Tag: self-aware
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A Powerful Practice for Self-Awareness: How to Avoid Doing Things You’ll Regret
Self-awareness is arguably the holy grail of inner peace, especially when you’re under pressure. But what is it? How do you achieve it?
As a teacher of self-awareness, I’ll be the first to admit that it does not always come easy. Given our human instinct to resist whatever challenges us to grow and change, the journey to self-awareness often involves a struggle. I know mine sometimes does.
To be more self-aware, I’ve had to cultivate a willingness to admit I don’t have it all figured out and that I might not always be right, especially when I feel really strongly that I am. I’ve had to make a point to look at my reality more objectively and admit when the way I’m doing something is just not working for me anymore.
These admissions never come easily. But I will say that addressing my emotional reactivity has been essential to getting me to a place of greater self-awareness.
When I was a young mother, I spent years trying to protect my kids from the impact of the dysfunction around them. Outwardly, we looked like the perfect family who had it all. My husband and I were pretty skilled at managing the family’s image, but the real story unfolding inside the four walls of our home was a marriage buckling under the weight of inauthentic emotional reactions like shame, blame, and guilt.
We lived like this for decades. If you could call it living.
For the longest time, I let my emotions run the show, relying on what felt like a satisfying reaction rather than reflecting on what was or wasn’t actually working.
Firing off a sarcastic remark felt like I was being heard.
Pushing the blame on others felt like a solution.
Launching impulsively into action felt like the surest and fastest way to get the problem behind me!
In the heat of the moment, a full-blown emotional reaction felt like it was protecting me. Ironically, all it actually protected me from was self-awareness and the change and personal growth that depend on it!
Unaware that I was making the choice to act out my reactions, I couldn’t see the lack of wisdom in it. After the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the end result was nearly always the same: a truckload of pain, confusion, and an even bigger mess.
By the time I mustered the courage to seek a divorce, my children were adults. I knew it was time for a massive change, and I thought my newfound courage would empower me to close the door on the powerful and damaging reactive emotions I had been running on for so long.
But it wasn’t easy.
As I gained more and more clarity, it became obvious to me: the reactivity I had acted out during my marriage was still surfacing even after my divorce. As Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Wherever you go, there you are!” Needless to say, this was a hard fact to face.
By separating myself from an untenable situation, I thought my shame and guilt would disappear with it. Boy, was I wrong!
I still had a debilitating fear of uncertainty and faced enormous self-doubt about moving into the world on my own. I struggled with guilt and shame about my past life choices.
I had been acting out some very specific patterns for decades, and over that long stretch those patterns had become habitual. So, whenever I faced a stressful situation, I fell right back into those same old patterns.
The hard truth was that, like the deep and gnarled roots of an old tree, these emotional patterns of reactivity weren’t coming out without real effort and determination.
A New Approach: The Practice
Eventually, it became clear to me that if I wanted real change in my life, I needed a new approach. And that new approach became the fundamental practice of my program, the Inner Peace Blueprint, backed by a key Harvard study on the benefits of mindfulness.
Researchers found that when practitioners of mindfulness focused awareness on their physiological state, it led to improved emotional regulation, which led to an empowered sense of self.
So here is what I did:
Every time I felt myself getting hijacked by shame, guilt, self-pity, insecurity, or fear, I interrupted those reactions by relaxing my physical tension and focusing on my breathing. This is the most basic technique I used—the practice of posture and breath.
When I felt I couldn’t trust myself (or others), I would do the practice.
When insecurity hit me as I imagined being on my own after thirty-six years of marriage, I would do the practice.
When fear and guilt washed over me as I listened to my children talk about their own reactions to the divorce, I would do the practice.
Remembering to do the practice took a lot of discipline, which was really not that surprising given the fact I had been reacting emotionally for my entire life, getting stuck in my head and going nowhere fast. My reactions were so familiar to me that they felt like who I was. They had become a deeply ingrained habit and were really hard to break.
Not challenging this habit, however, was simply no longer an option. And the practice was the best way I could see to get the job done, so I stuck with it. Every time I paused to relax my body and breathe, I experienced myself calming down, even if just a little. Over time, I started to see how all the little bits of calm were adding up to a lot more calm.
What I Learned About Self-Awareness
With greater calm, greater self-awareness (which I define as “being able to see what I’m really up to”) came pretty naturally.
I paid close attention to what I said when I was under pressure and asked myself: “Was it constructive or not?”
Whenever I did something to get the pressure behind me and “make it stop!” I stopped to evaluate if what I did actually helped. Or did it just dig the hole I was in that much deeper?
The practice afforded me the self-awareness to stop and consider my emotional state before I opened my mouth. It also gave me the self-awareness to make sure I waited until I was calm and clear about what to do (or not do) before proceeding.
Today, the practice is still my primary self-awareness tool because it always brings me back to the now-moment. When I can focus my attention on my physical tension and release it through breath, I become more aware of my emotional state and can better regulate what I do and say as a result. This, to me, is the definition of self-empowerment.
Even when I lose sight of how my reaction is impacting and distorting my perception, behavior, and choices, I can be pretty sure that it is and that staying focused on calming down before I respond is always my best bet.
This new way of responding to my reactions with the practice helped me break the habit of acting out my reactivity and making things worse as a result. And this is what keeps me on a trajectory toward sustainable, lasting transformation.
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How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment
“Dharma actually means the life you should be living—in other words, an ideal life awaits you if you are aligned with your Dharma. What is the ideal life? It consists of living as your true self.” ~Deepak Chopra
From the moment I finished high school until my late twenties, I had “purpose anxiety.”
I wasn’t just confused and missing a sense of direction in life; my lack of purpose also made me feel inadequate, uninteresting, and lesser than other people.
I secretly envied those who had cool hobbies, worked jobs they loved, and talked passionately about topics I often didn’t know much about.
I even resented them for living “the good life” and kept wondering, “Why not me?”
Until it was my turn.
What it took to begin embracing my purpose—or dharma, as I prefer to call it—was one thing: love.
Let me explain.
The 4 Keys to Living Our Dharma (Purpose)
The Sanskrit word “dharma” has many meanings and most commonly translates to “life purpose” and “the life we’re meant to live.” I believe there are four main keys to living our dharma.
1. Cultivating self-worth: the essential first step.
I was bullied in high school, and as a result, I had very low self-esteem for many years. Looking back, I realize that feeling that low self-worth prevented me from embracing my dharma.
Why?
It was because I was too focused on trying to be liked and too worried about what other people thought of me to be in touch with my authentic self. I put all my energy into doing everything I could to look “cool” and be accepted by others rather than what my soul wanted to do, explore, and experience.
The essential idea is that embracing our dharma requires living authentically. As Deepak Chopra says, “[dharma] consists of living as your true self.”
The issue is that it can be difficult to express and live your truth when you feel inadequate, unworthy, and perhaps even unlovable. The risk of being rejected seems too high, and it feels unsafe.
So the first step to living our purpose, I believe, is cultivating radical self-love. It’s a bit of a “chicken and the egg” situation because having a strong sense of purpose increases self-esteem, but low self-esteem makes it hard to embrace our purpose. It’s best to develop both simultaneously.
Here are a few ideas to cultivate self-love that have helped me:
The first one is meditation.
Part of meditation is about allowing ourselves to become aware of and observe our own thinking. When we meditate, we disidentify from our thoughts and get to experience glimpses of who we truly are—of our essence—which is loving and infinitely worthy. As a result, we naturally start loving and accepting ourselves more. Meditation has undoubtedly been the number one thing that has improved my self-esteem.
Another thing that has helped me is self-care.
As I said, I didn’t have many friends in high school and spent much of my time alone. So I started going to the gym after school to do something with my time and be around people (even if I didn’t talk to them). Exercising regularly led to eating healthier and taking better care of myself in several other ways.
I find that self-care is a practical way to cultivate self-love. When you take care of yourself, you show that you care about yourself. Over time, you start genuinely feeling the self-love you are showing yourself and believing it.
The last (effective but cringy) thing that helped improve my self-esteem is an exercise that a therapist recommended.
Here’s how it goes: In the evening, stand in front of the mirror and—looking at yourself in the eyes—say, “I love you, [say your name]. I love [say three things you like about yourself], and you deserve all the good things life has to offer.” Try it for thirty days; it may change your life.
2. Being in touch with and following your inner compass.
Jack Canfield says, “We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our joy.”
Often, we seek purpose outside of ourselves, as if it’s some hidden treasure we need to find. But, as Mel Robbins puts it, “You don’t ‘find’ your purpose; you feel it.” What feels good—expansive, joyful, intriguing, exciting, or inspiring—to you?
That’s an important question because, according to numerous spiritual books I’ve read, those things we enjoy are clues guiding us to our dharma.
The main difficulty is usually differentiating our true desires from the ego’s “wants” and the desires that come from conditioning. The ego wants to feel important. It’s afraid of not being “good enough,” so it feels the need to prove its worth.
The “wants” that come from conditioning consist of what our parents and society have told us we “should” do. If we follow those “shoulds,” even though they don’t align with our authentic selves, we risk waking up one day and realizing that we’ve climbed the wrong ladder and lived our life for others instead of ourselves.
Here’s something that helps me differentiate those desires.
Make a list of all the things you want to have, do, experience, and become in the next few years.
For each item on your list, ask yourself why you want it. Is it because you feel the need to prove something or want to feel important or perhaps even superior to others? That’s the ego. Is it because you think that’s what you “should” do? That’s likely conditioning. Is it because it makes you feel alive? That’s your heart.
To live our dharma, we must follow our heart’s desires—the things we genuinely love. This requires authenticity and courage.
3. Savoring the experience of being alive.
Another aspect of dharma is loving life—living with presence and appreciating the experience of being alive. There are a few things I find helpful here:
The first idea is to keep a “Book of Appreciation,” as Esther Hicks calls it. Every day, take five minutes to journal about what you appreciate about someone, a situation, or something else in your life.
To savor life, we must also be present. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle states that true enjoyment does not depend on the nature of the task but on our state of being—we must aim for a state of deep presence.
He recommends being mindful when attending to even our most mundane tasks. I also like to go on long walks and observe (with presence) the natural elements around me—like the clouds passing in the sky, the smell of trees after the rain, and the sensation of the sun’s rays on my face.
And, of course, having a daily gratitude practice is always a winner!
4. Extending love through joyful service.
Dharma is also about sharing—extending love. One of the best ways to contribute to the collective is to share our gifts in a way that’s enjoyable to us.
We all have natural gifts—things that come easier to us than to others. Some people are good at writing, while others are great leaders or excel at analyzing data. Perhaps you like to create, manage, nurture, delight, support, empower, listen, guide, or organize.
There’s also another, more profound aspect of contribution that comes from being rather than doing. I remember a passage from a book I read many years ago (I can’t remember what book it was) that went something like this:
“Your contribution [to the collective] is your level of consciousness.”
A higher consciousness radiates greater love, and one of the best ways to uplift others is by being a loving presence.
Dharma: The Bottom Line
Bob Schwartz, the author of Your Soul’s Plan and Your Soul’s Gift, says, “We are here to learn to receive and give love. That’s the bottom line.”
This involves loving ourselves, others, and life in general, and also following our heart—doing things we genuinely love.
I don’t know about you, but this perspective on dharma feels good to me. It has freed me from my “purpose anxiety.”
I hope it can serve you too.
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Rethinking Masculinity: Why I Want More Than Bachelor Parties and Football
“Patriarchy is the expression of the immature masculine. It is the expression of Boy psychology, and, in part, the shadow—or crazy—side of masculinity. It expresses the stunted masculine, fixated at immature levels.” ~ Robert Moore & Doug Gillette
Seventy eggs, packs of bacon, and multiple types of beer filled the fridge. On the counter lay handles of liquor and energy drinks. The dining table was lined with snacks galore: chips, Cheese-its, popcorn, Oreos, Doritos, and dozens of Fireball nips.
I’ve been to many bachelor parties, and it’s not surprising that health is never a priority. Yet this time, things felt different, or at least they should have. Most of the men present were fathers approaching forty. Everyone was married, had highly respectable careers, and lived in nice homes across the US.
It was clear that this weekend wouldn’t be a free-for-all of strip clubs. We no longer had the beer guzzling metabolism of our twenties or the naivete of our youth. But if not late-night revelry, what would it be? Accepting that we were older and in a much different place in life seemed to be in tension with what this weekend was supposed to be all about.
The expectations, unspoken and unexamined, were looming over each of us. We were supposed to act as if we were decades younger back in college. The story we were unconsciously telling ourselves was that honoring a man’s last single days was to be full of drinking and debauchery.
We didn’t come here to be emotionally vulnerable and eat salads. We came together to get rowdy.
The question on my mind is whether there is space in our current paradigm of masculinity to do both?
* As grown men, do we have to revert to childish ways of interacting?
* Do we have to reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator of health and wellness to have fun together?
* Are there not other ways of being together that better fit our present realities as mature, adults?
Still more questions drifted through my mind:
* Can we take a responsible approach to caring for our body and still make room to party?
* Can we find a balance between celebrating our friend’s last days of being single without making marriage out to be a ball and chain?
* Can we eat salads together and still be “manly enough”?
I believe we can do all of these things, but first we need to unravel some deeply held social norms about how men are supposed to interact together in groups.
The Undiscussed Rules of Bachelor Parties
The unspoken rule of bachelor parties is that there are no rules. Go wild. Get f*cked up. Have as much fun as possible because you’re about to lose all your freedom. Or at least that’s how the story goes.
But where did this story come from?
How did all of us guys end up with this template of bachelor parties as a drug-fueled escape from responsibility?
What’s more, how did we end up with this notion of marriage as impending shackles or the stereotype of men running away from long-term relationships?
Movies?
Media?
Watching older generations go through their failed marriages and broken relationships?
Probably all of the above and more.
The stereotypes of men acting like boys is a sad reflection of our present reality. We have strayed from the mythic stories of men as responsible, powerful actors in the world and settled on a version of manhood that seems woefully incomplete.
Perhaps the most noteworthy archetype framing masculinity is that of a hero’s journey. It is the quintessential growing-up quest where men discover their strength through adventure and adversity. Endless movies from Star Wars to Harry Potter rift upon this classic template of human development.
Yet what is notably missing from all these sagas is the hero as a family man, caring for himself and his world responsibly as an adult. We are obsessed with heroic journeys and completely unenthusiastic about domestic life.
I get one makes for a much better motion picture, but it is this void in our present mythology that leaves men hanging on boyish and incomplete ideas of what it means to be a mature man. How does the hero turned father integrate into society, build a family, connect with other men, and take responsibility for doing good in the world?
If the hero’s journey is the fundamental process by which a boy becomes a man, the question of how to actually enact manhood remains.
This void is exacerbated when groups of men come together. The expectation is that of unhealthy behavior. The bachelor party is just one manifestation of this—groups of men acting like teenage boys… hedonistic, rebellious, and immature.
Yet the world doesn’t need more rowdy teenagers. It needs strong, healthy men. Men, it’s time we grow the f*ck up. The problem as I see it, is that we don’t know how.
No Models, No Vision, No Manhood
When I look around for good templates on how to spend time together, all I see is sports, fraternities, and bachelor parties. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these, but as the only models for men to exist together, they leave a lot to be desired.
Sports teams and bachelor parties may be suitable for the single twenty-something, but where are the role models for men trying to be a good husband or trying to make ends meet?
I want more meaning and depth than our current cultural templates afford. I want to hang out with other men in a way that calls upon our higher qualities, not our lower ones.
Yet I fear that the little boy in me so badly wants to be accepted by the other guys that I will continue to squeeze myself into outdated beliefs and unhealthy ideals that have me ripping shots of fireball just feel accepted—the policing of the proverbial “man box.”
As men we must deconstruct this box and give ourselves permission to act differently. This includes
* Learning to have drink without being irresponsible to our body, our friends, or our partners.
* Learning to talk about our feelings as much as we talk about football.
* Allowing ourselves to strive professionally without feeling like our self-worth is dependent on our ability to provide.
* Feeling comfortable sharing our struggles with other men, so we don’t unconsciously accept that suffering alone is an inevitable part of being a man.
Creating New Templates for Men to Be Together
Loneliness is an epidemic. And for men, the feeling that you’ve got to “man up” and deal with all of life’s challenges on your own is a legacy of patriarchy that needs to be released.
We need each other. More importantly, we need to learn how to be together in a relationship without feeling like beer and sports are the only way.
Can you imagine a world where men hang out and actually come out stronger, healthier, and more sound in mind and body?
I can. It’s not only possible, it is necessary.
I can imagine the eye rolling among some guys. “That’s why there’s men’s groups. Don’t take away my bachelor parties or Sunday football.”
To be clear, I’m not at all against bachelor parties. The “wild and free” mindset makes sense as a time-bounded final hurrah.
I’m not advocating for less fun. I’m advocating for more opportunities for men (and women) to gather in a way that challenges the scripts and roles that have kept us prisoners to immature ways of interacting.
The current social pressure not only makes it difficult for men to be emotionally available, it also squashes so many of the joyful parts of our inner child—the playfulness, adventure, and energy of boyhood. It’s keeping us from our embodied selves.
But we need to grow and integrate that into new rites of passage that allow men to avoid blindly accepting patriarchal norms.
I don’t want to have to hide my softer, more vulnerable parts. I believe we can discuss how our social conditioning as men impacts our body and mind alongside discussing our fantasy picks and favorite cars. There’s room for it all if we can let go of outdated notions about how men can spend time together.
If we can help each other evolve into a more integrated expression of what it means to be a healthy man, everyone will benefit—the boys who are coming of age, the men who are struggling to find their place in the world, and the partners who deserve men that are nurturing and generative, not hostile and destructive.
Learning to be a better man, together.
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How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety
“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” ~Paulo Coelho
“Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?”
This very question weighed heavily on my mind as I found myself in yet another bout of anxiety. I was playing professional baseball at the time, and I just couldn’t seem to free myself from the constant and unending worrisome thoughts racing through my head.
A lot of these thoughts centered around how I would perform the next game. What my teammates were thinking of me, whether they saw me as a valuable part of the team. I often thought about why I was playing baseball and if I was wasting my time.
All of these worries did nothing but lead to further thoughts, centering around much of the same, leading to a terrible cycle.
This was not the first time I realized the presence of anxiety in my life. It has been something I’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember.
In college, I even worked with a sport psychologist who taught me coping mechanisms to alleviate the anxiety I felt surrounding baseball.
We addressed my self-talk, with him generating a routine I could use the night before games. He also focused heavily on process goals. As focusing on the process, rather than the outcome, is a major way to reduce anxious thinking.
After completing a master’s in psychology and beginning work as a mental performance coach, I felt as though I had a solid understanding of how to cope with anxiety. Why was it then that I once again found myself in its grasp?
Well, the truth is, no matter how strong you build your mind and how much work you put in, anxiety will still find its way into your life. Some time or another, those pesky worrisome thoughts will enter your head.
What matters is how long you allow those thoughts to stick around. And what’s interesting is, sometimes the more we try to rid ourselves of anxiety, the more we invite it to stay.
That is the mistake I made, and why, after all my years of work and learning, I found myself faced with great difficulty.
Energy Flows Where Attention Goes
Have you ever heard this saying before?
I’ve heard different interpretations of its meaning, but one I really resonate with is, wherever we place our attention will be amplified.
This means the more we focus on our anxiety, the greater the strength we give it.
So if we want to not feel anxious, one of the worst things we can do is try to not feel anxious.
When I recognized I was giving my anxiety too much attention, I realized what needed to happen instead. The decision I made involved the same techniques I’m going to show you later in the article.
For now, I want to address just a little bit about why we focus so much on anxiety in the first place.
Can’t I Just Will It Away?
I’m the first to admit to having fallen into this type of thinking in the past.
Whenever I would grow overly anxious before a game or experience anxiety in my daily life (which was all too often), my natural response was to try and force the anxiety out.
But that only worsened the problem. I remember feeling the anxiety actually grow within the more I tried to get it out.
So why do we continue to believe we can rid ourselves of anxiety through focusing on it?
The main reason is due to the fact we are anxious people in the first place. Do you know how hard it is to stop thinking about something? Especially when that which has captured your attention is as powerful an emotion as anxiety.
So, one, the easiest option is to grow anxious over the anxiety, thus focusing on trying to will it away. Two, anxiety is a scary feeling. Having uncontrollable thoughts that lead to a dizzying feeling of dread is not fun.
As a result, we try to get rid of it as quickly as we can. Removing our attention from the anxiety and trusting in some other technique does not feel as safe as simply focusing on how terribly we feel and hoping the anxiety will go away.
But as I already said, giving too much attention to our anxiety only makes it worse. So, what can we do instead? The answer lies in attention, the shifting of attention that is.
The Power of Shifting Your Attention
Since we know where we place our attention is where our energy will be directed, a shift in focus can drastically improve our mental state.
When I questioned whether I was focusing too much on my anxiety, it became clear to me that I was obsessing over why I experienced it, where it came from, and how I could get rid of it.
So, I decided to make a switch and instead, give my attention to how I wanted to feel. This meant focusing on ways to feel confident, relaxed, and so on.
Do you see the major difference? Understanding that everything is heightened based on how much attention we give it, you realize it’s only hurting you further to focus on what you don’t want.
Once you accept the anxiety you feel, it’s now time to turn your attention onto how you wish to feel instead. Always focus on things in the affirmative rather than the negative. Pay attention to how you want to feel, not how you don’t want to feel.
To become more relaxed and confident I employed the use of meditation and visualization.
Using Meditation and Visualization to Train Focus
I sit for mindfulness meditation twice a day and just relish in the moment.
I have found the practice so powerful in training my mind to focus on the present moment. Not only has it taught me to give attention to feeling relaxed and calm, but the more present I am, the less anxiety I feel.
That’s because anxiety, by definition, is a child of the future. To feel anxious means you are worried about what may happen or something not happening the way you wish.
To practice mindfulness meditation, simply follow these steps:
1. Get into a comfortable position with your back straight. I prefer sitting on my knees, but feel free to sit in a chair if that’s more comfortable.
2. Set your timer. You do not want to be wondering if you’ve meditated long enough. Give yourself five to ten minutes if you’re a beginner. Choose a calming alarm, as you don’t want to be startled out of your mindful state.
3. Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply and rhythmically. Focus on your breath and as your mind wanders, simply return your focus, without judgment. Thoughts will keep coming. The goal isn’t to stop them. It’s to allow and observe them, then let them pass.
I also use mindfulness is during the day. Whenever I feel anxious, I’ll pause and take a few breaths to center myself in the present.
I usually add some count breathing into this—breathing in for a count of five and out for ten.
Visualization has been an equally powerful tool in training my mind to manage worrisome thoughts.
After my meditation is complete and I’m relaxed, I visualize myself full of confidence, calm, and relaxed in different scenarios where I typically feel anxious.
Once again, I am not seeing myself as not anxious, but rather as the way I wish to be.
Usually, I’ll decide on one situation each day and visualize it in detail—what’s going on in my environment, who’s around me, what they’re doing. This allows me to mentally practice facing these situations with ease.
Throughout the day, whenever I feel anxious, I bring this image back into my mind, reminding myself to operate off my ideal vision of myself rather than my past conditioning.
These techniques have been tremendously helpful in shifting my attention off anxiety. And the less attention I give to feeling anxious, the less hold anxiety has on my life.
If you are struggling with anxiety, I encourage you to ask yourself the same question I did, “Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?” You might be surprised by how your anxiety eases when you stop giving it so much attention.
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How to Stop Reacting in Anger When You’re Triggered
“Freedom is taking control of the rudder of your life.” ~Yukito Kishiro
“What’s for dinner?” It’s a simple enough question. Yet it’s one that has made me lose my mind at my husband on more than one (or ten or twenty) occasions.
It’s not the question itself. It’s a valid question and one that needs an answer (at least by one of us).
A trigger of mine is being asked to answer a question when I’m already in the middle of something, feeling overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, or just sick of answering questions.
So then I snap and overreact.
I’ve come a long way in my personal growth journey, but I’m by no means perfect. I still react in anger but to a lesser extent and less often. I get mad, but I don’t stay there. I screw up, but I can apologize with humility and forgive myself.
When we’re in reaction-mode to life’s challenges, we aren’t in control. We react in ways that are not in tune with how we want to be.
Learning to navigate our triggers not only enables us to take back control and enjoy life more, it has an amazing trickle-down effect to those around us too. It better connects us in our relationships and models for others or our children what it looks like to be gracefully resilient so those in our circles can mimic the same.
So, what does it look like to react in anger?
Someone at work criticizes you and you instantly get defensive.
Your partner asks you to do something when you clearly have your hands full, so you immediately get pissed.
Plans change unexpectedly, and you panic or get irritated.
Someone in your life is controlling or manipulative, so you either get scared and shut down, or feel livid and lash out.
Someone does something that goes against your core values like being mean or inconsiderate or lying, and you explode.
It can also mean reacting to your own thoughts or actions and getting angry with yourself for “doing it again,” being lazy, or failing.
And all that leads to feeling guilty for saying things you don’t really mean or making a mountain out of a molehill, or maybe even rehashing past events.
It can lead you to beat yourself up again for how you handled things in the past.
And it can leave you feeling misunderstood because you recognize that your reaction stems from something deeper than this one incident; a culmination of events, or some underlying fear created this trigger for you.
Why We Are Reactive in the First Place
We are reactive or over reactive when our stress response is triggered sending us into fight, flight, or freeze mode.
We react on autopilot. In this space, we aren’t in full control, and it’s hard to see things clearly and objectively.
Sometimes our triggers relate to events from the past. For example, you may get triggered when someone ignores you because your parents frequently neglected you when you were a kid, causing you to feel unimportant. Other times, our triggers are events that make us feel out of control.
For example, one of my triggers used to be slow drivers on the highway. I would instantly snap into fight mode and get angry. I’d drive too close to them or shake my fist (or special finger) at them, honk my horn, or speed past them in a fit of rage.
Sitting here calmly as I reflect back on my past, reactive self, I’m a little embarrassed and shocked remembering the actions I took while angry. That’s because I’m in a calm place and my fight mode is not initiated, so I have full control at the moment. I wouldn’t do any of those things when I’m in a healthy mental space—those choices don’t reflect the kind of person I want to be.
When we react from a place of fear and anger, we rarely feel good about the things we say and do.
How to Stop Being So Reactive and Respond to Stress More Calmly
We don’t have to let our fear and anger control us. At any time, we can make a choice to respond to life from a calmer place. Here’s how.
Prioritize self-care so you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed, exhausted, or on the verge of snapping.
If you overextend yourself or regularly neglect your needs, you’ll likely feel triggered by even minor annoyances because your default state will be imbalance and agitation. And you’ll find it nearly impossible to handle major issues because you won’t have the inner strength to handle them. Take good care of yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally, and everything will feel more manageable.
Set yourself up to not be reactive by identifying your stress triggers.
What things lead you to react in anger or fear? Awareness is key here! Create a list of things that you know trigger you, and why.
Then describe how you typically react when those triggers occur.
For example, a trigger of mine has always been other people getting angry at little things that I don’t think warrant being angry about.
Funny enough, my reaction to their anger was anger! I would get mad that they are angry and yell at them to be calm. Obviously, this strategy didn’t work for me.
Then ask yourself, “How do I want to respond instead”?
As I reflected on how I usually reacted to my triggers, I realized I would rather remain composed than lose my cool and flip out. If I could pick any response to other people being angry, it would be for me to stay calm and in control.
And that’s one of the main reasons I realized I have such a strong reaction to other people’s anger. I think that the “right” way to be in this world is to be calm, kind, and compassionate. When someone reacts in the polar opposite way, it conflicts with my values, and ironically, I end up getting angry with them.
This is why this step is so important. We often react in ways that are not in tune with our values when emotions are running high, so we need to consciously decide, in advance, how we want to respond in stressful situations.
From there, think about what you are trying to control that you have no control over.
At a certain point, I realized that some people are going to get angry, and I won’t agree with their behavior. My anger stemmed from judging their reactions and wanting to control how they were feeling and behaving. I have no control over other people. I may be able to influence them, but I will never be able to control them.
If traffic triggers you, you may be trying to control your time because being delayed makes you feel anxious. If chaos triggers you, you may be trying to control your environment to create a sense of safety. If angry people trigger you, you may be trying to control how other people react and experience stressful situations.
Now, ask yourself, “What do I have control over?
Since I don’t have control over what other people do, and wanting to control them was creating anger within me, in order to reach my desired response of staying calm and in control I had to shift my focus to myself. Because the only thing I have control over is what I do.
So when someone else is angry and I think they’re overreacting, I can take some deep breaths, step away from the situation, and ask the other person how I can help (in an effort to help calm them), or just sit back and allow them to process the situation however they need to in that moment.
I started to notice that as I stopped reacting to anger with anger, the people around me showed less anger over time. And when they did get angry, they didn’t stay angry as long.
I started to realize that they were often mimicking me, whether they realized it or not. Of course, part of it was that I was no longer adding to the anger and fueling it from my end too. But seeing what it looks like to stay calm and in control is an important skill to witness. It shows others what it looks like so they can do the same.
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We all get triggered at times, but we don’t have to say and do things we regret, which will ultimately damage our relationships and leave us feeling bad about ourselves. With a little self-awareness, we can stop reacting on autopilot and start responding to life from a calm, neutral place. Maybe not all the time, but more often than not, and we’ll feel a lot more peaceful and in control as a result!
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How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body
“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.” ~Unknown
I began the morning with a meditation. After taking my dog out and brewing the coffee, I sat in my sunny living room, my little dog Frankie nestled beside me. I perched cross-legged, a blue pillow on my lap for warmth. I closed my eyes and began to focus on my breath.
When ten minutes passed, I raised my hands in appreciation. “Thank you for this day. Thank you for my family and for our health. Give me strength, wisdom, and love.” Then I extended my hands forward, “So that I may give strength, wisdom, and love.” Finally, I stretched both arms out sideways, wiggling my fingers in my peripheral vision, a reminder to be fully aware. This is how I start every day.
It wasn’t always this way. My older brother Marc tried to get me to meditate when I was fourteen. Although he was a patient teacher, I didn’t understand the point of the exercise.
“Let’s sit together. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.”
“Why do I have to do this?
“Just sit, Lise. It’s good for you to learn. We will do it together.”
“OK, but why?”
Marc tried, but I resisted. I stopped meditating as soon as he went back to college.
Years later, as part of my psychology training, I took classes which touted meditation as a stress-reducing technique. During the classes, there were demonstrations which I always enjoyed. I sat back, breathed deeply, and felt a deep flow of relaxation inside me. But, back home, I had no follow-through. Once the classes were over, so was my meditation.
My breakthrough into daily meditation happened in 2020, one of the few good things that arose from that dreadful year. I was home, virtually every minute of my life. I didn’t have to dash from of the house, brave traffic, and arrive at the office by 9:00. Mornings stretched more languidly. It was easier to find those ten minutes to breathe every morning.
Now I sit every day. I scan through my body, noting points of tension, areas of pain and pressure. Simple awareness of the tension shifts any pain, and my body settles.
My mind, free from my constant to-do lists, drifts along, as if floating on the waves of a gentle sea. I hear the sounds of the house around me, the heater outside, working mightily to warm our home; Frankie the dog beside me, sighing. My stomach muscles unclench. I notice thoughts drifting in. I don’t attend to them. The thoughts fade away. Peace.
Of course, that’s when meditation goes well. Sometimes every minute slogs on. My scalps itches. “I forgot to return that phone call,” I think, and my body tenses into high alert. “Oh no, I have to write that woman back!” My throat tightens. “What if that editor doesn’t like my submission?” My stomach jams into a knot. I cannot let these thoughts go. “I suck at meditation. Why can’t I just breathe? When will these ten minutes be over?”
Sometimes meditation goes like this. It isn’t always peaceful, and it doesn’t always feel good. The key, I’m told, is to keep at it. Like any skill, the more we practice, the better we get at it. It is no accident that we say one “practices meditation.” I didn’t get decent at writing in one year either.
If you are like the fourteen-year-old me, you might be asking, why meditate at all? There are so many benefits I don’t even know where to begin; here is a partial list. Meditation…
- Soothes anxiety: When you learn to focus the mind, your thoughts don’t spin off into anxious “what-ifs,” spiraling into anxious ruminations.
- Calms anger: Focusing on breathing calms the mind, stopping our internal tirades over people who have wronged us.
- Improves the immune system: The body is not designed to be in a constant “fight or flight” mode. When we are tense, our immune system works poorly. When we relax, our immune system resumes its work.
- Lowers blood pressure: Meditation is a proven technique for improving hypertension.
- Manages emotional reactivity: This is a big one. It is easy for me, sensitive soul that I am, to feel hurt and wounded by other people. Meditation allows me to detach from the provocations of the moment, and to tap into inner peace. Once I have calmed myself, I find freedom from reacting emotionally. I can bring more thoughtfulness and wisdom to my relationships.
Happily, the benefits of meditation extend past the ten minutes into the whole day.
Now that I practice regularly, I notice when my shoulders leap to attention. With mindfulness, I can lower those shoulders down.
I notice when my stomach tenses up, and I can breathe that tension away.
I notice when my mind anxiously swirls around my to-do list and I can tell my mind to relax.
The awareness that comes from a regular ten-minute mediation follows me throughout my day, helping me stay calmer and more serene.
A while ago, I was getting ready for a radio interview, as part of my recent book promotion. I had an hour to spare, and I thought I’d make a quick phone call to an insurance company.
This “quick” phone call dragged into an infuriating forty minutes. I was on hold, listening to inane music, on some incessant torture loop. Finally, the customer service rep came on, but we had with a terrible connection. I could barely hear her, as she was undoubtedly on another continent, and I couldn’t understand her either.
After a brief exchange, which I barely fathomed, she declared she couldn’t help me. I got off the phone in disgust.
“I’m so aggravated! I just wasted an hour on the phone with this stupid company and now I have an interview in fifteen minutes. What a colossal waste of time! I have this radio interview and I am so upset I can barely think!”
My husband gazed at me. “Why don’t you do your meditation thing?”
I glared at him. I really just wanted to righteously complain. But my husband was right; I was a wreck.
I sat in my bedroom and closed my eyes, focusing on my breath. Immediately I sensed my body’s distress. My heart rate was elevated. I breathed rapidly. My shoulders were raised and my stomach was in spasm.
“My god,” I thought. “My body is completely dysregulated, all from one stupid phone call.”
Quietly, I focused. I felt my muscles relaxing and my heart rate slowing. I ended the meditation, feeling like a different woman, and started the interview with a smile on my face.
That is the power of a regular ten-minute meditation practice.
Let’s be clear. Everyone, no matter how busy, has ten minutes to spare. You can do this, and build yourself a calmer, more peaceful life, in a healthier body.
One final tip: it is best to find a regular time of day for your meditation practice. Do your breathing every morning, or every bedtime, or every evening after work. Otherwise, you will keep putting it off until later. If you are like me, you might even put it off for forty years.
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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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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!
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Develop Self-Awareness and Improve Your Relationships
“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” -Gandhi
The other day I got upset over something silly that triggered difficult feelings with deep roots from my past.
In short, someone I love made a reasonable request that, for various reasons, I didn’t want to honor, partly because I felt this person wasn’t taking my feelings into account. But I had no good reason to suspect this.
I thought this because it’s a pattern for me.
For most of my young life, I believed my needs wouldn’t be met if I didn’t push and fight for them.
I saw everything as a battle—it was everyone else against me. Though I’ve learned to see others as on my side, and I know that I’m on theirs, I still worry that people aren’t looking out for me at times.
In the aftermath of this recent altercation, I talked through my feelings with my boyfriend.
I told him I understood my emotional response, and I knew where it came from—when I first felt this way and why and how it’s been a pattern in my life.
Then I posed a question: In recognizing where and how I learned this behavior, am I blaming people and circumstances from my past or merely being self-aware? What, exactly, is the difference?
I think it’s an important question to ask, because we’ve all been wronged before.
We do ourselves a disservice if we sit around blaming other people for our maladaptive reactions and behaviors, but sometimes we’re better able to change when we understand how we developed in response to former relationships and prior events.
I’ve spent a lot of time learning to let go of victim stories, which is a big part of why I don’t write about some of the most painful events of my life. Still, for better or for worse, they shaped who I am.
When I allow myself to look back and acknowledge wrong-doing, I reinforce to myself that I did not deserve to be mistreated, and that it’s not my fault that I struggle in certain ways as a result.
I know, however, that it is my responsibility to change my responses and behaviors. And that, right there, is the difference between self-awareness and self-victimization.
Self-awareness allows us to understand what’s going on in our heads and why; self-victimization prevents us from accepting that we’re responsible for it, and for what we do as a result. (more…)