosphere 2. Sure, it sounds idyllic. But that’s just a perception. And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

    I thought a perfect life would make me happy. And it did, for a while. Good job, great husband, lovely home. But I knew deep down that something was missing. I always had a sense that life was incomplete. I longed for something; I just didn’t know what. It baffled me, just like it baffled the scientists.

    Without knowing it, I, too, had placed a biosphere around my heart. If any pain, any resistance, blew my way, my biosphere stopped it from penetrating. That is until I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and things began to crack. 

    Sitting in the office of a psychotherapist a few months after my diagnosis, nervously hunched and with hands under my thighs, I simply said, “I am really scared about my cancer.”

    That moment that I assumed was weakness turned out to be the exact moment my biosphere, my armor, began to crack.

    My diagnosis, my adversity, was nothing more than an opportunity to step outside of comfort and tell someone I’m scared. It jolted me enough to put me on an unexpected path of inner enquiry.

    Was it scary to open up? Hell yes! I wanted to stay in the biosphere. I really did. I kept searching for comfort within it, but I was unsatiated, and the wind crept in anyway and just grew stronger: I lost someone I loved to cancer, a close friend backstabbed me, my postpartum body broke, more wind, more pain, all while dripping in very small children. Just like those felled trees, I, too, toppled to the ground.

    When I could no longer withhold the wind, when I had to step out of the comfort of my biosphere and talk about my fears and look at my darkness, only then did I grow tall enough to find what I was looking for: I was longing to know the fullness of myself.

    I knew my old habits of perfecting and controlling life to avoid pain, numbing pain, or distracting myself from pain no longer worked. Those strategies did not lead me to the thing I wanted most: completeness. I had to go through the pain. Sit in it. Let it wash over and into me. I had to feel what it’s like to have cancer, be lonely, get hurt, lose someone I love, have a broken body. Only by going through it did I realize I could transcend it.

    Liberation was on the other side of pain. It existed outside of my biosphere. One therapy session at a time, one book at a time, one podcast at a time, one meditation at a time, one hard conversation at a time, slowly, things began to crack. Inch by vulnerable inch, eventually (like, years later), my biosphere crumbled to the ground.

    Brené Brown calls life outside the biosphere “living in the arena.” She said, “When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable.”

    She also said, “I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

    The courage to be vulnerable is the springboard out of the biosphere.

    If you’re in adversity right now—in lockdown, or the doctor’s office, or separated from a loved one— perhaps your biosphere, too, can no longer protect you from pain. COVID-19 has cracked open our collective armor and shown us how little control we have. It’s hard. It’s painful. But it is also an opportunity. When the outside world is crumbling, the only way is inward.

    When I look back, I see that pain or resistance only ever asked one thing of me—to look at it. It was a nudge (or a shove in my case) to look inward, get vulnerable, talk about my feelings, unpack my darkness, cry, unearth, read, listen, meditate, move forward in my awareness, expand my consciousness.

    And with time, I grew beyond the safety of the biosphere to a height that was inconceivable while I was in it. Without the wind, I would never have seen the height I could reach.   

    This process of unearthing all my fears and darkness eventually lead to a place of power. Now I have the awareness and power to choose when to act from fear and when to ignore it. The wind no longer rules me. I am at home in it—figuratively and literally.

    Living in the middle of Middle Earth has proven one thing: the wind is constant. We can’t avoid hardship any more than we can avoid day turning into night. The hard things in our life will keep on coming—more lockdowns, more sickness, more hurt—and the only way to be at home in the wind is not to fight it, to learn to live with it.

    We have a saying here in Wellington: You can’t beat Wellington on a good day. It’s true. When the sun is shining, Wellington is the most glorious city on earth. The wind has blown away the cobwebs, and majesty remains. The craggy coastlines glitter and the city’s heartbeat thumps and vibrates and enters the hearts of all who live here. On these days, the thrashing wind is forgiven, and we fall in love with our city again. And again. And again.

    Without the wind, there’d be nothing to forgive. There’d be no falling in love process. Life would exist on a flatline. Yes, there would be no gale. But we’d also miss out on awe. Life is both wind and sun, pain and beauty. By staying in the biosphere, we risk missing the magic that sits outside of it.

    I’m so glad I took that first vulnerable leap of faith all those years ago. Life outside the biosphere isn’t scary like I imagined. I didn’t remain on the ground like a rotting felled tree. I grew.

    I grew to a place where the air is clearer. I can breathe. Frustration or hurt or pain isn’t held onto for any sustained length of time. The waves of emotions come in, then go out. I observe it all without a sense of lasting entanglement. Fear is in the backseat. Pain is softened. Beauty is heightened. Love is everywhere, even in the wind.

    Deepak Chopra said, “The best way to get rid of the pain is to feel the pain. And when you feel the pain and go beyond it, you’ll see there’s a very intense love that is wanting to awaken itself.”

    That’s what is waiting for you outside the biosphere.

  • How I Stopped Resisting Change and Embraced the Road Ahead of Me

    How I Stopped Resisting Change and Embraced the Road Ahead of Me

    “Just when the caterpillar thought her life was over, she became a butterfly.” ~Unknown

    Change is constant, from small changes like trying a new hobby to big changes like making a drastic career move. Even though change is all around us, it can feel scary. While change could lead you to something great, there are a lot of unknowns with something new, and that can cause anxiety.

    When I was younger, I used to embrace change. For example, each school year was a new and exciting experience.

    But somewhere along the way, I started to resist change.

    What Does Resisting Change Look Like?

    For some, resisting change might involve remaining in a situation that feels boring or mundane just because taking a different path can feel daunting or like a lot of work. For others, it might involve staying in a situation that’s unhealthy for them because making a change feels scary.

    I resisted change by focusing on the negative aspects of any new experience I was going through as a means to protect myself.

    If I failed at trying something new, then I would have something to blame it on. I could give the impression to others that the change didn’t work out because of some outside factor beyond my control.

    For example, when I began a master’s degree program, I moved to a brand-new city fifteen hours away from my hometown. I didn’t know a single person—in fact, the closest friend to me was six hours away.

    When I chose to attend this program, I was excited. It felt like a fresh start and an adventure because I’d get to live in a cool place, make new friends, and move into a different career path.

    I spent months preparing for the change, finding a place to live, and doing some pre-work for the program. About a week before I moved, the nerves kicked in. I suddenly felt like it was a crazy idea to move to a place where I didn’t know anyone and had no idea what I was doing.

    But there was no turning back; everything was already arranged. And deep down, I knew this was the right decision for me even though it felt uncomfortable.

    During the first couple of weeks in the new city, my mind took note of every undesirable thing it could find. Not only did I notice these things for myself, but I also complained to my friends and family. In a way, I was subconsciously building a case against this new situation so that if I failed, it wouldn’t look like it was all my fault.

    I complained about everything: “The people aren’t friendly.” “The street across from my apartment looks so sketchy.” “My program is really tough—we have so many requirements it doesn’t feel possible to get everything done.”

    Less than a month in, I was already considering transferring to a different program at my undergraduate college. I could move back to a city I knew, where I had several friends still living nearby. It felt like a safe and comfortable option.

    But then something happened: I started making friends with some people in my program. As I got to know this group of girls, I realized they had a lot of the same fears that I did! Not only were we able to bond over that, but we were also able to help and support each other.

    Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone.

    After all that time trying to convince others and myself that this situation was horrible, I was finally able to admit to these new friends that I had worries about our new situation. Through their advice, I found healthier ways to deal with the new aspects of my life.

    For example, I began meditating every morning, which helped me manage my stress. I also found that, although I was far away from friends and family, when I stayed connected via phone calls and video chats, I felt less alone.

    Over time, my fears around this change fell away. And you know what? The two years I lived there turned out to be some of the best years of my life so far.

    I made lifelong friends. I gained so much knowledge—both practical and academic—as I developed as a professional and moved into a great job after graduation. I also met my fiancé during that time, someone who I can’t imagine my life without now.

    Had I left just a few weeks in, like I was tempted to, I would have missed out on all of that.

    While this is not the only example of when I resisted change, it’s a good one because it shows exactly how I would sabotage myself amidst the discomfort of something new.

    One of the biggest takeaways that I learned over time is that change is something most people find uncomfortable, so you are never alone. Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of a new change and telling others about all the reasons why it’s not good for you, share your fears with the people you are close to, with the intention of overcoming them.

    Why is sharing your fears about change with others so important?

    Your support system is called that for a reason—they are there to support you! Just like you don’t judge friends and family when they come to you for help, they won’t judge you either. We are often so much harder on ourselves than we are on anyone else.

    By sharing your fears with others, you’ll likely find that they can offer you advice or even just a shoulder to cry on so that your feelings don’t seem so overwhelming. When you keep those worries inside, they can start to build up in your mind and feel even more daunting. In a way, voicing your fears out loud takes their power away.

    What else can you do to manage change when it feels hard?

    Focus on what you can control.

    When faced with change, it can feel like everything is out of your control. However, one of the best ways to face change is to focus on what you can control in this situation. Ask yourself, “What can I take responsibility for right now?”

    For example, I accepted that I couldn’t control how overwhelming my schoolwork felt. However, I could control how organized I was, so I bought a planner and wrote out all my deadlines and when I needed to have tasks completed by, which made things feel more manageable.

    By taking control of your own fate where you can, change will feel less intimidating because it won’t be just something happening to you; it will be something you’re intentionally choosing.

    Take time for yourself—because you deserve it!

    Self-care is important during any time of your life, but especially when you’re faced with anxiety about difficult situations. We tend to be hard on ourselves when we’re struggling with something new. Self-care is a way of telling ourselves we deserve to be comforted through it.

    Self-care can also help you calm your mind and keep things in perspective when everything feels scary and overwhelming. Whether you just changed jobs, graduated, or ended a relationship, taking time for yourself is critical to maintaining a healthy mindset.

    Choose activities that help you relax. For me, that includes meditating and journaling. For you, that might mean practicing yoga, relaxing in the sun, or walking in nature. Other self-care ideas include developing a skin care routine, reading a book, or eating a healthy meal.

    Play around with different practices to find the ones that work best for you. You might also want to consider speaking with a mental health professional if you feel like you could use some extra support during this time of transition.

    Give yourself some credit.

    When faced with something new, you might find yourself thinking about all the many ways it can go wrong. To ease your fears, think about a time when you navigated change successfully.

    Walk yourself through how that situation went and the positive result. Use what you learned in that situation to walk through this new change.

    And as you start to make progress, don’t forget to reward yourself. Give yourself some kudos for all the effort you have put into your development and personal growth.

    Remember that the transitional phase is only temporary.

    If, like me, you’ve struggled when making a big life change, be kind to yourself through this transition.

    The discomfort we feel when faced with change is only temporary. While daunting at first, each new change will soon become your new normal and feel much more comfortable.

    —

    Admitting that I had nerves about the situation to others around me was the first step to feeling at peace within my new adventure.

    It’s how you take away the power behind those fears and start to embrace the change in front of you as an opportunity to become even better because of it.

  • How I’m Winning Over My Inner Critic by Letting It Exist

    How I’m Winning Over My Inner Critic by Letting It Exist

    “Winning the war of words inside your soul means learning to defy your inner critic.” ~Steven Furtick

    We all have that voice in our head, the voice that’s always negative about ourselves. Our inner voice.  Our inner critic.

    The one that tells us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough. That voice that continuously compares us to other people, so we come up lacking and feeling less than.

    Sometimes that voice is our own. Other times, and for some people, maybe those of us who have felt unloved or disliked by a significant person in our lives, that voice belongs to them.

    Then there are times when that inner critic will take on the voice of multiple people. A parent, a past lover who jilted us, and an abusive boss, for example. It can be quite the party in our heads, and not always a good one!

    For a while, the voice in my head belonged to my mom.

    It became a lot more frequent after she passed away. And a lot more persistent. Her best times to chat with me were always during my morning and evening routines. 

    Why? I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Maybe it was because, during those times, especially with my morning ritual, I was prepping to present my best self to my world, doing my makeup and fixing up my hair. What better time to be critical, right?

    In the mornings as I prepared for the day, I heard how my skin care routine didn’t matter, I was going to get old anyway, and look old. The makeup I applied didn’t make me look any better. The affirmations I wrote on the bathroom mirror were stupid and useless.

    Anything I did to make myself better and healthier didn’t matter. I could never change, and I could never improve myself. Regardless of how much I tried, or how much effort I put in, I would never be good enough. Never enough period.

    At times, I think there was an undercurrent of jealousy. Maybe because I wanted to improve my life, that I wanted so much more from life. More than what she wanted for herself and for me.

    When she was alive, I definitely felt this was why she found so many faults with me and pointed out all my shortcomings. It would make sense, then, that any critical thoughts I had about myself could so easily be transferred to her image, and in her voice.

    I can understand those feelings and see why her feelings came out the way they did. Fears held her back from becoming more, from wanting more. And just possibly, those were my fears too, but now being heard via her voice. Fears of never really becoming who I want to be, of never being enough.

    Sometimes it’s easier to deal with our negative thoughts if we can make someone else responsible for them. Have someone else own them. It takes the burden off of me to change my thinking if I can tell myself these negative thoughts are coming from my mom.

    For a long time, during those morning and evening chats, I argued back. I got very defensive. And I felt like everything I was doing was useless and worthless. During those times it felt like she was right. That my inner critic was spot-on.

    Then one day I got quiet. Maybe I was exhausted with this daily dialogue. I don’t know. But I got quiet. I decided to just let her talk without reacting to what she said. No more arguing. I just smiled, a gentle unconcerned smile, and continued with my routine.

    I let everything that was being said just sit in the space around us. I heard it but didn’t take it in.

    My intention now was to observe. I wasn’t belittling her feelings by ignoring her, I just simply observed and let her talk, giving her voice the space to speak and to be heard. Periodically, I responded with something like, “Yeah, I can see why you think that.”

    For a while this became the style of our regular chats. The new dialogue that the voice in my head was speaking. The negative remarks, the catty remarks, and the put-downs, all drawing a quiet and unconcerned smile, with no negative response from me.

    Before long it changed again. My mom-in-my-head, instead of chastising me for wasting my efforts, became inquisitive. The voice started making positive remarks about the products I used and the affirmations I wrote on the mirror. She became curious. That voice started asking positive questions, empowering questions. Questions that were now on my side—with me, not against me.

    It’s very possible that the reason my inner voice, my inner critic, has taken on the voice of my mom is that I still very much want the approval from her that I felt I never received while she was alive. I will never actually get it now that she is gone, and that’s something I have to accept. But this may be another way that I can maybe feel like I get it, even just a little.

    Perhaps it’s how I can get the approval from myself that I’m seeking too. The belief that I am indeed becoming the person I want to be. That I am indeed enough.

    I’m reminded of this saying, “We can’t control how other people act; we can only control our own reaction.”

    Sure, this inner voice is mine, maybe sounding like someone I know. And one would think we can control our inner voices. But if it were only as easy as that, no one would ever struggle with self-doubt, and at times self-loathing.

    Learning to control that inner voice is like controlling a temper-tantrum-filled two-year-old. Eventually do-able, but it takes herculean effort!

    The method that’s currently working for me is to let that voice speak. Meeting it with a gentle smile and letting it flow around me, without landing on me. Being observant but unconcerned. 

    Over and over, as long as it takes. Because soon that inner voice will be curious about what’s happening with me, what’s working for me, what it is that is bringing me such peace.

    Perhaps the same is true for you. Maybe instead of trying to make your inner critic go away, you just need to let it exist. When you observe your self-critical thoughts without fighting or attaching to them, you take a little of their power away. And maybe as you take your power back your inner voice will slowly transform into something softer, gentler, and on your side, because it can finally see it’s a good place to be.

  • A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

    A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

    “I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” ~Anne Lamott

    I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience.

    The blue, clear sky.

    The lake opening up before me.

    The whisper of the trees that I love so much.

    I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about everything I thought I should be doing better and wanted to change about myself… it was exhausting.

    Alive, but not present to my life. Breathing, but my life force was suffocated.

    This was not new. In fact, up until that point I had mostly approached life as something to figure out, tackle, and wrestle to the ground. This included my body, my career, and the people around me. 

    My tentacles of control, far-reaching in pursuit of a better place, said loudly, “What is here now is not acceptable. You are not acceptable.”

    “You can improve. You can figure it out. You can always make it better.”

    But this time, rather than indulging in the content of this particular struggle, I observed the process I was in and realized profoundly that even though the issues of the day changed regularly, the experience of struggle never did.

    And I would continue struggling until I stopped resisting and judging everything and started accepting myself and my life.

    This wasn’t the first time I’d had thoughts like these, but this time there was no “but I still need to change this…” or “I can accept everything except for this thing.” I knew it was 100% or nothing.

    I knew then I only had two choices:

    I could continue to resist reality, which now seemed impossible and exhausting (because it was). Or I could accept myself and the moment and make the best of it.

    “What if there is actually nothing to struggle against? What if I let go of the tug-of-war that I called my life?”

    The choice was before me. The one that comes to people when they have suffered enough and are tired: to put down the arms.

    This doesn’t have to mean accepting unhealthy relationships or situations. It just means we stop living in a constant state of needing things to change in order to accept ourselves and our lives. It means we learn to let things be—and even harder, to let ourselves be.

    Whenever I have a conversation with people who are struggling, I’ve recognized that they have this innate feeling of I should be doing better than this. Or, I should not be feeling like this.

    It might seem obvious that “shoulds” keep us in a contracted position of never-being-enough.

    But I have found that letting them go is not as simple as a quick change of thought.

    It seems like denying ourselves has become the generally accepted and encouraged modus operandi of our culture.

    Denying our feelings.

    Minimizing our pain.

    Hating our body parts.

    This leads to disconnection from the life that is here, the life that is us.

    Self-loathing has become the biggest dis-ease of our time.

    When we are disconnected from who we are in this moment, there is a tension between right here and the idealized self/state.

    This disconnection or gap is a rupture in our life force that presents itself as a physical contraction, a shortness of breath, an inner critic that lashes out harshly and creates a war within. This war contributes to pain, illness, and I’d guess 80% of visits to a medical doctor.

    Even some of the best self-help books promote this gap…

    Don’t think those thoughts.

    Don’t feel those negative feelings.

    Don’t just sit there—you should be doing something to improve yourself and your life

    All of the statements above might seem like wise advice. But we’ve missed the biggest step of all—mending the gap between who we are and who we think we should be so that we don’t feel so disconnected from ourselves.

    Disconnection is the shame that tells you that you’ve got it wrong, that it is not okay to feel or think the way you do in this moment. That you have to beat yourself up so you can improve, be more than you are now, be better.

    That you are a problem to fix.  

    This is the catch-22 of self-help when taken too much like boot camp. Self-help can be helpful, but it can create an antagonistic relationship with our true selves if it doesn’t include a full acceptance of who we are in this moment.

    The belief of “not-enoughness” is at the root of so much physical and emotional pain, and I, for one, have had enough of it.

    What if we allowed ourselves to be, or do, in the knowing that we are okay, that we are doing the best we can, given what we know at this point in time?

    Do you feel the fear-gremlins coming out that tell you that you will lie down on the couch and never get up again? Or perhaps you will never amount to anything or be good enough?

    This is the biggest secret of all: It’s all a lie to keep the consumer culture alive. 

    People who are scared and in scarcity need to consume something outside of themselves to gain fulfillment. But it never really comes because there’s always something new to change or attain.

    It can be so difficult for us humans to accept not only ourselves, but that everything just might be okay in this moment.

    That this feeling is just right. Even if it hurts.

    It’s okay to be right here, right now. Pain is here, and I don’t have to fight it.

    Our relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship we will ever have.

    Because we are truly sacred, no matter how we feel.

    Maybe the only question to ask today is not “What do I need to do to change?” but “How can I love myself, just as I am?”

    Maybe the act of loving ourselves is as simple as taking a breath to regulate our nervous system and come back to the present moment.

    Maybe healing involves not so much changing ourselves but allowing ourselves to be who we are.

    Which is exactly what I did that day when I realized I had missed my whole walk because I was caught up in my mind, worrying about everything I wanted to change. I shifted my focus from the thoughts I was thinking to the feelings in my body. I realized that I was enough in this step, in this breath, and that’s all there is.

    I promise the results of moving into acceptance will feel far better than the shame, disconnection, and cruelty that come from the constant pursuit of self-improvement.

    The truth is…

    You are not a problem to fix.

    You are a human to be held.

    To be held in your own arms and loved into wholeness.

    Take care of your human.

  • How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    “And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur

    “I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control.

    I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it.

    I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than being with someone who refused to listen to me. A summer of independence brought me a new love of solitude, but it also made me realize I didn’t have a soulmate in him after all.

    I was forced to face that this life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. But… I was enough. I needed to believe that to keep moving.

    When I said my mantra of surrendering, I was on a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn’t know where my life was going. The wedding planning ended. He called it off through text. I was left emotional and without closure. I didn’t know what would happen next. I just decided to be curious rather than try to control it.

    I woke up to the fact that I didn’t have to know everything. I had to just trust. This both terrified me and propelled me forward. I didn’t know if things were going to be okay, but I knew I would make meaning out of whatever would happen.

    I wanted to teach youth how to surrender too. I figured that would be my legacy since it had healed me of so much in life.

    I had already applied to graduate school, and I would start at Brandeis very soon. I was worried about being on top of it all while going through this heartbreak. I was a Type A student, president of four clubs and an honors student. I didn’t exactly have time for love back then, but I didn’t realize I had a choice to let my ex go if I wasn’t satisfied. I put too much effort into trying to make it work when it wouldn’t.

    I didn’t see that my effort to make everything work was actually blocking better things from coming my way. In other words, I had to stop holding on so tightly to life. I had to let go. I had to surrender to survive. I had to go with the flow to find my flow. I had to learn how to be happy for no reason other than to simply be.

    When I did that, my whole life opened up for me. I practiced radical acceptance and realized my place in this world mattered. I stopped white-knuckling through my problems and pain. I stopped waiting for love and decided to love myself. I started to see myself as capable and good no matter how others mistreated me. I decided by letting go, I would not give up. I made a promise to myself to always be authentic.

    Life didn’t go as planned. I left Brandeis MAT program for teaching because I realized I didn’t want to be a high school English teacher anymore. It was the hardest decision of my life because I also did not have a backup plan.

    So, I surrendered again. And again and again through it all.

    I surrendered when I found other ways to help youth. I surrendered through a bipolar breakdown and a relapse to the hospital years later. I surrendered when I went on disability and all expectations of my life were changed. I surrendered through bad side effects to meds and awful doctors. I surrendered all through my life because I knew despite how hard things could be, I was still doing good. I was still helping others. I was still waking up each morning appreciating being alive.

    It came down to the simple things. I didn’t need certain labels or popularity. I needed to rest, to do nothing sometimes. To breathe. To just live.

    I saw myself as rising in my own ways.

    I realized I couldn’t look back. Here’s what I held onto instead:

    1. Finding Purpose

    When I let go of my need to control, I became more mindful. I started to think about how I wanted to spend my time. Was it for achievements or authenticity?

    I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose when I left Brandeis. Serendipitously, I had a branding internship the same time a brand manager of a large TV personality discovered me. The internship taught me how to manage my own image and ideas while the manager wanted to simply own me like a puppet master.

    I had a choice. I could live on my own terms or have someone take over my life. I turned down advances from this man. I wasn’t going to fall for the same red flags as I did with my ex-fiancé. I let go; I surrendered.

    I decided to make my own way and live authentically as a person, not a brand, sharing my story along the way. I used my mental health journey to help end stigma and my writing for sharing insights on life.

    I did not let walking away from the brand manager stop my story. Instead, I redefined it for myself. I was enough as I was. I didn’t need anyone to discover who I was meant to be. I would live my life for me.

    My purpose became in proving him wrong, that I could make it on my own. Then, it became for me, to show myself I was worth it. I focused on living in the moment and just following my passions without a plan. That’s what saved me. But it wasn’t the only thing.

    Purpose dawned on me one day while I was simply walking my dog through the woods in my backyard. I listened to birds chirping. I grounded myself by looking up at the blue sky. I touched the bark on the trees. I felt my inner voice beckoning me to love this life as it was, not as I wanted it to be. I didn’t have to do anything. I just had to be in this moment. That’s all life was asking of me.

    It took simplicity to make me realize my purpose wasn’t just a to-do list. It wasn’t fixing everything. It wasn’t mastering every skill. It wasn’t making things work when they wouldn’t.

    I had to separate myself from the “shoulds.” I had to find the gift in what I was going through. In taking the time to do nothing but think, far away from a stressful schedule, I realized that my purpose was to be happy without needing a reason to be. That took a different kind of bravery.

    2. Forgiveness

    I wasn’t able to move on from the injustices of my life very easily. I had anger in me from living under others’ control and abuse. I had loss, which I felt every day, etched into my skin. I knew what it was to be alone. I had settled too often and always saw the best in people.

    I grew up walking on eggshells surrounded by abusers. It was an endless pattern I stopped in my twenties. After my ex-fiancé left me, I found a new type of strength. I realized the only power anyone could ever have over me was the one I consented. No one could steal the core of who I was. No one could take certain things away. No one could define me but me.

    I took my power back through forgiveness. It didn’t happen right away. I meant “I love you” to my ex, but then I realized it was governed in fear. Fear of doing this life on my own.

    Sometimes life makes you continually face the very thing you’ve been avoiding. You keep getting redirected to it even as you resist. You find yourself with the same lessons you needed to learn before.

    There’s a quote that reads “You repeat what you don’t repair.” Well, I was there. I was back there constantly in my anger and hate of those who I thought stole something from me.

    But when I decided to forgive them, I released it. I gave it back to the universe and pulled my heart from the chaos. They didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t for them. It was for me. I had to let them go and surrender so I could heal myself. I forgave myself in the process, too, for not knowing enough, for not seeing the truth.

    My heart wanted to hold onto the anger so that I could do something with it. I soothed it, though, with self-compassion. I made meaning of the events of my life by helping others through similar things.

    That meant I had to say goodbye. Goodbye to those who didn’t know me enough to love me right. Goodbye to the me that was in survival mode and didn’t know I could just let go and live. Goodbye to the dark nights of the soul where I felt like giving up and suicidal ideations crossed my mind. Goodbye to the past. Goodbye to the insecurities. Goodbye to the pain. Goodbye to the worst of it all.

    And then I said it. “I forgive you.” I salvaged myself from the wreckage of the storms I had suffered. I pulled myself out of the ruins of an old life. I realized I was the one who decided my fate. I was the captain of my soul. I was finally free.

    3. The Reason

    I found my way by allowing myself to go on the detour. I realized that I was meant to go down the wrong road so I would be sure of the right one. My road was brilliant, one of authenticity, that uplifted me above all that I had gone through. I was able to look at my life and see what really mattered. I suddenly knew what I was here to do.

    I was here to share my gift. Any insight I could. To love.

    I started volunteering, writing, speaking to youth, and advocating for mental health awareness.

    I stopped living in the stigma of struggling and became open about my story.

    I surrendered to what was happening.

    I stopped fighting every little thing that came my way.

    I didn’t need to know what would happen with the lives I touched and the good things I did along the way. I just had to follow my path hoping others would follow it too, making it a little easier for someone else.

    All I had to do was surrender—be still, quiet my mind, allow rather than resist, let go, and find myself even when losing it all.

    Surrendering isn’t easy. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we can do. That’s because we want control. But sometimes, surrendering is seeing uncertainty as beautiful. We don’t have to know what lies ahead in order to move forward.

    What will you do when you surrender, stop fighting reality, and allow yourself to live in your life as it is?

    Can you improve a situation, share a kindness, give to a greater cause, become a better you, and build a better world? Can you dream of doing such things? That is the first step to resilience. Focus on the beauty found in the broken situation and in you. Focus on the light you can bring into the darkness.

    It doesn’t take away from the horror of any hardship to believe in yourself and your ability to make change from it. That takes its own grieving time. But during that time, you can’t let it consume you. The tragedy that befell you, the heartbreak that happened, the hurt inside that you can’t let go… they are indeed senseless. Hence, it is imperative you don’t get stuck on asking why, as many do.

    Instead of viewing yourself as a victim, it’s time to be a victor. Overcome the odds. Let what hurts and irks you be the fuel to your fire.

    Hardships do not define us.

    What you have been through, your circumstances, do not define you.

    There will be days where you need to prioritize self-care and forgiveness for who you had to be to get to this point. Maybe you were white-knuckling through the pain in your self-care journey, maybe you did what you did in order to survive, but the good news is that today is a new day for you.

    Hold space for the sacred gift of simply being alive on those days.

    It works like a cycle. You will feel all the emotions on the spectrum, which means you will feel anger and sadness and doubt, but you will also feel joy and love and hope again the longer you hold on, the more patience you practice with yourself.

    A reason not for why this happened but why to go on will come to you.

    That reason is everything.

    When you want to give up, that’s when you say, “I surrender,” which isn’t the same thing. Giving up is shutting down. Surrendering is letting go.

    When you surrender, you don’t need things to work out a certain way. You accept life as it comes, which leads to a breakthrough. When you give up, you breakdown. Surrendering is the sacred step to realizing your full potential. It’s realizing you are your own hero, and you must not stop now.

    When you let go, you realize everything could change tomorrow. All it takes is choosing this very moment and living it. Mindfully surrendering is about releasing your fears and doubts so you can see clearly and letting the light come through.

    Don’t wait for life to change to create peace, joy, and purpose. Choose to make the best of what you have in your life, right now as it is. Surrender. Say the words, and it will change your life.

  • How I Reclaimed My Life When I Felt Numb and Unhappy

    How I Reclaimed My Life When I Felt Numb and Unhappy

    “All appears to change when we change.” ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

    The biggest life-changing moment in my life would have looked unremarkable to an outsider looking in.

    I was at a point in my life (my late twenties) where everything seemed to look good on paper. I had a great job, I was living in downtown Seattle, and I enjoyed the live music scene. Aside from not being in a relationship, I thought I had “arrived.”

    The only problem was, I was miserable, and I barely acknowledged it. A part of me knew that I wasn’t happy, but I tried to run away from that feeling by playing guitar, writing, or watching live music as much as I could.

    My other avoidance tactics were working long hours at my day job or socially drinking at “hip” bars in the city.

    But every time I came home, there I was. Still grappling with my feelings and trying to understand why happiness was so fleeting.

    I had also recently broken up with someone that I cared about but knew was not healthy for me. She was a heavy drinker, and because I tended to just blend in with my partners, my drinking had increased substantially when I was with her, and I felt horrible (physically and emotionally).

    It was a messy ending, and it left me even more confused. I should be so happy. “Why aren’t I?” This nagging thought haunted me for several months.

    Moment of Awareness and Choice

    One afternoon, I came home from work and mindlessly went through my routine. Dropped my bag off by the door. Changed into comfort clothes. Went to the refrigerator and opened a beer.

    I then plopped on the sofa and turned on the television. This was my routine for several mind-numbing months.

    When I reflect back on this moment, I can see that I was absently flipping through every channel available through the cable box. Interested in absolutely nothing. I would take a tug on the beer in one hand without even tasting it while changing channels with the remote in another hand.

    I was literally in a trance and not really processing anything. I was running on autopilot, without any conscious awareness, as channel after channel flipped by.

    And that’s when it happened. It was like the background noise in one part of my mind suddenly became amplified. I could hear thought after thought running through my mind like a CNN news crawl.

    The shocking part, for me, was how negative these thoughts were. “You’re no good. Nobody loves you. You’re a failure. You’ll never find someone who loves you. You’re not worth it.”

    I also had the realization that I’d heard these thoughts before but had chosen to stuff them down or mute the volume through distraction.

    But here they were. Loud and blaring. I was forced to face them once again.

    I was in a state of disbelief for several minutes while some choice expletives escaped my lips.

    Once the shock wore off, there was an overwhelming sense that I had reached a huge fork in the road.

    One choice led to stuffing these thoughts back down to wherever they came from and going back to sucking down a beer mindlessly watching television.

    And then, magically, a second choice came out of nowhere. Stop everything and just sit with these thoughts.

    I remember simply saying, “Huh!” out loud. I never realized that I had choices. I was programmed to run and hide.

    I became aware that this was a prodigious moment for me. I could feel chills run through my entire body.

    The choice was: Go to sleep again or just be present and experience these thoughts.

    Something deep within me knew which path to choose. It was the strongest sense of knowing I had ever experienced. I also knew that if I didn’t get on this train right now, I may be lost forever. It almost felt like a life-or-death decision.

    It was in that moment of choice that I finally gave in. I stopped resisting and avoiding. I chose to sit in the discomfort and not run away and hide anymore.

    The Choice to Pursue “Better”

    As soon as I made the choice to stay and be with these negative thoughts, my body jumped into action. As if someone else was not at the controls.

    In one long, swooping motion, I turned off the television, went over to the kitchen sink, and dumped out the rest of my beer. I then took a deep breath, walked to my living room, and sat cross-legged on the floor.

    I’d never meditated before but had heard of it. I was strongly interested in Buddhism when I was in college but never took the steps to explore what it was all about. I figured there was no better time than now to just try it.

    All I know was, in that moment, I made the firm decision that I was just going to sit and be with my thoughts. No matter how intense of a ride it would be or how crazy just sitting in silence seemed to be.

    I still remember those first moments of being in silence. It was a bittersweet experience. The bitter side was experiencing all of the mean and nasty thoughts running through my mind at full volume. There didn’t seem to be an end to it.

    But there was also a sweetness in the silence that was bathing my experience. There was a peace here that I had never experienced before. It was like being cuddled in a warm bosom, and I soon felt the negative words less scary to be with.

    I can’t remember how long I sat in silence on that first day, but it was at least a couple of hours. I remember opening and closing my eyes several times. I was checking to make sure I was still in my living room.

    It was like figuring out if you can trust wading into a lake you’ve never been to. Slowly, step by step. And certain moments I needed to take open my eyes and just allow myself to feel comfortable before going further.

    There were also moments where I felt “myself” leave my body, which honestly scared the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks out of me. It was such a foreign experience. Even though I could feel some sort of a chord holding me to my body, I had never experienced being able to pop out and look down at my cross-legged self below. I was both intrigued and a bit freaked out at the same time.

    But I then started to hear a different voice coming in. A gentler voice.  One assuring me that everything was okay.

    I was guided to just be with the process and that I would eventually get comfortable and not need to pop out of my body. And for the first time in a long time, I started to relax.

    Eventually, I noticed that by letting my thoughts just float through, they would start to fade away until there was just sweet silence, and then more thoughts would come back at a lower volume. I still had no idea what I was doing, but I was feeling better and that was all that mattered.

    I didn’t realize it, but just sitting with my thoughts was making a statement. I was now broadcasting, “I want to learn how to be happy and more loving. I am not going to run away anymore.”

    From that moment on, I came home from work every day and just meditated. I got rid of my cable box and allowed myself to be open to new opportunities. I was guided by a friend to hire a life coach and started to address things in my life that prevented me from experiencing happiness.

    For example, I realized that I’d deadened my ability to tap into emotions because I worked in the aerospace industry, where it was all about facts and data.

    By using my new friend, awareness, I started to identify emotions that I had never really processed, examined, or tried to heal. One particular healing moment was visiting the anger I held from going to an all-boys Catholic high school. I was one of the smallest kids and got picked on from time to time.

    I didn’t even realize how much anger was simmering below the surface. It wasn’t until I was aware of it and then had permission to express my feelings, that I was finally free of my long-held anger about being teased and bullied.

    I also faced the fear I’d developed after being in an airplane crash at nineteen and had a beautiful moment of release with tears flowing like the Nile. It never occurred to me that I held onto to so much trauma and that it was begging to be released.

    The more I became aware of my past and released it, the lighter and happier I naturally became. I caught myself whistling to work one day, something that I hadn’t done in years!

    I also got into Buddhism and energy healing and soaked in all forms of spirituality that interested me. It was a joyous time of learning and trying.

    But ultimately, I knew that just learning was not enough. I needed to practice the ideas of love, healing, and forgiveness in the world.

    “Leveling Up” with Awareness and Choice

    When I look back on that moment where I finally stopped and chose a different way to be in the world, I recognize that was the most defining moment in my life.

    Sure, I have attended many spiritual workshops, retreats, and trainings and have had “mountaintop” experiences. But they never would have happened if I hadn’t made the choice stop and be completely present with my thoughts.

    Our minds are constantly in and out of awareness (awake) and unawareness (asleep). It takes diligence and practice to stay awake and to make loving choices.

    Think about how much of your day you’re actually aware of your thoughts or habits vs. when you are on “automatic pilot” doing tasks or zoning out over social media.

    Here are some ways to remain aware and at choice throughout your day:

    1. Set a goal for the day. Something like: “I want to be aware of my thoughts at work and think lovingly.” Set an hourly reminder on your phone to check in throughout the day.
    2. Put a post-it note with the words “Awareness and Choice” next to your work space or area where you spend most of your time to remind yourself to be present with your internal experience. Place it where you will see it often.
    3. Schedule meditation “dates” throughout your day. See if you can sneak in five five-minute meditations throughout the day. Set reminders if you need to.
    4. Pick someone in your life that you have a hard time being with (especially at work). Have a conversation with that person and watch your thoughts. Choose to see them differently in the moment (as best as you can).
    5. At the end of the day, review the thoughts you had about yourself or others. Go back to times in the day where you were hard on yourself or someone else. Replace those thoughts with ones you would rather have said to yourself.

    Awareness and choice are a powerful duo that can change your life for the better. Both are needed. Awareness is taking in what’s present. Choice is taking steps to move your awareness in your intended direction.

    Look to see where you can benefit from awareness and choice in your life. Then set your compass toward happiness and enjoy the journey!

  • How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    “The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and dreamed of escaping my body. I had struggled with depression for many years, and I was terrified that I might feel that way forever.

    Someone recommended I do a mindfulness-based course. This turned out to be the one of the most helpful parts of my journey. The therapist suggested I needed to learn to sit with my feelings instead of resisting them, but this terrified me. I was afraid of my feelings, and I thought that accepting them meant accepting they would be there forever.

    But as I practiced the skills of mindfulness and distress tolerance, I noticed that when I accepted my emotions they often shifted more easily. Or at least I didn’t make them worse by worrying about them. I realized that I had been making the depression and anxiety worse by resisting my feelings.

    Connect to the Present Moment

    I’m guessing this is a common struggle, and the solution can feel counter-intuitive. Many people fear that if they let themselves feel their emotions they will be taken over by them. However, when I make space for my emotions without acting on them, sometimes there is pain and I might cry, but it is a clean pain rather than a mental anguish, and it doesn’t last as long.

    I also find that connecting to the present moment helps me create a little space in my mind when my thoughts start stressing me out.

    It’s easy to get caught up thinking about the past, worrying about the future, or wishing the future would hurry up and arrive. When I notice this happening now, I ground myself in the present moment by listening to the sounds around me, noticing my feet touching the ground and my breath flowing in and out, and I feel calmer.

    Observe Your Thoughts and Emotions

    I’ve learned to observe my thoughts instead of attaching a story to them. Emotions can’t last forever on their own. I heard that the natural lifespan of an emotion is about ninety seconds. But we can keep them alive for longer by thinking about them, being afraid of them, and resisting them. Emotions, like everything else in life, come and go.

    Once I had the ability to create distance from my thoughts and not be consumed by my emotions, I was able to take action to make my life better, even when I didn’t feel like it. I did my best to embrace life as it was instead of focusing on how I would like it to be.

    This doesn’t mean I didn’t still struggle at times, but embracing the present moment helps me get through these times more constructively. I don’t think my relationship with my partner would have worked if I hadn’t already started learning these skills before we met.

    Stop Resisting the Present

    Fast forward a few years and I am in Colombia, South America, where my partner is from. I was visiting his family when Covid-19 hit.

    Like many people, I no longer had the freedom and independence that I was used to. Instead of living in the city like we had expected, we were staying in his parents’ town, and my partner was working from home. I didn’t have the option to join a Spanish class or get a job like I had planned, and at times I felt lost. After six months of this I was getting desperate, but I couldn’t travel home to Australia even if I wanted to.

    During a tearful conversation, my partner suggested that maybe I was resisting the situation too much. There was nothing we could do about it, and I was just making it worse for myself by resisting reality.

    The next day my sister suggested I read The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. It totally changed my perspective. I was reminded that in the present moment in front of me everything was actually okay. It was when I thought about the future that I got into a dark place.

    Stop the Mental Time Traveling

    Just like when I was depressed, I thought, “I can’t take this anymore! How long is this going to go on?” And just like then, when I accepted the current situation it didn’t seem as bad. I started to enjoy the free time and relish my time there knowing that nothing lasts forever, good or bad.

    I read books, did yoga, lay in the hammock, and studied Spanish. These were all the things that I was doing before, but it felt different. I wasn’t resisting being in Colombia anymore, I was just there. I stopped wishing to be back home or worrying how long it would be. And that allowed me to enjoy the beautiful, unique things about that season.

    I slowed down and let myself stare up at the trees and listen to the birds. I enjoyed the chance to get to know my in-laws and my fiancé’s culture. Sometimes now, when I stop and listen to the silence, I feel a deep sense of peace and joy.

    Take Action When You Can

    Now, if there had been something that I could have done to change things, of course I would have done it. I’m not advocating for passive submission or fatalism. Sometimes we need to take action, set boundaries, and be proactive. In fact, when you stop resisting the present it allows you to see things as they truly are. This can empower you to focus on the actions you can take right now rather than focusing on the future.

    But when there is nothing we can do, accepting this present moment is often more powerful than worrying about all the moments to come. You’ll know what to do when the time to act arrives.

    Surrendering Saves Energy

    If you are struggling with a situation that you can’t control, can you come back to your body and what is around you here and now? Can you make space for any emotions that are present and allow them to move through you? Focus on the one breath you are taking right now. What can you feel, see, smell, taste, and hear?

    Surrendering to the present is like floating on your back instead of thrashing around in the water trying to get out. Trust that eventually you will drift safely to shore. This not only saves energy, it allows you to enjoy any positives in your current situation, because just like the difficult things the good things won’t last forever either. The present moment is all we have, and in a way it’s all that is real.

    It’s a Practice

    I’m not naive enough to think that I won’t have any more bad days. That’s part of being human, especially when we’re tired, hormonal, or stressed. I may forget this lesson and need to learn it again in a new context. I suspect it’s something I will be practicing for the rest of my life, and that’s okay. But I hope that next time I will be able to catch myself a little sooner when I am resisting instead of simply being in the present moment—where I inevitably find peace.

  • Acceptance Is Not Passive; It’s the Path to Peace

    Acceptance Is Not Passive; It’s the Path to Peace

    “The price of our vitality is the sum of all of our fears.” ~David Whyte

    Acceptance by its very nature is imperfect; it’s messy and often unpleasant, while ultimately leading to a place of growth, a sense of freedom, and a life familiar with ease. I know this because I have had a lot of painful acceptance in my life, and it has been crucial to helping me move beyond the stuckness of fear and suffering.

    Years ago, being the natural striving, fun-seeking, achievement-oriented person I was, I ignored the fact that my body felt like a truck had run over it. I pushed, faked, and hid what my body was really feeling… until it all came to a screeching halt.

    Diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune disease, and a future of chronic pain or worse, I had to give up the impressive job, the active social life, and the self-image that had all propped me up in the world.  And then what was left?

    Instinctively, I wanted to go back to the way things were, to repatch it all back together again.  Fortunately, I inherently felt the impossibility of all of that, and so the work began.

    I started taking a meditation class and then a Buddhist practice, and one day sitting silently, feeling my body breathing, listening inwardly to what was there, the hard, guarding shell around my heart broke.  I had to accept there was no going back to normal, there was only being with what is and opening to where that might lead.

    Acceptance is not resignation. It is not passively giving up. It takes courage and strength.

    I feel it more of a falling inward, dropping into the sensations of what is, recognizing and acknowledging what’s there. A place of empowerment and choice instead of feeling like a victim to chance. It is a beautiful sense of coming home to the body in the present moment, a feeling of wholeness and strength to better face your circumstances, whatever they may be.

    That being said, there were a lot of tears and a lot of pain; in other words, it was messy. A series of small steps, it took a while.

    I had to accept that I could no longer keep up with my carefree, energetic friends as they traveled around the world and partied around the clock.

    I had to accept I would no longer create interesting buildings as an architect or participate in gallery shows as an artist.

    Most difficult of all, I had to accept that I could no longer be the fun-loving, happy person my husband needed—at least not right away.

    I had to accept my life had suddenly taken a new direction and be receptive to the possible changes that this might bring. Receptivity was the key to opening toward inner growth and inner intimacy, as well as a place of gentleness, all new territory for me!

    So what is your experience of acceptance really like? Maybe there is an image or metaphor that best viscerally says “acceptance” to you. To me, it feels like a slow-motion fall into an undercurrent that sweeps me away.

    It can feel quite beautifully poetic as a surrender into what is present, which floods me with a feeling of relief. It is more honest, more pure, less tinged with the shoulds of daily life—as in the pressure to be more productive, to be energetically outgoing, to follow through on all of my perceived responsibilities as a daughter, a wife, a friend.

    Allowing myself to actually be the way I felt, without the weight of someone else’s expectations, was the beginning of moving toward physical and emotional health.

    Rilke writes, “Gravity is like an ocean current that takes hold of even the strangest thing and pulls it toward the earth. We need to patiently trust our heaviness—even a bird must do this before it can fly.”  

    Trusting that the earth will support all of our weight, all of our heaviness, the physical pain and the mental anguish too, brings us to a place of feeling grounded, a place that’s ready to respond with wisdom and compassion, though this does take practice.

    Pulling away from our pain or ignoring a life difficulty is a kind of resistance, a fighting of gravity, and an easy habit that will not heal our difficulties.

    This tiring cycle of the push and pull of resistance makes everything difficult and takes a lot of energy, draining you of anything positive. It’s exhaustive like continuously having a really bad day.

    Resisting that all aspects of my life had changed made the changes much more emotionally painful.  Stuck in this place of denial, I was unable to connect in the ways that nurture deep friendships and that create authentic appreciation for life’s small pleasures.

    Recognizing the inner discomfort, it’s worth asking, “What am I resisting?” And even better “Do I want to be in acceptance mode or resistance drain?” And finally, “What is it that I need to accept?”

    We all hold onto some kind of emotional pain by pushing it away in an effort not to be hurt, which ultimately and ironically keeps this pain very close. But what would it take to let it go? What is it that wants to be acknowledged and ultimately accepted?

    And this pain, whether physical or emotional, leads to tight muscles and tight mental habits, a pattern of tenseness, a pattern of protectiveness that sucks the joy and spontaneity out of your life. Again, not much fun, not much pleasure. Trying harder and harder, like pulling on a necklace or shoestring that is knotted, will only make things worse.

    Embracing life, not just the edited parts of it but all of it, is a place of wisdom and grace. I can find this place sometimes in movement or in meditation, and often these are the same, because as quiet as your body/mind can get in meditation, at all times it is gently moving with every breath. This is the movement that grounds your learning into the very tissues and neurons that make you tick.

    If you can find your learning in the body, feel it in the body, you will not forget your experience or the glimpses of insight just discovered. The dancer Augusta Moore once told me “The breath is the music in the body.” I love this—the dance of life unfolding with each breath.

    So why do we try to hold on so tightly to what was, even though it creates nothing but frustration and pain?

    Once we find the means, whatever this might look like, it feels so damn good to drop the efforting, to accept, to fall apart a little, or perhaps a lot, and then move on, move forward with our new reality and all it has to offer. It can feel so good to allow this deep relaxing in the body, find that place of peace and feeling of liberation.

    And embracing life is what it is all about. We want to respond whole-heartedly, not with dullness or avoidance or anger. The danger lies in blocking too much of our self, guarding against the pain, the fears, or sense of being trapped in denial.

    Staying true to our entire experience allows us to loosen our responses, drop the guard, and be in a place of acceptance. As David Whyte writes, “The price of our vitality is the sum of all of our fears.”

    I have heard it said, and reluctantly have felt this truth, that the body cannot lie. So I invite you to find a quiet moment and listen deeply to what it is your body really wants to tell you, the inner wisdom it wants to share in healing; whether it’s an illness that has taken you down or a broken relationship that feels like it has left you stranded, your body/mind knows how to heal, and acceptance is the key to opening that door.

    With an open heart and a willing mind, really hear what your strongest ally, your body, wants you to know: that this partnership, between the mind and the body is a strong one, it is a relationship that will guide the winds of change with grace and ease. Acceptance helped me learn to listen within, and then trust what I heard, trust just what my personal world was asking me to respond to, and step peacefully forward into that vibrant flow of life.  

  • Lessons from Infertility: What’s Helped Me Cope with Disappointment

    Lessons from Infertility: What’s Helped Me Cope with Disappointment

    “When you find no solution to a problem, it’s probably not a problem to be solved, but a truth to be accepted.” ~Unknown

    For the longest time, I swore I’d never get married or have kids.

    Growing up with an alcoholic father, in a domestic violence situation, shattered my young spirit and left me putting the pieces back together for years.

    Since I didn’t see healthy coping skills growing up, it’s no wonder I grappled with my own addictive behaviors. I struggled with self-worth, focusing solely on accomplishments to fill a void inside of myself.

    Externally, people saw a well-adjusted, smart girl who excelled at sports and was a natural leader, with plenty of friends.

    All seemed well.

    It wasn’t.

    Internally, I was dying, and I’d take anything I could get my hands on to escape my reality. I used work, relationships, and substances to make myself feel better for a short while.

    However, self-loathing runs deep and it eventually won the day.

    I wasn’t enough, and there wasn’t anything sustainable that would make me feel okay about myself for any length of time. I didn’t realize it then, but what I really wanted wasn’t to merely the fill the void; I was longing for a connection to my authentic self. But I couldn’t figure out how to create it.

    My emotional suffering was crippling.

    While other people were getting married and having babies, I was surviving the day between emotional highs and lows and barely holding on to any form of functioning.

    Though I had vowed never to get married or have kids, I secretly longed for it. I’d disavowed it only because it didn’t seem possible for me.

    Plus, how would I ever bring a child into this mess of a life?

    I wouldn’t.

    When my self-destruction hit a crossroads of kill myself or live, I chose to heal and get better so that I could be a healthy person for myself right then and perhaps for a partner and child in the future.

    I wanted to be the healthiest version of myself, and thinking about what might be helped me get present to what needed to be healed.

    Part of the journey back to my true self was about learning unconditional self-love. Hearing the paradigm that I’m a spiritual being having a human experience opened up an avenue of self-loving within me that I had never experienced before.

    I focused diligently on having a healthy relationship with myself by engaging a daily self-care practice that included positive affirmations, physical exercise, self-forgiveness, and connecting to something greater than myself.

    By learning to relate to myself in a more positive way, I started to have better relationships with others. And one particular relationship came in that reflected back to me my deep self-love and spiritual growth. This relationship would turn into a life partnership and eventually a marriage.

    Though I never thought I would get married, I did the inner work to transform myself into the partner that I wanted to have in this lifetime.

    My spiritually connected and loving relationship with Richard opened me up to the possibility of having children.

    This was a huge shift from my days as a child and young adult where I vowed never to have significant relationships with anyone.

    But then something I never expected happened. We never got pregnant.

    We tried for many years and mutually decided that if we couldn’t naturally have a child, we wouldn’t have one at all.

    There was tremendous disappointment, anger, and sadness. When something isn’t a possibility for you, it can make you want it more.

    I went from obsessed to defeated.

    Richard and I finally landed on and allowed our grieving.

    It was a process. It still is.

    What’s super special about this journey is that I was able to pull from my recovery toolbox to support myself through this experience.

    I focused on these three powerful steps.

    1. Look for the learning.

    Getting my mind right has been the biggest growth opportunity in my healing process. Before learning about my infertility, I’d studied spiritual psychology at The University of Santa Monica, where I learned the twenty-two principles of spiritual psychology. One of those principles, “life is for learning,” has empowered me to look for my spiritual curriculum instead of staying in victimhood.

    Staying empowered versus going into disempowerment has kept me learning from my life experiences, and helped me avoid growing bitter. Through my infertility, I learned to let go of control. I learned true surrender to the unknown. And I learned to trust something greater than my humanness. I’ve experienced so much grief, resilience, and acceptance. Embracing it all has enriched my life instead of making this a solely painful experience.

    2. Accept what is.

    I found acceptance of what is. I’m not fighting reality, saying it should be different. I don’t know what it should look like, and I accept that this is my spiritual curriculum.

    Ego thinks it knows what the human experience should look like. My spirit knows that this is the experience I’m meant to have. Or at least that’s what I believe—that I was meant to grow through this and love myself no matter what. And I’m doing that!

    I’ve also come to realize that even when life doesn’t turn out how we think it should, it can still be enjoyable if we’re willing to shift our focus and do the best we can with the hand we were dealt. For me, that’s meant committing to being the healthiest human I can be, living a purpose-driven life, and helping other people self-actualize.

    Even if you don’t believe you receive a “spiritual curriculum” for life, or are “meant to have” certain experiences for your growth, it feels incredibly liberating to accept what is and choose to make the best of it. This is how I’ve been able to keep my peace instead of giving it away.

    3. Choose peace.

    I choose peace. It’s an affirmation that has served me well for many years through different life challenges. I can choose to be in resistance and suffer, or I can choose to be in acceptance and have my peace. I choose peace. It doesn’t mean I don’t experience some sadness from time to time, but those moments are few and far between because it’s more valuable to me to accept and have peace than it is to hold onto grievances.

    Life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. I put expectations on life, and life had its own plans.

    My duty is to be with what is and love myself through it.

    Accepting what is has been one of the most freeing experiences of my lifetime because it’s opened me up to new possibilities I wouldn’t have been able to see had I stayed stuck in resistance. Furthermore, I’ve been able to experience motherhood through mothering myself, our four wonderful dogs (Peanut, Ziggy, Tucson, and Bootie), and those I come into contact through my life’s work.

    I can still be a mother—to myself and others. I get to define what that looks like for me.

    When life seems difficult or unfair, focus on the lessons so you can empower yourself instead of victimizing yourself, accept what is, and remind yourself that this is what it means to choose peace. These strategies have offered me continued spiritual growth, supported me in strengthening my relationship with my husband, and empowered me to carry on with co-creating an enjoyable life.

    And if you’re experiencing infertility, like me, know that it doesn’t have to be something that sidelines you. It can not only be a source of tremendous spiritual growth, it can also be the gateway to a different path that could be equally as fulfilling.

  • How to Be Less Anxious About Things You Can’t Change

    How to Be Less Anxious About Things You Can’t Change

    “One of the happiest moments is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.” ~Unknown

    Over the last few years, I’ve had to deal with a frustrating problem.

    It’s something that’s not uncommon, but it can be debilitating, and it has affected me every day. Some days have been incredibly tough, and they’ve tested my tolerance and my patience.

    The problem is chronic back pain.

    Every day I get up, knowing that throughout the day I’m going to have a discomfort that could oscillate between a mild annoyance and an intense burning. At some point, it’s going to distract me. Either while I work, while I eat, while I meditate, while I exercise, and sometimes while I sleep.

    You’d think by now I would’ve gotten used to it, that it would’ve become the unwelcomed friend that I’d learned to live with. Unfortunately, that’s only the case sometimes.

    But I am (slowly but surely) learning firsthand the value of something incredibly profound that the meditation teacher Shinzen Young once said:

    “Suffering = Pain x Resistance.”

    When it comes to the suffering we experience when dealing with physical pain, it’s not always easy to know exactly what is pain and what is resistance to that pain.

    In my own situation, every now and then, when the pain is very uncomfortable, I’ll start to ruminate. My mind will begin to make up stories about how severe the pain is, how much worse it’s going to get, what I could’ve done to prevent it, and anything else to resist the experience.

    But there are certain things you can’t know and certain things you can’t change. I’m doing the best I can to try and prevent the pain—I’ve seen a number of specialists, all with varying opinions.

    My focus now is, how can I reduce the resistance and alleviate the suffering?

    This is broadly related to another important existential issue and something that I want to explore with you in a little bit of detail.

    We all have to deal with situations that we have no control over; illness, death, and loss are inevitable. I’m going to share with you how I’ve faced this, in the context of my back pain, but it’s highly likely that you’re going through something comparable in your life right now. It might be something less obvious, like a part of your job that you’re not entirely comfortable with, or it may be a lot more serious, like the terminal illness of someone you love.

    Either way, we’re facing the same question: How can I be less anxious about the things I can’t change?

    Here are four things I’ve done to manage this anxiety.

    1. Keep track of the stories my mind is telling me about any situation.

    One thing that you realize by paying attention to your pain is that the mind is a master storyteller. The natural response to any uncomfortable situation is to create a mental novella equipped with a list of assumptions, a worldview, and a timeline about the past and future.

    Your job, however, is to tease out fact from fiction. If I have pain when I’m working, my mind might start to tell me the story of how I’m going to be late to the project I’m working on, or that I’ll never figure out how to overcome the pain, or any number of things that one, aren’t either true or knowable and two, aren’t the least bit relevant to the situation at hand.

    If you write down a list of the ideas you have about the thing you can’t change, you’ll start to see recurring themes and you can see the movie that’s playing in your mind without getting absorbed in it.

    2. Meditate on the pain and resistance and figure out which is which.

    Remember the Shinzen Young quote I shared earlier: “Suffering = Pain x Resistance.” Well, understanding when resistance to the situation is making up the bulk of your suffering is an incredibly useful skill to learn.

    You can do this in meditation by inquiring into your thoughts and feelings. I may ask myself “If I could accept this pain completely, just for a few moments, what would the pain feel like?”

    If the pain decreases significantly, it’s clear that the experience was dominated by resistance. If, however, there is little change, then it’s the physical pain itself that is the problem. More often than not I’ve found that resistance is worse than the pain itself!

    3. Highlight the positive aspects of the thing I can’t change.

    This is pretty much good old-fashioned re-framing. Focus your attention on what’s positive about the thing you can’t change, and very importantly, celebrate the little wins.

    For example, I try to tell myself, “My back hurts today, but at least it’s not stopping me from going to the gym.” And if I have a day where the pain is less serious than other days, I’ll make a mental note of it, and try to express it in some form, e.g.: “My day was good. I got a lot of work down and it was relatively pain-free.”

    4. Practice the art of letting go.

    This practice is something that comes hand in hand with noticing resistance. We don’t often think of letting go as a skill, but it is. In the same way we can become adept at holding onto something, we can learn how to do the opposite.

    There are two aspects of letting go that you can practice. Firstly, the depth of letting go; that is, how completely can you consciously let go of something that is bothering you.

    If I have a pain in my back and I exhale deeply, telling myself it’s okay, but five seconds later I’m thinking about how frustrated I am about the pain—well, I have a lot of practice to do.

    The second aspect is how appropriately you can do so in the moment, i.e.: how good your timing is.

    For example, if you spend all day worrying, but then you get home and right before falling asleep you let go, then your timing needs some work. If, however, you catch your mind telling you a story in the moment, and you can objectively see that it’s just a story, you’re on the right track! Meditation is one way to help you see things as they come up in real time.

    Learning to become less anxious about things you can’t change is an incredibly valuable life-long skill. It’s unfortunate that typically we have to come to learn this through real challenges and discomfort, but making the best of tough times is one of the beautiful things about being a human being!

    When have you learned to be less anxious about things you can’t control? Let us know in the comments; we’d love to hear from you!

  • How to Maintain a Sense of Peace No Matter What Life Throws At You

    How to Maintain a Sense of Peace No Matter What Life Throws At You

    “Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.” ~Unknown

    Do you ever feel like your life is a rollercoaster?

    One second, you’re on top of the world. The next, you’re down in the dumps.

    For me, this feeling of going up and down began back in high school.

    Before then, everything in life seemed like a test run. Sure, there were exams, extracurricular activities, and the usual social pressures. But now that university was only a few years away, things suddenly turned serious.

    “These are the most important years of your life,” people would say. “Make the best use of them.”

    And so, every single thing, no matter how big or small, seemed to have an amplified effect. If I didn’t do something right, my life was over. But if I did achieve a step in the right direction, my life was set.

    When I applied for a leadership position that I thought was a good fit, I convinced myself that I absolutely had to get it. I read the leadership responsibilities diligently, practiced the same speech over and over, and thought about what I would do when I got the position.

    The result? I didn’t get it. My life, as I knew it, was over.

    Fast-forward a few years to university: I had decided by this time that I wanted to go to business school. My friends and I would talk about the application process and how to improve our chances of acceptance. With bated breath, I finalized my application and submitted it.

    The result? I was accepted. Since the school had strong internship and job prospects, my life was set.

    While I had fun, school was also incredibly stressful. Classmates and I would beam with excitement when we were invited to interviews, only to be disheartened a few days later when an offer didn’t come.

    Later, I received an offer to work in a role that seemed perfect for what I was looking for. I was elated.

    As you can probably guess by now, that feeling didn’t last.

    It began to feel like no matter what I did or how much effort I put in, life was never a smooth path. Seemingly promising opportunities would lead me to obstacles in the way. Even when I did get something I wanted, it would lead to another stressful problem that needed solving. And so on it went.

    After dealing with these emotions and thoughts for years, I felt exhausted. It felt as if there was no end to the tunnel. No point in time when I could just put down everything, sit, and enjoy the scenery for a while.

    Eventually, I figured that it wasn’t simply the swirl of events surrounding me that caused my ups and downs. It was my perspective. I consistently attached myself to specific outcomes, as if my life depended on them, and felt devastated when things didn’t work out.

    Sure, some of the things I experienced could easily make anyone feel the same way. Had I taken a different view, however, I wouldn’t have constantly psyched myself up and created these unhealthy emotions.

    When I look back at what I thought were huge victories and setbacks at the time, they seem insignificant now. My life wasn’t over, as I believed it to be, nor was it set in stone. And truthfully, I wouldn’t want either.

    I learned that no matter what happens, life goes on. Celebrations and challenges are a part of everyone’s life, not the be-all and end-all. With practice, I’ve started incorporating a sense of peace into my life by using some practices that anyone can apply.

    4 Practices to Help You Maintain Peace and Perspective

    1. Expect twists and turns.

    Recently, I went on a long-awaited vacation. Soon after landing, I stepped off the plane relieved and excited to begin my holiday.

    Unfortunately, my new luggage case arrived less than intact.

    “Why me?” I thought. This was the first time in years that I had used the airport check-in, and my luggage was the only one that was damaged.

    I realized then that I had two choices: I could let this ruin my vacation, or I could enjoy my holiday regardless.

    I admit, I did grumble about it initially. But later I took the contents out and put the case out of view so that I wouldn’t spend my holiday thinking about it.

    Unexpected events happen to everyone. It’s important to acknowledge them as a part of life and plan for them when possible. Even though I felt upset about possibly tossing out my new favorite luggage, I reminded myself how fortunate I was that I got to use it in the first place.

    Thankfully, the airline ended up offering to get my luggage case repaired.

    I realize some twists and turns are more emotionally trying than damaged luggage, and far more difficult to accept. But if we learn to expect the unexpected, we’ll spend less time resisting life’s inevitable curveballs and more time proactively dealing with them.

    2. Look at the big picture.

    Painful events and experiences happen to everyone. Sometimes, they’re so painful that it feels like nothing will ever take away the feeling of sorrow or hurt. But everything heals in time, and sometimes good can come from even the most traumatic situations.

    A few years ago, a relative of mine lost her husband to cancer. It was devastating for everyone, especially for her family. At the time, it felt almost unimaginable that someone so close and well loved could leave so soon.

    While he is still missed and thought of every day, good things have happened since then:

    • A marriage and the addition of a new family member
    • A stronger bond between the family
    • The realization that it’s crucial to laugh and enjoy life while we can

    So no matter how terrible something feels at the time, know that you have the strength to get through it. There will be many moments in the future, both blissful and difficult. And if you can survive one painful experience, you can survive the next one.

    It also helps to remember that some of life’s greatest challenges end up being our greatest teachers. You may not be able to control what happens, but you can decide what lessons you choose to learn from them.

    3. Practice self-care.

    When was the last time you did something nice for yourself?

    Most of us spend our time running errands or doing work for other people, but rarely do we pause and enjoy a moment simply for the sake of it.

    By constantly putting ourselves in stressful situations, we end up damaging our health in the long run.

    Make time for yourself. Sit and listen to your favorite music, pursue your hobby, or meditate. Some of my favorite ways to de-stress include taking a walk outside and curling up with a good book.

    When you take care of yourself, you feel more centered, more peaceful, and better able to handle whatever life throws at you.

    We all need time for ourselves to relax and reflect on our day. Besides, I’ve found that taking breaks helps me to approach tasks with greater clarity and calmness than working all the time.

    4. Practice patience.

    Sometimes it feels like life is a constantly unraveling story. The only problem is, we want to jump straight to the end and see what happens.

    For instance, sometimes I think to myself: In five years, will I still be in the same place that I’m in right now? If I choose to spend time working on this endeavor, will it eventually give me the results I want? Will the person I just messaged reply back?

    We feel anxious when something in our life is unresolved—an “open loop,” they call it. It makes our heart rate go up and creates tension within ourselves, both of which are unhealthy.

    It’s been difficult, but I’ve been trying to be more patient. To do this, I direct my thoughts and attention to things that are productive, such as focusing on the actions rather than the result.

    When I’m patient, it becomes easier to deal with both celebrations and setbacks. Knowing that sometimes only time can resolve a situation gives me the ability to let go and be present. And it’s always easier to be peaceful when you’re living in the moment.

    Feel At Peace With a Change in Mindset

    We all experience disappointments and serendipitous moments. But if you’re exhausted from constantly reacting to the ups and downs in your life, it’s time to step back and reflect on how you respond to things.

    Inner peace comes from appreciating life, with all its quirks and bumps. It’s about doing what you can, knowing that sometimes the path you choose will take unexpected turns.

    The process of growing and learning can be challenging. It can be downright scary. But if you manage to weather the storms that come your way, you’ll come out stronger than before.