Tiny Buddha

Tag: self-image

  • Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

    “Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

    I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

    I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

    At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

    I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very long time. I suffered from anorexia in my late teens and early twenties. I was skinny as a rail and thought I was not thin enough. I hated the way I looked. I was never perfect enough.

    I controlled my food intake as a way to regain control over my life, as a way to maybe one day be perfect enough that I might feel loved. I almost ended up in the hospital, as my weight impacted my health, physically and mentally. I had no period, no healthy bowel movement. I was so unhappy and depressed. I had no energy.

    The messed-up thing is that the skinnier I looked, the more compliments I received from a lot of people, from family to friends: “You are so slim and gorgeous.” To me, this just validated the way I treated my body—and myself—with control, self-criticism, and harshness.

    Then there were the magazines, showing skinny models, getting so much positive attention. I was obsessed. The more my body looked like those magazine pictures, the better; though I could never quite get to a point where I looked at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was an endless circle of judgment, control, and unhappiness. 

    It took me many years to change the way I saw my body and debunk the standards created by “society” for women.

    For many years I bit my tongue each time I would hear other women around me comparing and judging their body size and shape, repeating the same narrative of needing to lose weight. These conversations felt like an unbearable ringing in my ears, a knot in my stomach, the story in my head of “I am not good enough.”

    I was in the process of creating a new set of standards for myself, of what it was to be a woman in this world, but the old stories were hard to escape and easier to follow because they were the gold standard. I did not have any role models of women out there, younger or older, loving their body just the way it was.

    There was a point, though, when it was just too draining. I noticed that it was not the striving to get to a perfect body that brought me love. What brought me love was being vulnerable, authentic, sharing my inner life, supporting others, having deep talks, being kind with myself and others, and doing the things I loved.

    From then on, I started to soften and release all those standards that had been gifted to me. I allowed myself to be okay with how my body looked, to enjoy food, to enjoy movement, to enjoy my body. I learned to truly love my body, and with that came a different type of respect: I learned to rest when my body was tired. I learned to eat really nourishing food. I learned to move every day in a way that was respectful to my body and that I enjoyed.

    Thinner is not better. Healthy, connected, and happy is.

    Practicing yoga helped me so much in embodying this new belief, and studying neuro-linguistic programming as well.

    The truth is we are “society”—all of us, women and men—which means we are the agents of change. So let’s pause, reflect, and choose new standards. Is this constant need to lose weight healthy or serving anyone?

    There are a few different things to separate and highlight here.

    If your weight negatively impacts your health or your life, if you feel heavy in an unhealthy way and can’t do the activities you’d like to do, that is a different story; and yes, please, take care of your body, through what you think will work best for you: exercise, nutrition, mindset, support.

    Your body is your vessel to experience life, so finding your way to a healthy body is a worthwhile investment. And daily movement and good nutrition will have such a positive impact on your vitality and health, physical and mental, so yes, go for it, with love, softness and kindness—no control, judgment, or harshness.

    But if you feel that your body is strong and healthy, but you don’t like the way it looks… I feel you. I was there. I felt the shame, the discomfort, the sadness, the feeling of not being good enough. Allow yourself to feel this pain. It is okay, and human nature, to feel concerned about your appearance. We all want to be part of the tribe, to be loved and admired.

    But then, ask yourself, is it me that does not like the way my body looks, or is it because of society’s beauty standards? Is it because of all the noise from my friends, constantly talking about weight and looks? Do I want to transmit those standards to the next generation? To my sons? To my daughters? Is it really the most important thing for us women, to look thin and good? Is this story serving us all? Is it love?

    No, it is not love, and it serves no one. Not the women suffering in silence because they believe their body is not slim enough. Not the partners of those women who can’t appreciate their true beauty and fullness. Not the daughters that will believe the same messages and suffer as well. Not the sons that will not know how to recognize beauty in its diverse shapes and forms. Not society as a whole, which will be robbed of having a happy, compassionate, loving, self-confident population.

    So let’s choose differently. Let’s celebrate our different body shapes and weights and strength. Let’s feel good and enjoy life, movement, and food without counting and restricting and denying love to our bodies and selves.

    Let’s stop talking about our weight constantly and find other ways to connect.

    Some might say that I am too slim to really speak about this subject, that I have it easy. This is not quite true. My body has changed so much throughout the years. I went from an ultra-skinny teenager and twenty-year-old with anorexia, to a healthy weight in my thirties, to ups and downs with weight throughout my two pregnancies and breastfeeding journeys. I have seen my body change quite a lot and have been judged for how I looked oh so many times. I have been judged for being skinny, or envied for being slim, and I have been judged for gaining weight.

    Today I am forty-three. My body is not as slim as it used to be. I have a bit of fat around my belly, and my breasts are not as round and firm as they once were, but I feel strong and healthy. And I am SO grateful for my body for enabling me to experience life so far, and for creating life and feeding life, that I don’t want to ever criticize or shame my body again.

    I have learned to love every scar, my stretch marks, my extra skin, because they are the witness of my life, my loves, my years.

    So thank you, body, for everything you allow me to experience.

    The alternative to loving my body—the constant internal criticism and self-doubt—is too draining.

    We, as humans, are society, so let’s change this conditioning. Let’s never transmit this idea of what a woman’s body should look like to our daughters, to our sons. Let’s invent a world where it does not matter what you weigh as long as you feel healthy and good within. Let’s change the chattering from what diet we are on to how our heart is feeling.

    Let’s celebrate bodies, in their diverse beauty and forms.

  • How I Learned to Love My Body Instead of Hating Her

    How I Learned to Love My Body Instead of Hating Her

    “Your body does not need to be fixed, because your body is not a problem. Your body is a person.” ~Jamie Lee Finch

    I was thirty years old when I realized that I was completely dissociated from my body.

    I grew up in the height of the purity culture movement in American Evangelicalism. Purity culture was based on one primary concept: abstain from sex until marriage. But the messaging went further than this.

    I sat next to my peers in youth group while the male pastor stood on stage and told us young women to always cover our bodies. For example, two-piece bathing suits were completely out of the question for summer activities. Why?

    Our female bodies cause the young men to “stumble” and have impure thoughts. So out of love for the young men in our group, we must cover up and never do anything “suggestive.”

    The message was clear: My body caused others to sin. My body is bad.

    It would be impossible for me to accurately detail how many times and in how many different ways I received this message growing up.

    I didn’t know it was happening, but over time, I learned to dissociate from my body. My body was bad, and I was trying to be good, so I must distance myself from her.

    Thankfully, I listened to my body when she told me to leave this religious group and find my own way in the world. Yes, my body talks to me. More on that later.

    Recently, society has seen more acceptance of bodies. We see variety in body shapes represented in the media. While that’s a great sign that we are moving in a new direction, simply saying that we love our bodies isn’t enough.

    That feeling of positivity toward our body when we say that is momentary. We must take consistent action in order to make meaningful and lasting change.

    Here are the ways I was able to radically change my relationship with my body and learned to see her as my greatest ally and most prized possession.

    See Your Body as a Person

    A concept introduced to me by Jamie Lee Finch, seeing my body as a person changed everything.

    It allowed me to do one key thing: cultivate a relationship.

    Once I started referring to my body as “her,” I understood how far from her I really was. I didn’t know my own intuitive “yes” and “no.” I didn’t know what I really wanted in life.

    When was I safe? When was I in danger? These are questions that our bodies are designed to answer.

    So I learned to listen to her. And I talked back.

    A number of years ago, I noticed that I was constantly pushing people away. I really beat myself up about this, seeing myself as a cold, unloving person.

    Eventually I realized that this behavior started after a traumatic body violation that I had experienced. I understood that my body was resisting vulnerability and closeness in relationships as a way to protect me from further harm.

    I could see that my body had not been working against me, but for me. And I had the opportunity to say to her, “Thank you so much for trying to keep me safe, but I’m going to start trusting people again. I have learned from the experience and will trust my gut to alert me to danger.”

    I realized that things I thought of as “wrong with me” were in fact genius protective and defense mechanisms that my body wisely developed in order to keep me safe in my environment.

    I started talking lovingly to her, full of gratitude for all the ways she worked to keep me safe over the years. I started seeing past experiences through a different lens.

    About ten years ago, I was in a relationship with a man who wanted to marry me. I was in constant turmoil inside about the relationship, plagued with doubt and uncertainty, unsure if I should stay or go.

    I was so mad at myself for not having a clear “yes” or “no” about the situation. I didn’t realize this at the time, but I can see so clearly now that the anxious feeling in my gut was my body trying to tell me that this man was not my person.

    In truth, my body was always working for my best interests. No one looks out for me the way my body does. She has always been my most fierce protector.

    So I talk to my body and she talks to me. It’s the most important relationship I have.

    Write a Thank You Letter to Your Body

    There is a reason that gratitude practices have become so popular: they work.

    One I started to understand just how hard my body had been working to protect me, I wanted to show my gratitude.

    Writing a thank you letter can be the catalyst for a powerful mindset shift. It’s so easy to see all the things we hate about ourselves and our bodies.

    Write a letter to your body. Think about all the millions of ways your body has worked to keep you safe.

    How your body has alerted you when there’s danger, enabled you to speak truth by giving you gut feelings, and allowed you to experience the greatest pleasure.

    We can never know all the ways that our bodies tirelessly work for us. Gratitude allowed me to further cultivate a positive relationship with my body and work in partnership with her instead of against her.

    Gaze into Your Own Eyes

    If you’ve done eye gazing with another person, you know how powerful and bonding it can be. This is true when you eye gaze with yourself.

    I practice this by sitting on the floor in front of my closet doors that are large mirrors. I feel my body rooted into the ground before looking deeply into my own eyes.

    As a woman, I often look into my left eye, which is generally considered to be the feminine side. The masculine is the right side.

    This practice can bring intense emotions, so start with only a few minutes. You can grow your practice to twenty minutes or longer should you wish.

    See yourself. Really see. And feel the feelings that arise.

    It’s not uncommon for me to cry during this practice, reflecting on all the ways I’ve spoken negatively about my body and remembering how truly spectacular she is. She is beautiful, wise, and strong.

    Eye gazing will allow you to see and experience these truths. And when you embrace those truths, your relationship to your body will change.

    Try Mirror Work

    Remember when you were younger and a parent told you to say one nice thing about your sibling or friend that you were fighting with? There’s something about acknowledging the good in another person that regulates emotions and stirs positive feelings. The same can be said about your body.

    Mirror work is standing in front of the mirror and pointing out things you love about your body. This can be done clothed or unclothed depending on your comfort level.

    The thing you love can be as small as an eyebrow or as large as your torso. As you start to focus on one thing you love and sit with the positive emotions that arise, you will start to consistently feel more positive about your body.

    You’ll notice things you never saw before. Or see things as beautiful instead of ordinary.

    The sexy curve of your left thigh, the strong shape of your ankles, the color of that freckle on your shoulder. You are uniquely you and that is inherently valuable.

    Mirror work can be a ten-second practice or ten-minute practice. You can focus on the same part of your body every day or something different each time.

    I incorporate mirror work into my morning routine when I’m brushing my teeth. As I brush, I look at myself in the mirror and pick one thing I love about my body that morning. This way, it doesn’t feel like I’ve added another self-help practice, but rather I’m taking advantage of opportunities to multitask.

    When we take the time to see ourselves, what we really like about ourselves, we will learn to love what we see.

    Commit One Loving Action

    Similar to saying something nice about someone, doing a kind and loving action can also foster feelings of fondness and compassion.

    For a week, do one focused, loving action to your body. If you can’t think of anything, ask this question: What’s something I have been wanting to incorporate into my daily self-care or hygiene routine, but haven’t done?

    For me, this was moisturizing my feet. When I first did this practice, I had just moved to a new city with a much drier climate. My feet were so dry, but I wasn’t taking the time to moisturize them.

    So I committed to do this once a day for a week. It wasn’t long before I started seeing my feet in a new way.

    I was intentional when I sat on my bed and did this. I took my time rubbing the lotion in, observing new things about my feet I had never noticed before. Thinking about how hard my feet work and all the places they’ve stepped over my lifetime.

    After doing this for a week or so, moisturizing became a natural part of my daily routine. In fact, I consistently moisturize all of my skin now, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

    Some extra tender loving care will naturally grow your love for your body and cause you to care for them better.

  • How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

    How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

    I went on my first diet when I was around fourteen or so because, as they often do in growing teens, my jeans started getting tight.

    And because I grew up in the same anti-fat culture we all have, I hated myself for it.

    Around the same time, an adult in my life who was always obsessed with “eating healthy” gave me a copy of the new book she was reading outlining the healthiest way to eat.

    It was a book on the Atkins/low-carb diet.

    The author spent the bulk of the book demonizing carbs, explaining in convincing-sounding detail all the science he supposedly had about not only how harmful carbs were but how they were the cause of weight gain.

    Three things happened from reading that book.

    1. I became scared of eating carbs and started trying to eliminate them because, while of course I wanted to be healthy, I was terrified of gaining weight.

    2. Instead of losing the five pounds or so that I wanted to lose, I gained about five pounds and a slow progression of weight gain continued for years. Because the harder I tried to eliminate the carbs, the more I craved and obsessed over them; always eventually caving, eating them, and then hating myself for it and promising to start “being good tomorrow.

    Eventually the caving led to overeating them because “as long as I was being bad anyway, I may as well eat them all and get them out of the house so I won’t be tempted when I start being good again.”

    3. An almost three-decades-long war with my weight, my body, myself, and food began. A war that resulted in a hospitalization in my early thirties, after my first foray into the world of “it’s not a diet; it’s clean, healthy eating,” for bulimia so severe I often felt like I was going to eat myself to death.

    And the whole time, I blamed myself for it. I believed I was stupid, weak, pathetic, a pig who needed to try harder to control myself.

    So I kept trying. For more than half my life I tried, and it almost killed me.

    I’ve been working with women around the whole weight and food thing in one form or another for over fifteen years now. I started sharing my story because after listening to other women describe their histories with food and weight, I realized that my story is not unique.

    Varying degrees of my story are the norm, and they all start in basically the same seemingly innocent ways.

    We want to lose weight or “eat healthier,” so we do what we’re taught we’re supposed to.

    We start a diet or “healthy eating plan” of some sort that tells us what we “should” and “shouldn’t be” eating. This leads to a lifetime of trying to control our intake and our bodies, which results in disordered eating patterns, weight cycling, and self-loathing.

    I regularly hear from women in their seventies or eighties who have spent their entire lives fighting this losing battle with themselves to “eat right” and lose weight.

    In one survey of US women a few years ago, 75% reported disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders.

    My recovery didn’t start until I realized a few basic truths.

    First, if I had any hope of healing, I had to figure out what was causing my eating issues. Ultimately, it came down to my conditioning: patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that had developed over the course of my life as a result of many different things, not the least of which being:

    1. The stories I had learned to believe about bodies and the people in them: Big ones are bad, unhealthy, undisciplined, and lazy. Small ones are good, healthy, and disciplined, and they work hard.

    These misguided beliefs taught me not only to live in fear of weight gain and the harsh judgment of others if I gained weight, but also to judge myself and my body harshly when I did so. This contributed to not only the decades of weight gain and disordered eating but ultimately the eating disorder.

    2. The stories I’d learned about food: These are the good foods, the healthy foods, the foods you should be eating, and those are the bad foods, the unhealthy ones, the ones that cause all manner of disease, poor health, and weight gain. Those are the foods you have to give up forever, or only allow in moderation.

    These misguided beliefs taught me to live in fear of food and my body becoming unhealthy or fat if I dared to eat the “wrong” thing. This created the never-ending pattern of promising myself I was going to “be good” only to end up craving, caving, hating myself, and starting over that I felt trapped in for so many years.

    3. Disconnection with myself, my body, and my own needs: As long as I was trying to make myself eat or do the things I thought I “should” do in order to control my body and my food intake, I was stuck in my head. Stuck in fear. Disconnected from myself, my body, and even the decision-making part of my brain. Ruminating, promising, obsessing, hating.

    In that state, I had no ability to understand the messages my body was constantly sending me about what it needed, nor did I have any concept that my body was something that could be trusted to tell me that. I saw it as an enemy to be ruled over, controlled, and beaten into submission… rather than the ally, healer, and communicator that it is.

    4. Self-loathing: I didn’t like, love, trust, or value myself, so my entire self-worth and relationship with myself relied on what my body looked like and my need to control how others saw me.

    The second truth I had to realize: if I had any hope of recovering and making peace with myself, my body, and food, I had to change the things that were causing the war.

    That meant giving up the obsession with my weight and eating or looking perfect.

    I had to recognize those things for what they were—distractions that kept me from dealing with the issues that were causing the problems in the first place and were making matters worse.

    So I put all my energy into changing the causes.

    It didn’t happen overnight, but one day I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d engaged in compensatory behaviors. The binges were getting fewer and farther between.

    And then I couldn’t remember the last time I binged or even overate, and I couldn’t even imagine ever doing it again.

    It’s been many years since those things were my daily reality, and I’m thrilled to say they simply don’t exist in me anymore because I changed the conditioning that was causing them. I learned to reconnect with and trust my body when it tells me what it needs or wants, and I learned to value myself enough that I cannot imagine treating myself or my body poorly anymore.

    Recovery and peace are blessings that I don’t take for granted for a second and I’m still grateful for every minute of the day.

    But disordered eating and eating disorder recovery are unbelievably difficult, prone to multiple relapses, and many aren’t so lucky.

    This brings me to my main points because the simplest solution to disordered eating or eating disorder recovery is to prevent those things from ever starting in the first place.

    That’s my dream, to save future generations from growing up with the disordered eating patterns/eating disorders and horrible body/self-images that ours has grown up with.

    It starts with us, as parents.

    What I Wish Parents Understood

    Living with disordered eating patterns or an eating disorder is a special kind of hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

    It’s like living with the meanest, most self-destructive monster in your head one can imagine.

    You know the things you’re thinking and the choices you’re making are harming you, you know they’re making you miserable, you’re desperate to stop, and yet… no matter how hard you try, you can’t.

    You feel powerless. Hopeless. Helpless. Trapped.

    Recovery was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life—and I’ve not had an easy life, so that says a lot.

    Given this, it’s my view that in addition to helping those struggling recover, prevention at an early age needs to be a top priority.

    And parents, I’m not trying to place blame, but after fifteen years of hearing women talk about their struggles, I’ve come to realize that we are often a big part of the cause, although not purposely of course.

    We all have our kids’ best interests in mind.

    We want our kids to be the healthiest, most confident versions of themselves, and we’re all doing the best we can to help them get there.

    We want them to maintain healthy bodies and eat nutritious foods. Nobody doubts that we all want the best for our children and are doing our best.

    But the way we’re approaching it is almost guaranteeing that our kids are going to struggle with the same food issues, eating disorders, or a lifetime of disordered eating and failed diet attempts that so many in our generation have.

    They’re learning to fight the same wars we have in the same ways we learned to fight them.

    All the things we typically do to try to help encourage health (restricting “bad” foods, teaching them that some are “good” and some are “bad,” encouraging them to lose weight or even acknowledging their weight) are among the worst things we can do for the health of our children.

    It’s difficult to overstate the damage that weight and food shame does to adults, and that damage is worse in children.

    We also have to remember that they learn from us. If your kids watch you struggle with food and your weight, if they see you tie your mood and your self-worth to your scale, they are going to be at a significantly higher risk for developing an eating disorder or living with those same struggles themselves.

    So this is what I want parents everywhere to know: encouraging weight loss, labeling or restricting their food intake (good vs bad, allowed vs not allowed), discussing weight, restricting foods, and dieting yourself—all of those things that millions of us are doing every single day that diet and healthy eating cultures have taught us is expected or accepted—they’re putting our children at risk.

    Research has shown that the younger girls are when they go on their first diet, the more likely they are to engage in extreme weight control behaviors like vomiting and laxatives (that’s an eating disorder), abusing drugs and alcohol, and becoming overweight by the time they reach their thirties.

    One out of four dieters will develop some type of eating disorder. That’s a number that’s doubled in the last twenty years. And the majority of the rest develop very disordered eating patterns.

    Eating disorders are widely recognized to have the highest mortality rate of all mental illness, while also being among the most underdiagnosed and under/poorly treated.

    Not even to mention the levels of anxiety, depression, and self-loathing that typically come from years of living with disordered eating and battling with our weight.

    There is a better way.

    Encouraging Healthy Choices Without the Risk

    DON’Ts

    Don’t discuss weight, size, or bodies—not yours, not theirs, not anyone else’s.

    Don’t let other people discuss their weight in front of them—not their doctor, not relatives, no one.

    Don’t label foods—no good, no bad, no healthy, no unhealthy… no food labels. At all. Binary food labels can cause shame, create self-punishing behaviors, destroy our relationship with food, and contribute to overeat/binge/restrict cycles that can take years to heal.

    Don’t tell them they are what they eat—our food choices don’t determine our worth.

    Don’t restrict foods—let them eat what they want. Restriction leads to guilt, shame, overeating, or bingeing and fuels disconnection.

    Don’t force exercise or “burning off calories”—encouraging exercise as a means of weight loss is setting them up for trouble.

    DOs

    Do encourage them to consider how their food choices make their body feel. How does that big mac and fries make their body feel when they’re done eating? What about the candy for breakfast? Do they feel good when they’re done eating? Or do they feel sick? Would they rather feel good, or sick? How does skipping a meal make their body feel? Do they want to feel that way? Do they really want to ignore their body’s most basic human needs with restriction? Why?

    Do encourage them to consider why they’re eating. Are they physically hungry? No? Are they emotionally hungry? Teach them the difference and help them learn to accept, honor, and express the emotions they’re trying to feed or soothe rather than ignore or numb them.

    Do teach them the value of understanding the why behind the choices they’re making and how their choices are often a result of their relationship with themselves.

    Do teach them that the relationships they have with themselves, food, and their bodies are the most important relationships they’ll ever have in their lives and to protect and nurture them.

    Do lift them up, teach them to value themselves exactly as they are, for who they are, not what they look like, weigh, or how they eat. Teach them to value and respect others, no matter what size they are.

    Do teach them about self-acceptance, kindness, authenticity, self-compassion, and the power of mindful living.

    Do teach them to appreciate the wonder and magic of their bodies, no matter what size they are. Teach them how to stay present in the moment and in their bodies, so they learn to listen to and trust their own bodies.

    Do teach them humans come in all shapes and sizes—and that no one shape or size is any better than another.

    Teach them that they are enough, exactly as they are, and that neither their bodies nor their food choices define their worth.

    And that will all be way easier if you learn it for yourself first.

  • The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

    I am forty-nine years old, and I’ve never felt so young in my life. Many people my age feel old. Many people younger than I am feel old, while many people who are older than I am still feel young.

    What makes someone feel young? I can assure you it has nothing to do with how many wrinkles you have. It is something much deeper than that and yet something very simple.

    Most of us get serious about life around the time we are thirty. We devote ourselves to building our career, building our family, or both. From young people who care mostly about having fun, we become responsible adults. We need to prove ourselves, to make money, to buy a house, and to secure our future.

    “Along the way, I forgot to get excited about things. Everything became a project, something I had to deal with,” a friend told me when I asked her if she was thrilled about buying a new house.

    When we build our home, our career, our family, and our reputation, there is a part of us that we leave behind. When we enter the world of mortgages, insurance, and pension funds, fun goes out the window. And when that happens, we lose our fire.

    Fire is fun; it’s freedom, it’s joy. Fire is courage and boldness. Fire is passion and excitement. Fire is being spontaneous, taking risks, and saying your truth. Fire is exercising and moving energy.

    Fire is fighting for what you believe in. Fire is believing in yourself, believing in life, believing that you deserve to fulfill your wildest dreams. Fire is having wild dreams. Fire is learning new things and teaching them to others. It’s being inspired and inspiring.

    So often we are overwhelmed with life’s demands, and we forget to have fun; we forget to keep our fire alive, and we lose our mojo. Some of us got burnt by our fire when we were younger. Fun led to addictions and other destructive behaviors. We have learned to fear our fire and avoid it at all costs.

    During a few wild years when I lived in New York City, a friend once said to me, “In our twenties we have to do crazy things so that we have something to talk about in our thirties.”

    This is how we live, feeling that from this point onward, life is going downhill toward decay. We feel like our prime years were left behind. We try to reduce the signs of aging to feel better when we look in the mirror or at pictures of ourselves. But no matter what we do, we won’t look like we did in our twenties.

    About three years ago, I started feeling old. I’d always looked younger than my age, but I lost in the Botox race, as I did not do any. I lost my passion; I lost my desire to have fun and enjoy myself; everything was very serious.

    I hated looking at my pictures. All I saw was the lack of charm and beauty that I once possessed. I tried to convince myself that these were external, irrelevant, and unimportant concerns, but they were not; they reflected something deep that was going on in my life.

    Don’t get me wrong. During this time, I was already working at something I loved with all my heart. I loved mothering my son more than anything in the world. I loved my husband and was very grateful for our marriage. But except for my work and my family role, I didn’t care about anything. There was absolutely no time or ability to enjoy life.

    Then things got even worse. I got sick and was forced to constantly deal with my health and nutrition. My diet became more limited than it ever was; I could not enjoy food anymore. I thought I was going to die. I was already older than my mother when she passed away at the age of forty-four, and it just made sense that I would follow in her footsteps to heaven.

    But I was also lucky. I was lucky because there was something inside of me that was stronger than all of this. An inner voice told me that I was still alive and that I should not take it for granted. Every day I got to live was a gift. What was I going to do with this?

    Was I going to look back and cry for not being as beautiful as I once was? Or was I going to look forward and make my life the way I wanted it to be? I realized that it was all up to me. I could continue sinking down into my dietary limitations, my homework struggles, and my aging looks, or I could ignite my fire.

    I decided that it was time to make a big move, from Israel to the US, where I’ve always wanted to live. In order to be fully alive, I had to throw myself out of the nest.

    Even though my husband had no desire to make this move, I knew it was a matter of life and death for me and that I had to take the lead. It was my truth, and it required taking a huge risk.

    During the pandemic we could not even make a preliminary visit, nor could we know for sure if our son would be accepted to school, but we had to take our chances.

    Once we settled in Asheville, NC, I bought new colorful clothes. After years of wearing black bamboo jumpsuits, I added some flair to my wardrobe.

    I took some courses with great teachers who inspired me. I got back to practicing yoga and became a part of the local yoga community. I got back to listening to music that made me want to dance.

    I started writing and publishing my work. I started telling my truth more often. I had some big talks with important people in my life. I said some things I’d never dared say before. What did I have to lose? What does anyone have to lose?

    That’s the beauty of being older. You are wiser, more experienced, you know yourself, and you understand life better than ever before. You are mature enough to deal with your fire in a healthy way.

    You already know that there is no point in pretending or hiding. You can live your truth, you can be who you really are, and you can work toward the fulfillment of your dreams. And it’s rejuvenating, so rejuvenating, despite the wrinkles and the fact that your body is no longer in its prime.

    You can live like you’ve died and come back to life. What will you do differently? Do it. Do it today. Don’t wait.

    If your life does not excite you, make it exciting. If life is not fun, make it fun. Obviously, you can’t control everything. The human experience is not always fun, but no matter what your circumstances are, you can always make things better for yourself, even if it’s just a change of attitude.

    People, especially those on the spiritual path, dismiss fun, and I am the first one to admit that I do this. There are always more important things to do. It’s so hard to find time to mother, to be a partner, to work, to cook, to write, to meditate, to practice. Alcohol is bad, drugs are bad, and sugar is bad. All the things you used to have fun with in your twenties are bad.

    For years I prepared all of my family’s meals. When you eat out, the food does not have your loving energy and is not made with the same organic, local, and fresh ingredients. This is all true, but the pressure to constantly cook had a counterproductive effect on my health.

    Today, sometimes I eat out or order in, and it makes me so happy. I am more flexible, more open, and I am much healthier. It’s all about finding the middle path. If your path puts out your fire, it means that something is wrong.

    It’s not that igniting my fire has solved all my problems. The human experience is still hard. I am still facing many challenges, in some ways even more challenges. When you change, or say your truth, it’s usually not so easy for the people around you to deal with. But I am empowered to deal with my problems. I feel fully alive and beautiful.

    Today I love the way I look. I love the way inspiring aging women and men look. When you live out of passion, courage, and truth, you radiate beauty.

    If you are willing to look beyond the anti-aging ads, you can see that aging is a beautiful process. I’m excited to age. I want to get old. My mother did not have the chance to be old. I have so many dreams to fulfill, and I am grateful for every moment given to me to fulfill them.

    One thing is for sure: I will never lose my healthy fire again.

  • We Are Allowed to Age: Why I Don’t Care That I Look Old

    We Are Allowed to Age: Why I Don’t Care That I Look Old

    “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” ~African Proverb

    It is just past ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

    My wet boardshorts and blue tank top are drying at lightning speed in the sweltering South Indian sun.

    I am feeling alive and exhilarated after my surf session in the surreal blue, bathtub-warm Arabian Sea.

    Surfing waves consistently has been my goal for the past two years, and I’m doing it. Which is pretty awesome considering that I never thought I would surf again.

    The trauma and fear from a surfing accident ten years ago, that nearly knocked my teeth out, was still lodged in my body for years, and my life’s focus had shifted from sports to yoga.

    When I landed in Kerala, India, my intention was to do an intensive period of study with my Ashtanga yoga teacher for ten weeks and then return to Rishikesh in Northern India, where I had been basing myself.

    A chance invitation brought me to the coastal town I have been living in for the past two-plus years because of the pandemic.

    And it just so happens there is good surf here.

    My reentry into surfing has been slow and steady.

    For my fiftieth birthday present I gave myself ten surf lessons.

    I decided I needed to start off as a beginner and took basic lessons to ease myself back into things and get comfortable back on a surfboard.

    An Indian man in his mid-thirties who was in my surf class asked, “How old are you?”

    “Fifty,” I replied.

    “I hope I am still surfing at your age,” he said back.

    I think he maybe meant this as a compliment, but I took it self-consciously and wondered why it mattered what my age was.

    It is now two years later.

    I have slowly gone from a beginner to an intermediate surfer.

    As I sipped a hot chai out of a dixie cup on the side of a busy fishing village road, after my morning surf, an older Indian gentleman with grey hair asked me, “What is your age?”

    “Fifty-two,” I replied.

    His jaw dropped and he said, “I thought you were seventy. You have really bad skin.”

    Yes, this really happened.

    And it has happened more than once.

    Every time it’s happened, I have allowed it to knock the wind out of my sails.

    Wow, I think, how is it even possible that I look seventy years old when I feel better than when I was twenty-one?

    In all honesty, good skin genetics are not in my favor. Coupled with my love of the sun and spending most of my life outside, it has left me with the skin of an alligator.

    I lied about my age up until my mid-forties.

    On my forty-sixth birthday, I told a woman who asked about my age that I was forty. She laughed and asked if I was sixty.

    But this chai-guy encounter sparked me to lie in the other direction.

    What if I start telling these men I am eighty-five? I thought to myself as I drove my Mahindra scooter away from the chai shop. This idea made me smile, and I immediately felt more empowered.

    Instead of feeling ashamed of my skin, I decided to hand it right back to them.

    I no longer care what they or you think about how I look, and I put zero energy into my appearance.

    It doesn’t matter to me because inside I feel amazing.

    I practice the whole of Ashtanga yoga’s challenging intermediate series six days a week, which is something I never in my wildest dreams thought would be possible in my forties, and I surf every day.

    The young twenty-something Indian surf guys are now giving me fist pumps and saying, “You are really surfing and catching some big waves now!”

    And they have stopped asking about my age.

    I felt called to share this story because it made me wonder: Why are we not allowed to age?

    Why is it an embarrassment to have old-looking skin?

    Why can’t I have wrinkles and grey hair and own it?

    This is what the body does.

    It ages.

    So then why are we not meant to look our age? Or in my case even older!

    I have decided to take a stand and turn the tides.

    I am claiming my age and my place in the surf line and voicing my truth.

    We are allowed to age.

  • Why Many of Us Chase Big Dreams and End Up Feeling Dissatisfied

    Why Many of Us Chase Big Dreams and End Up Feeling Dissatisfied

    “A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.” ~Greg Reid

    We all have dreams, some of them really big. And if we are serious about achieving these dreams, the next logical step is to set a goal, make a plan, and start taking action.

    But we are missing out on one very important step in the dream-creating journey.

    This step is one that has taken me, personally, two decades to come to realize. And my first clue came from my kids’ bedtime story book, of all places!

    Down in the depths of the ocean lived a sad and lonely whale who spent his days searching and searching for the next shiny object, never feeling complete or fulfilled in his quest for more. Then one day, stumbling upon a beautiful reef, a clever little crab stops him and asks:

    “You are the whale that always wants more. But what are you really wanting it for?”

    We seem to spend our whole lives setting goals and planning out our dreams, but we rarely stop to ask ourselves what we want these things for. What do we want the new car, job, promotion or house for?

    If we stopped to think, and if we were really honest with ourselves, we would all have a similar answer. Because our goals and dreams often boil down to the same underlying human need for significance: to feel good enough, valued, validated, accepted, loved, or worthy.

    Most of our goals are essentially attached to our need to feel good enough in the eyes of others and ourselves.

    The Missing Step of Having an Unattached Goal

    Having an unattached goal is the missing step in our dream-living process. It is such an important step for two simple reasons. When we have goals that are conjoined to the need to be good enough, we can only end up with one of two finish-line photos:

    • You on the podium with the winning medal around your neck, but looking around at the next shiny medal to chase, not fulfilled by your achievement.
    • You not crossing the finishing line, with an “I’m a failure” sign around your neck, left with an even bigger hunger for validation and self-worth.

    Cease the Endless Quest for More

    Just like in the children’s book The Whale Who Wanted More, a typical pattern is to chase goal after goal, finding that we are never satisfied for long and continually hatching plans for the next shiny object to chase.

    It makes complete sense when you realize that these goals are forged together with the need for significance, acceptance, or validation. Because if we don’t fill those needs first and instead use our goals to meet them, there is no car, house, promotion, or partner that will. And we will always be looking for that next thing to meet those needs.

    Cease the Self-Sabotage

    Self-sabotage was my MO for many years. Just like an ironsmith beating his flame-red metal into shape, I had beat and bent my purpose so that it would fulfill what I lacked in self-worth and what I secretly craved in acceptance and validation. I would be enough only when I achieved my purpose-related goal.

    And here’s the kicker—I not only needed to live my purpose in order to fulfill my need for significance, I also had to swim against the undercurrent of feeling like I wasn’t capable of actually doing it.

    The fear of failure was so real, because if I failed at this I wouldn’t get the validation and worth that I needed. So any time I felt like failure was in sight, I would give up and hatch a new plan to reach my purposeful goal, and in doing so, sabotage my own path to it. My way of seeing the world had become: better to keep the dream of a possibility alive than have the reality of failure come true.

    The Question That Opened My Eyes to My Attached Goals

    I lived for twenty years under the guise of a pure purpose, a burning flame to help others. And though that was very much part of my drive and work over the years, it was subtly intertwined with the need for recognition and “becoming someone.” And it had slowly and silently transformed into a shackle for self-worth and significance.

    About a month or two after reading that bedtime book to my children, I heard a question that split my tug-of-war rope in half; a question that left my goal on one side and my self-worth safely on the other. It gave me the separation, distance, and freedom I needed to be me and to go after my goals with no emotional agendas, just pure passion and purpose.

    And the magic question was:

    If you don’t get what you want, what would that mean about you?

    When I first heard that question, my answer came so quickly:

    I’d be a failure.

    It seemed like a simple mathematical truth to me: don’t achieve my life-long goal equals failure. What other answer could there possible be?

    As it happens, there is only one right answer to this question. And it wasn’t the one I gave. The right answer sounded simple. There was nothing complicated about it, but it just didn’t sit, settle, or disperse in any way. It just kind of hung there in front of me, just waiting for something to happen.

    And something did happen, about a week later.

    I was running through my typical pattern: the way I would always approach my purpose-related goals and how, after seeing and concluding that nothing would ever come from my efforts, just give up.

    But that day, I suddenly remembered the question, if you don’t get what you want, what would that mean about you?

    And more importantly, I remembered the right answer:

    Nothing.

    Yes, you read that right. The right answer is nothing. Not getting what you want changes nothing about who you are. You are still you.

    You are still worthy. You are worthy, whether or not you achieve your goal. When we tie so much meaning and worth to what we are trying to achieve it becomes a huge block. And we end up chasing that goal or that dream for all the wrong reasons: so that we don’t feel like a failure; so that we feel loved, accepted, and recognized.

    Your goals do not complete you. You are complete whether you achieve them or not.

    When you truly feel that not getting what you want means absolutely nothing about you, you know that you have an unattached goal. And when you have an unattached goal, you are free to go after it without those typical self-sabotaging patterns and to enjoy achieving your goal when you reach it.

    A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.

    But a dream unattached to your self-worth is the real dream come true.

  • 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.

  • You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    “Bent but never broken; down but never out.” ~Annetta Ribken

    I lived for a long time thinking I was broken beyond repair.

    Let me rephrase: I thought I was unloved, unworthy, scarred, and broken. What a package, right?

    It started young, never feeling like I was good enough for anything I did. Being the youngest of the typical modern recomposed family in the eighties, I never knew on which foot to dance and always thought I needed to bend left and right to be seen and loved.

    I carried this baggage under my badge of anxiety, feeling like no one and nothing could ever make me happy, that no one could love the real me, that nothing could ever make me feel worthy.

    It reached a point as I was entering my forties when all I wanted to do was disappear. I wanted to not be who I was. I wanted to die.

    I thought that was my only solution.

    I believed the world would be better without me.

    What I didn’t understand then is that by thinking I was broken, unworthy, unloved, and all the other awful things I told myself daily, I was pouring salt into old wounds that had no chance to mend until I stopped the self-loathing.

    The more I told myself I was broken, the more I was breaking my soul. The more I told myself I was unloved, the less I loved others and opened myself up to love. The more I told myself I was unworthy, the more I interpreted others’ words to mean the same.

    I didn’t know what I could do. I didn’t know how to get out of the storm I was stuck in. I didn’t know what could help me live in the moment and stop hurting from the past or getting scared of the future.

    How do you get out of hurting so much you want to die?

    For me: writing.

    It was the only thing I could do.

    I was losing friends left and right, closing up like an oyster, hurting myself and others with my words and actions—but my pen and paper were my salvation.

    I bled tears and words until the day I could take a step back.

    The pain, the feeling of being broken and unworthy was still here; I could barely look at myself in a mirror, even less love anyone properly. But as I was playing with my pencil not finding words for a poem I needed to write to survive, I kept pushing into a crack it had. And I pushed my nails into it, and I played with it, and picked at it and some more not really thinking what I was doing, desperately trying to find words, until the pencil broke in two.

    No, let me take responsibility—until I broke the pencil in two.

    I looked at the two pieces in my hand.

    I had played with that pencil’s crack until I broke it.

    My fingers kind of hurt, but I smiled.

    This wasn’t me. This couldn’t be me. I really didn’t want this to become me.

    I wasn’t two parts of one entity.

    I was still one.

    And if I was still one, I wasn’t broken, I was just scarred. I was just bent.

    From that moment on, everything shifted.

    I wasn’t broken, just bent. I could learn to love myself again.

    It became like a mantra I repeated daily.

    And if I wasn’t broken, just bent, then maybe I wasn’t unlovable but loved by the wrong people. And maybe I wasn’t unworthy but only surrounded by people who didn’t recognize my worth, or maybe I was blind to my awesomeness.

    And if I wasn’t broken, if I stopped playing with my wounds, then maybe the healed scars could tell a story. And if I could tell my story and help others in any way, maybe, just maybe my pain and hardship and years of anxiety and depression could become more than a feeling of brokenness.

    So maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was indeed just bent.

    It was hard to say it out loud, it was hard to explain, but the moment I shifted my mindset, I felt a relief.

    I knew then I could rise from the traumas I’d gone through. Even the smallest ones.

    I could give myself a second chance at life by healing and sharing my story.

    I wasn’t broken; I was made to break the shell of my past and show that if I could do it, you could too.

    Because here is my biggest secret: I am no one, and I am everyone.

    My story is the same story as most of yours. I didn’t deal with my traumas, and they caught up. I thought I had dealt with the past by putting a bandage on it when I really needed an open soul surgery.

    I thought I could wear a mask and be loved for who I thought people wanted me to be, but this made me feel unloved to the core.

    I thought I was broken when I was only bent by circumstances I needed to untangle. I thought I was unworthy but I was capable of creating art with my scars and shining a light on the most common depression story ever to tell others they weren’t alone and could get out of it too.

    So don’t tell yourself that you are broken.

    Don’t think you need an extraordinary story to help others find their light.

    Don’t believe you are no one, because we are all no one, and we are everyone.

    I’m not a life coach, I’m not selling classes, I’m not even trying to save your soul. I’m just like you, trying to find a light of love and joy. And together, we are healing, and we have a story to write. A story about the power of choosing to see yourself as someone with strength, value, and purpose.

    Change your mindset today. See yourself as just bent, and don’t try to straighten yourself up.

    Allow yourself to be bent, and let the shift happen.

    Broken is irreparable.

    Bent is not.

    It’s not a big difference, but it might change your life.

  • Not Happy with Your Life? I Changed the Rules and You Can Too

    Not Happy with Your Life? I Changed the Rules and You Can Too

    “I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.” ~Jim Carrey

    If someone had told me years ago I’d one day be serving mushroom mafalda to a former VIP client, I’d have laughed in their face. Not an “I wouldn’t be caught dead doing this” type of cackle; more with an “I haven’t waited tables in twenty-five years, why would I start now?” kind of incredulity.

    But it’s true. I’ve gone from defining myself as “Career Girl Sam”—toiling in an industry that was killing me—to a far simpler existence. Literally pulled from my laughable one-page resume: giving people a positive dining experience.

    Now this trope may seem overdone. People quit their highfalutin jobs every day. Maybe they’re sick of the rat race. Maybe they wake up and realize the lifestyle they’re trying to maintain is unnecessary. Or maybe their mental health is under attack (mine was). Whatever the reason, walking away from a pressure-cooker job is not a new thing.

    Since I walked away, however, I’ve been challenging the so-called “rules” of life. I’ve decided to re-write them. And I have the pandemic to thank for giving me the clarity I never even knew I needed.

    The First Shift

    I’ll start with how I saw myself. Like all of us, I had a different hat for every role. The one I wore as Sam, the mom. It was a practical hat, meant to keep my ears warm in the winter. The one for Sam, the career girl. More a signature, fashion piece netting plenty of compliments. And, of course, the ones I wore as Sam, the daughter… Sam, the friend… Sam, the sister… I could go on, and so can you.

    Over the course of twenty odd years, I’d worn and collected so many damn hats I’d forgotten who was underneath them.

    I’d forgotten about the Sam that I am.

    Well, you reach a certain age and suddenly you’re aware of time running out. I could hear the clock pounding in my head at night.

    Once I realized there was someone living inside me who had been buried underneath all those hats, I decided I needed to give her a chance. And the best way I knew was to figure out how to thrive in my own way, on my own time, and with my own set of ideals.

    I don’t hold any secret sauce to succeeding at this game called Life. But I can tell you, I’m happier these days. Changing up the rules has made a huge difference.

    Screw the Productivity Hustle

    I’ve been in a perpetual state of anxiety for most of adulthood. In the past, I was rarely in the moment. (Was I ever? Probably not.) Because it was a constant series of this, then that, then don’t forget about these 500 other things I was juggling. All of which could come toppling down at any moment.

    And here’s the deal: I’m not ashamed of my incessant quest to get sh*t done. It’s part of who I am. But I’ve learned some things that shocked me. Thank you, pandemic, for showing me that it’s okay to wake up and know your contribution to the world is simply being alive.

    The stripping away of so much from our regularly scheduled days has created space for… well, nothing, if I choose. Understand this is decidedly not how I roll. I will try to squeeze seven minutes out of every five whenever I can.

    But it’s unhealthy. And I saw myself projecting my constant hustle onto others. If my husband “sat around” on his day off, it would trigger me. “What did you get done today?” “Uhhh, I watched ‘Forged in Fire.’ Why?” The poor dude. He’s entitled to rest and restoration. Just because I didn’t allow myself the same luxury didn’t mean he had to operate under that hard-core philosophy.

    He said to me the other day, “Sam, I’m not you,” and then it hit me. Why am I driving myself so much?

    I fill every second with a TO-DO that, quite frankly, does not add much value to my life. So what if the house hasn’t been vacuumed in a month? So what if the laundry resembles a mountain of clothing chaos I summit only when necessary? (Like, hardly ever. Rummaging is more our style these days.)

    I’ve decided to stop chasing—and exalting—productivity. It’s exhausting! Here’s what I now do instead.

    Do you and forget about validation.

    Along the way, I’ve prided myself on being a woman who could pull amazing things out of thin air. Elaborate costumes made at the eleventh hour. Corporate events I’d swoop into and sprinkle my own “something something.” Need a little pick-me-up? Standby while I write you a rap song and perform it in front of all your peers.

    I believed in trying to nail everything I was involved in. Which meant operating at high intensity, twenty-four-seven.

    And I documented it all on social media.

    I wanted everyone to know how capable I was. I gobbled up their validation, morning, noon, and night. But unconsciously.

    In fact, I thought I was just being funny. In some ways, I was. Getting stuck in my red leather boots at airport security in Toronto proved highly entertaining for my Facebook peeps a number of years ago. Losing my keys in the snow. Smashing my phone for the umpteenth time. It was all part of my little show. Another persona—Sam, the relatable dumpster fire.

    For the last eight months, I’ve mostly been off social media. I was initially motivated to take a break by the same things that probably irk you. But when I felt an uncomfortable vacancy after completing something cool that nobody knew about, it hit me.

    Newsflash: I was desperate to be liked, and hungry to be lauded. I knew I needed to stop relying on this external validation.

    Now if I have a private moment to myself, I don’t feel any pressure to whip out my iPhone and snap a photo. I can, if I want to, but it’s for me. Or my family. These moments have become sacred.

    And I’m not pooh-poohing anyone who loves their daily scroll through the lives of others. Nor am I judging those who enjoy sharing things themselves. Have at ‘er.

    But I can tell you, I have more available real estate in my head, and I truly do not give a flying you-know-what on the opinions of followers. I’m doing me. On my terms. No permission needed.

    Prioritize joy.

    I’m not sure why, but I grew up attaching a sense of shame to the feeling of joy. Maybe it was because my mother suffered from crippling depression. We kind of tip-toed around, trying to keep the confusion at a minimum. Maybe it was the energy placed on productivity and success. I’m not sure. But what I now know is that joy is allowed. Joy matters. And I’m not going to dim my pursuit of it to make anyone else feel better.

    Because I’m choosing to find it in the smallest of things. Like my hot oatmeal this morning. How incredible was that first taste—the crunch of the green apple, the punch of the cinnamon I added. A small moment; just for me.

    How lovely is it to sit in that one sliver of sunshine that beams in your house first thing in the morning? Or to notice the squirrels chasing each other? These seemingly silly observations which at one point in my life would have gone completely unnoticed are now part of my ongoing quest.

    Where can I find joy? Is it in the smile of the barista who made my latte? Is it in this parking space I lucked out on? And I don’t just look for it, I want to dish it out. Because it matters. We all deserve joy.

    Get real with yourself. And calm the F down.

    My tendency in life is to live in the extremes. When things are bad, I assume the worst. When the going is good, my rose-tinted glasses convince me that only the best possible outcome is reserved for me.

    Well, I’ve spent the last year getting real with myself. This has involved challenging the absolute worst-case scenario that lives in my head.

    I quit my career to lead women on these gorgeous, global walking adventures. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s what I did. It seems so obviously like a pipedream, it’s not even funny. The truth is nothing is as simple as the idea. I’m learning this. (She says while popping a Tums!)

    With the pandemic stalling my plans for this new business, I’ve found myself twisted up in even more fear. But I’ve looked it square in the eye and decided I can live with the worst-case scenario: instead of getting this thing off the ground, what if it plummets into cold water like some sloppy cannonball?

    What will that mean? I’ll have spent time and money chasing a dream that didn’t work out. Will I say it was wasted? No way. Because I’ve always believed we can’t know until we try. Will we end up in the streets? I mean, I guess, that’s always a possibility. But unlikely. I have skills, and I’m fairly certain I can just go out and get another J-O-B.

    Which brings me to my next point.

    Stop asking people what they do for a living. Ask them what they’re about, instead.

    A part of me has had to face some ugly bits of my ego. I used to feel good about myself when I answered that famous question, “What do you do for a living?” I’d pretend to stammer around, but secretly would be full of pride that I owned a company and worked in finance. I thought (foolishly) this gave me credibility. I thought, somehow, I was worthy. Because I flat-out defined myself as Sam, the career woman.

    I’m here to tell you it’s all rubbish.

    Thanks in part to walking the Camino, I figured out that I am not that. The “Sam I Am” is not what I do for a living. Nor does anyone give a rat’s ass what I do for a living, unlike what we’re led to believe. I could be perfectly content living a simple life, under the radar, away from regulations and scrutiny and incessant pressure.

    Like my new part-time gig of waiting tables. I live in a small town with a handful of nice restaurants. I knew it would mean the inevitable bump into past clients. But it doesn’t faze me—not even a noodle. And it will happen one day. I imagine a conversation going like this: “Oh hello, Mr. Former VIP Client! Yes, I do work here now. Any questions about the pasta selection?”

    Let’s redefine that annoying question, “What do you do for a living?” Why do we feel the need to put people in boxes? Why does it matter how someone earns money these days? As though their job somehow defines them. Hypocrisy moment: it used to define me. Or so I thought, until it didn’t anymore.

    And I’m a little frustrated that we start as young as we do, even with kids. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m all for having dreams and a path to work toward. But are we not setting ourselves up for a future that has far too much emphasis on what we do and how that relates to our worth in the world?

    I think it would be more interesting to answer the question, “What are you about these days?” or “What matters to you in life?” Next time you find yourself in that classic situation, why not switch things up?

    I’m just now figuring out what matters to me in life. It’s not the job. Not the house. The car. The clothes I wear. It’s not the likes. The comments. Or the number of holiday cards I receive. It’s not even the hikes I go on.

    What matters to me are the same things that truly matter to you. Your family. Your sense of self-worth. Trying to stay on a path that feels like your own.

    So throw out the rules that aren’t working for you. Nobody said you had to follow them anyways.

  • Was I An Overachiever or Really Just Trying to Prove My Worth?

    Was I An Overachiever or Really Just Trying to Prove My Worth?

    “I spend an insane amount of time wondering if I’m doing it right. At some point I just remind myself that I’m doing my best. That is enough.” ~Myleik Teele

    Just one more client. Just one more call. Just one more. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

    Then, maybe, just maybe, I will feel validated. Worthy. Appreciated.

    That’s how success works, right? Everyone has to like you, think you’re amazing, and recognize all of your hard work for you to be successful? I learned the hard way that this is the path to overwhelm, burnout, and a massive anxiety disorder. Because, you have to grind it out for that business; forget your physical, emotional, and mental health.

    Let’s not scapegoat my business, however; my lack of self-worth started years, decades even before I opened my former company.

    As the oldest of three, I was expected to achieve.

    In middle school, I played competitively on an AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) basketball team. I remember never feeling good enough, tying my self-worth up in what my coach thought of me, if our team won or not, or if I scored a certain number of points. Something I loved became something I despised.

    Playing basketball in high school left me feeling empty and like fraud. If I wasn’t the best, who was I? The performative pressure was suffocating.

    The overachiever in me was never satisfied, never okay with mediocre.

    In high school, I took the SAT three times to earn the scholarship I needed to pay for most of my education. I got into the top state schools and even some private colleges. I couldn’t apply to just one. I had to apply to just one more.

    With each letter of acceptance, I felt validated. Like I actually belonged and that my life held meaning. Maybe then, when I got into my dream school, I would be worthy, and all of this anxiety would be worth it.

    “Where are you going in the fall”? I remember not knowing how to answer that question.

    Wanting to go to college and actually going were two very different things.

    My parents sent me to a private college prep school, where we were practically reading through course catalogs freshman year. I thought it was something that was next in the sequence of achievements.

    On the way home from a college tour in the spring, my mom told me I had to pay for room and board. I just had to figure out how. I ended up staying in my hometown and going to community college, which was a blow to my eighteen-year-old ego. I was devastated, angry with my parents, and frustrated about all the hard work I had put in with nothing to show for it.

    My self-worth was in the tank; my need to prove myself was at an all-time high. So was that constant, chirping companion, anxiety.

    After two years of community college, I transferred to a state college and chose education as my major. I wanted to be a leader, a catalyst for change, a visionary. I made the Dean’s list, worked my way through college, and even got married.

    After I graduated, I taught physical education and was also athletic director of a grade school. I believed that by using my degree I worked so hard for, I would finally be happy and fulfilled. Instead, the position came with a principal who gaslit and bullied me daily, at the time taking away any joy that I had in my chosen field. But I had worked so hard for this. Shouldn’t that be enough?

    Working hard was always a badge of honor I wore proudly; more accolades from others to put into the validation tank. All the while, I never felt worthy. As the things I’d worked so hard for were taken away from me, I began to wonder if success was even in the cards.

    I felt lost. Undeserving. I was focused on my first year of marriage, teaching, and working on extended family relationships. Would I ever be accepted?

    If I tried hard enough, they would like me, the overachiever in me believed.

    But wait, was I really an overachiever? Maybe it was something deeper?

    Was I just addicted to working hard because I was trying to prove my worth and gain approval?

    With a full-blown anxiety disorder, depression, a drinking problem, and zero boundaries, I entered my thirties thinking that if I just made it in business, I would be whole.

    What a crock.

    The patriarchal standards I had tried to measure up to, were the same ones holding me back from living a life of peace. If I just, “hustled,” and “grinded,” despite the effects on my mental, emotional, and physical health, I could finally prove my worth. All that ended up proving was that mental health matters. My work is not my worthiness.

    So how did I go from codependent thinking and seeking validation outside of myself to understanding that we are all born worthy?

    First, I had to decide what really lights me up like a firecracker. Passion, playfulness, and purpose are lost when you were trained to look outside yourself for validation.

    I’d spent my life focused on achievement. What did “success” even mean? It wasn’t until I was well into my thirties that I realized success, to me, means freedom, and freedom meant letting go.

    I had to then get radically honest with myself about my upbringing, my relationships with family members, my belief system, and what I wanted out of life.

    Did I really want to run the service-based business I’d started after I quit my teaching job, with several employees, ongoing calls and emails, that had me working holidays, nights, and weekends, and that left me in a people-pleasing tailspin on a regular basis?

    My honest answer: No.

    Relief washed over me. Not regret, longing, or sadness.

    Relief.

    I then realized I needed to let go of people-pleasing, overachieving, and the need for external validation in other aspects of my life, which meant doing some radical boundary setting and self-reflection.

    Looking back through my years of wearing my hard work in school as a badge of honor, drowning in my former business like a sacrificial lamb, and navigating the sometimes-chaotic waters of a new marriage and family, I can finally understand that my worthiness doesn’t come from others. I am good enough as I am. My oneness comes from within, not from outside accolades.

    Getting to the root cause of the unworthiness, worry, and workaholism was a deep dive into my childhood and young adulthood. I realized I carried toxic shame and guilt and believed that if I was just “enough,” I would be able to finally be free.

    Turns out, the complete opposite is true. Chasing becomes all-encompassing. I had been treading water; doggie-paddling, not knowing that the pool of people-pleasing I was swimming in was keeping me stuck.

    These days, creating takes the place of hard work, clarity takes the place of drinking to cope, and self-compassion takes the place of validation-seeking to prove my worth. And that toxic friend named Anxiety? She still likes to show up unannounced, but I have the self-acceptance and healthy internal dialogue to keep our interactions short.

    Take it from this former overachiever: You are worth more than your work and your accomplishments. Just one more client? Just one more call? Not anymore. Now I just choose freedom.

  • Why I Despised My Skin Color & 5 Strategies That Improved My Self-Image

    Why I Despised My Skin Color & 5 Strategies That Improved My Self-Image

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.” ~Coco Chanel

    I believed I was ugly and blamed it on my dark skin. I hated my skin color. Looking back, I realized it’s because I didn’t fit in with the white kids, nor did I fit in with the black kids.

    I am mixed race. I have a black father and a white mother. Until I started school, I never considered myself different. My family and I were close, and I felt love and acceptance.

    When I started second grade, I developed a crush on a boy, who never noticed me and fawned over the pretty blonde girl in class. She was beautiful, with springy blonde curls and a soft, feminine voice. She wore colorful dresses that enhanced her beauty. I felt drab and plain next to her. Thus, began my dislike of my dark, frizzy afro.

    As I grew older, the name calling occurred. I was called zebra, Oreo, and n*gger. I spent a lot of my youth in tears.

    I wish I could say that it got easier as I grew older. I grew envious of the blonde girls, who caught the boys’ attention. I even envied my two sisters. One had no trouble getting boys to like her, and the other had beautiful hair that fell naturally down her neck in wavy curls.

    However, entering the seventh grade solidified my hatred of my skin color and frizzy hair.

    I sat in the back of my math class working on my assignment, while passing notes to my friends. Exhibiting a form of bravery, I tossed a note to my secret crush named Mike. He wrote back which pleased me.

    In one particular note, I asked him why he didn’t like me. As I handed it to him, I hoped with all my might that he’d tell me I was wrong. When he gave me the note back, he smiled, and I grew hopeful. I opened it and tears formed in my eyes. My heart plummeted to my stomach and bile rose to my throat. His words seared my brain as if he said them aloud.

    “Because you’re ugly.”

    Devastation enveloped me. I crumbled up the note, but the words couldn’t be as easily destroyed like the piece of paper. It sat in the back of my mind as an explanation to me why boys didn’t like me.

    In ninth grade, I was called a dog and had spitballs spat at the back of my head. I left them there, too embarrassed to even rummage through my thick frizzy mass to find them.

    “Why did you let them throw spitballs at you?” the substitute teacher asked me after class, as she removed the wet globs from my hair.

    I shrugged and left the room thinking, “Why didn’t you stop them?”

    By the time I graduated from high school, I pretty much gave up on finding somebody to love me for me. I did go on dates, but I had to do the asking. Even as I went out with them, I could tell that they’d have preferred to be anywhere else but with me.

    I struggled with my self-esteem but hid it all behind a smile. I decided to just be myself, be friendly, be kind, and smile. In private, I would cry as I wrote my feelings in stories and journals.

    Then one day at the college computer room, I met Rick. He spoke to me and showed an interest in me. When he asked me out, I accepted. Unfortunately, my life never went like I had hoped. I got pregnant. He left me.

    Deciding to keep my baby, I raised him with the help of my parents and went back to college to get my degree. I decided then to focus on myself and my little boy. Naturally, obstacles surfaced, but I chose to be myself and incorporated five strategies that slowly helped me start liking myself.

    1. I practiced self-care.

    Although self-love needs to come from within, I knew I’d feel better about myself if I put more effort into my appearance, so I bought new clothes and changed my hairstyle. This reinforced that I was worth the effort. Wearing flattering clothes and makeup enhanced my skin tone and body shape.

    I also took care of myself mentally by reading books that centered on personal growth and following steps to keep my thoughts positive, such as reciting positive affirmations and being more aware of my negative thoughts so I can reframe my thinking patterns.

    Taking care of my mind and body really helped me see myself differently. When I felt more comfortable in my skin and more at ease in my own mind, my self-confidence grew.

    2. I stopped worrying about what people thought.

    I had always been shy and introverted, and I was afraid of being judged. Being in college helped me break out of that shell. I spoke up in class and asked questions. I stopped worrying what people would think about me because I knew this was holding me back. My entire focus centered on what I wanted to learn and get from the classes I took.

    My best friend at the time told me that I should walk with my head up and back straight. She taught me that with my shoulders back and my head held high, I’d appear confident, and when I felt confident, no one’s opinions could hurt me. I adopted that form, and believe me, it felt great to walk with extremely good posture and feel the confidence exude from within me.

    3. I focused on the positive.

    Being positive had always been hard. I would wallow in self-pity and then wonder why I didn’t have many friends or couldn’t get a date. I changed my mindset and focused on the good things in my life and positive changes I wanted to make.

    I spent a lot of time with my son and worked on my writing skills, because being a writer was very important to me, and still is! I learned everything I could about business management and continuously developed my skills. I also started hanging out with positive people with healthy self-esteem and emulated their free spirit and vivacious personalities. Spending time around people who see the world through a positive, empowering lens has helped switch my mindset and feel better about myself and life.

    4. I started smiling more.

    By smiling more, I felt positive and happy more often. I wanted people to view me as someone approachable and friendly, so I smiled and showed my courtesy to those around me. It’s amazing what a smile can do for yourself as well for others. Smiling at someone in passing could touch that person and ease whatever pain they’re enduring. It could brighten their day and, and in turn help you feel good about yourself.

    When I was on my way to work one day, after picking up a hot chocolate at a nearby food court, I walked down a few steps toward the exit. An unkempt man entered and held the door open for me. I flashed him a smile and thanked him. He did a doubletake and then smiled hesitantly at me. It was then that I realized the power of a smile. It made me feel good to acknowledge this man because of a courteous gesture on his part.

    By being kind and grateful, I shared a moment with a complete stranger and it felt good.

    5. I found the courage to be myself.

    After practicing the steps above, I was no longer afraid to be myself. I broke out of my comfort zone and even spoke in public at church and seminars I took. Being myself freed me from living in a shell, where the walls I had built at a young age came crashing down.

    Today, my skin color no longer bothers me. I still hate my hair, but that’s beside the point. The fact is I realized that it wasn’t my skin color that was stopping me from making friends and finding love. It was me all along. I need to love and take care of myself first before anyone else could love me.

    I now have a wonderful, gorgeous husband who treats me the way I’ve always wanted to be treated by a man. He values me and loves everything about me—flaws and all!

    Exercising these five strategies created a life for me that I’m quite proud of. In retrospect, I wish I could tell my teenage self that life will get better, just be patient, and enjoy your naturally built-in tan.

    I’m proud to be half black and white. It is a blend of both my parents, who I love very much. Without them, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.

  • Why I Stopped Measuring My Self-Worth and Trying to Prove Myself

    Why I Stopped Measuring My Self-Worth and Trying to Prove Myself

    “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” ~Maya Angelou

    How do you measure your self-worth? By the salary you make each year? By the length of your resume? By the number of people who follow you on social media?

    Now what if you never had to measure your self-worth again? That is what I want to do.

    I grew up as a gifted kid with high expectations to boot, always pushing myself to meet them. I earned the best grades I could, secured a full-ride scholarship to a local university, and soon enough ended up at one of the top law schools in the country.

    Thanks to all the achievements, my self-worth was high. I believed I was outshining my peers, boosting my ego. I felt safe in this comfort zone I’d created. 

    Law school drastically changed my perspective of the world. My peer group became some of the smartest and most talented people in the country. I tried competing against them to prove myself, but I struggled more than ever to stand out and feel accomplished.

    In just a few months, my ego began crumbling apart, taking my once lofty feelings of worth down with it. I was out of my comfort zone and felt invisible.

    I turned to strangers online in an attempt to put the pieces back together and resurrect my worth. I relied heavily on social media to put myself out there for superficial likes and comments. I turned lifelong hobbies into side hustles, trading content I cared about for bits of validation here and there.

    I was desperate to find some new measure of success on which I could rely. But I never noticed the damage that desperation was doing to my psyche until it had already taken its toll.

    My ego had protected me for so long from doubt that as soon as it was gone, I never felt good enough. Once I believed I was a failure, I only kept confirming my demoralizing feelings by pushing myself to excel immediately in new areas. I compared myself to the best of the best and treated myself like the worst of the worst.

    I was trapped in a downward spiral leading to worthlessness. It was only when I slowed down to reflect on my mental health that I realized my life looked like an endless rat race to find some proverbial cheese. I strained to earn my worth and ended up empty-handed.

    If you always chase after self-worth, you never stop to see if you have found any.  

    How is it so many of us believe our worth is conditional? I believe it is a long, grueling process.

    Many of us learned growing up to associate self-worth with achievement of some kind. As we discovered authority figures gave us the most positive feedback and attention when we were doing a great job, we linked our worth to excelling. Without that encouragement, we were lost.

    The world around us exploits this correlation on a daily basis. To some extent, it makes the world go round.

    Western culture, in particular, thrives on permanently tying worth to achievement: the more people pursue success in what they do, the more productive they are and the more money that flows. Accordingly, society constantly tries to push the idea that hard work is sacred and will ultimately lead us to a life of achievement, ergo worth.

    Western culture does not reward those happy to just be. Instead, we are expected to keep laboring away until we can do something well. Even then, some types of work are highly valued over others, so we have to find the right work to do just to get by. 

    So, if you do not feel happy and fulfilled, do you not just have to work harder?

    Yet, not all hard workers reap the benefits. After all, achievement requires meeting a certain standard, inevitably doing better than someone else. Only significant time and effort may lead to a worthy triumph.

    There will inevitably be haves and have-nots because the system at play rewards a limited number of people who play the system best, who achieve the most success. The more limited the rewards, the more everyone forces themselves to try harder day in and day out.

    Unfortunately for us, the reward is merely the validation we apparently need to go about our lives. If our worth is dependent solely on our achievements, we have no choice but to compete with one another over a limited, essential resource. Achievements are only as valuable as they are rare.

    But this competition cannot be won. There will always be more to do. And someone will always do more.

    External validation never makes you content. It only keeps you hungry for more.

    In my struggles, I have had a difficult time understanding how to view my worth.

    How much worth do I have? How does it compare to other people’s worth? Does it go up and down?

    When am I finally worthy once and for all?

    To answer these questions, I vehemently tried to attach a number to my worth whenever possible. After all, a number is a concrete, self-explanatory concept. I could tell when I had more or less than someone.

    Thus, using numbers allowed me to measure my worth and other people’s worth with ease. This gave me a way to understand my place in the world.

    Using numbers also allowed me to gauge how my worth was changing. For example, if I received more likes than usual, I was happier than usual since I must have been doing something right. If I received less, I was in need of quick improvement.

    Except numbers are hollow. They have no value unless we agree to give them value, but our obsessive nature often gives extraordinary value to the benign.

    We use shortcuts like numbers to explain concepts we have a hard time comprehending. Self-worth certainly seems to be one of those trying concepts, always just out of reach like an elusive fruit hanging above us or a receding pool of water.

    Breaking away from society’s expectations provided me the room to realize self-worth is only as complicated as I make it.

    If self-worth need not exist conditionally, it can exist inherently. In fact, it exists now without exception.

    Your worth cannot be assigned a value. It simply is. 

    By virtue of the fact that you are alive, you are just as worthy as anyone else who has lived before, lives now, or will live after.

    We all come into the world the same, and we all leave the same way. Our lives may differ widely in content, but not in value. Nothing separates us at the most fundamental level.

    And none of us start out deficient in worth. We need not go on a lifelong journey to earn our worth by moving up in the world. Our worth remains steadfast regardless of how our lives take shape.

    Work does not shape our worth. No matter how you decide to share your skills and talents, the world will be better off, even if you alone trust the value in what you do and who you are.

    Society may try to tell us how we should view and feel about ourselves, but we are not obligated to listen. Fighting those ingrained ideas of what others think we should do is never an easy battle, but it is worth the independence.

    No matter how one does or does not measure worth, it does not vary, and it does not waver.

    We are all enough as is, right now.

    There exist millions of ways to compare ourselves to others, but we owe it to ourselves to make light of differences and revel in our shared humanity.

    So how do we move forward knowing that we cannot improve or reduce our worth?

    Well, the possibilities are endless. The doors open up to a life where you can be you unabashedly. And more importantly, you can be a part of something bigger than yourself without feeling small.

    Waiting for others to prove you are worthy is time better spent sharing your true self. 

    After spending the last few years of my life trying to prove myself without ever reaching the level of success I wanted, I realized my definition of success kept changing until I made it impossible to feel fulfilled. I stopped myself from being happy unless I was universally revered.

    I lived thoughtlessly, spending what free time I had attempting to make myself look accomplished rather than enjoying the time. I conformed to what I thought people would like rather than let myself flourish.

    My true self was suffocated. Receiving even the most primitive criticism felt like being stabbed in the chest. I was more distanced from others than ever before because I did not feel like I deserved to be liked anymore.

    But I do deserve to be me, to take up space, to contribute to the world in my own way. And you do too.  

    Knowing that what you do cannot change who you are promotes freedom in how you want to live, freedom not just from others, but also from expectations and doubt.

    Knowing you always have worth allows you to connect with the people around you more deeply, empathize with them, and support their journeys through life.

    It is with this knowledge you can find and share true joy.

    You can pursue what you love instead of what you feel you ought to do. You can work at your pace to be the person you want to be. You can stay present knowing neither praise nor disapproval affects your worth.

    Many will struggle to agree with you, though, that you can exist in peace without having to fight to prove your value. Even I still struggle to keep not just naysayers, but also my inner, learned uncertainties at bay in regard to whether I offer anything worthwhile.

    Learning more about your inherent worth means unlearning those harsh, ingrained principles of life as we have known it. These principles will never fade away completely, but we can make a choice every day to drown them out.

    Take it from me, your life will not immediately change in discovering your own worth, but it can improve a little day after day the more you take your discovery to heart. As is the case with any transition, there will be ups and downs. I still have doubts creeping in when I least expect them.

    But the more you live openly and share yourself with others, the more those principles will take hold and the stronger you will be in challenging what life throws your way. Instead of seeking achievement and improvement, you will be content, one with the universe.

    You will be free.

  • 5 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

    5 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

    “No matter what you do, someone won’t be pleased. Someone will think your choices are wrong. And someone will tell you what you should do instead. No matter which path you take, someone will seem to be doing better. Someone will have more than you. And someone else’s life may look more impressive on paper. If you’re being true to yourself, none of that will matter because you’ll have something more satisfying than approval and the illusion of “success”: a life that feels right for you, based on your own wants, needs, values, and priorities.” ~Lori Deschene

    Have you ever walked past a grand-looking house, or driven through an upmarket neighborhood and thought, “I wish I lived here” or “The people living here are so lucky”?

    If you have, then we’ve been part of the same club! I used to do this a lot.

    While walking my dog, I’d look at a house and assume that the people living in that house must have been very happy with life. My assumptions were based on nothing more than the look of the front yard and the frontage of the house.

    When I think about it now as I write this post, I wonder, “How could I have been that naive?” Despite being aware of the expression “never judge a book by its cover,” that’s exactly what I used to do. How can one ever guess what lies behind the grand entrance of a home? Who knows what stories the plush homes of exclusive neighborhoods hold inside them?

    My regular bouts of comparisonitis got jolted by a sobering dose of reality through a shocking and tragic news story some years ago.

    One of the homes that I used to admire became the location of a horrific murder-suicide that wiped out an entire family! I could not believe my ears and eyes as I read the news and watched the coverage on television.

    My mind was thinking, in all its naivety, “How is that possible? What could have gone wrong for residents of that beautiful home? They had everything anyone could ever want, didn’t they?”

    Do I Know You?

    Have you heard the expression “human beings are like onions”? We have so many layers that hide our core self. As you peel away one layer, another appears!

    It is extremely difficult to know another person deep down to their core. How often have you found yourself wondering about the unexpected or puzzling behavior of someone you thought you knew well?

    The reality is that each one of us is unique, and it can often take a whole lifetime for us to understand our own selves. So, is it any wonder that we never manage to truly understand another person?

    Yet, we compare! We do it day in and day out, without even being aware of how easily and how often we slip into comparison mode.

    Humans are naturally prone to comparisons because this phenomenon begins quite early in our lives.

    As young kids, we might have experienced the feeling of being compared to other children—by parents, teachers, relatives, friends, peers, etc. As we grow into adults, we start comparing ourselves to other adults. Sometimes the comparisons might be in a favorable light, and at other times, the comparisons could be unfavorable. Either way, it leads to feelings that are unhealthy—a sense of superiority or inferiority.

    Feelings of arrogance or bitterness are never healthy, are they?

    Whether your comparison results in thoughts of “Oh, I’m so much better than this guy!” or “How does she do it? I’ll never be as good as her!”, there’s little doubt that “the thief of joy,” as coined perfectly by Roosevelt, has taken residence in your head and is busy ransacking your mind of all joy, happiness, and contentment.

    Why is it so difficult to avoid falling victim to the tendency of constant comparison?

    Social Comparison Theory

    Psychologist Leon Festinger proposed in his social comparison theory that the human species engages in comparison as a way of evaluating ourselves, like a benchmarking process. We get to know more about our own abilities, attitudes, or skills by comparing ourselves to our peers.

    Festinger’s theory contends that human beings can only define themselves in relation to other people. I wonder if that’s why the age-old existential question “Who am I?” seems so difficult to answer, as we seem to be incapable of defining ourselves independent of others.

    As mentioned earlier, social comparison can work in two ways.

    1. Upward social comparison

    This is when we compare ourselves to those who we believe are better than us. This type of comparison can lead to two kinds of thoughts, emotions, or outcomes.

    The first kind is where we might want to improve ourselves to reach the level of the person that we are comparing ourselves to, or even go past them. This is one possible benefit of comparison if we’re prepared to learn, as it could lead to personal growth.

    If comparison can be seen in this positive light, then “the thief of joy” might be entitled to a change of title and live inside us as “the giver of motivation.”

    The second and more common outcome of upward social comparison is envy, jealousy, and bitterness—obviously an undesirable outcome that can only lead to disappointment and frustration.

    2. Downward social comparison

    This happens when we compare ourselves to people who we believe are worse off than us. This is like an “artificial boost to self-esteem” exercise. The “at least I’m not as bad as him/her” attitude might help us feel better about our talents, achievements, or life situation, even if only temporarily.

    Social comparison begins early in life (for instance, a child in a kindergarten wanting the same toy that another kid has in his hands), gains momentum through school (new fads, fashions, and gadgets that kids want to follow or possess), and becomes deep-rooted in adulthood through comparisons in career, family, wealth, status, and lifestyle.

    This tendency to compare completes a full circle when the phenomenon moves on to adults comparing their children on how well they’re doing in academics, sports, or any other activity.

    Escaping the Comparison Trap

    To feel mentally and emotionally healthy, it is essential to free ourselves from the comparison trap. I’m sure none of us wants to experience the feeling of unworthiness from upward social comparison, or superiority from downward social comparison. So what can we do?

    Here are five simple ideas to get better at saying NO to the disease of comparisonitis:

    1. Define what success means to you.

    If we nailed down our own definition of success, the number of times that we indulged in comparisons would be significantly reduced. For instance, if our success definition were about raising healthy, happy kids, we wouldn’t really be bothered about someone else’s thriving business, would we?

    2. Discover your own strengths.

    Becoming aware of our strengths will help in minimizing the tendency of comparing our weaknesses with other people’s strengths. The great physicist Albert Einstein failed his French exams. Fortunately, he didn’t let that failure define him, as he was aware that his strengths lay elsewhere!

    3. Think of the big picture.

    Whenever you find yourself slipping into comparison mode (which will inevitably happen… we are human after all!), just remind yourself that there’s always more to a person’s life than what you’re seeing or hearing.

    Don’t let a peek through a small window into someone’s life lead to disillusionment or disappointment with your entire life. In other words, don’t compare your whole movie with another person’s highlights reel!

    4. Always be a student.

    Develop the “continuous learning” philosophy. If you always think of yourself as a student with lots more to learn in life, it becomes easier to think in terms of collaboration, not competition, with peers. If you think of yourself as an artist who is still painting his/her masterpiece, you might not be tempted to feel inferior when you view other people’s paintings because your job’s not done yet!

    5. Focus on small successes.

    When comparisonitis strikes, take up a small project that you can complete in a relatively short time, and do well. It could be something that you might’ve been putting off for a while.

    For example, let’s say you’ve started a new online business and you start to feel unsatisfied about the lack of progress. Maybe you’re looking at peers in your industry who are at a similar stage of the business cycle but seem to be gaining a lot more traction.

    Instead of letting this get you down, how about you focus on something small—like writing a blog or doing a podcast? Doing that specific task well could help lift your spirits.

    Unique Journeys

    Have you seen pieces of driftwood floating in a river? They come together at some point due to the action of the waves, might stay together for a little distance, and at some point down the river, the force of the waves separates them and they go their own ways.

    Our lives are like that.

    People come into our lives and go out of our lives at different stages of our life’s journey.

    We all begin our journeys at different points, end them at different points, and often our paths take different routes. Why then should we compare ourselves to others? After all, we are not running the same race.

    Try this exercise…

    Take a little trip down memory lane by rewinding your life some fifteen to twenty years. Think of someone that you always compared yourself with back then. It has to be someone that you’ve lost all contact with for many years. You also haven’t heard about them from anyone.

    Do you have any idea what they’re doing now? In fact, let’s go one step further—do you know if they’re still alive? Chances are your answer is “I don’t know.”

    So, my friend, in the long run, do comparisons really matter?

  • Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear

    Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear

    “The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.” ~Gary Zukav

    I come from a family of runners. When I was a young girl, my father would rouse us out of bed on the weekends to run the three-mile par-course at the local park, competing with my siblings for who could do the most sit-ups at the stations along the route. We would end the event with a bunch of chocolate eclairs from the local 7-11 as a reward.

    As benign as this story may be, it describes a pattern of connection between exercise and food that, by my late teens, became a rigid and dominating force in my life.

    The rules were clear: if you run or swim, you’re allowed to eat ice cream (my favorite treat); if you burn enough calories each day, you are a valuable human being who deserves to be on the planet and feel good about yourself. These beliefs crept in and took hold in my mind and became a kind of religion, complete with rules and a doctrine, as well as self-inflicted emotional punishments for deviation.

    As many of us do, I received messages from the world about needing to control my body and food.

    One family member told me that “making friends with my hunger” was an admirable power I should strive to achieve. Another time a complete stranger hit on me in a bar and when I declined to talk to him further, he said he thought at first I was “fat” (or maybe “phat”?) but now decided I was just “large.” I guess one was a compliment and the other an insult, but I found both mortifying.

    In a strange way, I think becoming bulimic saved me from this rigidity. If I ate too much and didn’t feel like exercising, I had another way to repent of my apostasy: I could always purge. I read somewhere that people with bulimia can be described as “failed anorexics,” and maybe this was true for me.

    By the time I reached my early twenties, I had made great strides in healing my eating disorder through psychotherapy, taking a deep dive into spiritual practices like meditation, and tuning into bodily wisdom and intuition. But my inner critic continued to torture me with demands for intense exercise.

    I gained more weight than I ever had before as I let go of the most dangerous part of the eating disorder—the purging—yet it was more difficult to surrender the last line of defense between me and the fat, ugly, undisciplined mess I was sure I was doomed to become.

    One of my mentors made a gentle suggestion that I give up exercise completely. I thought she was out of her mind! Her suggestion posed a threat to my ego’s fragile illusion of control over my body, so I pretended to entertain the idea but secretly shoved it away.

    Eventually, though, I took a good, raw look at the state of my body and mind. I had chronic shin splints from high school and college sports that had never fully healed; my body was always hurting as a result of developing an autoimmune disorder; I had come to hate exercise; and outside of the ephemeral moments of peace I found during meditation, I was depressed and anxious.

    It was time to put things on the line and test out the radical new approach to self-love, of not exercising.  So I decided that I wouldn’t exercise unless my body asked for it. For-real asked for it, not obeying the dictates of mental compulsion.

    I waited.

    One month passed.

    The first month was the hardest. Lots of self-criticism emerged, as well as fears about gaining weight. I breathed and talked to friends, did manual work cleaning houses (my gig at the time), journaled, meditated, prayed to a feminine divine presence whose wisdom I had begun to trust—if only just a little bit.

    Then the feelings came. Lots of feelings. Crying, memories of things I had forgotten about from a childhood riddled with trauma and loss, fear about the future. Feelings of shame about my eating disorder, my body, my lack of accomplishments despite a higher education.

    The second month.

    I started to notice more pleasant feelings. Pockets of peace and well-being, even moments of joyful laughter began to open like surprise packages from myself. Without exercise, my days became slower, more meandering and unstructured, and I felt free for the first time since I was quite young.

    The third month.

    I became aware of an effervescent feeling inside my legs, a bubbly, tingly sensation. I asked myself—what the heck was that? Then it came to me, my body wanted to move!!

    That day I took the most delicious walk in Golden Gate Park, not having any agenda about where I was going or how long I’d walk for. I found a grove of eucalyptus trees that shrouded me in complete silence, the kind of silence that is a palpable presence against your skin, like a hug, and I sat down in the middle of the grove and wept with joy. In that moment, I knew I was going to be okay.

    In that moment, I didn’t care how big or small my body was. I just wanted more of this moving-for-pleasure, this moving that comes from deep within. Moving because I’m in a body that wants to express itself with joy, grief, play, and all the emotions in between.

    That’s what happens when we stop pushing ourselves from a place of fear—fear of losing control, gaining weight, and not being good enough. We eventually feel pulled by a sense of love—for ourselves, for our bodies, and for the deeply satisfying and invigorating act of moving.

    Did I ever feel “fat” again and try to force myself to run to make the “feeling” go away? Or suffer an attack from my inner critic? Yes, of course.

    But what I discovered was that the journey out of an overexercising pattern doesn’t come from listening to the same old toxic and relentless demand for exercise. I had to rediscover the deep and spontaneous source of my body’s own desire to move in order to begin to heal.

    Once I found that natural aliveness, even though the old fearful and manipulative thoughts preyed on my mind from time to time, they didn’t have as much power as before, and I could hear another, kind and compassionate voice, stemming from deep-body-listening.

    My practice after that was to wait for that tingly bubbly feeling in my legs, which usually happened every four days or so, and use that sensation as a guide. Then I would take my bus pass, put on my running shoes, and walk or run as far or as little as I wanted.

    Sometimes I made it miles to Ocean Beach and sat on the wall meditating, then took the bus back.  Other times I just went to my favorite grove of trees and prayed and cried and felt so incredibly lucky to have listened to the small, quiet voice bubbling up from within.

  • If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    “Stop shoulding on yourself.” ~Albert Ellis

    I was buried under a pile of shoulds for the first thirty-two years of my life. Some of those shoulds were put on me by the adults in my life, some were heaped on because I am a middle child, but most were self-imposed thanks to cultural and peer influence.

    “You should get straight A’s, Jill.”

    “You shouldn’t worry so much, Jill.”

    “You should be married by now, Jill.”

    “You should get your Master’s degree.”

    I could go on forever. The pile was high, and I was slowly suffocating from the crushing weight on my soul.

    What’s so significant about age thirty-two? It’s when I decided to divorce my husband of eighteen months (after a big ole Catholic wedding) and ask my parents for money to pay the attorney’s retainer. This is a gal with a great childhood, MBA, and a darned good catch for a husband.

    From the outside, our life looked charmed and full of potential. We’d just purchased our first home, were trying to start a family (despite suffering two miscarriages) and were building our careers. What no one else saw was the debilitating mountain of consumer debt, manipulative behavior, and my intuition’s activated alarm system… sounding off in reaction to the life I’d built and was, for all intents and purposes, stuck in.

    My intuition was done with the low-level warnings. She was sick and tired of being ignored, so she sounded the big one—an alarm that demanded action instead of lip service. I still tried challenging her; what she had presented me with was asinine.

    “But I can’t divorce him. We just got married. What will everyone think? I’m so embarrassed. I should have made better choices. How did I end up here? I did everything right, right? I should suck it up and stick it out; that’s what good Catholics do. This is kind of what life is, I guess… kinda sad, but it seems to work for most everyone else. Ugh, I wanted this… now I’m, what, changing my mind?”

    The alarm was not going to shut off until I sat long enough with those notions to yield honest answers. That was some tough sh*t to sit in. And even tougher to plod through. But it was better than being buried under it.

    This was my first lesson in “There’s only one way out of this mess.” There’s no express lane, no backroad, no direct flight. This ride resembled the covered wagon kind. Bumpy, hot, dirty, and uncomfortable as hell.

    I relented, listened, and tapped into the hidden reserve of courage I didn’t know existed within me.

    The time had come to quit living according to the “should standard” everyone else around me had subscribed to. The time had come to accept this curated life was not the one that would yield happiness for me. The time had come to turn up the volume on this newfound voice and assert to myself (and everyone else) that I was cutting my losses and trusting my inner compass.  

    The time had come to stop shoulding myself.

    Shoulds were my grocery list, my roadmap for life. How was I going to do this adult thing without my instructions???

    I’d already managed to clear a huge should—hello, divorce—and after that, with every should I challenged, another paradigm crumbled. I began to notice shoulds all over the place. After that, my awareness of intention got keener, and I could sniff out the subtle shoulds like a bloodhound.

    SHOULD: When are you having kids?

    CHOICE:  I do not want to have children. (Remember I miscarried twice with my first husband. I was checking boxes on my adulting grocery list. Honesty yielded clarity.)

    SHOULD: He’s too old for you and he has four boys of his own.

    CHOICE:  He is my person. His sons deserve to see their father in a healthy, happy relationship. I can show them love in a new, different way.

    SHOULD: You’re making great money in your job. Why walk away from your amazing 401(k) and great benefits to risk starting your own business?

    CHOICE:  I want to build a life I’m not desperate to take a vacation from. I want to live, serve others, and know when I’m at the end of my life that I chose it and made the most of it.

    Deleting the word “should” is a big first leap in taking ownership of your life. By altering your vocabulary in a simple way, you naturally become mindful of the words you put in its place. Instead of “I should….” substitute with “I choose to….” Instead of “You should…” try “Have you considered…?”

    Keep track of every time you say or hear “should” in a day. Then spend time with each one and get toddler with yourself. Ask why. Ask it again.

    Who says you have to get married or have kids or work a job you hate that looks good on paper? Who says you have to look a certain way or do certain things with your free time that don’t appeal to you? Why are you restless in your life? What idea keeps popping up, begging for your attention? Are you living your truth? What’s in the way? What pile of shoulds are you buried under?

    I get it. We’ve been programmed by our culture and our family traditions to follow the path, stay on course, climb the ladder to success! It’s the only way to be happy, they say. It’s the only way we’ll be proud of you, they insinuate.

    We’ve been indoctrinated with this thought pattern and belief system, and it seems impossible that we have the power to choose otherwise. We have the opportunity, the autonomy, the choice to rewire our iOS and make it what is ideal for ourselves.

    Overwhelm is natural; the antidote is to start small. Find one piece of low-hanging fruit, take a bite, and taste how sweet it is. For example, say no to an invite if you’d rather spend your time doing something else. Allow yourself to do nothing instead of telling yourself you should be doing something productive. Or let yourself feel whatever you feel instead of telling yourself you should be positive.

    Feel how nourishing it is to choose yourself. Experience satiety in your soul. Release restlessness and replace it with intention guided by your intuition.

    Do that and you’ll never should again. Or maybe you will—who says you should be perfect? At the very least you’ll think twice before letting should control you, and you’ll be a lot happier as a result!

  • Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    “Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.” ~Kamand Kojouri

    The saying goes that money makes the world go round, but of course that’s not true.

    It’s our relationships.

    How we relate to other people and how they relate to us keeps our world turning. When things go well, all’s right with our world. When things go badly, it can feel as though our world has ground to a halt.

    This is exactly how I felt whenever I had a difficult experience with a loved one or friend.

    Whenever they lashed out at me for no real reason, it felt as if I couldn’t move on again until their negativity or bad temper had blown over. Until that happened, I replayed the scenarios in my mind, trying to work out where I was to blame for their behavior, and feeling awful in the meantime.

    That’s why our relationships will always be the most important thing in our lives—they have such a strong impact on us, both good and bad.

    That is also why it serves us well to try to have the best possible relationship with others, as well as ourselves. That includes improving the connections we have with the difficult and less-than-positive people in our lives and strengthening our boundaries in the process.

    We probably all have several negative people in our lives—those who criticize, complain, belittle us and other people, and say or do cruel things. They can be the closest to us, people we have known all our lives, and that makes their negativity harder to escape and endure.

    I had a family member who was very negative about pretty much everything. Spending time in their company was usually a draining and disheartening experience due to their complaining and sniping comments.

    This person made it very clear whenever I met them that they had little time or affection for me, which of course made family get-togethers less than enjoyable.

    I was also puzzled as to why they were like that: we’d never argued, and I had never, to my knowledge, done or said anything mean to them. Yet, they still acted in a negative way toward me, especially if I mentioned affirmative life experiences such as a great holiday or a new exciting project.

    Unsurprisingly, I responded to their negativity with a sense of apprehension, frustration, and confusion, which stopped me from enjoying the company of my other relatives. It also made me wary about fully expressing myself or talking about my life. And my uneasiness undoubtedly made the atmosphere between my family member and me even more negative.

    We all Have Emotional Scars from the Past

    I eventually recognized that I was hurt by my relative’s treatment in large part because I took it personally and allowed it to affect my self-image and self-esteem—as if I somehow deserved it. Then I realized something that changed everything for me.

    We all have a self-image shaped in large part by other people. Family, friends, and partners, who’ve likely scarred us through anger, resentment, jealousy, judgment, neglect, or even outright abuse. And this affects how we show up in the world.

    Everyone, including the people who have wronged you or been negative toward you in some way, has scars from their past too.

    Maybe your critical mother doesn’t know any better because her mother was critical. Maybe your absent father never knew his father either. Maybe your backstabbing friend was jealous of you for reasons only known to them. Perhaps your cheating partner had abusive parents, and your partner sabotages relationships because they don’t believe anyone can love them.

    Each and every one of us carries around our scars, going out into the world to meet other people who have scars, and when we connect, these combined scars can sometimes tear open.

    We all See Ourselves Through Others’ Eyes

    We all tend to see ourselves through our loved ones’ eyes—starting with our parents when we’re young—because we assume their perceptions of us are accurate and blame ourselves if they’re not flattering. Our self-image can alter based on their comments, emotions, and actions—positive and negative.

    This is a classic case of our relationships shaping our sense of self, an ongoing shaping that begins even before we can fully understand the meanings of what other people say or do to us.

    We are each the result of our experiences within our multiple relationships and interactions. How other people relate to us affects our image of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are helpless in the face of other people’s behavior toward us.

    We may not have had much of a choice as a child, but it’s a different matter once we’re adults. With awareness, we’re now able to protect ourselves far better from others’ negativity toward us and set necessary boundaries.

    Learning to Connect in a Different Way

    If you’re dealing with a negative or painful relationship that leaves you feeling bad about yourself, you can of course choose to distance yourself from the person and limit contact. Sometimes, however, this isn’t possible, so you have to learn how to connect in a different way while safeguarding yourself from their negative impact on you.

    I decided I had to respond differently to my family member and their negativity for the sake of my well-being. I began to look beyond their behavior and actions, and in doing so I started to piece together an idea of what might be the real cause of their pain and unhappiness.

    I recalled they had often moaned about how much they hated their job, how they disliked the town they lived in and their neighbors, and they also often complained of tiredness and physical aches and pains.

    I began to see that this person’s negativity—even if it was aimed at me, maybe due to their feelings of envy—wasn’t really about me. They were unhappy with their life in general. Negative people are often unhappy on many levels.

    It also helped me to remember we all have emotional scars, as mentioned before. When you approach people from a place of understanding, compassion, and empathy, you no longer see them as cheats, liars, betrayers, or “bad” people out to get you—even though they might cheat, lie, or betray you. You instead begin to see beyond their behavior and recognize that they’re in pain.

    When you do that a lot of their power over you starts to fade. You begin to see them as vulnerable, like everyone else. You start to realize that their negative actions toward you reflect far more on them than they do on you.

    People often hurt each other because of their own deep pain and because they don’t know any other way to act. This is often a painful lesson to learn.

    But when you finally grasp this difficult truth, you become more accepting of what happened, more forgiving, and ready to let go and move on. You realize you do not need to take on their negativity, brood about it, or feel you are the cause of it.

    That doesn’t mean you have to condone or accept mistreatment. And that’s not to say people’s negativity toward you won’t bother or hurt you ever again, but the effect won’t be so intense. You’ll realize that the situation isn’t really about you at all. Any pain they try to inflict on you is simply a reflection of what they feel inside; it no longer feels so personal.

    When I stopped taking my relative’s negativity personally, I was able to interact with them in a different way. I was much more relaxed in their company and able to enjoy family gatherings much more.

    When you stop taking other people’s negativity personally, you cease to be so susceptible to creating your self-image through their eyes. In fact, you start to focus far more on how you view them.

    Then you’re also free to focus less on their negativity and bad behavior and more on how you respond to it. That might mean setting boundaries and limiting your contact with them, and that’s okay. Sometimes you have to understand and empathize from afar to take good care of yourself.

    We’re All in the Same “Life” Boat

    Essentially, we’re all in the same “life” boat, bobbing up and down on the vast ocean of existence.

    We are all fallible. We all inflict hurt on others, intentionally and unintentionally.

    We all experience negative situations and inevitable suffering, and we simply have to accept this. Without pain and suffering we might not value joy or experience spiritual growth. If we never experienced adversity, we might not appreciate our strength.

    And without negative people we might not be truly grateful for or cherish the loving, supportive people we have in our lives.

  • Why It No Longer Matters to Me If My Job Impresses People

    Why It No Longer Matters to Me If My Job Impresses People

    “Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are.” ~Roy T. Bennett

    Wherever I go and meet new people, they ask me, “What do you do?”

    I love talking about what I do because I love what I do, but It’s not what I’ve always done, and it certainly isn’t all of who I am. It’s part of who I am, but there is so much more.

    When we’re young, we’re asked to decide on a career. You know, the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The problem is, does anyone in high school truly know what they want to do for the rest of their lives? I’d venture to say that many high school kids don’t even know who they really are yet.

    When I was growing up, I was a straight-A student, a star athlete, a perfectionist, and an overachiever. I learned at a young age that performing well was my ticket to feeling good about myself. My accomplishments garnered the praise and admiration of many and gave me what I needed to feel good.

    Validation.

    As a senior in high school, it was natural that I chose to go to college for aerospace engineering. I was interested in aviation, but more importantly, when I told other people what I had decided on, they nodded their heads in approval. A smart girl should choose a “smart career,” right?

    Validation and approval drove me forward.

    When I got out of college with a BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, I went to work for The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. I didn’t love it. Part of it may have been homesickness, or the dreary Seattle weather, but a huge part of it was that the corporate cubicle life was not for me.

    I thought there was something wrong with me. After all, I had worked so hard to reach this point in my life. I should love it, right? Hadn’t I finally arrived?

    I struggled with it so much because on one hand, I dreaded going to work. On the other hand, when I told people what I did for a living, they leaned in and listened a little harder. Even my own father was proud to talk about my engineering career and the fact that I worked for one of the top aerospace companies in the world, but I’ve since moved to less impressive pursuits, he has never once asked me about those endeavors.

    My career looked awesome and interesting and impressive on paper, but I was quietly dying inside.

    My husband and I ended up moving all the way across the country to Savannah, Georgia, where I worked for another top aerospace company—Gulfstream Aerospace. I didn’t really feel any different about my position there, until I transferred into a group called Sales Engineering.

    In this area, I was able to interact and collaborate with sales and marketing to create the technical data they would use to pitch Gulfstream’s fleet to potential customers. I enjoyed the challenge, but I really enjoyed the collaboration with other people that weren’t buried in their computers all day. It was here that I first got a glimpse that I loved connecting with other people.

    When my first child was born, I left the aerospace industry. We had just moved cross-country again to Los Angeles, and it made more sense for me to be a full-time mom since I wasn’t the family breadwinner, and we didn’t absolutely need a second income. Plus, I wasn’t enamored with the whole engineering gig either, so in a sense, it was a way out.

    Quitting the career that I didn’t love was, on one hand, so freeing. But on the other hand, without that thick layer of validation that kept getting piled on every time someone asked me “What do you do for a living?”, I felt naked. I felt inferior. I felt like I was a failure who couldn’t hack it in the real world.

    My identity was wrapped up in my career that looked so good on paper but didn’t feel good in my soul.

    My ex-husband is an attorney, and we’d attend events with lots of other attorneys and highly educated people. At these events, I dreaded the question “So, Kortney, what do you do?”

    My response was always a little timid, almost apologetic.

    “I stay at home with our son.”

    There was typically a slow nod, with a bit of feigned interest, as if they weren’t really sure what more to say about the occupation stay-at-home mom.

    Because I also had a side-gig photography business, I’d quickly add, “and I’m also a photographer.”

    That tended to garner a bit more interest.

    “But I used to be an aerospace engineer,” I’d tack on, in a final effort to gain the nod of approval I so desperately sought.

    Bingo. Alarm bells sounded. The crowd cheered. People were reeled back into something more exciting.

    That good, old familiar friend, validation was back.

    I struggled for a long time to find my identity without all the “stuff” on the outside. It wasn’t until I got divorced and had to figure out how I would financially support myself after my spousal support ran out that I even scratched the surface of “Who am I, really?”

    Who am I without my career, the accomplishments, the external validation?

    All those years, I lived with one foot in the world of wanting to love myself for who I am rather than what I did and one foot in the world of doing more, doing better, doing it ALL.

    I lived in between the worlds of self-validation and external validation. 

    I knew I wanted the former, yet I craved the latter.

    In doing the work of figuring out who I really am, learning to love myself fully, and being able to validate myself without any help from the outside, I realized that I was asking myself the wrong questions all along.

    As a society, we ask the wrong questions.

    Instead of asking our kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, I think we should be asking them, “Who do you want to be?”

    I asked my eleven-year-old daughter this, and she looked at me in her quizzical mom-why-are-you-asking-me-such-a-weird-question way and said, “Umm, I just want to be me?”

    Yes!

    Shouldn’t we all just want to be who we are? 

    Instead of pursuing goals that are impressive because they bring us accolades and attention, what if we were to pursue our goals because they lit us up and we were truly passionate about them?

    What if we started asking our kids questions about what lights them up? How do they want to feel? What things do they like to do that make them feel that way?

    Even as adults, we can ask ourselves these questions.

    If you’re in a job that doesn’t feel right, you can ask yourself, “How do I want to feel?”

    What’s authentic to you? How do you want to show up in the world? What jobs or careers would allow you to show up that way?

    This is the work I did after my divorce. I’m in a completely different career now, and believe me, as much as I fought going back to a job in the engineering industry, I had to do a lot of work on my thinking about not having a “smart job” like being an engineer. The validation I craved and was so used to was like a drug.

    Through this work, I learned how I want to feel in my life and that guides everything.

    I discovered that I want to feel freedom, ease, joy, and meaning in my life. 

    Going to a cubicle every day didn’t allow me to create those feelings. I want to show up in the world authentically—I want to be able to be a human being who makes mistakes and can share myself with other people. Corporate life didn’t allow me to be that authentic person that I now so deeply love.

    Some of you reading this may have corporate jobs and love them. You may be able to create the feelings you want to feel and show up authentically with that type of career. That’s awesome!

    The goal is to be able to feel the way you want to feel. The goal is to be able to show up in the world in a way that is true to who you are. 

    Because how you show up to do the things you do in the world is what really matters.

  • How I Stopped Dismissing Praise and Started Believing Compliments

    How I Stopped Dismissing Praise and Started Believing Compliments

    “I’ve met people who are embattled and dismissive, but when you get to know them, you find that they’re vulnerable—that hauteur or standoffishness is because they’re pedaling furiously underneath.” ~Matthew Macfadyen

    It was impossible to miss the dismissive hand gesture and distasteful look on her face in response to my comment.

    “You ooze empathy,” I had said in all sincerity to my therapist.

    “And what’s it like if I blow off or disregard that compliment?” she countered. Then, as usual, she waited.

    “Ah, it feels terrible,” I sputtered as the lights of insight began to flicker. I was acutely aware of an unpleasant feeling spreading throughout my chest and stomach. I sensed I had just deeply hurt someone’s feelings.

    That experience hung in the air for several moments, providing plenty of time to push the boundaries of awareness.

    Was I really so unaware and quick to disregard compliments? Was that the terrible feeling others experienced when I didn’t acknowledge or subconsciously snubbed what they offered in the way of a compliment or kind word? Was that what it felt like to be on the receiving end of dismissiveness?

    Leaving that session, I began the usual reflection of mulling over all that had transpired and the feedback I’d received. Growing up with minimal encouragement, I was beginning to see it was taking an enormous amount of time for me to recognize that compliments from others were genuine. I tended to be skeptical and often did not actually hear them.

    I hadn’t realized compliments could be accepted at face value and didn’t always come laden with hidden agendas and ulterior motives. I hadn’t thought that compliments were given as a result of merely wanting to offer appreciation. Something great was noticed—something great was acknowledged. Period.

    So where did such a suspicious nature come from?

    As a kid, I didn’t readily trust the motive behind a well-spoken piece of praise, as it often was a double-edged sword for me. I’d receive a compliment from my mom, but it quickly turned into a way for her to talk about how wonderful she was and how the great parts of her trumped mine by leaps and bounds.

    I recall an experience when I was feeling great about interacting with student leaders. I started to share my feeling of pride with my mom and got out a few sentences before she interrupted.  The topic changed to the ways she worked with her students and influenced them. The message I had internalized: sharing doesn’t mean you will receive validation or compliments for what you share.

    After excelling academically, my dad dismissed my master’s degree as “Mickey Mouse garbage.” He rarely acknowledged positive experiences with more than a, “Hmmmmm” or “Oh.” The message I had internalized: sharing doesn’t mean there’s and understanding or appreciation for what you share.

    Without a lot of experiences that offered encouragement, acceptance, or recognition, I lacked a backdrop on which to deal with compliments. My strengths and talents were unacknowledged, and I hadn’t learn to appreciate them. I tended to mistrust sincerity and downplayed positive input.

    With the assistance of an attuned therapist, I started on a journey of learning to trust what was offered to me rather than dismissing it. With a delicate offering of insight, I was able to repair my automatic deflect button and understand others were genuinely recognizing and affirming my strengths when they offered compliments.

    Here are several ways that helped me repair dismissiveness after I became much more aware of my tendency to deflect positivity.

    1. Pay attention to the positive.

    I started to observe anything good around me, challenging myself to see and focus on what was positive instead of indulging our natural negativity bias (the tendency to focus more on the negative, even when the good outweighs the bad).

    I looked for examples of encouraging feedback and genuine compliments that came my way or that were given to others. I kept a gratitude journal, reminding myself of what I appreciated each day. I was training and rewiring my brain to truly see and focus on positivity.

    2. Recognize when my old conditioning is resurfacing and how this may affect someone offering a compliment.

    I consciously challenged myself to believe other people had only good intentions instead of projecting feelings from my childhood experiences with my parents. I challenged any inner suspicious dialogue that came along. And I remembered how good it would make others feel if I allowed myself to feel good when they praised me instead of dismissing what they’d said.

    3. Receive and acknowledge compliments.

    I practiced listening more carefully when I received compliments and risked absorbing and feeling delighted by them, allowing warmth, pride, and happiness to settle internally. I watched for them and I became less inclined to snub what I heard.  I practiced offering an appreciative and gracious “Thank you” instead of allowing my mind to doubt, dispute, deflect, or dismiss the positive feedback.

    A wonderful by-product of working against dismissiveness is that I am more naturally positive and appreciative of others. I spontaneously offer more heartfelt and earnest appreciation, thanks, and compliments to others. I actively look for ways to do that in my everyday interactions and work to express empathy.

    Just recently, having watched a mom interact positively with her young boys in the local park, I risked offering a compliment. “Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know I noticed how wonderfully you interacted with your sons and how happy they seem.”

    The woman was delighted to receive the feedback said how pleasant it was that someone noticed. She then turned to her boys and shared with them what had happened. All four of us felt encouraged!

    I am grateful that I am now much more able to hear, believe, and absorb positive feedback. I make a deliberate effort to relish positivity, and I feel a lot more appreciative of myself and life as a result.

  • My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    “Being attracted to someone’s way of thinking is a whole different level of attraction.” ~Unknown

    I have been divorced for ten years now and thought it would be fairly easy to find “the one” once I was set free from the ties of the wrong one. To my surprise, it has been harder than I thought it would be. I have found many but not “the one.”

    I have been on Match, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and blind dates, and even dated a longtime friend to only find myself single going into my fiftieth year on this planet. It has taken me a long time to figure out what I have been doing that has attracted what isn’t right for me.

    I have been in years of therapy, talking out my thoughts and recognizing patterns that don’t serve me. After my marriage, I was in a two-year relationship with a guy who cheated on me. I was in a four-year relationship with a guy who stole a quarter of a million dollars from me, and my fifteen-year marriage was not a friendship.

    With all three partners there was one common denominator: I put a lot of energy into my looks to connect with them. In other words, I wasn’t an innocent party in these crimes of the heart. I got charged when a man was really turned on by me. I was addicted to someone wanting me. I needed to be desired.

    These men were overly visually stimulated and easily physically distracted. They all fixated on my physical and tolerated my mental. I never had a friendship with any of these guys. I had lustship.

    They questioned my deep, soulful emotions. They turned a cheek to my equanimity mindset. They made a face to my immense empathy. They shrugged at my compassion toward others.

    After my last relationship ended, I made an oath to myself. I was going to be celibate and single until I turned fifty. I had been holding onto a really nice bottle of champagne, reserving it for a special occasion. I went to the fridge with a sharpie and wrote, “Drink October 2021.”

    One restless Monday night, I decided to write out who I was and what I was looking for. I started writing with the mindset, “If I were going to go on a dating site . . . this is what I would write” sort of thing.

    As I was writing and reading and editing, I started to really like what I was reading. I thought to myself, “Damn—I am a good writer!”

    I wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly in a charming, humble way. I was honest to the core about my shortcomings and my endeavors. I left out nothing because I had nothing to lose.

    It became a cathartic experience for me. I rewrote it and reread it until I said to myself, “Damn—I am a really good person!” I got to a place where I wasn’t embarrassed to share the raw truth, yet wasn’t at the total other end thinking, “I don’t give a f*** what you think.” I was in a good place.

    I was proud of myself and wanted to share my story. I felt very accomplished for just being able to put into writing my love life and be able to read it like it was a heartfelt story. It made me smile.

    That Monday night I decided to do an experiment. I got a one-month membership to Match.com and paid extra to only allow people I “liked” to view my profile. I created my profile calling myself “AbbieNormal,” a reference to the hilarious Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein.

    I answered all the questions about myself even filled out the random topics Match prompts to help people to get to know you. I typed out the long summary I had created, and when it came time to upload a profile photo, I chose not to. This was the experiment.

    The experiment was to see if any man would be interested in my mind before seeing my body. I was a single woman looking for a single man with a profile that had a novel to read and no photos.

    What guy would read instead of view? What guy would trust without being shown? What guy would take the depth without superficial bait? Who was going to buy the cow without seeing it was a cow?

    There is no doubt that my last guys wouldn’t respond. My ex-husband would think I didn’t post a photo because I was fat. The boyfriend that took my money would think I was some woman trying to get away with cheating on her husband.

    I looked through profiles of over one hundred men and chose about twenty to view my profile, or as Match calls it, “liked” them. I had very little faith that any man would message me. It was an experiment for which I had already fabricated the conclusion.

    My write up started like this, “I have never been single longer than a blink, and I think it’s partially because men are visual creatures. I am taking a gamble with no photos. I would prefer you to read about me and decide if you want to continue than to see me and make my words fit into the pretty little package that I am, emphasis on pretty, not ego :)”

    I went to bed feeling at peace with myself for allowing people to read about the real me, and confident that this experiment would not disrupt my champagne oath. I woke up the next morning, Tuesday, to find three men had messaged me. I was shocked!

    Each one mentioned how refreshing it was to read such an authentic profile. One man did say that a photo would be nice, but no pressure, which I thought that was sweet. Another one mentioned that he too was a big Young Frankenstein fan. He got points for recognizing the reference.

    I wanted to write them back, but apparently on Match you cannot message people unless you put at least one photo up, which is silly because I already gave them money. The site must be owned by men. I was hesitant to post a photo, so I waited another day.

    Wednesday morning one of the three men messaged me again asking to connect. I felt the need to respond so that my intentions didn’t seem like a ruse. I posted a photo and responded to the three men saying the same thing to each one, “Thank you for taking the time to read my profile.”

    On the Wednesday after I posted my photo, I received messages from the rest of the twenty men that I had “liked.” Before keeping track of them became a full-time job, I gave the first three guys my attention. They were my priority.

    Guy 1 – fizzled out after a few texts  :/

    Guy 2 – asked for more photos  :[

    Guy 3 – we texted, talked, and met  🙂

    I did give some time to a handful of the second-round guys that messaged me after the photo went up. One guy didn’t understand how I wasn’t bitter about losing a quarter of a million dollars. Another made a comment that I should post more photos because I am so beautiful. And most of them wanted to meet right away.

    I also kept looking through all the profiles that Match sends daily as their algorithms do their matchmaking. Although I have to say, they always sent me my ex-husband’s profile as a “Super Match,” and he is by far not that.

    The experiment was pretty much over. I had a photo up, and now I was acting like I was dating or something. I needed to focus on my champagne oath and just stop.

    My experiment surprised me.

    I gained a new appreciation for the male species / human race. Who knows what intentions the three guys had when choosing to message me solely on the basis of my words and no photo? I would like to believe that they were genuinely interested in what they read and wanted to ride with faith that there would be a physical attraction. That is my final answer.

    The experiment taught me a lesson.

    I was being hypocritical as I looked at every man’s photos picking out who was going to have access to my profile. As painful as it is to say that I was looking at men’s physical attributes, my attraction always came from what they wrote. I do know without a doubt, if a man “liked” me with no photo and his words moved me, you better believe I would message him back.

    The experiment gave me a new perspective.

    Like I said, I was not innocent in how men viewed me or what type of man I ended up with. I wanted someone to see me for who I really was, but my shell was sparkly and shiny while my center was elaborate and profound.

    I realized I had longed for someone to want, desire, and be turned on by the elaborate and profound and then be happily pleased with the sparkly and shiny.

    For all of my dating life, men wanted me for the sparkly and shiny then tolerated, challenged, and ridiculed the elaborate and profound. The experiment allowed me to feel wanted for who I truly am for just a brief moment, and it was an incredible feeling.

    I will forever remember this experiment as the moment I learned who I really am in terms of a partner. I had been blaming the men or the quality of humans or my poor judge of character, and it wasn’t any of those things. I had to learn who I am to understand who I wanted.

    I bet you are wondering what happened to Guy 3, right? I am still dating him. As for the champagne oath—that I’d be celibate and single until I turned fifty—let’s just say when I told Guy 3 about my oath he said, “That’s not going to happen, you better just drink it.”

  • What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    Baby

    “The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    The nurse found me slumped behind the soda machine.

    “Honey, are you okay?” she asked, brow crinkled in nervous response to my (apparently louder than I’d realized) sobs.

    I nodded, answering in messy sniffles. The nurse, not entirely convinced, assured me that if I needed anything, she’d be at the desk just around the corner.

    I remained crouched in my not-so-perfect hiding place a while longer, waiting until my breaths no longer shook to trudge back to my mom’s hospital room. The news was not going to be fun to break.

    I was officially a deadbeat.

    For context, I’ve lived most of my life as a success junkie. I was the token overachiever during every year of education, at every job, in every hobby; being impressive was my forte.

    My general mindset was that success is good, so those who succeed are worthy, while failure is bad, so those who fail are unworthy.

    This mindset fueled plenty of remarkable endeavors—some thrilling and fun, some terrifying and painful—all of which were tied to my own self-image.

    I’d just left a dream job in music marketing, which had only developed after years of radio programming and slow, meticulous relationship-building with industry contacts.

    I’d worked my butt off at that position, trading unlimited access to up-and-coming music and a constantly revolving social life of shows, happy hours, festivals, hangouts with bands, and client dinners for adequate sleep/nutrition/self-care. (This workaholic behavior made me worthy.)

    After ultimately deciding that music marketing wasn’t the core around which I wanted to build my life, I’d begun revisiting my previously abandoned plans to live and work abroad.

    I’d applied, applied, and applied for jobs throughout Asia, finally accepting a position in South Korea. (Quitters are unworthy; a next step in place kept me safe and still worthy.)

    I’d somehow worked up the courage to notify my bosses, go public with the decision, and pack up the life I’d built from scratch over the past five years. (This made me crazy, but with a next step firmly in place, I stillremained “worthy.”)

    Then, during my final week in the office, I’d received the news that my mom had cancer. And so I quickly found myself on a plane back to the Midwest, where, thankfully, I was able to support her through the surgery and recovery process.

    Now, however, here I was mere hours after her operation: crumpled behind a soda machine, trying to process the phone call with the Korean Consulate that had just shattered my worthiness in a span of about five minutes.

    “Miss Suellentrop, there is a problem with your paperwork. You’ll have to mail us XYZ additional forms if you want to apply for a work visa. We’ll have them processed by next month.”

    But my start date is in two weeks—I can’t miss it!

    “Then I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to take the job.”

    And that was that. A handful of sentences had taken away my employment, my painstakingly laid plans for the next twelve months—and my fragile self-image right along with them.

    You willingly abandoned your edgy, cool life on the East Coast, I told myself. You are a failure. 

    You quit your secure, impressive job. You are a failure.

    Everyone will know you’re a deadbeat stuck in a suburban town. You are a failure.

    You’re balled up behind a soda machine and haven’t showered since Monday. YOU ARE A FAILURE.

    I shuffled back to the room to share the update with my family, voice choked with embarrassment—both from the fact that I now had no job in place, and from the fact that while I was suffering an identity crisis based on outward appearances, Mom was recovering from major invasive surgery. In the spectrum of tough-to-handle circumstances, cancer tends to trump most other things.

    After a few moments of quiet, my beloved, endlessly wise, still heavily medicated mother said, “Claire, when babies fart, they don’t freak out or worry that they aren’t good babies. They feel it, they let it happen, and then they let it go.”

    They let it go.

    When circumstances beyond our control make life smelly, we don’t need to hold onto them any longer than a baby holds on to its farts.

    Rather than allowing those circumstances to define who we are, all we need to do is acknowledge the thoughts and emotions they trigger, accept that they’re happening, and let them go.

    Stifling the emotions that spring forth won’t ease the situation—when is holding gas in ever the more comfortable option?

    Emotions are nothing more than the results of the thoughts you’re having about the circumstance. Like gas, they’re just noise passing through. Feel them, as fully as you can, and then they’ll be able to fade.

    Pretending the circumstance isn’t happening is equally as fruitless. You can pretend all you want that you didn’t let one rip, but the room will still reek. It’s just an event that occurred—something totally neutral and temporary. It doesn’t mean a thing.

    Why try to label yourself by something ethereal, something brief?

    Feeling bad does not make you a bad person, and receiving embarrassing news or an unexpected result from a long-held plan does not mean you are unworthy.

    You are not the air escaping from your body, you are not the job you no longer have, you are not the possessions you do or do not own. You are just you, and only you. Let the rest of it go.

    If you find yourself reeling from an outside event or rushing to block out an unwanted wave of emotion, pause for a second.

    Identify whether you’re trying to hold something in, pretend it doesn’t exist, or let it define you.

    Once you’ve got that down, revert back to your baby self:

    Feel it. Let it happen. And let it go.

    Photo by didi8