Tiny Buddha

Tag: self-compassion

  • Why It’s Worth the Temporary Discomfort of Sitting with Intense Emotions

    Why It’s Worth the Temporary Discomfort of Sitting with Intense Emotions

    “Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass.”  ~Lori Deschene

    Can you feel an intense emotion, like anger, without acting on it, reacting to it, or trying to get rid of it?

    Can you feel such an intense emotion without needing to justify or explain it—or needing to find someone or something to blame it on?

    After successfully dodging it for two years, I recently caught Covid-19. The physical symptoms were utter misery. But something much more interesting happened while I was unwell.

    The whole experience brought some intense emotions to the surface. Namely, seething anger about something that had nothing to do with the virus.

    In the handful of days that my symptoms were at their worst, I was absolutely livid. And while on some level it made sense that I was angry that getting this sick was both extremely unpleasant and delaying work on a project I was all fired up about, the anger was manifesting with a deeper-rooted blame.

    I grew up in a religious denomination that had a profound effect on my childhood and adolescence. It taught me through debilitating fear, division, and confusion. It ingrained black-and-white rights and wrongs for living, thinking, and being that had never made sufficient sense to me, no one could adequately explain, and were damaging for me on a number of levels.

    In the past couple of years, I worked through its various effects with shadow work, inner child healing, forgiveness, and even quantum energetic healing. Each of these modalities supported me immensely with healing different layers.

    But the emotion of deep anger I harbored clearly hadn’t gone away, and it simply needed to be felt.

    The more we learn to observe and witness our emotions, the more acutely aware we become of where they’re stemming from, and the more we’re able to notice and catch ourselves when we’re associating our emotions with narratives and situations that are not in fact to blame for how we’re feeling.

    Although I’d initially managed to fashion some connection between being unwell and the church I still harbored so much anger toward, I became increasingly aware that there was none. My inclination to blame the church was part of an ongoing pattern. And it was time to break this pattern.

    At the same time, I’d recently become very aware that whenever I’d hear mention of the church or any of its associated beliefs, a brief surge of anger would leap up in me. I was still feeling triggered.

    I was very ready to move beyond these patterns of blame and anger. And getting to that inner peace I so wanted to feel meant addressing this on an emotional level. I realized that what I needed was to actually sit with these feelings so they could be fully acknowledged and allowed to move through me.

    The only person who is ever responsible for your emotions is you. And your emotions are simply powerful feedback. They show up for one of two dominant reasons.

    Either they’re unresolved past emotions that are surfacing because they’re ready to be acknowledged and felt now, or they’re feelings that demonstrate how a situation is resonating for you—in other words, they’re your own inner compass.

    Sadly, although traditions like Buddhism have been teaching us how to develop emotional awareness for thousands of years, we’ve somehow landed on two dominant, ineffective responses.

    Acting on our emotions or trying to brush them under the rug.

    Brushing an emotion under the rug will only keep it trapped inside of you. Meaning it will resurface to bother you as many times as it needs to in the future until you deal with it.

    And the practices of toxic positivity fall under this category. Write a gratitude list and look for the best-feeling thought you can find, they say. In other words, avoid the “negative” emotion for now and let it fester under the surface a little while longer.

    Newsflash: No emotion is negative unless it’s fueling a negative action or reaction. It’s simply feedback pointing you toward growth or clarity.

    Which brings me to the next dominant response we resort to. Acting on the emotion (by yelling at someone, for example) will at least give it an opportunity to release but will most likely create consequences that won’t serve you. We’ve all been there and done that, so no judgment here.

    As I emphasized earlier, the only person who’s ever responsible for your emotions is you. And we tend to act on our emotions by deflecting this responsibility. So we learn, understand, and gain nothing from them.

    So, I sat with the anger. I was fully present with it—by itself, separate from any experience or event that I could possibly associate it with.

    I acknowledged it, felt its full intensity, and breathed through it. I sat with the parts of me that felt this emotion with compassion. I surrendered to letting it move through me.

    Despite having felt the intensity of this anger for a few days, it released fairly quickly when I leaned into it. And when it released, I was able to see pretty clearly why being ill had triggered this anger.

    I’ve also noticed that since this whole experience, the little surges of anger I’d previously felt have gone away. So far I haven’t felt those triggers since, which is a relief.

    Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that many of us are carrying deep trauma that’s often too painful to even fathom triggering. So have compassion for yourself in whatever you feel, and don’t put off seeking the right support to work through your emotions if you feel you need this.

    Now, this might sound counterintuitive, and it’s incredibly uncomfortable to do at first. But real emotional awareness—and maturity—means sitting with the emotion and feeling its fullness.

    It’s identifying what this emotion is and how it feels. Including where you can feel it physically.

    It’s giving yourself some time and space to focus on really leaning into the emotion and separating it from any narrative or incident it may be associated with. Focusing on the emotion by itself in isolation allows us to process it. Without blame, justification, or self-pity.

    When you can truly feel, acknowledge, and breathe through it, it releases. And when it’s released, you’re able to understand what it represented for you. You grow through it.

    This may take time, but a feeling is only ever there to be felt. And until it is, it will be increasingly vociferous in how it tries to get your attention.

    This can require a lot of courage, especially because too many of us have been conditioned to fear feeling our emotions and believe that we can’t handle them.

    But if you need to cry, cry. If it feels intense, this is where deeply buried stuff is surfacing for release.

    And when you let an emotion move through you, you let it move out of you.

    This doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel another “negative” emotion ever again.

    But it does mean that you’ll understand how to respond to these emotions and allow them to be felt and understood with a lot more compassion.

    And that’s more than worth the temporary discomfort.

  • The Unconscious Vows We Make to Ourselves So the World Can’t Hurt Us

    The Unconscious Vows We Make to Ourselves So the World Can’t Hurt Us

    “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” ~Jonathan Safron Foer

    Are you aware that we all make unconscious vows early on, and they become our internal blueprint for life? These vows dictate who we can be and are often deeply engrained.

    Our vows are attached to a deeper need we’re trying to meet—the need for love, acceptance, safety, connection, and security. They’re not bad or wrong, and neither are we for having them; they come from a smart part of us that’s trying to help us feel safe.

    Vows are more than a belief; vows are a “never again” thing or “this is the only way to be because my survival is at stake.” 

    What is a vow, you may ask? Well, let me paint a picture for you.

    When I was a little girl, I was teased for being fat, stupid, and ugly. Soon enough, I started blaming my body for being hurt and teased. I thought that because I was “fat, stupid, and ugly” there was something wrong with me, and that was why I didn’t have any friends.

    At age thirteen my doctor told me to go on a diet, and that’s when I started to believe that I was a “defect” because I was fat. At that point I made a vow: “I will never be fat again.”

    I started cutting back on my food, I became a maniac exerciser, and being thin became the only thing that mattered

    Then, at age fifteen, I entered my first hospital for anorexia, and for over twenty-three years I was in therapy and numerous hospitals and treatment centers. No matter how much weight I gained in these programs, when I left, I went right back to losing weight by limiting my food intake and exercising excessively because I’d vowed to myself “I’ll never be fat again.”

    The process of gaining weight only added to the trauma and fears I was already experiencing. Instead of being compassionate and understanding and helping me offer love to the parts of myself that were hurting, staffers “punished” me when I didn’t eat my whole tray of food by taking away my privileges and upping my meds.

    When we experience trauma like I did as a child, it’s not what happened to us that stays with us; it’s the vows we made and what we concluded it meant about ourselves, others, and life in general that stay.

    We concluded who we needed to be in order to be loved and accepted by our family, and that became our unconscious blueprint that started dictating our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

    “I will never be fat again because if I am I won’t be loved and accepted” was a trauma response, which turned into a vow that carried a lot of fear and anxiety. I used undereating and compulsive exercising as survival tools, and I would not let go of this pattern no matter how much anyone told me I needed to.

    If I couldn’t exercise, especially after I ate, my heart would race and I would panic, sweat, and shake. Those symptoms were my body signaling to me that I needed to exercise so I wouldn’t get fat

    This was the only way I knew how to be. I was living in a trance, an automatic conditioned response. And no matter how much conscious effort I exerted to change my habitual ways, something inside would bring me back to limiting my food intake and exercising excessively.

    When we’re forced to let go of our survival mechanisms without healing the inner affliction, it feels like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute; it’s scary and overwhelming. This was why I became suicidal, too, especially when I perceived I was getting fat again; I would rather leave my body than be traumatized and teased.

    Eating disorders, addictions, depression, anxiety, pain, or illness are often symptoms showing us where our energy is frozen in time, where we’re carrying deep wounds and holding onto vows we made from traumatic or painful experiences.

    When someone is anxious or depressed, it may be because they’re not living their truth, and this may be because they feel they’re not allowed to. They may think they need to meet everyone else’s expectations, because if they don’t, they may be punished and/or abandoned. 

    They may use food, drugs, smoking, or drinking as a way to find ease with what they’re feeling and experiencing. They may be using a substance to numb the pain stemming from traumatic experiences or from the idea of not being “perfect” or not feeling “good enough.”

    Why is it hard for some people to love themselves and ask for what they want and need? Because, if you’re like me, you may have been screamed at or called selfish for doing these things when you were a child, so you may have made the unconscious vow “I’m not allowed to ask for anything or take care of or love myself.”

    The habits and behaviors we can’t stop engaging in, no matter how hard we try and how destructive or limiting they may be, are meeting a need. The goal isn’t to override our impulses and change the behavior; instead, a better approach is to understand why they exist in the first place and help that part of ourselves feel loved and safe.

    No matter how many affirmations we say or how much mindset work we do, our survival mechanisms and vows are more powerful, so a part of us will resist change even if it’s healthy.

    Often, when I’m working with a client who struggles with addiction, anxiety, depression, and/or loving themselves and allowing themselves to have fun, when we go inside and find the root cause, it’s because of a vow they made when they were little, when they were either being screamed at, teased, left alone, or punished.

    They concluded that they were bad or wrong for being true to themselves, asking for things, or wanting to be held and loved. They learned that having needs and acting naturally wasn’t okay, so they started suppressing that energy, which created their symptoms as adults.

    “I don’t need anyone; I’m fine alone” may be a vow and a way to protect ourselves from being hurt again. The challenge with this is that, as humans, we need approval and validation; we need love and caring. This is healthy and what helps us thrive and survive as human beings.

    When trauma gets stored in our body, we feel unsafe. Until we resolve it and reconnect with a feeling of safety in the area(s) where we were traumatized, we’ll remain in a constant state of fight/flight/freeze, be hypersensitive and overreactive, take everything personally, and seek potential threats, which makes it difficult to move on from the initial occurrence.

    So, how do we see what vows are dictating our life journey?

    We can notice our unconscious vows by being with the parts of ourselves that are afraid. They often come as feelings or symptoms in the body. For instance, I would panic, sweat, and shake if I couldn’t exercise, especially after I ate.

    When I sat with this part of myself with unconditional love and acceptance and a desire to understand where it originated, instead of using exercise to run away, it communicated to me why it was afraid. It brought me back to where it all began and said, “If I’m fat I’ll be teased, abandoned, and rejected, and I want to be loved and accepted.”

    Healing is about releasing that pent up energy that’s stored in the body and making peace with ourselves and our traumas.

    Healing is about reminding our bodies that the painful/traumatic event(s) are no longer happening; it’s learning how to comfort ourselves when we’re afraid and learning emotional regulation.

    Healing is about getting clear about where the hurt is coming from; otherwise, we’ll spend our time going over the details and continuously get triggered because we never get to the real source.

    Healing is not about forcing; it’s about accepting what’s happening. It’s a kind, gentle, and loving approach. We’re working with tender parts that have been traumatized and hurt. These parts don’t need to be pushed or told how to be. They need compassion; they need to be seen, heard, loved, and accepted; they need our loving attention so they can feel safe and at ease.

    They’ve been hiding; in a sense they’ve been disconnected. When we acknowledge them and bring them into our hearts, we experience a loving integration. When we experience a loving integration we experience a true homecoming, and in that we experience a sense of inner peace. Then we more naturally start taking loving care of ourselves and making healthy choices.

  • 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.

  • The Difference Between Easy and Hard Self-Care and Why Both Matter

    The Difference Between Easy and Hard Self-Care and Why Both Matter

    “Sometimes you’ve got to look straight into the tired eyes of the woman staring back at you in the mirror and tell her that she deserves the best kind of love, the best kind of life, and devote yourself to giving it to her all over again.” ~S.C. Lourie

    Self-care. An important concept that has become a buzzword. What does it mean? The answer… that depends on you. Google and you will find lists, articles, and suggestions for self-care tasks. These can be helpful as inspiration, but self-care is something that’s unique to you.

    I work in suicide prevention and mental health promotion. I talk about self-care a lot. I encourage others to engage in self-care regularly. I have them make lists with self-care tasks that are meaningful to them. You’d imagine I’d be an expert in self-care. Am I?  No. But I’m working on it. And I’m way better than I used to be.

    How did I get better? I started doing the hard self-care.

    What’s the difference between easy and hard self-care?

    Easy self-care for me is things like a hot bath or shower. Hiking with my family on the weekends. Texting my sister about daily frustrations. Baking sourdough. Practicing meditation.

    The easy self-care is doing the things that fill your bucket, the things you make time for without excuses and that make you feel better in the moment.

    This is the first type of self-care I focused on when I was feeling burnt out. Most of my twenties consisted of my working several jobs at a time, filling my unpaid time with volunteer work and seeing friends, going out, staying so busy that I didn’t realize I was worn out. I was known to use the mantra “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

    It was when my thirties hit that the mantra started to feel too real.

    I had my first child at thirty and my second child at thirty-four, and the go-go-go lifestyle started catching up to me. Working full-time, volunteering, seeing friends, never saying no, and staying busy hit different with two kids and a partner who worked shifts.

    I was tired—all the time. The kind of tired that sleep doesn’t touch. The kind of tired that had me sobbing at the dinner table because I didn’t know where I’d find the energy to do the bedtime routine. The kind of tired that had me begging my doctor for tests and wishing he would find something wrong so that I could fix whatever was sucking my energy.

    I was getting strep throat every other month. I was having stomach issues. I was burnt out and not well.  I would be so exhausted that I didn’t have energy for my kids at the end of the workday. The kind of exhausted that no number of hot showers or meditation was fixing.

    I had been to my doctor several times in eight years, explaining my symptoms, and was turned away with the rationale that I had young kids; I should expect to be tired.

    At some point, I decided that this was unacceptable. I declared 2019 to be the year of health for myself and booked an appointment with a naturopath. In my first appointment, she asked me to rate my energy levels on average each day from a scale of one to ten.

    I told her that on average, my energy levels were at a two, but sometimes I would be a three on a good day.

    She looked at me in shock and clarified: “You are a two on average, on a daily basis?”

    I said, “Yes.”

    She told me, “Honey, this is not normal.”

    I burst into tears: I felt validated; I felt seen and not ignored. Fast forward to a few rounds of bloodwork, and I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, which explained many of the symptoms I had been struggling with, including the crushing fatigue that left me in tears most days.

    This is where the hard self-care kicked in. Hot baths, meditation, baking sourdough—all things that continue to fill my bucket and that help me to feel better—were important. But the self-care I needed to feel better in the long run, to have energy for my family, to live life instead of getting through life—the hard stuff—this is where I shifted.

    Knowing that I could make changes to how I was taking care of myself was empowering. I finally felt like I had some control over how I was feeling. And shifting my perspective to see this as a part of self-care helped me to prioritize the hard stuff.

    Advocating to my healthcare providers, changing my diet and how I exercise, changing how I rest and recharge my body, setting boundaries, choosing what I use my energy for—these are necessary choices to alter my symptoms and help me to feel better, but they do not come easily for me. Yet, they are all a part of my own self-care. If I wanted to feel well, I needed to start doing these things—and continue to do them if I wanted to continue feeling better.

    And I do feel better. I am now on thyroid medication. I know that dairy makes me feel not great. I can now feel when I’m going into a Hashimoto’s flare, and I know when I need to rest more.

    I know what exercise is helpful for me, and what makes me feel worse.

    I am honest with my partner when I need him to take on more so I can rest.

    I know the difference in my body when I am tired vs. fatigued, and I can take action for both of those feelings.

    Doing the hard self-care over the last three years has been worth the work for how I feel overall.  

    The hard self-care will likely always be something that I’m working on. Some of the hardest things have become much easier as I practice them.

    I’m much more likely to advocate for my health with my doctor than I was three years ago. I am much more confident to set boundaries at work with my hours and my capacity. I am much better at listening to my body and accepting the need for rest.

    I still have internal arguments with myself in terms of pushing myself to be productive (my trick is writing “rest” on my to-do list—it helps me reframe rest as productive instead of lazy!), but where I am now is vastly different from where I was just a few years ago.

    When I talk to others about self-care, I encourage them to think about the self-care that’s easy for them, and to also consider the harder self-care. Both are important and necessary to make sure you are honoring yourself.

    How?

    Start today.

    1. Think of one easy self-care task you can do right now (or today) that fills your bucket, and will help you to feel good, or better, in this moment.

    2. Think of one hard self-care task that you want to take on. It could be something like making an appointment you’ve been putting off or considering how to set a boundary that’s been difficult for you. It could even be something like drinking more water—that can be so difficult for some people, while it sounds easy.

    3. Be kind to yourself. Know that everyone’s journey is different. What’s hard for you might be easy for others, and vice versa. Self-care is individual, and some of us have privilege to prioritize self-care in some ways that others do not.

    It might not be easy, but you will start to see how things can start to change when you put yourself on your to-do list.

  • How Our Self-Talk and Language Can Sabotage or Support Us

    How Our Self-Talk and Language Can Sabotage or Support Us

    “Today I want you to think about all that you are instead of all that you are not.” ~Unknown

    “Love the pinecones!”

    This was a comment from a friend on one of my Facebook photos from a beautiful seaside hike filled with wildflowers and other natural wonders.

    When I responded with “It was a puzzle figuring out how to best photograph them” (not what I originally planned to write), she wrote, “Gregg, that’s such a fun part, isn’t it?” That comment was the brightening of a bulb that had already been going off in my head. It led to deeper self-reflection and awareness around my own self-talk patterns.

    We’ve all heard that how we speak to ourselves has a huge impact on our life. If your self-talk is largely negative, it lowers your self-confidence, drive, creativity, spirit, and enthusiasm for life. In short, it limits your self-expression and access to joy. If your self-talk is compassionate, understanding, and loving, it helps you to move through your life with much greater flow and ease.

    There are the more obvious ways negative language patterns show up, and then there are more hidden, subtle, or unconscious ways. Amongst the more obvious are the habitual ways we berate ourselves or call ourselves names.

    For example, if you are making dinner and just as you finish you knock the whole thing on the floor, how might you respond? It makes total sense to be upset or disappointed, but how does that upset manifest within you?

    Perhaps you think, “Geez, I’m such an idiot!” or “I’m so stupid!” If so, rather than simply expressing your disappointment over the action or result, you are taking one moment in your life and using that to malign yourself at your core.

    Even calling yourself clumsy can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe you feel it’s actually true. Perhaps others have told you that as well. The thing is, whatever we choose to tell ourselves, whether unkind or gracious, our brain looks for ways to prove those thoughts are true.

    You can acknowledge a mistake, express frustration over an experience, or even decide you want to be more careful in the future, all without casting aspersions on yourself. Name-calling or harsh language directed at ourselves is an example of the more readily visible forms of self-talk. But what about those hidden or unconscious patterns?

    That kind of negative self-talk can be far more insidious and more prevalent than you may suspect. I know it was for me. It’s something I’ve been internally exploring lately and why I was struck with my friend’s comment on my post. Discovering the hidden ways I hold myself small has led to developing more empowering language that serves me on a daily basis.

    Though I was affected by ADD (attention deficit disorder) my whole life, it was not until I was in my forties that I was diagnosed. The first book I read on the topic and perhaps my favorite is called You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?

    I loved the lessons I got from the book and all that I learned about the workings of my brain. For several years, though, I felt at odds with the title. After all, I reasoned, I never spoke of myself in those pejorative terms. At least not that I was consciously aware of anyway.

    Over time, though, I realized there is a part of my brain that has been actively trying to prove I’m not those things. And if part of my brain is trying to prove I’m not that, then another part must in some way be telling me that I am lazy, crazy, or stupid. That’s when I decided it would be helpful to start consciously examining my unconscious patterns for the voice in my head.

    I’ve noticed my persistent stories of “I don’t know how” or “it will be too hard,” which have been a mantra in my head since childhood. I’ve long been mired in those stories, though they can show up in sneaky ways.  For example, if I see a picture of a place I’ve never been, I have a habit of thinking with melancholy “I’ve never been there” or even feeling jealousy or envy for the photographer.

    While it’s not wrong to have such thoughts, and it makes sense for them to come up from time to time, I noticed I was letting a beautiful photograph put me in a state of dissatisfaction, or even feeling sorry for myself. I was perpetuating limiting patterns of victim stories instead of empowering myself. I decided when I recognized that pattern to play with new thoughts.

    That might involve using that beautiful photograph of a place I’ve never been to remind myself of all the amazing places I have been. Or it might be feeling a sense of joy that such places exist or gratitude that others get to enjoy them.

    Or it could be as simple as thinking, “Oh that looks so interesting.” Or even “How do I get there?” That last one could be said with an air of resignation as a way of holding myself small and complaining, or it could be excitement over the possibility, all depending on how I choose to hold that thought.

    It’s not just the specific words we use but what meanings we ascribe to them that give them their energy and power. I’ve found it invaluable to notice my energy as well as the words I choose.

    With the Facebook exchange about my picture and the puzzle of figuring out how to best photograph the pinecones, my first thought was to write, “I was struggling to figure out how to photograph them.”

    But then I thought, “Why am I saying it that way?” I did not feel in struggle. Why would I want to frame it that way to myself or anyone else? So I altered the wording. That change definitely felt more empowered and certainly less stuck in victim mode. But again, it’s not just the words, but noticing the energy as well.

    Because depending on how I choose to hold it, “a puzzle” could be a game or it could be a chore. I was already leaning toward the more positive aspect but with residue from my initial thought of “struggle.”

    So when my friend chimed in with “Gregg, that’s such a fun part, isn’t it?”, I felt light, happy, and energized. And in all honesty, I initially felt a little bit of embarrassment too. Because it really highlighted for me the heavier energy I had been unconsciously creating over an experience I had thoroughly enjoyed.

    That awareness brought excitement for the deepening realization over the ways I can allow my word patterns to create disappointment and sadness or excitement and joy in my nervous system.

    It’s not just about whether we overtly beat ourselves up but what patterns we use. I’ve had a lot of unconscious patterns that have kept me in the mode of victim of the world rather than the creator of my life.

    It’s an awareness that I am continuing to deepen. As I do, I notice I feel more resilient, get stuck in negative emotions for shorter periods of time, and have more access to joy and aliveness. In an instant I can change how I feel just by the way I speak to and about myself.

    You can create that for yourself as well. Here are a few steps to do so. Outside of step one, they are not in chronological order and may even happen simultaneously.

    1. Start simply by slowing down and noticing your patterns.

    Do you berate yourself? Do you use words that feel untrue or create some kind of internal discord or discomfort that would not otherwise exist, as I had when I was going to use the word “struggle”? If so, explore how you can change those patterns and choose more empowering phrasing.

    This is not about denying that sometimes we do struggle or feel sad or have hard things happen. But you might find that your language actually influences your perception and your feelings about your circumstances. You can view the same situation as an obligation or an opportunity; it all depends on how you choose to see it and talk about it.

    2. Revise your word choice.

    On my journey of monitoring my patterns, I noticed that I’d write things like “I can’t figure out xyz” when, for example, I wrote to a company asking for technical support. The word “can’t” has such a disempowering connotation. So I started changing my word choice to things like, “I would like your help to figure out…” or “I would like to understand how to xyz.” This difference can seem subtle, but the impact on my psyche was immense.

    With the word “can’t” I was literally stating I’m incapable of something, whereas in the other two examples, I’m simply acknowledging information that I lack. Which of those feels more empowering to you?

    The language can seem new and uncomfortable or foreign at first. Perhaps you don’t feel sure how to make the shift. Again, the first step is simply to notice. The more awareness you create, the more your brain will automatically start looking for ways to shift toward your desired outcome.

    In the meantime, if you feel comfortable sharing your journey, you can ask a trusted friend, family member, or coach to point out disempowering language when you use it.

    3. Notice how your word choice affects your energy.

    In the example above about asking for technical support, I noticed how my habit of saying “I can’t figure out how to xyz” was subtly chipping away at my self-confidence. It kept me in a state of frustration and my energy small and insecure.

    Making the change to “I would like to understand how to xyz” felt more expansive. I was declaring a desire to make a change rather than declaring what I was not capable of. That feels more empowering in my nervous system, but still not with the aliveness I’d most desire. Now I’d say something more akin to “I’m learning your system” or “I’m gaining clarity around your system. Please explain to me how to xyz.”

    Sharing in that way, I’m speaking to my growth instead of declaring a deficit. In my body, that last one feels powerful and assertive while still asking for the support I need. What feels most powerful for you?

    4. Be kind and compassionate with yourself.

    Don’t expect perfection. Be compassionate with yourself. If you notice you’re reverting to old patterns, rather than berate yourself, use it as an opportunity to be excited. Because it means you are noticing. As in meditation, the idea is to notice your wandering thoughts and come back. Each time you notice you are creating an opportunity for new and more empowering patterns to flow.

    It can be like learning a foreign language. Because in a sense you are. And just like learning any new language can open up whole new avenues of possibility, this one will as well, releasing shame and self-judgment while brightening and uplifting your world.

    For myself, changing my hidden patterns has helped mitigate the impact of historical victim stories that I’ve held. I feel more empowered, with greater energy to achieve my goals. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear what you are noticing.

  • If You’re Afraid to Ask for Help Because You Don’t Trust People

    If You’re Afraid to Ask for Help Because You Don’t Trust People

    “Ask for help. Not because you are weak. But because you want to remain strong.” ~Les Brown

    I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting—linen gown hanging off me, half exposed—while going through the checklist in my mind of what I needed help with. I felt my breathing go shallow as I mentally sorted through the aches and pains I couldn’t seem to control.

    Fierce independence and learning to not rely on others are two of the side effects of my particular trauma wounds, stemming from early childhood neglect and abandonment. During times of heightened stress, my default state is one of significant distrust.

    Letting people in and asking for help has never been my strong suit.

    Not only did it prove painful at times, asking for help has also proven to be unsafe. I’ve been given poor and damaging advice from people I assumed knew more than me. I’ve emotionally attached to people who disappeared when I least expected it. I’ve been lied to, betrayed, and left behind when my help was no longer useful.

    I’ve been injured both physically and emotionally when relying on others to care for me and have been let down more times than I can possibly recall.

    I have plenty of reasons to convince myself that no one can help me. That I’m in this life all alone. Some days I feel just that.

    Other days, I sit in my doctor’s office ready to make myself vulnerable one more time looking for support that I’ve been unable to give myself. Hoping, fingers crossed, that maybe this time I’ll be seen, heard, and cared for.

    When the doctor walked in, I was writing a note on the depression screening form justifying why I feel sad some days. I know it’s normal to feel sad doing the work I do as a mental health therapist. Working with people’s sad can be sad. I wanted to be upfront.

    And also, I’ve been focusing on healing the trauma in my body that injured my nervous system starting in infancy. Actively inviting my body to retrieve its pain to set it free and regulate my system to a state that is considered normal. Except I don’t know what normal feels like.

    Her very first questions to me: “Are you getting back what you put into your work? Is it worth it?”

    I blink, unsure if I heard her correctly.

    “Are you asking me if the work I’m doing is more depleting than rewarding? Am I receiving as much as I’m giving?” I ask.

    “Yes,” she responds assuredly.

    I exhale.

    She sees me. She actually sees me. I ask myself this very question every day.

    This one question cracks me wide open. I know I can trust her.

    I hear words pouring out of my mouth explaining the work I’ve been doing with myself. My intention to heal my nervous system and my body, how hard it’s been to feel all the emotional pain that’s come up and the subsequent physical pain that comes and goes to remind me just how deep all this stuff runs.

    I shared with her my most recent discovery—my earliest known physical trauma at nine months old, when my mother gagged me to make me throw up to “protect” me.

    When her behavior was discovered, she was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric services for over a month. My brother and I were placed in the care of anyone who was available to watch us.

    At the most important time for healthy attachment and trust to form, I was taught that survival meant staying clear of those who are assigned to protect you. They can hurt you. And the world was not a safe place.

    This was the first of many experiences in my life that would drill in the same belief. My body spent years trying to protect me by tensing up, shaking, or wanting to flee when I sensed any kind of danger—being trapped, pressured, controlled, or trusting authority figures was high on my list of subconscious nos.

    To me, there was no logic to the way my body reacted to what seemed the smallest threat, so I shamed myself for it.

    I couldn’t understand why driving on the highway put me in an instant state of hypervigilance. Why I would wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe. Why the bright lights and enormous amount of stimuli in the grocery store made me freeze the moment I walked in. Why perceived conflict made me want to curl up into myself or attack and bail.

    All I knew was I was not “normal,” and I felt like I had no control over it.

    I recall the first infomercial that serendipitously came across the screen during a sleepless night while I was traveling in my early twenties. At the time I always slept with the television on to drown out the noise of my thoughts in the silence of night. A woman talked about her struggle with anxiety and the way it internally took over her life. I immediately tuned in.

    She was talking about me. She was talking about so many of us. I couldn’t believe someone understood what I desperately tried to hide and despised about myself.

    It was the first of many books, programs, methodologies, and practices I would try. It was the first time I felt seen and sought help.

    It wasn’t that I didn’t want help. I just didn’t trust it, nor was I comfortable with being vulnerable enough to ask for it. Particularly because I had proof that when I did rely on people, they could turn on me, or even worse, leave.

    And then there was the cultural push to just “suck it up” or accept that “it is what it is.” Key words to encourage us to abandon ourselves.

    Sucking it up is exhausting, and it doesn’t help. It doesn’t change what’s hard, and from what I can tell, years of sucking it up never made me stronger. Just more certain I was stuck in this mess of myself alone.

    Even though I help people for a living, and fully understand that I am the help I encourage people to seek, I forgot that I, too, was able to ask for help.

    This meant I had to have the courage to let my guard down. To let go of the feeling of burden I was afraid to put on another. To remember that every single one of us has our hardships, and we actually want to be needed and helpful to another when we have the space.

    It’s why we are here as humans. To give love and receive it. When I give someone the opportunity to love or support me, it gives them the chance to feel the fullness of my gratitude. To receive love back from me in return and feel needed and wanted as well. It is also the most solid reminder for both of us that we are never actually alone.

    We need each other.

    It is a practice for me to remember this. It’s also a practice to remind myself that I have been cared for far more often than I’ve been hurt. That those who have harmed me or left me had their own burdens to bear that I was not meant to be a part of. And that every time I do ask for help, like in my doctor’s office, and receive it wholeheartedly, I am able to keep myself filled and balanced to be able to help the people I care about even more.

    I exhaled when my doctor acknowledged me. I knew it was safe to let her in, yet I still swallowed tears while I did so. Her validation of my challenge felt comforting; her support, the extra oxygen I needed. Knowing the value of support has never made it easy for me to ask, but it has made it easier.

    As humans we are regularly encouraged to give, yet it is equally important to learn to receive. We need both to keep ourselves balanced and in flow so we can be the love we want to feel. To give is a powerful feeling, while receiving can make us feel a little vulnerable. That’s okay. The more courage we use to ask for help, the more strength we have to give out in return.

    If you are feeling resistance to seeking help, ask yourself where your fear lies. Is it a current concern or is it one from the past? Does vulnerability make you uneasy or bring up insecurities you have around being judged or feeling like a burden? Or do you feel it’s hard for you to let your guard down and trust another?

    When resistance lingers, choose people who’ve been loyal and consistently supportive in the past. If you don’t have any relationships like that, or if involving your personal relationships feels too uncomfortable, consider professional support. There are affordable and even free resources available, if money is an issue.

    The key is to remember that you, too, deserve a place to be you and invite in the help that everyone needs at times. To release your burdens so you can stand back up and move forward with more ease and a lighter load. So you have the strength to be a support for others and also for yourself.

    When feeling weighed down, ask for help—whatever that looks or feels like for you. The past may have taught you what you don’t want, but you have the power to choose what you do want in the present. There are people out there who you can rely on and who want to be there for you. They are simply waiting for you to ask.

    So go ahead and let someone in. No one needs to or is expected to navigate this wild life alone. Not even you.

  • How I Stopped Feeling Sorry for Myself and Shifted from Victim to Survivor

    How I Stopped Feeling Sorry for Myself and Shifted from Victim to Survivor

    “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.” ~Brené Brown

    There was a time when I felt really sorry for myself. I had good reason to be. My life had been grim. There had been so much tragedy in my life from a young age. I had lost all my grandparents young, lived in a home with alcoholism and domestic abuse, and to top it all off, my dad killed himself.

    I could write you a long list of how life did me wrong. I threw myself a pity party daily in my thirties, with a load of food and wine. The story I was telling myself was that all this bad stuff had happened and I was unlucky in life and love. I told myself my life was doomed.

    I believed if there was a God, he must have hated me because everybody around me had a perfect-looking life compared to me.

    I felt like I was the only person who felt like this and couldn’t see any goodness in my life. I kept telling myself I was destined to be lonely and unfulfilled in my work life because I was just not good enough.

    I took care of others in my family to give myself purpose, but inside I loathed it. It made me bitter and resentful. I didn’t do these things because I wanted to. I did them because I felt like I had to.

    I thought this was who I was meant to be—the side act in everyone else’s story.

    My peers were moving on with their lives, getting married, having babies, and buying houses. I was stuck in my pity party, in the sadness of the past, unable to move on. I felt like I did as a child—powerless, out of control of my life, and sad.

    For as long as I could remember I felt anxiety and sadness. I would distract myself from these uncomfortable feelings with other people, TV, busyness, food, and later in life, alcohol.

    I was a victim in childhood and then I continued to live as a victim into my thirties, blaming everyone else and God for my poor start in life. I blamed myself as well. If only I was enough, then my life would better.

    There came a time when I couldn’t carry on the way I had been and had to take responsibility for my own life. My own story. It was time to get out of my own way. I was hitting rock bottom, and the time had come to either fight for my own happiness or follow the road my dad had taken.

    My life felt pointless, but I finally listened to a voice within me that told me there was a way forward and got out of my own way.

    This was the start of my spiritual and healing journey.

    It all started with a simple internet search on how to feel better—mind, body, and soul.

    Amongst the tips I found was the suggestion to practice daily gratitude. I started by writing down everything I had in that moment.

    For a long time, I focused on all I didn’t have rather than what I did. But I had so much—great friendships, travel, love, a well-paid job, a nice home, and so much more. I ignored all the good stuff and it robbed me of what I did have. The present moment. But now my eyes were opening to all the light in my life.

    I began to see and appreciate sunsets and sunrises. I looked for the good everywhere. Even in the darkness. I was searching for the light in every day. The more I looked the more I found.

    I practiced gratitude when I found new information and practices. Podcasts, books, teachers, healers, therapy, and so much more. The more I said thank you, the more good things I found.

    The story I was telling myself was changing.

    Then I added meditation and mindfulness to my daily routine and began hearing my intuition more.

    Before all I could hear was my fear, but this inner whisper was getting louder. Ideas would pop into my head like “I just don’t love myself,” and then I would see a quote from Louise Hay that resonated on social media. One led me to her book You Can Heal Your Life. I implemented the strategies in her book and then more tiny steps occurred to me in the quiet.

    I said thank you every single time. I felt more supported by myself and the universe and less like a victim in my story.

    The better I felt on the inside, the more opportunities I noticed.  I saw a job I liked advertised and rather than letting fear stop me, I listened to my intuition, which guided me “to just try.”

    In the past I would have ignored it and thought “I wish.” This time I just went for it. Just like that I left a toxic work environment for a job more aligned with my values, offering more money.

    I attracted better relationships and in time found love. After searching for more ways to feel good on the inside and change the way I saw my life and my world, I incorporated daily affirmations and walks in nature.

    My reality kept changing as I changed within.  

    Have you ever noticed how your body feels when you say, “My life is crap”? Your body contracts and you can almost feel the fear rising. But when you tell yourself, “There’s a lot of good in my life,” your body almost expands, and you can breathe.

    Our words have a profound impact on us. Changing that narrative we tell ourselves changes everything.

    The new information that I discovered through my personal quest helped me to understand my past. I found people like Gabor Maté who explained concepts such as intergenerational trauma and addiction. This information helped me change the story I told myself around my childhood. It helped me understand my trauma.

    I remember knowing from my intuition that my relationship with my dad needed my attention. Then I saw an advertisement for a new book, Father Therapy, by Doreen Virtue, which led me to inner child work. This helped me heal my younger self.

    As I continued my quest to heal and feel better, I found new healing modalities like breathwork, EFT (emotional freedom tapping technique), and eye movement techniques.

    I said thank you again and again and again.

    All those years I spent as a victim to my story kept me stuck and unable to move forward. But now I was ready to change and expressing gratitude for the process. More was always finding its way to me. I now had so many tools that I never knew existed in the depths of my pity party.

    It was not easy. I cried. Fear took over some days and I couldn’t access my intuition. But I would just start my quest again the next day, journaling to connect with myself and see what had happened the day before. What my feelings were and what I needed.

    I showed myself love and compassion for my bad days and celebrated the good ones. No longer was I a victim of childhood abuse but a powerful survivor.

    Yes, bad things happened to me. But they are not who I am; they are just part of my story. That story is what led me here, to this place where I’m now writing to you. I hope to inspire you and show you that it is possible to change your story, whatever it is; that there is so much guidance and support available to you when you are ready to find it. You really will see it everywhere when you start paying attention.

    You too will see you also have an inner voice guiding you and access to everything you need to heal. When you start recognizing all the tools available to you, you’ll feel less alone and supported on your journey.

    I no longer feel bitter about my experiences in my childhood, but proud. They made me who I am and have allowed me to help many others on their journey to heal from their past.

    I have found forgiveness, love, and compassion for the people that hurt me, like my dad, which helps me feel happier. I didn’t have to forgive him. He did awful things, but I understand now they came from his trauma. This has given me great inner peace.

    It takes courage and time to transform on the inside and become a trauma cycle breaker in your family. This means that your children will have a different experience. How amazing is that? What a great gift to give them.

    The information, tips, guidance, and light are waiting for you to discover them. You just need to take the first step and decide to become the hero of your story and find your own heart’s happiness.

  • 3 Things I Realized When I Stopped People-Pleasing and Let Myself Receive

    3 Things I Realized When I Stopped People-Pleasing and Let Myself Receive

    “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.” ~Brene Brown

    The honest truth about needing to please is that we do it to make other people happy. We will sacrifice everything and anything to put a smile on another’s face and lighten their load, while ours keeps building.

    The only problem is that while helping others makes us feel good, it’s almost addictive until we are burnt out. And giving and pleasing others starts to come from a place of resentment.

    I’ve been there!

    There was a time when I used to come up with a thousand reasons why I couldn’t leave the house. I was desperate to get to a yoga class and claim an hour away from being a mum, wife, friend, and entrepreneur.

    But instead, I prioritized keeping my kids happy and did everything I could to avoid the onset of a tantrum and also made sure my husband sat down to a delicious, home-cooked meal each night. And when the kids were napping, I would use that time to do a little work.

    The routine started to get boring. I complained daily. I was grumpy and irritable.

    Yet the days kept coming and I started to drag my feet. The tasks were mundane and never-ending, and they started to get on my nerves. I’d lash out at the washing machine or slap together a half-assed attempt at dinner. And I wasn’t just overextended and resentful in my home life. My clients were taking advantage of me, and my friends sucked my energy dry.

    I kept showing up for everyone around me—striving to keep the peace, to keep them happy, while I was worried that I might let them down or wasn’t living up to their expectations. Yet with a whole lot of hindsight, I discovered that I had placed all this pressure on my shoulders myself.

    Denying myself a sixty-minute yin yoga class was the stupidest thing I had ever done. It still sounds ridiculous now. But at the time, I couldn’t see any solutions. I had tunnel vision and it didn’t revolve around me.

    I felt like I didn’t deserve the break.

    I felt responsible for everyone around me.

    I was unsure what would happen if I left our house for an hour and what I would walk back into after leaving my two young kids alone with my husband.

    Each afternoon, I was an emotional wreck by the time my husband came home. Being the problem solver that he is, he encouraged me to go and find a class—as if it was that simple. I thought, “What does he know anyway? He has no idea about all the things I still have to do.”

    But I eventually realized he was right. I needed a break, and I had to get out of my own way and take it.

    Finding a class was easier than I had imagined. There were loads to choose from and all kinds. I settled on a 4:30 p.m. class on a Friday, that was only a five-minute bike ride away.

    I remember walking through those yellow doors to find only me, two other people, and a smiley yoga teacher.

    Ahhh, I relaxed. I rolled out my mat and lay down because it was a yin restorative practice. We lay there for what seemed a lifetime. I spent it fighting with my mind to not think about what might be happening at home, my to-do list, my kids, the grocery list, my work… Thankfully, we finally got moving and I started to tune into the music.

    The class was literally six poses of deep stretching and rest, and it was a challenge to surrender instead of extending each pose.

    My mind focused on how to allow my limbs to soften even in a standing pose that we held for a good five minutes. Not collapsing took every ounce of concentration I had.

    I took big belly breaths, in to fill my lungs and out to gently soften.

    In the final fifteen minutes we had a deep meditation (savasana), with the yoga teacher coming around to us individually, massaging the back of our necks to the bottom of our skulls. She finished it off by pressing her two warm hands down on my shoulders as if she was pushing me back into the ground. Tears began streaming down my face as she walked away.

    I had fully surrendered and left my mind to be in the present moment, and her touch released the stress and burden I was carrying. It was an intense moment, and I felt joyful and at peace. I had literally forgotten that I had to return to my family only minutes later.

    That class changed me as a mother and a wife.

    I went back every week religiously after that. I saw the power of connecting with my breath and myself. Because that one hour reset each week was enough to fill up my cup and change how I was showing up for myself and others.

    My daily chores didn’t bother me anymore. I had more love to give my kids and partner. I had a renewed sense of energy. When someone asked for help, I had the capacity to give because I wanted to instead of seeing it just as another task I had to do.

    Once I learned to receive, which meant surrendering my responsibility and need to control and allowing myself a little love, I discovered that I often denied myself other things, like going out for walk or catching up with friends. And this is where I had to lean in deeper and question what it means to receive. Here is what I realized.

    Accepting Help

    It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help or receive it, and I don’t need to prove myself or my worth through giving.

    I really felt like I was doing life alone, taking on the responsibility of everyone around me and driving myself into the ground. People would make kind gestures to help, but I would often shut them down with an “I’ve got it covered, thanks.”

    The day my husband stepped in to wash the dishes after I shared that I had a looming deadline, he practically threw me out of the kitchen. I felt so guilty, like I should be the one doing them, not him.

    What I thought was a one-time deal has now lasted three years. It has lightened my load, and our relationship has been better because I no longer feel like I’m the one doing all the things.

    Accepting help is receiving an energetic exchange with someone that wants to offer support. So take it.

    Acknowledging Compliments

    Too often, I would deflect when someone would say something nice to me. I found it uncomfortable, and it made me question their ability to see what was really happening.

    I didn’t feel like I deserved a compliment because I didn’t see myself like others did. I didn’t feel worthy of being praised, so I brushed it off with, “No worries, it was nothing,” “I would do it for anyone,” or “This old thing? I bought it on sale five years ago.”

    Learning to receive a compliment showed me that I could be honored and celebrated for who I am and that there was nothing to be ashamed of. I thought that people who received compliments looked nothing like me and were doing more important work than little old me. But I learned that compliments are praise, and we all deserve to feel seen, heard, and acknowledged.

    Realizing I’m Not Responsible for Everything

    Here was my greatest lesson, which was letting go of my need to control all situations. The responsibility I carried, because I felt it was my job to make everyone happy, was costing me my physical and mental health along with my relationships.

    When I released the control, it created space for things to happen without my interference. It provided space for me to see how others could step up and take responsibility, for mutual needs and their own. It gave me permission to invest in my own well-being.

    Instead of over-giving, fixing, and manipulating, I stood back. From here I could see that life is a two-way street where we exchange our energy with one another. This allows us to give from a full, nourished heart, and this is much more satisfying than giving from a sense of fear and obligation.

    —

    Opening our hearts to receive eliminates our tendency to over-give. When we give without our full presence, we are not showing up fully for ourselves or for other people.

    We all love to support the people we care about, but we need to receive just as much as we give, creating a balance that never leaves us feeling drained or that we “should” be doing something.

    Do you find it hard to receive? What helps you let go of control and fill your own cup?

  • Are You Pathologizing Normal Emotions? It’s Not Always a Mental Illness

    Are You Pathologizing Normal Emotions? It’s Not Always a Mental Illness

    “Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown

    Society is becoming more accepting of mental illness. That’s great, but there’s a downside that we need to talk about. Not everything is mental illness. We need to stop pathologizing every single thing that we feel.

    What I mean by pathologizing everything is jumping to diagnosing yourself after every tough feeling you have. It’s great to be self-aware, but I think we are taking that a little too far, and it’s causing more depression and anxiety.

    Yes, I said we are taking self-awareness too far. I stand by that, but I’ll explain the reasoning behind my belief. We are supposed to feel a range of emotions. It is normal to experience sadness, anger, irritability, anxiety, grief, or any of the feelings that exist from time to time.

    Since society is more accepting of mental health issues, we now want to label any uncomfortable feeling as mental illness. We diagnose ourselves with whatever mental illness we believe we have at the first sign of emotional pain.

    That leaves us feeling like we are so screwed up. We don’t need anything additional to make us feel like we’re screwed up! Most of us already feel this often enough as it is.

    Before you start listing all the reasons I’m wrong or how my view could be damaging, let me give you some examples. If you read them and agree, this could help you see that you and your feelings are more “normal” than you may think.

    Recently, I was talking to somebody who was in the process of buying a house for the first time. He was telling me that he was having a lot of anxiety related to the process and everything that he needed to get done.

    I could see the stress in his body and face.

    He has a history of generalized anxiety disorder, so when he feels even a little anxiety, he starts fearing that his disorder will return in full force.

    That’s a logical and valid fear. Anybody who has ever experienced clinical anxiety knows how scary it is to consider its return.

    However, he was missing something incredibly important. Buying a house, especially your first house, will always come with some “anxious-type” feelings.

    We need to learn how to normalize feelings that most people would have in the same situation. Panicking at the first sign of difficult feelings can turn those feelings into something much larger than they actually are.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, I slept twelve hours straight one night. I woke up with no energy or motivation whatsoever. I still didn’t want to get out of bed after twelve hours of sleep.

    That is incredibly abnormal for me. Typically, I wake up at about 4:00 am to write and do stuff for my other job. This gives me time to work while my family is asleep.

    That morning I woke up when my husband did, a few hours later than my normal. I told him I was just so tired and didn’t feel like doing anything, which is uncharacteristic of me.

    I felt “blah” and just wanted to stay in bed all day doing nothing. So, thirty minutes after waking up, that’s exactly what I did.

    My husband had to convince me to eat because nothing sounded good to me. I didn’t even want my normal glass of wine that evening.

    The next morning, I woke up feeling blah again and couldn’t shake it. I forced myself to function and play with my baby.

    He seemed to be feeling like me. That concerned me because he is so incredibly intuitive. I even thought maybe he was picking up on my feeling down and blah.

    When I got back in bed after lunch, I started worrying that I was depressed. From childhood and throughout my twenties, I was severely depressed. I did a lot of work to heal and haven’t had symptoms of depression in about ten years. A little bit of panic started rising with my negative self-talk.

    “What is wrong with you? Why can’t you just get out of bed? Maybe you should do some yoga instead of being so damn lazy.”

    I started telling myself that my depression was coming back, and in full force. Thankfully, I was able to put a stop to those thoughts pretty quickly.

    For some reason, my mind and body needed to rest. I just needed to allow myself to do that. Just because I was tired and didn’t feel like doing anything for a couple of days did not mean that I was depressed again.

    It was hard for me to acknowledge that I might actually have been sick, that there might have been a medical reason that I was so exhausted and didn’t feel well.

    The next morning, I went to an urgent care office. Well, what do you know? I had an ear infection in both ears and a fever, and my throat looked awful according to the nurse practitioner.

    Immediately my mind was put to rest. Major depressive disorder hadn’t reared its ugly head again. I was physically sick. My body was fighting an infection.

    For any of you who have experienced mental illness, you may also have this fear that one day it might return to say, “Hello. Remember me? I’m back!” Any time we get a hint of a difficult feeling, we jump to the conclusion that our anxiety, depression, or whatever we had is returning.

    This happened recently for a friend of mine. She has a history of major depressive disorder that plagued her for many years. She went to therapy and has been doing really well the last few years.

    She is an introvert who works in sales. Her company had a week-long meeting with all the managers and sales representatives. If you’ve ever been in sales or know somebody who has attended a company-wide meeting for several days, you know how much extroverted energy that takes.

    A few days after her meeting, she and I were on the phone. I asked her how her day was going. She told me that she just felt down and not motivated to do the things she needed to do.

    She had even scheduled an appointment with her psychiatrist for the next week to see if her medications needed to be adjusted. She was labeling herself as depressed and feeling scared.

    After we got off the phone, I started thinking about how I just didn’t think that she was depressed.

    I know her well and knew that being around a bunch of people for a week was exhausting for her, since she’s an introvert. I texted her about this and asked her if she thought her “depression” could simply be her needing to rest after having to be “on” for a week at her meetings.

    Quickly, she responded that she agreed and that it probably wasn’t her depression coming back to haunt her again. She recognized that she needed time to decompress from having been around so many people for several days.

    That’s just another example of how we pathologize feelings that are normal. We want to immediately label what we’re feeling as “wrong” or “unhealthy” and catastrophize it when it’s not actually a catastrophe. It’s often just a normal reaction to what we’ve experienced.

    It’s wonderful that society is becoming more aware and accepting of mental health and getting help. However, not everything is a symptom of mental illness. We need to stop diagnosing ourselves with mental illnesses based on social media memes or things we read or see.

    Also, we need to realize that it is perfectly normal to experience sadness and anxious feelings. That does not mean that we are suffering with mental illness.

    When we jump to diagnosing ourselves or others, we’re actually causing harm because we aren’t allowing ourselves to experience our feelings or normal things. Instead, we are trying to find a pathological reason we feel a certain way so we can eliminate it as soon as it pops up.

    That is not healthy. What is healthy is allowing ourselves to experience the feelings that come up, learning how to navigate those feelings in a healthy way, and choosing not to shame ourselves for having feelings that aren’t “positive.”

    So, the next time you’re going through a difficult time and you’re tempted to label it as mental illness or something that has to be stopped and “fixed” immediately, pause and ask yourself a few questions.

    Is this something that many people experience? If yes, then give yourself some grace and time to recover.

    Are the feelings I’m having normal based on my circumstances? If yes, then you don’t need to label them as mental illness or something that you should be gravely concerned about.

    Is this preventing me from completing the tasks I need to complete? If so, is it lasting for more than a week or two? Mental illness diagnoses require alterations from “normal” functioning.

    Have other people noticed me struggling, and are they concerned? If not, then you are probably experiencing normal feelings for the experience you’ve had.

    Use these questions as a guide and give yourself a little more grace when you have appropriate feelings and reactions to difficult experiences. Also, keep in mind that most of what you read that tells you that you have a mental illness probably isn’t truly qualified to do so.

  • Sick of Toxic Relationships? Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

    Sick of Toxic Relationships? Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

    “There comes a time in your life when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.” ~José N. Harris

    Letting go of relationships that impact your well-being and make you feel unsafe may seem like a simple act for many, but for those of us who are cut off from our emotions, it is a challenge even to know how we feel around other people.

    Some of us have lived with a feeling of unsafety since birth. It was our normal from the beginning. It was in our first homes and in our first relationships.

    This was my experience for most of my life.

    I was born into a house where my mum had felt unsafe while pregnant with me. That fear she felt living with her in-laws and my dad was real. She had an arranged marriage at twenty-two and had no idea her father-in-law was an alcoholic.

    Her first experience of alcoholism was mine too, but I was a newborn. I have memories of her being too scared to go into the house. My body still remembers how this feels.

    So I came into this world on high alert, waiting for an eruption to occur at any given moment. I remember being terrified in my crib. This experience wired me to be sensitive to energy. As a baby I could feel the tension and would almost hold my breath around my family.

    I learned early that people were unsafe. I learnt about fear and how to contract my body. For me, fear was normal, and I felt constantly on the lookout for any perceived threat.

    My poor little body didn’t know how to survive, and my parents were preoccupied with dramas in our house, so I learned survival skills like freezing, not speaking, and pleasing my adult caregivers to keep the peace. When they were calmer, I got connection and love and was able to survive.

    We all learned young how to survive in the family we were born into, and our nervous systems were wired accordingly.

    As I got older and came in contact with people I felt unsafe with, I would do the same—freeze, rescue, or please others and silence myself. It crushed my self-esteem and made me quite the doormat for other people’s drama.  It made me suicidal, as I wanted to escape the pain yet felt trapped in these patterns.

    I let people talk to me awfully. I let people work out their trauma on me. I saw my parents doing the same and didn’t know it wasn’t normal. I thought being a punch bag for other people’s trauma was okay.

    I didn’t know how to express my truth or have boundaries.

    As I got older it became obvious to me that I had become a magnet for toxic relationships. I was constantly reliving these unsafe feelings from my childhood.

    I gravitated toward people who needed me to help them with emotional regulation, just as I’d learned to do as a child. These relationships drained me and kept me in a constant cycle of pain, yet I was almost addicted to these interactions

    I had become so needless and wantless myself that I didn’t know who I was without these people. I would get a dopamine high from getting their love and acceptance for a small moment after making them feel better.

    I was always chasing the love and safety I longed for in my childhood home. 

    I was attracted to people who required rescuing due to their own trauma and addictions. I was either trying to save them or letting them persecute me.

    I would say nothing when they blamed and shamed me without justification, internalizing their blame—just as I had as a child when my dad persecuted me for all the stress he felt. “If Dad says everything is my fault, then it must be,” I thought.

    I saw it as my job to take care of other people’s emotions. If they were sad, I would help them feel better, and if they were angry, I let them take it out on me, as I always had done. If someone was angry with me, I believed it must have been my fault.

    One day, I came across the drama triangle, and it made me look at my relationships in a whole new way. A drama triangle has three points:

    Persecutor: blames others for their pain

    Victim: feels powerless to a persecutor

    Rescuer: tries to rescue others to manage their emotions

    I found myself in the role of victim and rescuer for many of my relationships. I felt powerless to other people’s emotions and behaviors. Like I just had to accept them.

    The time came for me to take responsibility for my own happiness and build my strength to end this pattern I had been in my whole life. No more being a victim to other people’s trauma. 

    After hitting rock bottom, I finally started to invest my time, money, and energy in myself. I started small with little acts of love—walking in nature, meditating, exercising, and cooking myself healthy, nutritious meals.

    I started to notice feeling calm and relaxed in my body. I became aware of my own feelings and needs. I began to connect with the voice within me, which I couldn’t hear previously. It was always overpowered by other people’s voices.

    This voice guided me to begin to say no to certain events and prioritize my own time. This voice guided me to get therapy, read books on healing, and join support groups.

    There was no way I could make my relationships healthier until I had a healthier, more stable relationship with myself. Building this foundation is what gave me the strength to make more difficult decisions further down the line.

    Over time I became more grounded in my own energy, something I had never experienced before. I noticed which relationships felt safe and when I was getting what I was giving.

    It also became apparent which relationships didn’t feel good and negatively affected my well-being. 

    When I began this journey, I was in a workplace where, unknowingly, I was highly triggered on a daily basis. Once I started to incorporate self-care before and after work and during my lunch breaks, it became apparent that this job had to go!

    I had never expressed my truth in relationships, not even the ones I felt safe in. I just kept it all in and came up with my own stories and assumptions about how the other people felt about me. I drove myself crazy like that.

    I began to change this behavior by expressing my feelings in relationships I felt safe in. I realized how communication can make relationships healthier and more fulfilling.

    Self-expression in relationships created true Intimacy. I had always hidden my true self away.

    I had been single for most of my life because of my previous patterns, but after building a foundation of self-love, I was able to form a relationship with a man who is now my fiancé, who gave me what I’d learned to give to myself—unconditional love and safety.

    As my relationship with myself grew, so did my strength to walk away from relationships that felt unhealthy for me. Some of these were easier than others. I had never been okay with hurting people’s feelings, putting my needs first, or causing trouble.

    I was always the good girl. It took courage not to be.

    I became the one who was seen as selfish or the troublemaker in the family.

    After growing and experiencing relationships in which boundaries are respected, you cannot accept it when people ignore your boundaries and have complete disregard for your feelings. I realized it’s not healthy for someone else to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, blame you, and focus solely on winning an argument.

    You cannot ignore the drama in a drama triangle when you step outside of it.

    Some people just do not want to respect your boundaries because of where they are in their own healing journey.

    You will realize that walking away from some people you have loved your whole life is essential for your own well-being, whether it be for a short period of time or forever. You cannot keep putting yourself last to continue a relationship that does not feel good for your health, no matter who they are. Especially when your inner voice is shouting at you to walk away.

    Many family systems run on the drama triangle with us each taking on our role. But when we step out of it, we give others the opportunity to grow and emotionally regulate themselves.

    It is natural for your family to have a reaction to changes to the family dynamics. But it is not your responsibility to ease that discomfort for them. That is down to each individual.

    My self-love journey empowered me to heal my nervous system from past trauma and stress. My body did not function properly anymore because of the wear and tear from my relationships. I finally listened.

    I invested in body-based treatments such as cognitive breathing, craniosacral therapy, trauma-release exercise, and qi gong. These modalities helped my nervous system heal from the past.

    It took bravery and courage to step away from the toxic relationships in my life, but it’s been my greatest act of self-love to date.

    Begin to tune into the relationships in your life. How do they make your body feel? What is your body telling you? Is it time to set a boundary, express your truth, or step away?

    If that all feels too scary right now, just focus on building that foundation of self-love. And recognize that you don’t deserve to be blamed or shamed for someone else’s issues, and it’s not your responsibility to fix or save them.

    In time, as your love for yourself grows, so will your strength to put yourself first and no longer accept relationships in which you are not treated with kindness, love, and respect.

    You are worthy of relationships that make you feel loved, energized, and happy. Most importantly, you are not responsible for rescuing anyone else or being the place where they project their pain.

  • Healing from Shame: How to Stop Feeling Like You’re Fundamentally Wrong

    Healing from Shame: How to Stop Feeling Like You’re Fundamentally Wrong

    “If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” ~Brené Brown

    There is a special type of shame that activates within me when I am around some family members. It’s the kind of shame where I am back in my childhood body, feeling utterly wicked for being such a disaster of a human. A terrible child that is worthless, stupid, and perhaps, if I am honest, more than a touch disgusting.

    The feeling of shame in my body feels a bit like I am drowning and being pulverized from the inside at the same time. I have a deep, awful nausea too, like a literal sickness about who I am.

    In an effort to save myself from drowning in shame, I might try to ingratiate myself to the person I am talking to. Make myself sound more palatable, more decent, less dreadful. Or maybe become argumentative to try to kill the feeling in my body by drowning out the voice that seems to be activating the sensation.

    These experiences became like shame vortexes in my life. The place where my true spirit, whatever self-love or esteem I had, went to get pulverized in a pit of torment. A reminder of what a truly dreadful and disgusting person I really was.

    Families are such incredible quagmires of emotional activation. Generations of repressed emotions—of blame, shame, guilt, resentment, rage, frustration, etc.—constantly simmering, occasionally boiling up, being thrown at each other, activating more emotion.

    And yet family are often the people we yearn to receive acceptance and unconditional love from the most. But they’re often the people who find it the hardest to give it to each other.

    My journey with shame has been lengthy because, for a long time, I didn’t know how to work with it. For many years I felt like I was bumping into shame in every corner of my life. And there were many corners.

    In my work, I struggled to be seen, to be what I wanted, to do what I wanted.

    In my relationships, I struggled to relax because I was ashamed about being a pudgy woman who wasn’t wild, free, and fascinating.

    In my friendships, I was often the helpful, problem-solving friend—because to be the messy, chaotic human that I was would jeopardize who I thought my friends wanted me to be.

    In my parenting, it was overwhelming. I wasn’t a calm, healthy-eating, active, patient goddess. I was impatient and distracted, and I dreaded having to play with my kids.

    I was terrified of being rejected, resentful of feeling used by people, and scared of going nowhere in my life because perfectionism gripped me so tightly that I struggled to get started on anything.

    I see now that underpinning all of this was shame. Shame that I was getting life wrong on a number of levels, and really, I just wasn’t trying hard enough. But when I tried harder, it never worked. I would lose energy, fall apart, and then I’d want to hide alone in a room, where no one could see me.

    I didn’t even realize that it was shame. I thought I was just self-conscious, a bit shy, needing to get my act together. I was a perfectionist. I had high standards. I wanted to get things right.

    But now that I know more about emotions, I can see I was drenched in shame. Utterly drenched around this basic concept that I was doing it all wrong, and it was all my fault.

    Shame is in that desire to be invisible, to disappear, to remain unseen.

    Shame is in that desire to hide. To not be looked at. Because being looked at means people might see who we are underneath the veneer. The mask we put on.

    Shame often breeds when it becomes unsafe to be who we are, usually as little children, or when things are happening around us that we don’t understand, that don’t feel normal. When we feel we have to hide who we are or who our families are. When our parents don’t feel comfortable being who they are, there we see shame.

    The thing about shame is that we don’t realize how much of it there is around us. As Brené Brown says, it thrives in secrecy and judgment. Most people aren’t walking around saying, “Hey, look at my shame! Come see the deep, dark crevices of my soul that feel so wrong and awful.”

    Many people aren’t aware that shame is even present for them, as it hides underneath other emotions like anger, fear, or sadness.

    But even though it is hiding, even if we can’t see it, it can control our life like gravity controls us on this earth. We don’t think about gravity, but its powerful force keeps us rooted to the ground. Shame can act in a similar way, its force dictating our actions and behaviors, pulling us in directions that work for shame, but not for the authentic, free-spirited people that we yearn to be.

    Shame serves shame, and only shame. Shame doesn’t care about your desire for authenticity and for being calm, zen, peaceful, joyful, and in love with life. That sounds deeply scary and awful to shame.

    Shame wants us to stay small, to stay hidden, and to be inauthentic. That sounds way safer.

    It doesn’t want us to leap up and say, “Look at me! Look at me as an individual, doing things that are new and wonderful!”

    It doesn’t want us to be free and happy and full of love and light.

    It wants to keep us safe by reminding us how terribly awful we really are.

    Shame is at the root of so many things that plague us—a lack of intimacy in our relationships, an inability to go for what we want in life and have relaxed, authentic friendships, and a sense of stuckness in work.

    It can come out as a sense of persistently feeling rejected, drowning in deep wells of inadequacy, lashing out in anger as a way to hide the shame response, or hiding behind crippling shyness or social anxiety.

    Shame is your worst nightmare talking to you all the time about the ever-present list of limitations in your life.

    Shame is your worst critic analyzing your performance in all things.

    The reason shame feels so horrendous is that it’s not like guilt, which induces feelings about what we’ve done wrong. Shame is so much more pervasive than that. Shame is a feeling that we ourselves are wrong.

    To experience shame is a tremendously reducing experience

    How do we get rid of shame? Well, it’s not something that is quick to shift. It’s a process, and it takes time and emotional safety.

    Emotional safety is an awareness in our bodies, brains, and nervous systems that it is safe to have an emotion. Many of us don’t have emotional safety, so we run, hide, suppress, ignore, and distract ourselves or try to propel ourselves in any way away from an emotion. Many of us learned at a young age that certain emotions are not safe, and shame is usually one of them.

    But to work with shame, to reduce its presence in our bodies and our lives, we need to bring it to the light. We need to expose it to love, acceptance, and empathy. Bit by bit, little by little.

    One effective way to do that is to share little bits of our shame with our most trusted and loved people. Once the shame comes out, it’s out! We are free of it.

    We talk about our shame only with people we feel utterly safe with. We don’t talk to people we don’t feel safe with. Not the stranger on the bus, the friend who gossips to everyone, or your blind date.

    You only give people access to your shame if they have shown you that they are completely responsible with your trust; if you can tell them things and they won’t blame or judge you (which is a re-shaming experience). They come with empathy, acceptance, and love.

    They are honored that you would share your deepest secrets with them. They are prepared for the responsibility that that entails.

    And if we don’t have a person like that in our life? Sometimes when we have so much shame it can be hard to form these types of intimate, vulnerable, and trusting relationships. Shame wants to keep us apart, and separate. That’s how it keeps us alive and safe, by never showing anyone who we really are. Because probably once, long ago, we learned that being ourselves wasn’t safe. And so we chose a safer path—to hide.

    So while we work on shame, we can start this journey with ourselves. Talk to ourselves about what we find when we think about our shame. Have tender, generous, and loving conversations with ourselves. Write or record remembrances.

    And we do this when we know we can be empathic with ourselves.

    Because we all know those conversations when we are down in the depths of shame and we talk to ourselves and make it so much worse—we add more shame, more judgment, more guilt.

    “Why did I do that? Why did I sleep with that guy / not show up for work / send that client brief in late? I know why—because I am such a loser. I always do stupid stuff like this. Always.”

    That’s not an empathetic conversation.

    Shame breeds in conversations like that.

    Shame needs this:

    “Why did I do that! I can’t believe it! Oh wow, now that I think about it, I am feeling ashamed that I slept with that guy / didn’t show up for work / was late with that client brief. And this shame really hurts. So you know what, shame? I am going to stay with you, give you some love, some support, some tenderness, because wow, shame. That’s so painful.”

    We can’t de-shame ourselves by constantly re-shaming ourselves.

    We can’t remove shame by improving either. By doing more things, becoming better incarnations of the humans we are. We can only remove shame with empathy, love, acceptance, and connection.

    That is a pill we have to be willing to swallow. That we are worthy of empathy, love, connection, and acceptance.

    We have to start ignoring what the shame is telling us.

    Shame’s advice is that we should just spend the rest of our lives trying to become better humans. But let’s be honest, we’ve followed that advice our whole lives, and look where it’s gotten us—deeper in the shame well.

    So how about instead of castigating ourselves on a constant basis, we try to interrupt our shame spirals with a bit of love and empathy instead?

    How about we decide that maybe it’s just a feeling, and not an indication of a deep flaw in who we are as humans? How about we try out not whipping ourselves for every small transgression.

    Taking a step toward loving ourselves means working with the vicious, judgmental, potent force of shame.

    But it’s work that can be done. It’s completely possible, and I know because I have drained a ton of shame from my body these past few years.

    We need to not abandon ourselves when we are in shame. We need to take a little tiny bit at a time, just a touch, and bring it out into the light. Share with someone, with ourselves, become familiar with it, look at it, feel it, touch it—and hear it.

    We need to bring love and support to our shame. Bring acceptance and understanding.

    That is what our shame is yearning for, and when we shift our way of seeing it, we can start to shift the power it has over our lives.

  • 7 Lessons That May Help You Find a Fulfilling Long-Term Relationship

    7 Lessons That May Help You Find a Fulfilling Long-Term Relationship

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    “You’re not in love with me, you’re in love with the idea of being in love.”

    Ouch!

    Kate (not her real name) and I had met online before Internet dating websites—let alone apps—were even a thing, and ours was a long-distance relationship.

    I was twenty-four, and she was twenty-three.

    Initially bonding over our favorite musical artists, we soon found ourselves sharing all kinds of personal stuff with each other—first over AOL Instant Messenger, and then via countless hours on the telephone.

    I remember being startled and confused upon hearing a voice I was now intimately familiar with coming out of a face I had never seen before (save for a few photos) when we finally did meet in person a couple of months later. It was jarring.

    Nevertheless, we embarked upon a “real” relationship, in the flesh.

    Our incompatibilities cropped up almost immediately, however, and became increasingly apparent each time one of us visited the other. Still, how could we deny the substantial emotional intimacy we had established?

    Her declaration to me—“You’re not in love with me, you’re in love with the idea of being in love”—seemed harsh and unfair. Who was she to say how I did or did not feel?

    Yet, there was a ring of truth to it.

    No doubt, I had projected my deepest longings for love and my idealistic vision of realizing it onto her. It wasn’t the first time I had done such a thing, nor would it be the last.

    The relationship with Kate crashed and burned rather quickly, intense as it was. Even though it became clear we were not right for each other, it was a painful dissolution. Disillusionment can be painful!

    I would endure plenty more heartache in my dating and relationship life for years to come, as I slowly learned how to love myself more and matured in my understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship.

    Eventually, at the age of thirty-three, I met the woman whom—seven years later, to the day—I would marry. A wonderfully compatible, loving, healthy, mutually supportive, and lasting relationship is possible, it turns out. As of this writing, we have been happily coupled for sixteen years (the last nine as spouses).

    My observation is that when it comes to relationships, there are “no rules”—meaning, almost anything and everything can happen within the dynamics of two human beings relating to each other.

    Certainly, there are no guarantees.

    There are many factors at play as to when, how, and why we connect with others in the ways that we do, not to mention how long our relationships (of all kinds) end up lasting, and what kinds of changes they undergo.

    Since we have no control over another person’s feelings and choices, nor over what may happen to our beloved, relationships entail inherent risk and vulnerability. That’s the price of admission.

    All of the above notwithstanding, here are seven key things I’ve learned, with experience as my teacher, that may help increase the chances of finding and maintaining a satisfying relationship with a partner long-term, if this is something you are seeking:

    1. Love and accept yourself.

    Loving and accepting yourself—flaws and imperfections as they are—is paramount. It is also the best way to prepare for loving and accepting another person, who will come with their own flaws and imperfections.

    There is always room for growth, and it is admirable to strive to improve ourselves, but we are all, always, works in progress. And that’s okay!

    If we wait until we are “perfect” before we are willing to love and accept ourselves, we never will.

    It is natural to get frustrated with yourself at times, but you can still choose to love yourself anyway and be your own best friend by recognizing and appreciating the goodness deep within you and doing everything you can to do right by yourself and others.

    You don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of a loving relationship. Be the best “you” you can be and love yourself all along the way—not in a narcissistic sense, but rather in a self-compassionate one.

    2. Find a partner who is “compatibly neurotic.”

    You will get along best with someone who is what I like to call “compatibly neurotic.” By this I mean not necessarily someone who is neurotic in exactly the ways that you are (this might be a disaster!), but rather someone whose neuroses are compatible with yours.

    In other words, the things about them that might drive other people nuts, you find somehow endearing, and vice versa. You appreciate each other’s quirks and can more or less gladly live with them because they are part of the whole person whom you treasure and adore.

    3. Mutual respect is essential.

    This is a no-brainer, but it must be mentioned. No healthy relationship is absent of this. You must not only each harbor deep respect and admiration for the other, but you must demonstrate this consistently through your behavior.

    If you feel disrespected, it is your responsibility to communicate this to your partner calmly and clearly at the earliest opportune time. Own your feelings and express them as such—your feelings—without attacking the other person, passively or otherwise.

    If your partner feels disrespected, it is similarly their responsibility to communicate this to you, and it is then up to you to rectify it to the best of your ability. You want to nip potential resentment in the bud.

    Don’t assume the other person is aware of how you are feeling. It is important to be able to voice your feelings and ask for what you want or need.

    As far as I’m concerned, putting the other person down, especially in front of others, is a serious violation of respect that should be avoided at all costs.

    In my experience, when there is mutual respect there is a natural give and take that tends to occur with very little effort.

    4. Mutual interest is non-negotiable.

    Again, it should go without saying, but you both should want the same things in a relationship and be interested in a relationship of this kind with each other specifically.

    The object of your interest might seemingly possess every quality you find desirable in a partner; they might be attractive, kind, brilliant, share similar interests and values as you, and so on. If they are not interested in you or are not available for the relationship you are seeking, however, all those other qualities are rendered irrelevant. Painful, perhaps, but 100% true.

    Move on and find someone else who is interested, who is available, and who genuinely appreciates you. Don’t settle for anything less. You are far better off single than in a relationship missing this key component.

    Mutual interest is non-negotiable, meaning it’s a must. It also means that it’s not something that can be negotiated into existence; it’s either there, or it’s not.

    5. Learn from previous relationships.

    Previous relationships are some of your best teachers.

    They help you clarify what you do and don’t want in a long-term partner. They also give you practice relating to another human being. And it is often within the context of our relationships that we develop important aspects of our own character and grow as a person.

    In this sense, all relationships can be seen as beneficial.

    See past relationships, if nothing else, as part of your journey toward finding the fulfilling relationship you are now seeking.

    Keep in mind that we tend to have far greater appreciation for that which doesn’t come easily, so if you have struggled in this realm, the potential reward awaiting you may be that much greater.

    6. Take responsibility for your own happiness.

    Realize that you—and only you—are responsible for your own happiness.

    Do the things you love and that you find meaningful, partner or not. Yes, having a wonderful relationship can be one of life’s greatest joys and blessings. But no one else is capable of, nor should be responsible for, making you happy. That is your job.

    Cultivate great friendships, too. (And realize that with these a lot of the same things already mentioned apply.)

    To promote your own happiness, you must make self-care a priority, which includes setting healthy boundaries for yourself. Self-care goes hand in hand with self-respect and self-love and is much more likely to make you an attractive and appealing partner for someone else, as well as to yourself.

    7. Choose explorations over expectations.

    Put yourself out there. Meet people (this is required if you want to ultimately find a partner). Show up. Do your part. Put forth some effort. And, as much as possible, keep your expectations in check.

    Every connection you make is an opportunity to get to know someone, but you ultimately have no way of knowing where any such connection will lead.

    When things don’t work out with someone the way you had hoped, the healthiest thing to do is to presume that it is for the best. You have no idea what potential miseries you are being spared by not ending up in a long-term relationship with this person!

    In sum, the best attitude to have when searching for a partner is one of exploration over expectation.

    This can be a lot easier said than done –we are human, after all. But the more you can approach your interactions with others as explorations (this person seems interesting, I wonder if there is some possibility for connection?) and the more you can let go of expectations about what a given connection will amount to, the better off you will be.

    Be sure to attend to other aspects of your life, as well, including giving yourself other things to look forward to.

    —

    These seven lessons did not all come easily to me; some needed to be learned repeatedly, and some still present themselves as things for me to learn anew, or within some new context. But I find them essential to relating well to myself, my partner, and others in general.

    “Kate” was part of my journey toward eventually finding the lasting and loving long-term relationship I craved, a mutually nourishing and highly compatible one in which both of us could grow and thrive.

    You could say she helped me realize this by being one of the teachers on my path. I hope that I ultimately played the same “facilitator” role for her.

  • How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    Isn’t it amazing how some days are etched in your mind forever and other days are just lost in the wind? One day that is etched in my mind forever is December 27, 2006. This is the day I was told I had breast cancer. While breast cancer is common, being twenty-six years old with breast cancer isn’t that common.

    So here I was, twenty-six years old with breast cancer saying to myself, “Well f*ck, that sure throws off the plans I had for basically anything.” I quickly fell into fear, worry, and “why me?”. I will spare you the details of treatment; it wasn’t any fun. I lost my hair and my dignity and fell into depression when life returned to “normal.”

    Whatever normal is, I was living it. However, nothing was normal. I didn’t know how to live without a doctor’s appointment to go to. I mean, all I wanted was an end to the endless appointments and here I was without them, and I couldn’t figure out what to do.

    So, I took lots of naps because I was exhausted, or so I thought. Well, it turns out I wasn’t exhausted; I was depressed. I was alone with thoughts of wondering when my cancer would come back. I was sucked into a pit of despair that I had never seen before. Who was I becoming? The person who sat in their pajamas all day while I worked from home—yep, that was me.

    I wanted to scream, “I survived cancer, now what?” Where was the manual on how to live after cancer? Who helps me get back to living? I just go back to what I was doing, as if nothing happened? I was tired of saying to myself, “But I’m supposed to feel better, right?”

    As the stream of appointments, scans, lab draws, and phone calls from friends and family continued to slow, I tried hard to be well and remain optimistic. Continue doing my job, walking the dogs, and dragging myself to the gym. Life just didn’t seem real, and depression overwhelmed me for days or weeks at a time. A quick nap turned into a four-hour slumber; my physical body was healing, and my mental body was spiraling downward.

    The difficulty of shifting back to life was not what I expected, and thank goodness for friends. My dear friend Rebecca asked if I wanted to run a half-marathon, but my visceral reaction was no. Then I learned the race took place one year to the date after I finished chemo, so I thought, “Heck yea, take that cancer!” It was perfect timing. One foot in front of the other, I trained for my first half-marathon.

    I kept myself going by trying to run when I could. Running was my go-to mental health fix pre-cancer, and it was starting to work post-cancer too. I remember there were days when I would drag myself to run and come back home in minutes. Then there were days I felt like I had superpowers and it felt so good.

    Rebecca and I crossed that finish line, hand in hand, and celebrated with margaritas and Mexican food, my other go-to mental health fixes.

    So why do I feel inclined to share my story? It’s not just about cancer, depression, running, and margaritas. It’s about making something good come from something bad. 

    Cancer taught me a lot of things. The biggest lesson was to control what I could. That looked like taking a long way home instead of sitting in traffic, not getting worked up about long lines in the grocery store, taking risks like rock climbing in Utah, trying new things like fly fishing in the mountains of North Carolina, singing in my car on the way to work to pump myself up for the day, going on camping trips with my girlfriends, and leaving behind a soul-sucking career.

    I can’t say I am exactly happy I had cancer, but I can’t imagine life without it. It’s a love/hate relationship. Looking back, it was an opportunity for growth and learning that I can do hard things. It was a reminder to focus on being truly alive.

    There is not a guidebook for cancer survivors, no way to time travel to the person you were before your diagnosis, no way to return your body unscathed, or quick way to restore your trust in your body again.  It’s a journey that you must figure out for yourself, one minute, hour, and day at a time.

    You must accept what has happened and discover a new self.

    I learned more in the year after cancer than I had in the previous twenty-six years. You don’t need a cancer journey to do this.

    Life is short; learn to live life to the fullest. However, if cancer is part of your journey back to living, you are not alone in your quest to learn to live again. You can do this. One tiny step at a time, you will learn to truly live again. You will stumble back and take huge leaps forward.

    You can have a life full of purpose, happiness, gratitude, and adventure. Don’t merely survive cancer, thrive after cancer! What are you waiting for? Let’s do this.

  • How I Overcame Shame from Sexual Assault and Began to Love Myself

    How I Overcame Shame from Sexual Assault and Began to Love Myself

    “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

    It was Saturday, August 29th, 2020, when I admitted to myself, for the very first time, that I was a victim of sexual assault as a child.

    Twenty-five years of complete denial that this ever happened, and suddenly all I could think of was the fact that my innocence was taken at the age of five. “Why now?” I wondered. “Why does it suddenly matter? Was I so resentful of my trauma that I denied its existence altogether?”

    Between the ages of five and eight, I was repeatedly molested by a family member. Although I wasn’t sure what was happening, I knew two things: This felt pleasurable, and therefore, there was something inherently wrong with me.

    I carried this shameful image of myself into adulthood, unaware of how it impacted my self-esteem, my sexuality, and my overall perception of myself as a woman.

    As the sexual abuse eventually ended, so did any thoughts about it. No one knew that it had ever happened, and I planned for it to stay that way.

    From the time I became sexually active, I struggled. I never felt safe while being intimate, even when I was with my ex-husband. I always carried this feeling of shame, and the more pleasure I felt from having intercourse, the more shame I experienced.

    When I finally stopped denying that I was a victim of sexual assault, I knew there was no coming back. Once I became brave enough to admit the truth and accept the discomfort of it, I remembered all those times when the assault took place. It was terrifying and intimidating.

    I felt disgusted, shameful, and angry. I was upset that this event was suddenly present in my life. My plans were to build my online business, make money, and have fun with friends, while making sure I consistently whitened my teeth and maintained my Florida tan.

    Instead, I was forced to face my demons and address the truth I’d buried so well. All I could think of was “What’s wrong with me?”

    For many victims of sexual assault, especially young children who can’t comprehend what’s happening, it’s easy to develop a belief that we are sick, dirty, undeserving, and not enough. We develop a strong survival mechanism where we pretend, guard up, in some cases become promiscuous while self-sabotaging any real connection with anyone else.

    Our trauma supports the belief that we can’t trust anyone, everyone is out to get us, and that feeling any pleasure for ourselves is bad and sinful.

    What I couldn’t wrap my head around, and what also brought unbearable shame, was the pleasure I felt when the assault happened. Logically, it didn’t make sense to me.

    These were my thoughts: “I didn’t do anything about it, and there wasn’t any force or rebuttal present. I let it happen over and over, and in a sense, I enjoyed it. How can I ever say that I am a victim of sexual assault? If it was wrong, I would do something. Instead, I did nothing. There must be something wrong with me.”

    What you just read is a common thought process for many victims of sexual assault. It is why we stay silent; why we let the shame grow each day and exercise self-hate full force. Many of us truly believe that there is something inherently wrong with us, and this is where speaking your truth and seeking help comes into play.

    Shame was probably the most intense emotion I observed, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. So, as a master in denial, I let it go, again. Or so I thought.

    A year went by, and nothing happened. I kept the truth hidden and didn’t talk about it too much while convincing myself that I’d already addressed it and all this messiness was behind me.

    Then a few months ago one of my friends mentioned the nonprofit RAINN—the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization that helps survivors and victims of sexual assault heal and recover.

    I knew this information showed up in my life for a reason. My shame was still present, and my sense of unworthiness wasn’t subsiding. It was time to call their hotline and get help.

    I dialed and hung up four times before I was brave enough to stay on the phone. The process was easy, and I was able to get a counselor within a few days, at no cost.

    It was time for my first session. I was nervous and guarded, but I clicked with my counselor, so it eventually became easier to open up and start sharing.

    At first, we started addressing the elephant in the room: How could I feel pleasure while being sexually assaulted, and would my shame ever go away?

    I learned in my recovery that arousal during a sexual assault is common. It is one of the best-kept secrets that prevent us from speaking up, sharing our trauma, and breaking the shame once and for all.

    We are terrified that no one will understand us and will judge us instead. Considering the amount of judgment and shame we already exercise daily, the idea of criticism and more shame is just too much to bear. Therefore, we stay silent and often let the shame get out of control.

    Although I am not a doctor and can’t impress you with some Ph.D. explanation, here is what I now understand:

    Being aroused during any form of sexual assault doesn’t mean we want it, it doesn’t mean we consent, and it certainly doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us. Physical pleasure is a natural bodily reaction, even during sexual assault.

    As I progressed with my sessions, I was able to open up about things I never said out loud. Things like excessive masturbation during childhood or using self-pleasure and intercourse in my adult life to punish myself and feel disgusted. Without seeking help and getting a counselor, I might have never been able to overcome my self-destructive beliefs.

    This is the best part about therapy: it provides a safe space to say the things you’ve kept inside. And that, in and of itself, provides healing.

    During my therapy, I learned some powerful coping skills. Things like recognizing my triggers, soothing myself with compassion while drowning in self-hate, pausing, taking a step back, and reevaluating the situation before it gets out of control. These skills were especially useful when I spiraled into one of my shame attacks, wanted to punish myself, or felt overwhelmed by self-judgment.

    I learned the importance of self-love in this process; how to approach myself when feeling defeated, sad, upset, or shameful. Mostly, I understood the universal truth every victim of sexual assault needs to understand and focus on: Recovery requires us to stop questioning what’s wrong with us and instead face what happened to us.

    At the time of this writing, my therapy sessions are coming to an end. If I were asked what’s been the most impactful part of my recovery, I would say it’s the ability to speak up and share my story while exercising empathy and compassion for myself.

    As Brené Brown said, the best way to break the shame is to speak about it with those who deserve to hear our story—people we trust, people who have been through the same or similar situations, and people who are educated enough to understand our trauma. People who aren’t afraid to offer empathy and hold space while withstanding the discomfort of the conversation.

    Although my therapy is ending and the time to run solo is approaching, I know that to heal, I must commit and stay committed to my recovery. I understand now that healing is available to all of us, and all it takes sometimes is five minutes of courage to make a phone call and say, “I need help.”

    As my recovery progresses, my hope for living a happier life grows each day. I am beginning to understand that no matter what I go through or how deep my trauma is, I can make different choices and live my life from the most empowering place that’s available to me—from within.

  • A Guide to Saying No Without Guilt: 7 Steps for People-Pleasers

    A Guide to Saying No Without Guilt: 7 Steps for People-Pleasers

    “You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no.” ~Unknown

    Why is it so hard to say no? The uncomfortable buildup of emotion I felt while contemplating dropping the ‘n’ word used to have me rushing around town, home, and work for the people I loved in a heartbeat.

    I remember one day I was on the cusp of complete overwhelm with the responsibility of being a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, and business owner. Hanging up the phone with a potential new client who was keen to work with me, I was wired. I had jumped the gun and said yes, when I knew all too well that this was a bad idea.

    I jumped in my car to go pick up my kids from school, slightly perplexed at what had just unfolded in that thirty-minute conversation. It went from me asking questions to see if we were a good fit, to things being turned around when the potential client questioned my ability, to being locked in to meet in person a week later.

    Yet, something didn’t feel right. Still, the thought of landing them as a client was exciting, as it brought in a sizeable paycheck. And it gave me a sense of purpose knowing that I could help them, especially since they’d had bad luck in the past. My past track record of helping people is pretty expansive; I will do just about anything for anyone if I can.

    Sending over the invoice and contract with my two kids running around me wildly meant that a fifteen-minute task required an hour. Finally hitting send made my stomach drop. I questioned “How did this all happen?”

    Reality hit when one of my kids fell to the floor with a flood of tears—I now needed to get back to my day-to-day tasks.

    My life was busy, and I was desperate to get to my yin yoga class. My hubby was running late from work, the kids’ dinner was on the go, while my mate was on speaker phone.

    I shared with her how this new client wanted me to drive an hour for our sessions at no extra charge, and that somehow, I had agreed. I felt totally taken advantage of and my alarm bells were going off, but I wanted the extra income.

    She asked me, “How would you feel if you didn’t say yes?”

    I replied simply, “Bad, because I know I can help them.”

    Resting my head on my pillow that night, my mind whirled with thoughts about “what if?”. Is it too late to change my mind? What if they’re amazing people and I’m just scared because I felt a little resistance? I don’t really want to have to drive. Why did I agree to that? It’s my whole day out the window.

    The day before our meeting, I noticed that the invoice and contract still had not been paid or signed.

    Then my kids’ school decided they were throwing a last-minute sports day, which I really didn’t want to miss. My heart was loud and clear. My daughter won. I decided to call it. These people had not paid or signed, and it was twenty-four hours until their meeting.

    I emailed them to cancel our meeting and suggested they find someone else for the job. It took me a good hour to write that short, to-the-point email, and it took me another hour to hit send because I felt so guilty for letting them down. I wished I had just said no at the beginning. Instead, I took a week to stew.

    Within five minutes, our phone rang. I had forgotten that they had our number, which I never give out, but they’d insisted that we speak that way. I was completely caught off guard as a woman’s voice started questioning why I would do this at such late notice.

    Considering her tone, I felt under attack.

    I explained about the unpaid invoice and unsigned contract and then shared how I wanted to be there for my daughter’s unexpected sports day. She grilled me for ten minutes. The only thing I could say was “I apologize,” which I had to repeat over and over until she abruptly hung up the phone.

    Rattled, I sobbed while my body slowly stopped shaking. I realized that I had just asserted my boundaries by prioritizing my family first. Still, I felt guilty about what I had just done. But I also felt guilty for not wanting to say no in the first place.

    When we continually say yes to things we don’t really want, we are saying no to ourselves. We are confirming that other people matter more than we do.

    This is why it’s so important to embrace saying no and practice it with grace instead of guilt. If I had done that from the beginning, I would have saved myself—and my client—a lot of stress.

    Here’s how I now practice saying no without guilt, and how you can do it too.

    7 Practices to Embrace Saying No Without the Guilt

    1. Resist the urge to justify or overexplain yourself.

    The fear of saying no is just one part of the puzzle. The second is that we often feel we need a legitimate reason to say no, like we have to prove that our no is completely justifiable. Otherwise, of course we would help, right?

    Wrong. Overly explaining or justifying why we are saying no reinforces our need to please others—as if we need them to confirm that our reasoning is valid. That we’re still good people even if we can’t do what they’re requesting. A simple “no, I can’t” is actually enough, so get straight to the point.

    Try: Thanks, but I’ll have to pass. Or: I can’t today. Or simply: No, thank you.

    2. Give yourself more time to respond.

    Not all situations are created equally, but if you can buy yourself some extra time to respond it might save you from jumping right in with a big ole yes to save the day.

    Now this doesn’t mean giving yourself permission to ghost someone with an “I’ll see” or “I’m not sure” and then leaving them hanging. What you’re trying to do here is stop yourself from reacting impulsively so you have time to make an informed decision. Give yourself a little time to think it through and realize, for example, that staying at work for an extra couple of hours and missing your weekly yoga class is not worth the overtime in your pocket.

    Try: Can I let you know in {insert timeframe of choice}? Or: I’ll put some thought into it and get back to you.

    3. Refer them.

    The need to please often leaves us wanting to do all the things for everyone. We might not have the exact right skill but will throw ourselves into a task to help someone out.

    Over the years I’ve learned that I can only work with my skill set, and if I can’t do something, that doesn’t mean I’m letting someone else down. This simple way to say no is honestly my lifesaver. It doesn’t mean I’m palming off a task but redirecting where to find the right person for the job. I no longer need to be a jack of all trades

    If you’re broken down on the highway, you call roadside assistance; if you need your bathroom sorted, you call a plumber. Everyone has a skill set unique to them, so let’s all honor that.

    Try: Unfortunately, I can’t; however, you could try {insert person for them to contact}. Or: I know someone who would be perfect for this.

    4. Know your limitations.

    This is drawing a line in the sand according to our boundaries, and it requires us to learn more about who we are and what we value so we can understand our priorities around time, finances, relationships, home, family, and even our environment. Respecting our priorities means saying no when we realize we are not honoring our values. Each time we let one of our values drop, we are devaluing ourselves.

    These limitations can be simple, like not going out because you’ve got a big meeting the next day and want to be well-rested. Here, the importance of work outweighs socialization.

    Try: Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that today. Or: I’d like to help, but I can’t manage that at the moment.

    Negotiating solutions that work for both parties will help curb the pattern of always saying yes first. Here we already understand our limitations, so now it’s about supporting others in a way that feels good for us instead of just caving into what we’ve been asked.

    For example, perhaps a friend needs your help doing something on Saturday, but you have a full day planned out with your family. Instead of saying yes in a heartbeat and moving your family day, you could suggest that you can help on Sunday instead. Think of this as offering what you can do instead of what you can’t.

    Try: I can’t help you with that, but I can do *this* for you instead.

    6. Be persistent.

    If you’re anything like me, I bet the people around you think you’re superhuman. It’s almost like they expect you to help because you have never said no before.

    Here is an opportunity to get a little uncomfortable and stand your ground by practicing persistence with that one person who won’t take no for an answer, or keeps going and going until you break. It will bring up a lot of mixed feelings, especially if the other person doesn’t listen and  throws all kinds of accusations and emotional tidings your way.

    Reinforcing your response over and over again until they get it takes courage, and it might be tempting to start offering excuses if they keep it up. But hold on in there.

    Them: “Can you help me get to work?”

    You: “Unfortunately, I can’t.”

    Them: “You can pick me up whatever time suits you?”

    You: “I can’t today.”

    Them: “What if I give you gas money?”

    You: “Unfortunately, I still can’t.”

    Try: Holding your ground. Eventually they’ll get the message.

    7. Write yourself a permission slip.

    It’s okay to honor ourselves and respect our priorities. And if this is the permission slip you need today, then here it is: There is absolutely no need to do all things for everyone around you. It’s okay to say no. You are not responsible for anyone else but yourself. Remember that. It’s okay to turn down your best friend for a Friday night dinner when you’re exhausted. Or decline a work opportunity when there’s something you’d rather do. Or say no to anything when it’s not in your best interest.

    Try: I’m honored you’ve asked, but I can’t. Or: Thank you so much for thinking of me, but not today.

    —

    Saying no was challenging at first, but it became easier with practice. I no longer feel like I have to be the one to save the day all the time—and this has saved my sanity.

    Do you find it hard to say no? And how are you tackling it?

  • Feeling Weighed Down by Regret? What Helps Me Let Go

    Feeling Weighed Down by Regret? What Helps Me Let Go

    “Be kind to past versions of yourself that didn’t know the things you know now.” ~Unknown

    When I taught yoga classes in jails in Colorado and New Jersey, I would end class with the Metta Meditation:

    May we all feel forgiveness.

    May we all feel happiness.

    May we all feel loved.

    May all our sufferings be healed.

    May we feel at peace.

    The women, all clothed in light gray sweatpants, would be in a relaxed yoga posture, usually lying on their yoga mat with their legs up the wall. The fluorescent lights would be full blast, as they always are in a jail or prison. Some women would feel comfortable closing their eyes. Some wouldn’t.

    With quiet meditative music playing, I led the meditation with the gentlest voice that I could, taking into consideration that the noise outside the room would be loud. Often, we could hear the incessant dribbling of basketballs in the men’s gym. Someone in the complex might be yelling, and we all would have to work past it.

    As I spoke that first line, “May I feel forgiveness,” their tears would start, steady streams rolling down their faces. When we would talk afterward, they said that the most challenging part of the practice was forgiving themselves.

    If these inmates had been allowed to dress as they wanted, they would have seemed like any other group of yoga students.

    I couldn’t tell who had murdered someone—because their life felt so desperate; or who had too many DWIs—because their addictions (the ones that they used to cover up abuse and trauma) were out of control; or who got a restraining order against an abuser, and then violated it herself—because she was sure he would be loving this time.

    Now that they were incarcerated, their parents and children were also suffering the consequences.

    Choices That Become Regrets

    We can all understand that our personal choices have sometimes created challenges for others. Some of us were just lucky that we weren’t incarcerated for our decisions.

    We have all made decisions that we wish we could reverse. We have said things that we want to take back. We neglected something important, sacred, and cherished, and there were consequences. We might have been too naive or too absorbed in principle or perfection, and there were emotional casualties.

    These regrets lurk in the backs of our minds. They are like dark shadows stalking our heart space, with ropes binding our self-acceptance, keeping us from flying high. We might still be feeling the repercussions of choices made twenty, thirty, forty years ago. And even today, the shame and guilt impact our decision-making.

    The mistakes I made that affected my children are the most challenging to process. The abuse in my second marriage was harmful to my children, my community, and me. The fallout took years to unwind.

    When life seemed back to normal, I had time to see my part in the trauma—mainly the red flags that I ignored when I was dating him. Ignoring what went on in his first marriage and the comments that he said, that made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t respond to, are my hindsight, my ball and chain, dragging on my self-worth. Time was healing, but I could also be triggered by even little mistakes. Even if I said something wrong in a conversation, like we all do, I could be pulled down the slippery slope to a pile of unresolved remorse.

    I have come to enough resolve not to think about those stories most of the time. I’m not sure that I will ever find total peace with some of them. I know that they still have the power to sabotage my peace of mind.

    I know that it is worth the effort to come to some resolution of our regrets, even if we have to keep chipping away at them over time.

    Processing Regrets Consciously

    One way that I have processed regret is to write out the story. Dump it all out of my head—including the hard stuff. If possible, I write out what I would do or say differently the next time. I find that there is healing in knowing that I have learned from my past mistakes.

    Writing the story out can also give me a clear picture of what amends I need to make.

    Is there someone to say I’m sorry to? Do I need to muster the courage to have a heartfelt dialogue with the other player in the story? Or if I have already said I’m sorry, do I need to forgive myself? Do I need to consciously let the story go now? Do I need to remind myself that it doesn’t do me any good to dwell on the story?

    I also take my regrets to my meditation practice.

    One of my most potent times of processing regret happened when I was sitting on the garden roof of our stone home, early one morning in the spring. I was feeling heavy. The weight of the abuse in my second marriage, and the resulting divorce, was pulling me down once again.

    Listening to the birds singing to each other, I felt a sudden inspiration to recite the Metta Meditation—the one that had brought tears to the inmates’ eyes in those faraway jails.

    “May we all feel forgiveness,” I began. This time, the wonderment of my surroundings combined with the ancient familiar words to give me a feeling of release and freedom I hadn’t felt before. The sound of birdsong let me know that I could let go of another piece of my remorse over what I could have done differently. My tears welled up. My heart relaxed.

    Accepting that I might not see complete harmony with my regrets is, itself, part of letting them go. I have heard this from other clients.

    A common challenge for women in the second half of life is not feeling close to their children. Marcia, the mother of five adult children, regrets how hard she was on her oldest daughter. Her attempts to repair the relationship haven’t had the results she wanted. Accepting that this estrangement might or might not be temporary is challenging. She has assured her daughter that she wishes to be closer, and that is the peace that she can find each day.

    We also might need to find a resolution with someone who has already passed. I came to peace with my mother, twelve years after she died, using the Metta Meditation. That completely surprised me and freed up my heart more than I ever thought possible.

    Becoming Whole

    Every regret, memory of shame, and overwhelming guilt are part of who we are. When we are driven by them, we might make choices that aren’t in our best interest. We might believe that we don’t merit good things or that we deserve to be relentlessly punished. If we fuel our regrets by reiterating them, we reinforce our shame and increase the emotional charge. Our spirit will continue to be fragmented, tethered to the past, and we will feel incomplete.

    If we can process our regrets with tenderness and compassion, we can use these hard memories as a part of our wisdom bank.

    Wholehearted living is accepting ourselves with all the mistakes that we have made. Wholehearted living is compassion for all the times in our life when we made mistakes. It is understanding that we are not alone—every single adult has regrets. When we live wholeheartedly, we can have healthier relationships and make wiser decisions in all our endeavors.

  • How Mindfulness Helped Me Become My Own Best Friend

    How Mindfulness Helped Me Become My Own Best Friend

    “With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.”  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I am not a good friend to myself. This realization shook me as I was riding the bus home one day from the local university where I taught.

    This realization had been building for some time, but it struck me powerfully that day. I was teaching a summer class on Asian philosophy, and we were reading the Sayings of Buddha. We had been discussing a passage about a monk watching his feelings.

    The passage explained that when the monk had happy feelings, he knew he had happy feelings. And when he had unhappy feelings, he knew he had unhappy feelings. And as the monk went about his day, the passage went on, he watched himself in all his actions. If he chopped wood, he knew he was chopping wood. And if he swept the floor, he knew he was sweeping the floor.

    The Buddha explained that such attentive mindfulness helps us decrease our own suffering.

    One of my students said, “I don’t understand. How is this supposed to be helpful?” I didn’t have an answer. If I was honest with myself, constantly watching myself and noticing my feelings and actions sounded slow, mundane, and boring to me. I told my student I didn’t know the answer to his question but that I would think about it and get back to him.

    As I was walking to the bus after class, I thought, “If I don’t think about my feelings and actions, what do I usually think about?” I realized that I was usually thinking about everything but the present moment.

    For instance, I would often think about a past regret. Or I would think about a future worry. Or I spent a lot of time ruminating over my current life and finding everything that was wrong with it or everything that was wrong with me.

    As I rode the bus home, I realized that I thought about everything except myself as I was in the current moment. And that’s when it dawned on me. I am not a good friend to myself.

    I realized that if I treated my friends the way I treated myself, I would never really listen to them when they were talking to me. Rather, I would be thinking about the past, worrying about the future, and finding fault with them and everything in our surroundings.

    And that’s not how I treat my friends. I do my best to be there for them when they were having a hard time, to listen to them, and to encourage them as much as possible. Being a good friend is one of the most important things to me.

    Treating my friends like I treat myself would destroy our friendship, I realized. It would make them feel like I didn’t care about them or that I even hated them. And that shocked me because if such behavior would be destructive to my friendship with others, I realized it was probably destructive to my relationship with myself. No wonder I often feel stressed, anxious, unconfident, and lacking in self-worth, I thought. I decided this had to change.

    Later that day, I was sitting in my office thinking about all this. In a moment of inspiration, I put my hand over my heart and pledged to be my own best friend from then on out, to be present, and to listen.

    Much to my surprise, I felt a big weight fall off my shoulders and tears fill my eyes. And in that moment, I realized that, among other things, the practice of mindfulness helps us become our own best friend, something I had apparently needed for a long time.

    When we are mindful of our feelings and actions, we walk with ourselves throughout the day, listen to ourselves, and recognize how things are going in our world. Mindfulness helps us do this with loving, gentle attention and non-judgmental compassion. These are some of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves or anyone.

    Since that summer, I have consistently practiced mindfulness both informally and formally. As I go through my day, I do my best to stay present in the moment, paying attention to the events going on around me, as well as my feelings. This helps me feel calmer, and more focused and joyful.

    For example, several years ago, I was feeling especially anxious one summer. When I noticed myself feeling this way, I stopped and asked myself what was going on and what I needed. Surprisingly, I got a very clear message from my heart and mind. They told me, ‘You have been inside far too much lately, and you need to go outside more.”

    I listened to myself and started going on daily walks in a forest near my house. To my surprise, my stress levels and anxiety started to decrease, and I felt more peaceful. These daily walks are still a consistent part of my self-care practice, and they were especially helpful during the stress of the pandemic. I credit mindfulness with helping me discover how important it is to have a self-care practice.

    I have also experimented with pausing intentionally in my day to focus on my breathing and awareness. Sometimes I do a short practice session in which I close my eyes and just focus on ten breaths. And sometimes I listen to guided meditations that help me relax, tune into my thoughts, and to notice the tension I’m holding in various parts of my body.

    No matter how stressful my day is, these moments of intentional awareness are like an oasis. They help me reconnect to myself and my intention to be my own best friend. I finish them feeling loved, peaceful, and ready to reconnect with the world again.

    For the last few years, I have also been practicing moments of silence with my students at the beginning of the classes I teach at a local college. At the beginning of class, I turn off the lights, sit down with them, and invite them to be silent with me. I direct all of us to focus on our breathing for a few minutes. I never force students to engage in the moment of silence. I ask only that they be silent so others can practice.

    Frequently before the moments of silence, I share brief, encouraging ideas, reminding them that they are worthy, capable, connected, and called to adventure. This adventure is their ability to be their own friend and to connect in a meaningful way with the moment and the world around them.

    I have been so surprised how well my students have received the moments of silence. Class becomes still, peaceful. Many students close their eyes and focus on their breathing. Others just look around and let their minds unwind. We finish the moment of silence energized for our class discussion and study.

    Students frequently comment that the moment of silence provides one of their only moments of peace during the day and helps them transition to class. One time a student wrote on an evaluation, “Thank you for reminding us of our worth.”

    Contemporary culture is increasingly noisy, frenetic, and fragmented. Its hyper-competitive atmosphere can pit us against our self and each other. In such an environment, it is easy to focus on everything but our own experience of the moment and the beauty in it.

    Mindfulness has reminded me that the primary purpose of my life is not to do and have more. My primary purpose is to be my own best friend and savor the beauty of the moment I am in.

  • How to Prevent Burnout: 15 Simple Self-Care Ideas to Help You Recharge

    How to Prevent Burnout: 15 Simple Self-Care Ideas to Help You Recharge

    “It’s okay if you fall apart sometimes. Tacos fall apart, and we still love them.” ~Unknown

    Do you often find yourself saying, “I just have to get through this week…” and then that turns into every week? I know I do.

    Between work responsibilities, chores, and spending time with family and friends the calendar can start to fill up quickly. Unfortunately, there was a time in my life where I let those activities push self-care off my to-do list, leaving me constantly feeling exhausted and burned out.

    Before this experience, I always thought burnout was predominantly mental, not necessarily physical. But then I experienced a major wake up call.

    Recognizing the Signs of Burnout

    A couple of years ago, I was working long hours and filling my hours after work with hobbies, chores, and time with my significant other. This constant activity started to take a physical toll on my body.

    I felt tired all the time.

    I had gained ten pounds in a short amount of time. I was experiencing constant joint pain and headaches several times a week. Sometimes I would even get chest pain and a fever.

    Naturally, these physical symptoms were alarming, so I went to see my doctor. She thought I may have some kind of serious issue, so she sent me to get some bloodwork.

    As I waited for the results, I felt nervous. The prospect of facing a serious health issue in the midst of all of the other overwhelm I was experiencing felt like more than I could handle.

    When I got the email notifying me that my test results had come in, I took a deep breath and opened it.

    Everything was all clear. At first, I felt confused. How could nothing be wrong when I felt so sick?

    My diagnosis? Stress and burnout.

    After talking it over with my doctor, we determined that my lack of time to relax was causing me to feel so burned out that I was feeling physical symptoms in addition to the mental symptoms. I felt a little stunned. Could stress really cause me to feel that physically sick?

    Overcoming Burnout and Finding Relief Through Self-Care

    I knew then that I needed to change my lifestyle.

    Previously, I often turned to unhealthy ways of coping with stress like treating myself to fast food for dinner… every night.

    I would also have trouble falling asleep because it was difficult to turn my mind off at the end of the day. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and compensating with caffeine throughout the day instead of improving my sleep habits.

    As I started investing more time on self-care, I started to feel more like myself again. I was feeling rested, and those physical symptoms of burnout started to go away.

    If you’re also feeling burned out…

    Take items off your to-do list.

    Because burnout often stems from feeling overwhelmed by our schedule and how much we need to get done, I started by taking non-essential tasks off my to-do list and leaning on my support system. For example, asking my significant other to take care of dinner.

    Downsizing my to-do list allowed me to set a more realistic schedule for myself, so I was able to lower my expectations on how much I should accomplish every day.

    I learned to forgive myself for not completing everything on my to-do list. When feeling burned out, it’s important for us to be gentle with ourselves if the quality and quantity of what we accomplish isn’t up to our usual standards.

    It can be difficult to say no to people at first, but the more we do it the more comfortable we start to feel with letting others know we don’t have the bandwidth to support them right now.

    It’s also important to be realistic about time frames and what needs to be accomplished every day. When creating a to-do list and schedule, also estimate how long it will take to complete each task to avoid agreeing to too much.

    Take time to rest and relax.

    When feeling burned out, it is so important to give ourselves space to rest and recover.

    If we are feeling sick or experiencing physical pain from burnout, we need to take time and care to treat these ailments.

    It’s also important to mentally rest and recover. It can be easy to fall into a habit of coming home from work and watching Netflix on the couch all night. I used to drown out the stressful thoughts of everything I needed to get done by distracting my mind with TV shows and social media.

    Now, instead of binge-watching shows or scrolling, I make sure to spend some quiet time relaxing.

    Sleep is also really important in preventing burnout and exhaustion. If we find ourselves cutting back on sleep to make room for items on our to-do list, that tells us that we might be biting off a little more than we can chew.

    Find the right self-care activities.

    Self-care activities help us mentally decompress from the stressful impact of our daily schedule. Self-care isn’t just about relaxing, it’s about caring for yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally so you feel energized and strong enough to handle whatever the next day throws at you.

    Physical self-care ideas:

    • Do some yoga to stretch your muscles, reduce body aches, and help you get a better night’s sleep.
    • Get a massage to ease muscle tension and relax your body.
    • Hydrate to increase your energy and flush out toxins.
    • Eat a healthy meal to aid your digestion and boost your immunity.
    • Schedule a check-up with your doctor to stay on top of potential health issues.

    Mental self-care ideas:

    • Read a book to get lost in a story and give your mind a break from worries.
    • Take a mental health day to reconnect with yourself.
    • Unplug from technology for a while to find peace and stillness in the present.
    • Do a craft to boost your mood and get into a state of flow (research has shown crafting is a natural antidepressant!)
    • Listen to a podcast for inspiration, education, entertainment, or all three.

    Emotional self-care ideas:

    • Journal to identify and process your emotions.
    • Meditate to create space between your thoughts, emotions, and reactions.
    • Talk to a therapist to work through feelings you find difficult to address on your own.
    • Make a list of five things you are grateful for to boost your hope and optimism.
    • Set healthy boundaries for yourself to ensure you’re not taking on other people’s feelings.

    The key is finding self-care activities that are enjoyable and leave us feeling recharged and refreshed. That means getting clear on what works for you, knowing that may change on a day-to-day basis.

    Don’t choose activities that might be mentally or physically draining when you’re already feeling burned out. Today you might feel like running, tomorrow you might feel like walking, the next day you might feel like napping. Ask yourself what you need right now, then honor what you find, without judgment.

    There Is Hope

    We all feel burned out at times, because we all go through phases when life gets busier than usual. Just know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel if you release your high expectations of yourself, set boundaries around your time, and give yourself permission to put your well-being at the top of your priority list.

  • 4 Ways to Save Your Sanity When Life Gets Hard and Overwhelming

    4 Ways to Save Your Sanity When Life Gets Hard and Overwhelming

    “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ~Jon Kabat Zinn

    In December of 2020, we noticed Mom’s speech seemed difficult. Like she had stuffed cotton balls in her mouth, and someone was restraining her jaw from moving. We asked her about it, she said it was nothing.

    We hadn’t seen each other since we got together over the holidays. On New Year’s Day 2020, we clinked glasses filled with sparkling wine and shared bold predictions about how this was going to be our best year yet (spoiler alert, it wasn’t).

    With every passing week and conversation, it got worse. We brought it up many times, my sister and I. We pleaded with her to see a doctor. We were separated by thousands of miles and a closed border. My sister in Virginia, me in California, Mom in Canada.

    She said no, it wasn’t a big deal, it was getting better (spoiler alert again, it also wasn’t). She insisted she was fine. She could eat, drink, work, and speak. It was all good. She repeated this message as our worries grew. We felt powerless to help, especially in the face of her denial and refusal to get care.

    In March of 2021, I got an odd message on Facebook messenger. It was from a woman who said she worked with my mother, asking me to call her. She had taken my mother to the hospital the night before, where she was admitted for extreme dehydration and exhaustion.

    Her symptoms made no sense to them either, so she endured a battery of tests. Ultimately, it was revealed that what ailed her was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. A horrible progressive nervous system disease that causes loss of muscle control. It is always fatal, with no known cure.

    Her disease first attacked her ability to speak and swallow, an unusual first set of symptoms. When she was hospitalized, she finally admitted she hadn’t eaten a real meal in thirty days and had been able to drink less and less.

    My sister and I are both career women with young families. I work for a tech company. The work is fast moving, complex, and nuanced. I used to pride myself on my “meeting endurance.” I often tackled days with ten to fourteen meetings, with enough energy left to crank out work deliverables, do an intense workout, and spend time with my six-year-old twins.

    With my mother’s diagnosis and the new responsibilities of caregiving during a pandemic, I had to revisit many of my previous beliefs and assumptions. Here’s what I learned. I hope it helps you too.

    Lesson 1: Out with stretch goals, in with baseline goals.

    I’m a (sometimes) recovering overachiever. I have a history of establishing huge stretch goals and basking in satisfaction when I smash them. For years I was motivated by the striving to do more, be better.

    Until I wasn’t.

    With my mother’s diagnosis and the challenges of parenting and working in a pandemic, overwhelm swallowed me whole. It felt like I was surrounded by fuzzy darkness. Like I was moving through molasses.

    I wasn’t alone, of course; mental health issues skyrocketed globally. Rates of depression and anxiety are rising. The term “languishing” was introduced to express the lack of thriving many more experienced.

    I had to rethink my relationship to accomplishment.

    I have given myself a break from stretch goals. I now set what I call baseline goals. Baseline goals are super small, completely achievable objectives. They are daily or weekly practices that have compounding impact when practiced consistently over years. Simply put, baseline goals are the smallest possible thing you can commit to that will support your well-being.

    Instead of an overwhelming big picture, you create a concrete short-term focus.

    Instead of a lengthy, high-intensity fitness routine or a stretch goal (let’s train for a marathon!), the baseline goal is fifteen minutes or more of movement six days a week. Walking counts. Slow yoga counts. Dancing in the living room definitely counts. I can do fifteen minutes.

    Instead of kicking off a complex transformation project (let’s reinvent how we interact with our customers!), the baseline goal is each morning to determine the biggest priority for the day, and the absolute minimum action that needs to be taken. Then do that thing first. I can figure out one priority. I can do one thing.

    It turns out that when you’re super clear on your minimums, it frees up a lot of the capacity used up by trying to do it all. It releases the guilt from impossibly high standards.

    Lesson 2: Separate your future problems from your current problems.

    It has become almost a mantra for me to say, “That’s not a problem I need to solve today.” There are SO. MANY. PROBLEMS. So many decisions to make.

    I had to learn to be discerning about which problems I needed to tackle now and acknowledge that there were many I didn’t have enough information to figure out, so it made no difference to think about them.

    When my sister and I moved my mother into an assisted living community, our minds were invaded by the “what ifs,” and “what will we do when?”.

    “What if she needs more care than they can give?”, “What if we can’t support the costs?”, “What if we need to move her again?”, “What if they close the borders?”, “What if they disallow visitors?”.

    We started asking ourselves, “What problems do we need to solve right now?”.

    The only problem we needed to solve was immediate care and needs. We didn’t need to know the future. We could respond to new needs as they emerged.

    It’s clearly not a healthy long-term behavior to ignore the future, but in crisis, clarifying where action and decisions are needed has been helpful in deescalating anxiety.

    Lesson 3: Self-compassion is the new black.

    There are many days when I feel like I’m failing in every dimension. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I am racked with guilt and self-criticism because I’m not somewhere else, doing more.

    Self-compassion is when we give ourselves the same kindness we’d extend to a good friend. When the guilt comes (and I haven’t yet figured out how to keep it at bay), and the self-critical talk starts, I pretend I’m talking to a dear friend. I’m doing my best. That’s all I can do.

    Lesson 4: Embrace the suck.

    It’s easy to become overwhelmed. To let my thoughts spiral into fear, worrying about the future in anticipation of what’s to come. I’ve now come to realize that when I do this, I am borrowing problems from the future. I am suffering in anticipation of things that may or may not come to pass.

    All I have to do is be here, now. That’s all. I don’t need to live the future yet; I just need to live the present.

    Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.”

    And right now, there are many moments that are difficult and painful. And I am often sad, depleted, and upset. That’s okay.

    I can’t skip the hard parts; I have to experience them. And only by experiencing the most excruciating parts can I also fully experience the joyful moments.

    You only ever have to deal with the moment you’re in right now. We can do hard things.

  • 5 Ways to Be Productive with Chronic Illness: How I Built a Business from Bed

    5 Ways to Be Productive with Chronic Illness: How I Built a Business from Bed

    “The master leads by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve.” ~Tao Te Ching

    How much of productivity advice is ableist? Sure, there are lots of good ideas and concepts in there, but most of it is healthy-body-focused.

    Advice like:

    “Be sure to exercise in the morning.”

    “Get up early before anyone else.”

    “Keep a consistent morning routine of meditation, journaling.”

    “Set aside fixed times in the day to do deep work.”

    “Get dressed and do your hair even if you work from home.”

    “Set goals and stick to them.”

    “Work harder than anyone else around you.”

    I have built a business entirely from bed, entirely from my pajamas, without ever getting up early, without knowing what time my body is willing to get up and function each day, with no schedule at all due to daily changing physical and schedule needs.

    I set goals, but they only get done when they can; I cannot force my body to make anything happen. I might have a few hours a day average of usable time, some days it’s barely usable at all.

    I’m 95-99% bedbound and have been for the last eight years since I started my business. Two of those years I was homeless living in tents, and I spent three more moving from B&B to B&B or hotel to hotel.

    My illness threatens to end everything on a biweekly basis, sending me into a few days of complete inability to function, followed by a trauma shutdown state for a day or two more.

    This is how I have been able to build a successful business in the midst of that, while learning from productivity teachers and adjusting the advice to these circumstances of chronic illness.

    1. Let go of the stress.

    The stress of working is one of the main things that prevents people with serious chronic illness from holding a job or running a business. Having a job that is super flexible has been key to my survival and success. Being able to take on tasks on my own time when I am able, without a deadline, is definitely central.

    But still, it’s been vitally important that I’ve worked on letting go of stress around my work.

    I was very much influenced by a video by Eckhart Tolle on how our thoughts make the situation what it is. It’s the thoughts and engrained associations with those tasks that create stress in the body making some of those tasks more difficult.

    For example, typing a letter to a friend versus typing an easy email for work is technically the same job. Watching a movie that takes concentration versus watching an educational video for work is technically the same job. By remembering this, work-related tasks feel less daunting.

    This is the most difficult item on the list for me, but I’ve made progress. I am still working on it!

    2. Let go of perfectionism.

    Banish this to outer space immediately! This was the best thing I ever did. I don’t have to keep going on a task until it’s done or until it’s perfect. I can keep many moving parts going without needing to do them all perfectly.

    I do focus on excellence in the research and writing for my job, but anything that doesn’t need to be done perfectly, I don’t. If it’s good enough then it’s done.

    You can’t be super productive in very little time and get caught up on anything that isn’t needed.

    3. On that note, let go of any and every task that isn’t necessary.

    This is the only way I have found time to work and is another big thing that can hold someone back.

    Emails that don’t 100% need to be sent or replied to? I don’t do it.

    PMs and messages? I don’t reply to almost all of them.

    Social events (online or even emails) that I can’t make it to, I don’t.

    Keeping up with email newsletters? I don’t.

    Keeping up with the news, nope, can’t do that either.

    Any task that comes my way regarding an account issue, to an order I need to put in, to something I need to clear up or fix with a company or provider, I ask myself if not doing it will not have any consequence. If not, it’s not getting done.

    I have faced the most misunderstanding on the point of not responding to messages. But it’s a matter of survival. I cannot do all of those things and also make enough money to eat and pay my enormous illness-related bills.

    4. Make time in a way that makes sense for you.

    I don’t have very much control over my schedule, but I do have some. I don’t know if my body will function on a given day; I often urgently need to arrange getting medical appointments, medication, or other items needed for survival, and these things can throw off so many of my days.

    But I still arrange my weeks in a way that allows for the best chance of streamlining my schedule and creating time for deep work.

    I ask my caregivers to either come every second day, or at worst, take one day off per week. Some of those off days will coordinate with a “good day” for my body and will result in some time to dig into the larger chunks of work.

    5. Organize tasks by ability.

    I can’t know what my abilities will be like on any given day, so I always have a running tally of at least ten tasks that need to be done that vary in their length, cognitive ability required, concentration ability needed, and stress or annoyance level.

    I usually have about three that are at the top of the list ready to go for good days. My best moments are reserved for deep research and writing, with the smallest tasks reserved for the sickest days, the days with the least amount of concentration ability, or days where I know I will be interrupted a lot.

    I always do something, though, even if it’s just a ten-minute task that day. My entire business success is based on this “just do what I can approach.” But I never choose not to do anything just because it’s a day when I don’t feel great or have good cognitive ability.

    I take some time to think through the tasks at night in the bath and in the morning before I get up from bed.

    …

    Those are my secrets to building a business from bed, and most of these strategies are a far cry from the conventional advice on how you need to schedule your day to be successful.

    A “productive” schedule is one where you can accomplish what you want to in any way or at any speed that you need to.