Tiny Buddha

Tag: stress

  • 4 Simple Habits That Can Soothe Your Anxious Mind

    4 Simple Habits That Can Soothe Your Anxious Mind

    “I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    There is so much noise and overwhelm these days it’s almost impossible to not feel crippling anxiety on a regular basis.

    With a march of commitments, appointments, and obligations that never seem to end, we’re a nation of chronically stressed and overwhelmed.

    We often spend our lives in a rush, running on autopilot, completing task after task until we finally collapse into bed utterly exhausted. Amidst the noise and demands our minds are scattered, in a perpetual state of thinking, planning, regretting, and worrying.

    Hence the anxiety—a normal response considering how little time we spend in our bodies, grounded, connected, and still.

    I’ve struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. My sensitive nature and rough childhood undoubtedly shaped me. Chronic fear and anxiety manifested as perfectionism, people-pleasing, and perpetual shame. I didn’t feel that I belonged with my family, friends, or the world.

    I learned to treat myself just as badly as others did. I was my worst critic and abuser. I felt broken, unable to navigate these huge feelings of fear and shame on my own. Surrounded by negativity, aggression, and chaos, I closed my heart and disconnected from myself.

    Motherhood cracked me back open with a force I was not ready for. I wanted to give my children the kind of love and safety I was deprived of as a child, but the stress of raising three little kids was overwhelming, and anxiety kicked in full force. It took me years to recalibrate my mind, reconnect with myself, and find my footing again.

    There’s a gentle way out of habitual stress and overwhelm, but it requires our full presence and attention, and developing new habits that will help us heal and change.

    With practice, we can transform our lives through small, incremental changes that can shift our lives away from chronic stress and anxiety toward a more adaptable and peaceful way of living.

    While we have little control over most things in life, certain things we do have control over, and that’s what we need to focus on.

    There are many body-based ways we can control our stress and reduce cortisol levels, like cutting down on caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and refined carbs, and getting quality sleep and exercise. But those alone will not shift you out of anxiety. You have to tackle what goes on in your mind as well. Here’s how.

    1. Carve out time for stillness and flow.

    To counteract our incredibly fast pace of living, we must carve out time in our busy schedules to slow down and immerse ourselves in activities that give us moments of flow, peace, and space.

    Our days are filled with noise and events that require our constant attention. Therefore, we have to be deliberate in setting aside time for stillness, nature, and creativity, time for things that nourish and replenish us.

    I reconnect with stillness and flow through yoga, art, and nature. Whether holding a pose, drawing, or walking through the woods, I find the silence and slow pace soothing and comforting. I forget all my troubles and find bliss in the sensations I get to experience: the sounds, the smells, the beauty around me.

    It’s like my existence is temporarily suspended as I immerse myself in an act of awe, wonder, or creation. It’s incredibly rewarding and relaxing.

    Create daily rituals that purposely slow you down and shift your attention inward. Incorporate those moments in your self-care routine. Unplug from the busyness and give yourself the luxury of solitude and stillness.

    Plan some alone time every day, if only for fifteen minutes. Spend this time on your own—in your garden, on a mat, in bed—and bask in the space and joy of solitude and silence. Reignite your inner sacred space and nourish yourself in a new, rewarding way.

    2. Befriend your mind.

    We spend most of our day on autopilot, and that’s by design. At the same time, if we don’t pay attention to where our mind goes and what it does, we’re just allowing habitual thoughts and behaviors to lead our lives, for better of worse.

    I used to be quite oblivious to what was happening inside my head. This lack of deep self-awareness was alienating and affected every aspect of my life, especially my relationships.

    For example, having never learned how to handle conflict constructively, I would mindlessly react from pain and shame (yell, shut down, get defensive or overly emotional), which only distanced me from others and perpetuated problems.

    Feeling guilty and ashamed, I’d then ruminate on unresolved conflicts and past hurts, fueling my anxiety and making me feel depressed, helpless, and unable to move past them. Still, I didn’t understand why everything seemed to always work against me, and why I struggled so much relating to others despite succeeding in school and at work.

    Eventually, I realized that living in a perpetual state of worrying about the future while resenting what had happened to me in the past was self-destructive and harmful to others as well. Living in my head was perpetuating my own anxiety and slowly destroying my life. So, I finally decided to try mindfulness in order to find some peace and learn to live differently.

    Mindfulness brought clarity and pushed my unconscious beliefs and patterns to the surface. I now saw how having grown up around chronic anger, chaos, and pain and without much love and support led me to internalize a lot of shame, fear, and distrust. And that’s what was quietly in charge of my life—until now!

    With mindfulness, I learned to observe my thoughts and where they lead me, see where I self-destruct and work against my values and goals. And instead of judging myself harshly for my weaknesses and failures, mindfulness taught me to take ownership of my actions, and my life; that I have a choice to do things differently; that I’m not damaged, I just don’t have the skills—yet. In time, mindfulness broke the shame, pain, and anxiety spiral I was in, and allowed recovery.

    Mindfulness is empowering; it’s the opposite of anxiety. Instead of worrying and frantically trying to control our environment, it teaches us to be open, slow down, and observe what is happening within us and around us, and to respond authentically instead of reacting habitually out of shame or fear.

    This deepened awareness allows us to fully experience the world in all its richness. Slowly, we awaken to life’s small pleasures, dropping chronic worry and endless distractions from taking over our lives. We develop the freedom to think and act differently, build new habits, deal with difficult emotions, overcome our struggles, and learn to flow with life as it unfolds.

    3. Practice grateful living.

    Our minds are biased toward negativity, and we habitually focus on problems giving them much more attention than is necessary, inducing anxiety in the process. If left unchecked this can put a negative spin on our day, keeping us in a perpetual state of chronic stress and worry.

    The good news is that this bias is not set in stone. We can shift it by bringing our attention to the positive things, the little things that spark joy and bring light into our day, moments that we’d otherwise missed amidst our stress and overwhelm.

    Gratitude is about being and celebrating the present, but in order to do that you need to be honest and aware of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. When you slow down to do this, you begin to include everything in your life, the good and the bad, the ups and downs, equally. In time, a gratitude practice can shift your perspective on life. You realize there’s much beauty and joy in it, in spite of all the difficulties.

    I am a huge fan of keeping a gratitude journal. In fact, this is how my own journey of healing started. Gratitude was like medicine for my anxious mind.

    You can buy a journal specifically for this use. Use colored pens and decorate it to make it beautiful so that you feel good when you open it. Write three to five things each day that you are thankful for.

    When did you feel a moment of peace? What brought a smile to your face? What moments of kindness or beauty have you experienced? Immerse yourself in those moments—bring them fully to life again in your mind.

    The more time you spend reflecting back on things that brought you joy throughout the day, the more time you spend keeping alive those connections that give you the feeling of calm, peace, and wonder. This will train your mind to focus on the good, and keep you away from fear.

    4. Reconnect with yourself.

    A big part of what fueled my anxiety was the feeling of being lost in a sea of errands, work responsibilities, and family obligations. Always on the go, I never slowed down long enough to notice how I felt, what I wanted, or what I needed in a given moment.

    Raised to be helpful and anticipate others’ needs—as our patriarchal systems demands—I had lost touch with my own desires and my core self.

    Change can be hard, especially if we don’t have a strong sense of self. That’s why it’s important to reconnect with your deep inner essence, whether through journaling, meditation, play, or therapy. I tried many modalities, and I found writing to be the therapeutic tool I needed to reconnect with my innermost self.

    Journaling allows us to build an intimate relationship with ourselves, and connect with our inner world in an authentic way. We gradually deepen our understanding of ourselves and our experience as we connect with our deep needs, desires, fears and hang-ups. Through journaling, we can reconnect with our inner strength and courage to overcome our obstacles, strengthen our resilience, and regain our power over how we experience and respond to life.

    Once I reconnected with my inner essence—my inner child—I wanted to do everything to protect and nurture her, and give her everything she wanted but never received as a child.

    For example, I offered myself compassion when I failed or felt hurt instead of just pushing through the discomfort and repressing my pain. I wrote in my journal about things that bothered or confused me instead of stuffing it down. I took breaks before getting overwhelmed. I made time to be alone and do things I love—reading, dancing, drawing, bubble baths.

    This was like self-parenting and it was all about nurturing and love, something I felt was lacking in my own childhood. And it gave me the strength and motivation to show up for myself when things got hard. It empowered me to keep going and improved my ability to make lasting changes in areas that mattered to me most.

    —

    The above strategies may sound simple, but when you start putting these small habits together, the body and mind respond.

    Stillness is like a balm that calms our frazzled soul. Mindfulness allows us to slow down and better respond to anxiety-inducing challenges we so often face. Gratitude gives us perspective, and self-awareness helps us recognize and understand our emotions, and that builds strength and resilience.

    Combined, those habits can greatly reduce your daily stress and anxiety. And as you are nourishing and supporting yourself daily, you allow healing to take place.

    This takes practice. Healing requires us to have patience, to slow the pace down and to be with what is. We need to trust ourselves knowing that we are growing our capabilities and making the changes that we can at the time, and when we’re ready to do more, we’ll go deeper.

    Whether anxiety is something you’ve developed in recent years or you’ve lived with it your whole life, these four practices can have a soothing effect on your body and mind, and can shift you from perpetual state of stress and overwhelm into a more peaceful way of living.

  • A Guide to Peace for Anyone with a Crazy, Messed Up Mind

    A Guide to Peace for Anyone with a Crazy, Messed Up Mind

    “No thought has any power. You have power. And when you identify and believe in the thought, you give power to the thought.” ~Mooji

    It was 2004. I was on day three of a six-month meditation retreat, and my restless and turbulent mind was driving me nuts.

    The prospect of sitting on this wretched cushion for another five minutes (let alone six months) was freaking me out.

    “What on earth have I let myself in for? This is a crazy idea. I want to go home.”

    My restless monkey mind was more like King Kong on amphetamines.

    “No, remember how messed up you were before you arrived—and the crazy synchronicity that led you here,” a second, conciliatory voice chipped in.

    Destiny had indeed dragged my ass across the world onto this bright red meditation cushion in mysterious ways.

    Long story short, my housemate Jack had come to this meditation center after spraining his wrist and having to pull out of a yoga retreat he was supposed to attend in the US.

    A few days later, he called me to say he loved it there and believed he’d found his teacher. He was really excited.

    At the time, I was going through a particularly difficult period in my life. I had hit a brick wall and had no idea where to turn. So you can imagine my delight when I received a message from Jack, saying, “You’ll never guess what happened. I was talking to my teacher about you and he said, ‘Tell him to come to Canada as soon as he can and not to worry about the money. Just come.’”

    Ten days later, I found myself perched on a bright red meditation cushion on a stunning property in the Canadian Rockies.

    And this is where the real story begins.

    As I sat on my cushion on day three, my restless mind was spinning out on overdrive. I needed help.

    Unable to sit any longer, I stood up and approached the head monk:

    “I’m really struggling here. I need to talk,” I said.

    The conversation that ensued remains etched in my mind to this day. It went something like this:

    “What’s the problem?” he asked with a look of compassion.

    “I can’t stop thinking,” I replied.

    “No, you can’t,” he smiled.

    I was taken aback. It wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

    “Nobody can. If you didn’t have a crazy, messed up mind, you wouldn’t be human.”

    “But I’m going nuts. My mind is driving me crazy,” I pleaded.

    “What the mind gets up to needn’t be any of your business,” he continued. “You are suffering because you’re open for business. You need to shut up shop. Just relax, be alert, and focus on your breath. Let the thoughts come and go without resistance. Leave the mind in peace to do its thing and it will leave you in peace to do yours. The mind can only trouble you if you entertain it.”

    If You Didn’t Have A Crazy, Messed Up Mind, You Wouldn’t Be Human

    Boy, that’s quite a statement!

    We tend to see ourselves as special cases.

    Nobody is quite as screwed up as I am, right?

    If people only knew the nonsense that goes on inside my head, I’d have no friends at all, right?

    Over the following six-month period, many of my long-held beliefs about the nature of the mind and the causes of suffering crumbled away.

    When I showed up in Canada, I was riddled with self-judgment. I believed that finding peace (if it was even possible, which I doubted) would be a monumental task, requiring a complete overhaul of my broken mind.

    Here are some of the key points I came to understand:

    • Being messed up is an inevitable and unavoidable part of being human. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
    • Peace of mind is an illusion because restlessness is the nature of mind. Disturbance and mind are one and the same thing.
    • You don’t need to change or fix your thoughts in order to experience peace. You need to recognize the mind for what it is.
    • There is no distance between you and peace. It is available to each of us in every moment… no matter what is going on in the mind.

    Over time, I began to grasp and apply what my teacher meant by shutting up shop and minding your own business.

    I learned that the key to experiencing ongoing contentment is to leave the mind in peace to do it’s crazy, messed up dance—in other words, to mind your own business.

    “Allow thoughts to arise but don’t give them a place to land.” ~Papaji

    Peace is the natural consequence of not minding what the mind gets up to.

    Fast forward six months and I was a person transformed.

    I was now finding my time on the cushion enjoyable and hugely rewarding. I was quite prone to experiencing blissful episodes… even with a chaotic mind. I had never known peace like this before.

    I had also, much to my own surprise, taken my novice vows as a monk and received a new name. I wondered how that was going to go down with my family at home!

    The following are seven key lessons I learned for dealing with an unruly mind to experience ongoing peace.

    1. See the thoughts, don’t be the thoughts.

    The first and most important step toward reclaiming your peace is to create some blue sky between you and the mind—to see your thoughts as objects rather than being enmeshed in them.

    See the thoughts, don’t be the thoughts.

    Thoughts are like clouds floating across the vast sky.

    White clouds come and go. Dark clouds come and go. They are temporary and don’t affect the sky in any way. Every cloud is welcome. The sky has no preferences and remains untouched.

    And it’s the same with the mind.

    Thoughts constantly change but your awareness is like the sky— vast and unchanging.

    Learning to step back and observe the passing thoughts with an attitude of dispassion and non-judgmental acceptance is the key to experiencing peace.

    The thoughts are not the problem. The real issue is your identification with them. Recognizing this can transform your life in an instant.

    2. Know there is nothing wrong with you.

    This was a big one for me.

    An ‘unholy’ thought appears in your head—a judgmental thought, a resentful thought, or a jealous thought—and you beat yourself up for having it.

    You believe that you shouldn’t be having thoughts like these—that there is something wrong with you.

    Well, there is nothing wrong. Everybody, without exception, has these kinds of thoughts. It’s called being human.

    The mind is part of the human apparatus, just like arms or eyes.

    It is very much like a computer. Your cultural conditioning, your DNA, and your unique set of life experiences determine the thoughts it churns out.

    Given your background and history, your mind could not be producing thoughts other than the ones it’s producing.

    Your thoughts are not personal. They are part of your programming, part of the human condition.

    3. Roll out the red carpet.

    When thoughts you label “good” enter your awareness, they meet with no resistance. You are quite happy for them to hang around.

    When you label a thought as “bad” or “undesirable,” you reject it. It’s unwelcome.

    It is this tendency to judge unwanted thoughts as bad or wrong that creates suffering.

    Thoughts are not inherently good or bad. You make them so through your labeling. They are neutral events passing through your awareness and left alone, have no power to make you suffer.

    Let them come and go. Remain as the observer. Don’t give them a place to land.

    Roll out the red carpet for all thoughts—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    Treat all thoughts as honored guests and watch your peace and happiness blossom.

    4. The mind is a bigger liar than Pinocchio.

    “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional.” ~Byron Katie

    Take everything the mind tells you with a large pinch of salt.

    Question, in particular, your beliefs and assumptions.

    Every day, we unconsciously make so many assumptions.

    If you dislike your job, for example, you probably make the assumption, before you even leave the house in the morning, that your day won’t be enjoyable.

    Be innocent. Be prepared for surprises.

    Ask yourself the question: “Do I know for certain that this belief, this assumption, is true?”

    Can you find evidence to support the opposite?

    You may well find that it is surprisingly easy to disprove some of your long-held beliefs.

    5. Don’t allow thoughts to turn into thinking.

    Thoughts are self-arising. They appear by themselves from nowhere. There is nothing you can do to stop them from appearing. It is simply the mind doing what it does.

    Thinking, on the other hand, is a choice.

    A thought such as: “She hasn’t called for two hours” triggers a stream of thoughts:

    “Did I say something wrong? Maybe she’s having second thoughts? She probably finds me unattractive. She looks like she works out a lot. Maybe she thinks I’m not good enough for her.”

    This is thinking (and it is also based on unfound beliefs).

    The original thought arrived by itself. You didn’t choose it. The resulting stream of thoughts, on the other hand, is something you can choose to indulge in or not.

    Thinking is a choice. The more you become aware of your tendency to do this, the easier it becomes to stop yourself mid- sentence.

    Most of our thinking is unconscious. We create so much unnecessary suffering for ourselves through a simple lack of awareness.

    6. Know you are not your thoughts.

    Think of it logically. 
Anything you can objectify cannot be who you are.

    I (the subject) am aware of the book (the object) lying on the table. Therefore, I can’t be the book.

    You can apply the exact same logic to thoughts, feelings, emotions, or the mind. Anything I can observe, I can’t be.

    Anything I call “my”—my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions—cannot be me.

    When you believe you are your thoughts, it is natural that you will judge them as “bad” or “wrong” and judge yourself for having them.

    Another metaphor used in meditation is the analogy of the screen and the movie. If there is a fire in the movie, the screen doesn’t get burned.

    The awareness that you are remains untouched by anything you are aware of. Your thoughts are not you. They are events passing across the screen of your awareness. Who you are doesn’t change.

    The awareness that you are doesn’t know happiness or unhappiness. It is only aware. It is always at peace.

    7. Withdraw your attention from the mind.

    When I first ‘got’ these simple truths, I had a massive Homer Simpson “DUH” moment.

    Why doesn’t everyone see this? It’s so obvious.

    And yet, without having had it pointed out to me, I would never have seen that engaging with the mind is optional, not obligatory.

    Having better understood the nature of the mind and the difference between thoughts and thinking, I now give it far less importance than I used to.

    I am much happier as a result, regardless of what kind of thoughts appear.

    Fear thoughts, doubt thoughts, and anger thoughts continue to arise as before. Now I know it’s simply the conditioned mind doing its thing. There is nothing wrong with any of it. I only suffer when I unconsciously resist or judge.

    Happiness is not about the absence of unhappy thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It comes from understanding that I am not defined by any of these. They are free to come and go as they please.

    The mind has as much or as little power over you as you give it.

    The mind is not your enemy. It is your most valuable ally—an incredible servant that is always there for you to use as you choose.

    “Mind: a beautiful servant or a dangerous master.” ~Osho

  • My Favorite Tip to Ease the Pain of Grief

    My Favorite Tip to Ease the Pain of Grief

    “It’s also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that’s sitting right here right now…with its aches and its pleasures…is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.” ~Pema Chodron

    Many people like to think of grief as an emotional experience. It’s something that dominates your internal, emotional space, and that’s it.

    But it doesn’t take long when you’re in the thick of grief to experience grief that isn’t emotional at all.

    You feel heavy. Like there’s a giant weight on your shoulders.

    You feel like your legs are weak and shaking from trying to stand after the ground has been pulled out from underneath you.

    It’s hard to breathe because it feels like the wind has been knocked out of you.

    You feel heartbroken. Like there is literally a hole punched in your chest. Your grief is as much physical as it is emotional.

    Each of the times you experience intense emotional grief you have also been a human being, in your body, experiencing what’s going on.

    When I started to recognize my own body as part of my grieving, I discovered my favorite way to ease the pain from grief for myself and for people around me.

    You see, when I was fourteen I started high school two weeks after my dad died.

    As I walked into that school building, everyone knew what happened, but at the same time I felt like I had no allies. No one that understood. That knew my dad, or that knew where I was coming from.

    The first couple months I just tried to get by.

    I did the motions.

    Didn’t ask too many questions.

    Nodded and shook my head at the appropriate times, making sure each day I came back with the worksheets filled out and ready to turn in.

    I was like a machine.

    My school counselor checked in with me each week to see how things were going. I saw her in homeroom every Tuesday.

    “How’s it going, Kirsten?” she’d ask.

    “It’s so hard,” I repeated again and again.

    So when she sat me down in her office after the first term, she braced herself for the worst. She’d gathered all the paperwork and people she needed to begin a full blown intervention. And then she looked at my grades.

    “Kirsten! What are you talking about?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “You have excellent grades. What do you mean ‘school is hard’?”

    “That’s just it. It’s one thing to fill out a worksheet everyday (this is what I now call “showing signs of life”), it’s another thing to actually do this school thing. I barely feel like I get settled in one class before the bell rings for the next one. I can’t switch my mind from thinking about geometry to immediately conjugate Spanish verbs. My world runs in slow motion, and this place doesn’t slow down.”

    “What can I do to help you?” she asked.

    “I don’t know.”

    Because I didn’t know.

    That’s totally normal not to know.

    Later that week, I found out from my mom that all my teachers had met about how they could help me, and they offered me an extra set of textbooks to keep at home so I didn’t have to carry around heavy books all day.

    “Why would I want that?” I told Mom. I didn’t want any special treatment.

    “Just try it, Kirsten,” my mom encouraged.

    So because she’s my mom, I listened.

    And it was the BEST. THING. EVER.

    On the physical level, it literally lightened the weight on my shoulders. It reinforced the true reality that just showing up to class was more than enough.

    It meant that just being there was all I needed to do, and the rest of the stuff—the logistics—were already taken care of.

    So when you know you’re going to have an emotionally intense day, what’s one thing you could do to lighten your load?

    Maybe it’s setting a timer when you’re cooking so you don’t have to remember how many minutes the pasta has been on the stove. Lighten your mental load so you have space to be with your thoughts.

    Maybe it’s resetting expectations your family has of you, being honest with them about what you are not available to do so you can use that open space for yourself.

    Whatever it is, think about the little things that cause you stress and use those as a source of inspiration for what actions will help.

    The other key part of the textbooks gesture is that it was a gesture that recreated trust.

    You see, in that one small gesture of giving me an extra set of textbooks, my teachers showed me they trusted me.

    They trusted me with these expensive things and they trusted that I would take their gift with respect.

    All the while, I didn’t know if I could trust myself.

    What was even left of me?

    It felt like I was all grief and no me.

    When someone, a whole group of someones who I respected, said with their action, “We trust you,” it was the first time in a long time I was extended a gentle invitation to trust my community again.

    I didn’t have to feel up for every social event or trust the whole world yet, but I could trust my teachers.

    Suddenly, I had a whole group of undercover allies.

    None of the other students knew I had been given “special treatment.” And each day I walked from class to class to class, I knew there was at least one person in the room I could trust.

    That one action was more powerful than any amount of words my teachers said to me over the entire year.

    Here’s what I want you to take away, even if you can’t resolve the pain from a feeling: Try to alleviate some of the physical burden. By doing so, you are creating space for you to heal that would never have occurred if you focus only on words, wondering “What do I say? How can I talk about grief?”

    Pay attention, listen to your body.

    Even if you can’t take away the emotions right now, what can you do to relieve the physical burden?

    How can you relax the gripping around your heart?

    What can you do to release the physical tension in your muscles?

    It might not take away everything, but just a little something can make a world of difference.

  • How to Find Peace in the Dark Corners of Your Life

    How to Find Peace in the Dark Corners of Your Life

    “The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.” ~Thich Nhat Nanh

    It’s easy to feel peaceful and positive when the sun is shining and life is going your way. It’s a different matter when you’re alone, afraid, sick, or so tired you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

    As a three-time cancer survivor, I know something about getting through difficult times. I know what it’s like to feel exhausted and hopeless, but I’ve also learned it’s possible to find moments of peace and light under the most difficult of circumstances. You can too.

    Here are six techniques that help me find the light when things are tough. I hope they bring you the same sense of peace and ease they bring me.

    1. Stop pretending everything’s okay.

    If things aren’t going well, acknowledge it.

    Stop judging yourself for feeling tired, anxious, or miserable. Instead of yelling at yourself for not being upbeat in the face of trauma or trouble, speak to yourself with the same understanding and respect you’d use to support your friends and family.

    Tell yourself you have every right to feel the way you do right now, but that feelings are like the tide. They come and go. And while things are tough today, you’re tough, too. You’ve been through hard times before. You’ll get through this, and tomorrow will be a better day.

    2. Give yourself the gift of living one hour at a time.

    When I was going through chemo for breast cancer, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the strength to make it through the six long months of treatment. And then I came across the idea of living my life hour by hour, and that changed everything.

    Here’s how it works:

    Let’s say it’s 1:15 p.m. where you are. All you have to do is focus on doing the best you can until 2:00 p.m. That’s it. You don’t have to worry about what’s for dinner tomorrow night. You certainly aren’t going to worry about that appointment you have next Tuesday, or how you’re going to replace your old car.

    You just have to make it through this one hour, secure in the knowledge that the next hour, and all the hours after that, will take care of themselves.

    It sounds simple, but living this way has seen me through some really tough days. Go ahead, give it a try, and see how this one change can make this tough time easier.

    3. Focus on loving yourself.

    This is a time to treat your body and spirit with fierce, loving self-care.

    • Listen to your body and give it what it needs to stay healthy.
    • Make sure you get enough rest. Go to bed early. Take a nap.
    • Take an afternoon off and do something that soothes your heart. Go for a walk in the woods, head to the beach, or read a good book.
    • Eat as well as you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get all your vegetables or eat an extra piece of fudge.
    • Move in ways that feel good to your body. And move as often as possible. Even a ten-minute walk or some gentle stretching can improve your mood.
    • Support your health and your spirit with loving words and actions throughout your day.
    • Remind yourself all day long of how many reasons and ways you have to love yourself.

    My favorite way to care for myself when things are tough is to take a warm bath or shower. I love taking time alone to nurture my body and spirit. I love to relax and let the water wash away my cares and worries. For me, bathing is the perfect way to end a tough day.

    4. Get busy.

    Don’t just sit around worrying; do something. Even if you don’t have a lot of energy, you can still find something small to do to make your life better.

    Clean out a drawer or a closet. Read something. Learn something. Start a project, finish a project. Knit, tinker, build, garden, write, explore, give, share.

    I like to go for a walk or head to the kitchen to cook something, but it doesn’t matter what you do. What matters is that you take one small action to get you back on the road to feeling better.

    5. Be grateful.

    Take some time every day to focus on all the wonderful things you already have in your life.

    Even though you may feel you have nothing to be grateful for, I promise you, you are surrounded by an abundance of miracles. The trick is to seek out the little luxuries in your day, the moments of unexpected joy, the color, sound, and beauty of the world around you. Find them and then celebrate them all with a full heart.

    As you go through your day, look for things that feel good. Revel in things like the warmth and comfort of a quilt around your shoulders, the beat of your favorite music, the splendor of the morning sky, the juicy sweetness of a crisp apple.

    See how many of these incredible things you can find. Make it a game to find more of those things today than you did yesterday. Play the game with people around you and see how this one simple activity changes your life.

    If you’re still having trouble coming up with the good things in your life, complete these phrases:

    I enjoy seeing…

    I enjoy hearing….

    I enjoy doing….

    I enjoy knowing….

    I enjoy being with….

    I’m so glad about….

    I love….

    I’m so glad I can….

    I’m grateful for…

    I’m looking forward to…

    When you start looking for, and talking about, things you’re grateful for, you’ll begin to welcome more of those wonderful things into your life.

    6. Look up and breathe.

    Finally, when you’re anxious, depressed, or at your wit’s end, all you have to do to instantly feel better is look up. Simply raise your gaze to the sky or ceiling or whatever is over your head. Take a moment to feel a connection to the universe.

    Then draw a breath deep into your belly. As you continue to breathe deeply, feel a sense of relaxation begin in your shoulders and work its way down your spine. Feel your muscles soften as a sense of ease fills your body.

    With your next inhale, repeat the phrase, “I now fill my body with peace and light.” As you exhale, feel your body soften and relax as you repeat to yourself, “I let go of the weight of fear and worry.”

    Repeat until you are completely relaxed. Then take that sense of peace into your day, knowing you can repeat this technique as many times as you wish to bring this sense of peace into your heart, no matter what is going on around you.

    —

    It may not be possible to avoid the dark days in life, but it’s always possible to bring some light into that darkness and peace into your soul, by choosing acceptance, gratitude, focus, and love.

  • 5 Steps to Lower Your Financial Stress When You’re Drowning in Debt

    5 Steps to Lower Your Financial Stress When You’re Drowning in Debt

    “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

    I never anticipated the stress and pressure that come when you are no longer able to pay your bills on time.

    Knowing that you owe money, and that your current income isn’t going to cover it, is a heavy reality to face.

    I found myself starting to envy low-income, salaried employees. Even though they don’t earn a lot, which I’m sure brings its own challenges, they aren’t eligible to receive huge credit. This protects them from ever finding themselves owing millions.

    My husband and I have recently gone through a time when we found ourselves way overextended. Due to a series of bad beats and various twists of fate, we found ourselves in over our heads. And this is not a good space to be in.

    It’s a sickening feeling that has seemed to overshadow all the other areas of our lives. We’ve felt unable to breathe, knowing that debt is hanging over us. When the phone rings from an unknown number, we’re hesitant to answer it. It could be someone wanting to know when we will pay a bill.

    Small Beginnings

    It didn’t start out like this. Let me backtrack. I grew up on a farm in an average-income-earning household. Although we didn’t lack for anything, we weren’t wealthy.

    My husband and I married early on in life and started out with very little. We set up a small business from home soon after we got married. I was halfway through studies at the time and managed to juggle both. Our expenses were minimal, and even though it felt like hard work, we seemed to prosper.

    Friends would comment and say we had the Midas touch. As the business grew and branched out, money always seemed to be plentiful. We didn’t start out intending to reach a massive bank balance. Our aim had been to reach financial independence sooner than later. Words like “budget” or “frugalness” never seemed to enter our thinking though.

    Over the years, we upgraded our living, our home, our cars. We took overseas holidays and bought properties. As our affordability increased, so did our expenses. In a short space of time, we up-leveled our lifestyle requirements.

    The Storm

    The stress and anxiety of knowing you are unable to catch up on financial commitments is scary. We had some business ventures fail, we bought out a partner, there was a notable economic downturn. We had new competitors enter the market that we could no longer match, as our running costs had become so high.

    Then things came to a boiling point; a perfect storm was in the making. A few clients didn’t pay for larger projects. This meant we had to put out money to complete the work, but nothing was coming in. Our rental property didn’t have a tenant in it for a few months, and major maintenance needed doing. Staff went on strike, and several employees had to get retrenched and paid out.

    The strain on our marriage was palpable. The weightiness of the situation was hard to bear. There wasn’t going to be a quick-fix solution. We had to rally, face this storm head on, and ride it out over the next two years.

    Downsizing

    We took massive action to downscale. It’s very easy to upscale and commit to new financial obligations. Downscaling is hard because it feels like you’re taking a step backward. And in a sense, you are, although you’re going back to go forward.

    The new forward for me looks like being out of debt. The new goal is to have a business buffer of funds available to get through unexpected setbacks. We never want to experience the stranglehold of debt again. No fancy dining or luxury goods are worth the stress and worry of financial pressure.

    And so, we downscaled throughout the business. Everything got cut back down to size. All the unnecessary extras we didn’t need got cut away. We opted to move home. We cut our rental amount by a third.

    I swapped my shiny floors and designer fittings for a modest, old-school, rustic duplex. We no longer have to worry about hiring a gardener or keeping the pool clean. We cut up our credit cards and canceled every debit order we could.

    We Have Everything We Need

    To be honest, we still lived well and had everything we needed. But only just. When our new large screen TV stopped working, a month or so out of warranty, we started to use an old spare one we had in the garage. When winter came around, I took my allocated winter clothes budget and put it toward better use. That year I made do with what I had. Priorities dictated there were more pressing things to spend on.

    My motto became “If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.” Look for cheaper alternatives. This may be obvious to people who earn a set income and aren’t in a position to over-spend. But it seemed I had to re-learn it.

    For a year, my children didn’t get any new toys. In fact, I packed all the old ones away, only took out a few at a time, and tried to think of creative ways we could play with them.

    By the time Christmas rolled around, there was a financial improvement, so we spoiled the children with presents. The funny thing is, the novelty of the new toys wore off quickly. They didn’t seem to play with the new ones any more than they did the old ones. It seemed the more they had, the less they appreciated it.

    If you’re going through something similar—if you’re drowning in debt and need to claw your way out—perhaps my lessons may help.

    5 Steps to Lowering Financial Stress

    1. Know exactly where you stand.

    Get all your financials listed on a spreadsheet. Open communication is key between the role-players involved. List all your debt, liabilities, and expenses, and your income, investments, and assets.

    The starting point is to gain clarity on where you stand. You need to know how far you have fallen behind so you can plan to rectify your situation as soon as possible.

    It’s easy to start blaming or regretting or going around in “if only I had done this” circles. We had made one bad judgment call, and that may have changed everything. In hindsight it seems so obvious, but at the time we did what we thought was best.

    We had to stop hypothesizing and going back over bad decisions. We needed to work as a team, and now more than ever, we had to support each other, and not go back to “we should’ve.”

    2. Make a plan.

    After getting a realistic view on where exactly you stand, you can start working on a plan.

    Although we felt like throwing in the towel, we had to get our mindset right.

    There are usually more options than you think to get things back on track. Under stress we tend to go into survival mode, and this isn’t conducive to creative problem solving.

    Try to take the emotion of the situation away when you start to problem solve. Imagine this scenario is happening to someone else, and you’re there to help figure it out with them. You will need to research various options.

    Try to make a plan, even if your initial plan changes along the way. It’s important to gain back your sense of control.

    Communicate with the role-players. If you owe the bank or your credit providers, call them and meet up to discuss options. Ask for extensions. Get advice from people who have gone through similar experiences.

    3. Live within your means.

    Cut everything back to what is manageable. Yes, you will feel like you have lost some of your status. We moved from a prestigious housing estate to a random lower end suburb. It was a major personal downgrade, but I’ve come to learn that we are so much more adaptable than we realize. We actually need very little to live comfortably.

    We cut back on luxury items and learned the art of patience. Instead of buying on demand, if I wanted something, I would wait until I could afford it. I found that by doing this, it also eliminated impulse purchases. After waiting and giving it more thought, often I decided I didn’t need that item anyway.

    We had to get in touch what is most important. When you have only a limited supply to work with, you have to focus on what’s a priority. You need to weigh up the options and decide where you will get the most value for money.

    We implemented a budget, where we allocated amounts for the month, so we could plan to get through.

    4. Get back to your intrinsic values.

    Both my husband and I have never been particularly materialistic. We love quality products, but we’ve never been into flashy status items, although we’ve certainly grown accustomed to the finer things in life.

    During our financial crisis, we had to come back to our core values and to the intrinsic value of things. I got to a point when I realized, it doesn’t matter if we lose everything; our health and well-being are most important. We can start over again if we have to.

    I stopped fearing the worst and worrying and stressing. Instead I became fascinated by how the whole experience unfolded. I tried to learn and glean from this what I could.

    A few key lessons from my experience:

    • I never want to be in this situation again, so I’ll need to maintain these changes.
    • I only need to get through one day at a time.
    • Laughing through tough times is much better than crying through them.
    • To be a strong team, you can’t have internal conflict.
    • We had to accept the situation and make the best of it.

    A few things we did to get back to our values:

    • We started to value every penny again.
    • We focused on all we did have, not on all we didn’t have.
    • We forgave and moved on.
    • We left karma to deal with our wrongdoers.
    • We tried to cultivate a long-term vision, and this was merely a glitch in the road.

    5. Practice gratitude and generosity.

    Not your typical response when the financial pressure is on. But when you have little, it’s easier to be grateful for the small things in life. If you have a lot, it’s more difficult to be mindful of and value the small things. You tend to develop bigger and better expectations when you have much.

    We stopped expecting and taking things for granted. We started for be more thankful for everyday things.

    I tried to remain generous, if not with monetary resources, with what I could be generous with. A smile, a text message of encouragement to someone. A flower picked out the garden and given with a hand-written note. Or a listening ear might be what someone else needs. Too often we are so caught up in our own drama, we fail to consider what others are going through.

    As we give to those less fortunate, we start to appreciate our great wealth. It puts things back into perspective.

    6. Calm yourself while you get through the storm.

    This experience has definitely taught me that we can’t control life. We can plan and set goals, but ultimately a lot of things are out of our hands. Life happens, and it doesn’t always unfold how we imagined it would.

    During these times you have to find your inner grit. Your character gets tested and refined. You start to move way out your comfort zones and you land up somehow expanding but not breaking.

    And just when you think you can’t take withstand the storm anymore, you look back and notice how far you’ve come. You realize how much you’ve grown, and you’re stronger than ever.

    Things that helped me get through:

    • Find my composure daily through meditating, deep breathing, consciously releasing muscle tensions when I notice it, practicing self-compassion, celebrating small wins, and staying focused on the bigger picture
    • Remember “This too shall pass”
    • Don’t give in to self-pity or start whining to others
    • Take responsibility for my part in getting here
    • Remember that there is always more money to be made
    • Don’t give way to scarcity thinking
    • Sell or offload what I don’t need
    • Think out the box how to re-structure
    • Keep my life simple

    —

    I’m glad to report we are well on our way to righting our finances. I honestly wouldn’t trade this experience or go back in time and change things. It hasn’t been pleasant, but I’ve learned so many valuable lessons that I will take with me going forward.

    As we build up again, we are going to keep our expenses under control. We are going to be a lot more cautious, and never over-extend ourselves again. We will never enter into bad debt again.

    This time has made me respect the beauty and harsh reality of life and tread a little lighter as I move through it.

  • How to Choose Peace When You’re Under Pressure

    How to Choose Peace When You’re Under Pressure

    “Let us fill our hearts with our own compassion.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    “Mom’s concentrating,” I tell my kids as I clean up after dinner. I suggest a game to keep them occupied. “How many words start with A?”

    As I inspect the crumbs under the kickboard, I pay just enough attention to hear them play along.

    “Mom. L!” (I must have drifted off.)

    “Right. L is for?” And they’re off again. Be more present, be more present, be more present, I think.

    M…N…O…I laugh to myself when we reach P. P is for pressure, that’s what, I think as I remind myself that I really need to print off those tax documents tomorrow. And call the doctor. And send off those emails. And register for that training.

    The fact that I can share this with you today reflects true progress. I’m learning to notice the pressure now, examine it, and reduce it where I can, trusting that I can still address the valid concerns that are within my control.

    But before, pressure just felt normal. Necessary even. I used to tell myself that this is what discipline and motivation looked like, as if I didn’t believe I could do the things that mattered without the stress.

    It’s only in the last few years that I’ve dared to be honest with myself about what goes on in my body and mind.

    Now, I accept that this is pressure, and it isn’t helping. Now, I know that my thinking patterns and actions can either bring more pressure or more peace. And now, I truly believe that I have the power to choose which way it goes even when nothing else is in my control.

    This doesn’t mean I’ve perfected the process. Far from it. But now I have the clear intention to at least try.

    Recognizing the pressure was the easy part. The warning signs were clear enough: headache, tension, irritability, worry, fatigue. This doesn’t always stop me denying it or trying to power through.

    Recognizing that my thoughts and actions might be intensifying it was a little harder.

    There’s always a kernel of truth (or more) in the pressures we feel. Pressure comes from the real, daily things that keep life running smoothly. It also comes from the deeper, scarier problems we face. A serious diagnosis. Unemployment. Divorce. Loss. Trauma. And either way, whether it’s an everyday concern, a traumatic event, or what we’ve learned to label as a “silly” worry, we feel pressure when we care. The pressure we feel tells us so much about our values, priorities, and expectations.

    However, in my experience and maybe yours, there’s a special kind of pressure that’s internally generated, or at least internally magnified. It’s not made up or crazy, but it can become disconnected from reality the longer it goes on.

    That drone of what if this and what will they think and who will I be is my voice in my head. It echoes a lifetime of internalized messages, but now, as an adult living my own adult life, it’s me sending most of those messages.

    Which leads me to the hardest part of choosing a more peaceful way through: the choice.

    I’ve held on to so many pressures in my life, waiting for the day I’ve finally earned the right to let them go. The trouble is, there’s no referee or judge, no one’s keeping score. I’m the only one who can grant myself permission to change, and it’s me who chooses peace or pressure.

    When life feels secure, the peaceful path is easy to see. It’s right in front of you. You’re standing on it! When I’m there, I can tell myself the most beautiful affirmations, “I decide if I live life in fear of the pain or in devotion to the love. I can choose to let go of that which does not serve me. I love and accept myself fully, completely, deeply.”

    But when things get hard or serious, or when something I really care about is on the line, the doubts can creep in.

    Is it safe to let go of my pressure-filled thoughts? 

    What if I need this pressure to succeed?

    Can I really let myself slow down and relax when there’s still so much I need to accomplish?

    Do I deserve to feel good right now? Have I earned it? I’ll have time for myself when this is all over.

    Every day, I grow more aware of this process, and every day, I feel a little braver. Brave enough to find my way back to the peaceful path.

    I can still act so surprised about the pressure, though. After the big doctor’s appointment, after the wedding, after the funeral, after the visit with the in-laws, after the annual review, I’ll have a moment of clarity. I’ll see as if for the first time how much pressure I’d been under by its absence.

    For a moment, before the space is filled in with something new, I feel peace. And every time, for just a moment, I can talk to myself with true understanding and compassion.

    “You were under so much pressure,” I’ll say. “That was really weighing on you. Of course, you felt pressure. It makes sense that you felt confused about that. It makes sense that you felt so stuck. I know, I know. You were scared.”

    Then, when I could assert my willingness to change, that familiar critical voice sneaks back in. But I thought you’d be over this by now.

    Pressure.

    The things we feel pressure about may change on the surface. Move faster, do more, do better. Underneath, they’re always about the same questions:

    Who am I?

    Am I good enough?

    I am worthy of love and connection?

    Can I get through this?

    And even in the attempt to be compassionate with ourselves, we can easily slip into questioning our worth rather than affirming it. We can intensify the pressure to get over it already. Rather than saying, “I see that I’m feeling pressure and I choose to accept and love myself fully through it” it becomes more, “Really? This again?”

    Here, too, I’m learning how to choose the peaceful path through. I’m learning that there’s no purpose in shaming yourself for the pressure, just as there’s no purpose in minimizing it or bottling it up.

    I’m learning that taking the peaceful path means changing the whole process to one of compassion, not criticism. So, I’m practicing answering those questions in a more caring way.

    You don’t need to hurt yourself like this.

    You can decide how you’re going to approach this.

    Even here, you can choose to accept yourself.

    You can choose the most peaceful path through this.

    There will always be pressure. Pressure, pain, stress, tension, friction—they’re a part of living. Life cannot and will not ever be stagnant, and that’s not always comfortable. Still, we can choose a more peaceful path through it.

    Maybe now you’re under the pressure to do more and do it faster. Or the pressure to be certain. Or to be strong or perfect. Or maybe even the pressure to release the pressure. The pressure you experience may be internally generated or a reflection of the people and circumstances surrounding you.

    No matter how much pressure you’re under or where it stems from, you can find a more peaceful way through it with your own compassion.

    Here’s how:

    1. Practice being aware without the judgment.

    Learn your personal early warning signs and start to label that internal experience as pressure. Practice recognizing it before it boils over or paralyzes you, and be honest with yourself about whether it’s really helping. Even if all you’re able to do is notice its absence when it leaves, start there. Notice the feeling of pressure or relief, call it what it is, and recognize how this process impacts your life.

    2. Validate yourself.

    When you’re under pressure, validate your feelings with statements like you’re under pressure right now and this feeling makes sense. And move toward validating your own worth. Even statements like I’m learning to accept myself can be enough to ease the pressure.

    3. Look beneath the surface.

    Once you’ve recognized you’re under pressure and offered yourself validation, you can look beneath the surface at what’s going on. Be honest and compassionate with yourself as you ask the questions that help you understand your situation.

    What feels threatened? Who’s influencing you? Could you be magnifying this? What would help you ease the pressure? What’s one thing within your control? What scares you about finding a peaceful way through?

    4. Practice new thoughts and actions until they’re your new normal.

    Tell yourself the kinds of things you’d tell a dear friend who’s under pressure. Remind yourself of your true priorities, your strengths, and the choices you can make. Tell yourself why you wish to choose a more peaceful path. And do it again and again and again until the words stop sounding foreign.

    Then, practice building the courage to act from that place, even if you don’t quite believe it yet. Belief might have to come after the action.

    Act like it’s safe to be you, safe to be happy, and safe to choose peace. Take one thing off the agenda. Extend a deadline. Tackle something small and savor crossing it off the list. Take a walk and fill yourself with awe. Whatever you do, remember that the bravest thing isn’t always the biggest or the boldest but the most authentic.

    Practice these steps from a place of love and treat every time the pressure returns, because it will, as another moment to renew your commitment to finding the most peaceful way through.

  • 3 Ways to Stop Obsessing and Start Enjoying More of Your Life

    3 Ways to Stop Obsessing and Start Enjoying More of Your Life

    “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    I’ve come to realize that worrying and obsessing don’t help or change anything.

    Hold up. Wait a minute!

    Let me rephrase that, because worrying and obsessing do change things. They make your life worse. I think pretty much everyone in the world knows this, but how hard do we try to stop doing these things?

    What If?

    Every day you wake up and you think and obsess and wonder, “What if?”

    What if I lose my job? What if he leaves me? What if I lose everything and end up homeless?

    Day after day your mind spins out of control contemplating all the things that could go wrong with your relationship or your life. On and on and on it goes, and where it stops nobody knows.

    Aren’t you getting tired of thinking all the time? Isn’t obsessing about possibilities wearing you out? At what point do you decide you should stop getting caught up in your thinking, but then actually make a change?

    I’m tired, and I know relentless thinking wears me out. Just to let you know that I understand, I’ll give you an example.

    Honestly, I have the best boyfriend ever (for me anyway) because he doesn’t let a lot of things get him down. I mean, the guy is genuinely happy and content 99% of the time. Me, not so much. He has been through multiple deployments, many of them combat, and still he never lets stuff get to him.

    But, how does this happen? Where can I get some of what he has? This, I have been contemplating.

    I’ve come to realize he feels happy more than I do because he doesn’t overanalyze life, question everything, and obsess about the future. And he probably also doesn’t obsess about how happy he is and how he can be happier!

    Here’s how it goes:

    Me: “Does he even love me? Is he ever going to totally integrate me into his life? Am I too boring for him? I really need to get some hobbies. Am I settling, or do I expect too much? I’m so fussy sometimes and I don’t know how he handles it. Where are we going to move? When is he going to deploy? Where is he going to go? Is he going to leave me here all alone?”

    I look over at him longingly, wondering what’s going through his mind, because it must be something serious and important, and he must be contemplating the fate of our relationship or the existence of the Universe, right?

    He knows when I look at him with that longing look I want to know what he’s thinking about. So, I say, “Tell me, I must know!”

    Him: “I need some new pants.” Or he’ll utter, “I want a key-less ignition for my bike.” Or, the earth-shattering statement, “My feet really stink.”

    It’s possible he’s just not telling me what he’s really thinking, but if he is obsessing like I do, it doesn’t show in how he lives his life.

    The more time I spend with him, the more I realize I’m wasting my life away obsessing about what might be or what could be or what isn’t instead of simply enjoying the moment and living in gratitude for what I have.

    My guy gets all happy and excited about the little things, and for some reason I don’t. I try. So far, I have failed. But, I vow that going forward I will not fail. I will stop obsessing all the time and I will be a lot happier as a result.

    Do you know why you obsess? Is it serving a purpose anymore? If not, you can change it. Here’s how.

    1. You have to want it.

    Are you at the point where you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired yet? If not, keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe obsessing still works for you in some way and you aren’t yet ready to change. That’s okay. We all change when we’re ready, and we get to different points at different times.

    Wanting to change starts with a conscious choice you have to make. At some point you decide that you want to take control of your life instead of letting your life, your history, and your mind control you.

    Think long and hard. Do you truly, really, honestly want to be happier? I believe that I have struggled with this notion for a long time. In my head I want to be happy, but in my heart there’s a seed of doubt.

    Happiness is something I had briefly when I was a small child, but it was shattered by abusive adults. What if I get it back and it gets taken away again? As an adult I know that isn’t logically possible because no one can take away my happiness, but it’s still a lingering fear.

    Do you feel something similar?

    Despite this fear I’ve decided that I want to be happier. I’m running out of time. We’re all running out of time. Your life is ticking away every day, and you never know when it will end.

    Decide you want to enjoy more of your life. Decide you deserve to enjoy more of your life. Decide you will do something to change, and then you will.

    2. You have to rewire your brain.

    This is the hard part. Your mind has been wired a certain way, possibly due to traumatic events, abuse, or neglect. There’s a roadmap that takes you from Point A to Point B, without fail. Before you know it, an innocuous thought like, “Does he really care about me?” has turned into you remembering every instance he showed you he didn’t care (or at least that’s how you interpreted those events), and you have now convinced yourself you should break up.

    See how this works? Often, it isn’t logical, and it isn’t factual. You’re creating stories in your head because your mind is trying to contain and assuage your fears, put them in a box, and allow you to function with the ever-scary “not knowing.”

    The fact of the matter is, you don’t know. You don’t know if your partner will leave you (they might die or cheat or break up with you—or they might stay forever). You don’t know if you’ll die tomorrow. You don’t know if you’ll lose your job or have financial struggles or end up winning the lottery.

    Recognize when you’re obsessing, then decide to accept what you don’t know and stop getting caught up in your thoughts. Do it once. Do it twice. Do it over and over and over until you have a little peace. If meditation helps, then do that. If sitting at the beach or reading a book helps, then do that. Do whatever will help you bring a little peace to your mind.

    Once you’ve created a little space in your head, you have to start believing. When you realize you’ve been wondering, “Does she really care about me?” remind yourself, “She shows she cares about me.” Start believing the good instead of the bad.

    It took me about a year to convince myself that my boyfriend really cared, even though his actions showed he did. He kept showing up and didn’t run away, but still, I had to get over my fear that no man would ever really care about me and they’d only want to use me.

    If your partner doesn’t show they care, then that’s something you need to actively address. Obsessing about something can’t change it. Only action can.

    3. You have to learn to love the little things.

    I know this is hard sometimes. If you feel apathetic or tired or depressed it’s hard to see the good in anything. But every day there are usually little things that happen that could bring you joy, even if for a few minutes.

    Yesterday I went to the beach for a few hours. Being in the sun, feeling the wind, and hearing the ocean brings peace to my soul. I try to do this as often as possible because it reminds me to appreciate being alive.

    Watching him cook breakfast makes me happy. I had to learn to sit back and let someone do something (anything) for me, and now I smile a little every time he whips up some eggs and bacon.

    They have a baby hippo at the zoo. He weighs five hundred pounds, but he bobbles around like a fat, happy, little apple in the water, and watching him makes me happy.

    I decided to buy some flowers to put in our bedroom so I can look at the sunny little yellow bunch every day.

    And I’m thinking we need a dog so I have something else to focus on.

    I’m trying to find simple things to make me happy instead of waiting for some big, giant event or some magical time when life suddenly changes and becomes more fulfilling, because that won’t ever happen. You create your reality, and if you keep waiting for life to happen, it will slowly pass you by.

    What about you? What makes you happy? There must be something you’re grateful for, and if not, find or create something. Do you paint or write? Maybe you like animals and want to volunteer at a shelter. Maybe you need to get out in nature every day even if only for an hour.

    Think of those little things that bring you joy and make sure you do them as often as possible. Try to focus on what’s good in your life, because we can spend all day focusing on what’s wrong or what isn’t working or what could be better, but honestly that doesn’t get us anywhere but into a negative spiral.

    Most importantly, don’t give up if you fall backward. Don’t let the outside world make you feel like you aren’t enough if you aren’t perfect and happy and smiling all the time like everyone else on Instagram. A picture isn’t life, and social media can make you feel like a failure if you let it.

    It’s okay to struggle. You don’t have to be perfect. You’re enough just the way you are, and as long as you keep moving forward and make peace with your journey, you are doing all you can and you should be proud of yourself.

    So, get out there. Stop letting obsessive thoughts control you and start living your life for today!

  • Free 5-Day Mindfulness Challenge – Interview with Mindful in May Founder Elise Bialylew

    Free 5-Day Mindfulness Challenge – Interview with Mindful in May Founder Elise Bialylew

    Every year, I share a little about Mindful in May, a month-long online meditation program that can dramatically improve your state of your mind and your life, while also transforming the lives of others living in poverty.

    This year, I was grateful to connect with Mindful in May founder Elise Bialylew to learn more about the program; how mindfulness can help with depression, anxiety, and chronic stress; and how you can you can get a free taste of the already dramatically discounted program from April 8th through 12th.

    Here’s what Elise had to say…

    1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to launch Mindful in May?

    I was always deeply curious about the human condition and the ingredients that are required to live a thriving life. At medical school, I remember being completely blown away as I held a human brain in my hands and wondered how a one kilogram mass could house a lifetime of memories, thoughts, and desires.

    Studying medicine, although at times was so difficult, gave me a deep appreciation for the miracle of the body and the preciousness of life.

    As I moved deeper into my career I discovered that while psychiatry helped save people’s lives, it often left the flourishing part of the equation to other professionals. I also realized that this was the part of the journey I was most passionate about. I wanted to support people in thriving, not just surviving.

    It was during my own search for greater clarity, meaning, and a way to manage the stress of my everyday life in the wards, that I truly committed to meditation.

    When I started learning mindfulness I had no idea how deeply it would transform my life.

    One morning, I was sitting in meditation when a phrase appeared in my mind, flashing like a neon light: “Mindful in May.” The phrase grew into an idea to create an online global mindfulness fundraising campaign each year during May, where people could be taught about mindfulness by the world’s best experts and dedicate the month to making a positive difference in the world, by raising funds for global poverty—specifically bringing clean, safe drinking water to those in need.

    This was the beginning of a new path that would answer the call of my longing to make a positive difference in a more far-reaching way than prescribing medication and facilitating small group meetings. It was an idea that integrated three of my passions: mindfulness, social impact, and community.

    For me, mindfulness meditation has been life changing. It’s taught me so much about how to manage stressful situations and equipped me to manage my emotions more skilfully, both in my personal and professional relationships. Of course it’s still a work in progress—there’s never an end to learning and growing but so far it’s transformed my life and career path for the better.

    The fact that we now understand that the way we use our minds can literally change our brains and our genetic expression, is an exciting finding that has re-inspired me along my career path and led me to create Mindful in May.

    In the developed world most of us have our material and survival needs met, but it’s our minds that cause so much of our suffering. The World Health Organisation states that depression is now the second leading cause of global burden of disease.

    In the developing world it’s something as basic as clean water that creates so much suffering.

    Mindful in May addresses both of these global issues by offering people a way to learn how to train their attention, develop their awareness, and become masters rather than slaves of their minds, while helping to raise funds to build clean water wells in the developing world.

    2. Who is this program ideally suited for?

    The program offers daily content and support including an online interactive community where participants can get their questions answered and connect with other likeminded people from around the world.

    Each year complete beginners and more experienced meditators can join the one month program and, no matter their experience, find it hugely valuable. There’s something for everyone in here and most people who do it once, come back again and again each year to deepen their knowledge and practice.

    3. How many people have participated since you launched, and what kind of feedback have they shared about their experience?

    We’ve had thousands of people from over forty countries participate, and each year we hear of the profound benefits people experience.

    Although I was hearing thousands of anecdotes each year about how the program was transforming people’s lives, I wanted science to support this finding. So we completed a pilot research study a few years ago that was published in the Mindfulness Journal which suggested that ten minutes of meditation a day over the one month program, was enough to bring tangible benefits.

    Specifically, research revealed that participants experienced greater presence and focus, reduced stress, reduced negative emotions, and more positive emotions and overall described a greater sense of flourishing in life.

    As well as these benefits, the research suggested that the more you practice meditation the more mindful you get, and the more mindful you get the more you experience positive emotions.

    4. So many of us today struggle with depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. How can mindfulness help us better cope with these challenges and life’s daily struggles?

    Each year more than 1,000 studies come out exploring the benefits of mindfulness in different domains. There is very solid research around the benefits of mindfulness in the realm of mental health.

    A group of psychologists in England (Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal) conducted a study of patients who had suffered multiple episodes of depression. Incredibly, they found that mindfulness practice was at least as effective in preventing depressive relapse as maintenance antidepressants—without any of the side effects. A later study building on this discovery found that mindfulness practice could nearly halve the risk of depressive relapse.

    Another groundbreaking study revealed that regular mindfulness meditation increased amounts of the enzyme Telomerase, which protects DNA from age and stress-related damage, suggesting that meditation can protect our cells from age-related damage that comes with stress.

    Although genetics undeniably has an influence on our mental health, the new science offers a more empowering perspective, where we can, to some extent, become sculptors of our own brains by practicing mindfulness.

    5. What, have you found, are the other key benefits of practicing mindfulness?

    Mindfulness offers us a way to see more clearly and be more aware of what’s happening within us and around us in the world. With this greater self-awareness and present moment attention we become better at:

    • Being aware of our emotions and responding to them rather than reacting
    • Having better access to what we really want in our lives and then taking action to make that happen
    • Recognizing thoughts and letting them go rather than getting stuck in obsessive planning or worrying
    • Managing our stress
    • Being in relationships with others with less conflict
    • Communicating more effectively as we are more aware of why we are feeling what we are feeling
    • Staying focussed at work and being less prone to multitasking
    • Falling asleep at night as we have a tool to settle the mind
    • Making decisions that are aligned with what we truly value

    6. What do you think are the biggest obstacles to starting and maintaining a meditation practice, and how can Mindful in May help people do just that?

    I’ve found over the years of teaching that there are many misconceptions about what meditation is, and this means people come to the practice with expectations that set them up for failure. One of the biggest misconceptions is that meditation is about stopping your thoughts.

    Meditation isn’t about stopping your thoughts but rather recognizing and becoming more aware of thoughts so that you are less caught in the impact they can have on you. Although as you practice for longer periods the mind certainly does settle, you can never stop the mind from thinking.

    Just like the heart beats, the lungs breathe, and the eyes see, the mind thinks. So when you sit to meditate and notice the constant stream of thoughts, you realize that this is part of meditation, and so it becomes less of a challenge as you stop battling with your own mind.

    There are other challenges to meditating whether that’s boredom, sleepiness, or restlessness, and these are all predictable obstacles that have been described for thousands of years in the ancient texts. Thankfully, meditators from centuries before us have faced these challenges and have come up with ways of working with these challenges, which support you to go deeper into the practice and experience the benefits that lie beyond these obstacles.

    I created Mindful in May with all of these obstacles in mind, and each week I offer direct ways of working through these challenges. I think this really helps people finally get beyond barriers they’ve previously experienced and they start to experience the deep benefits of the practice.

    One of the other big challenges for all of us is finding the time, prioritizing meditation, and making it a habit. We cover this challenge as well, and I feature guests who are experts in habit formation and behavior change. So it’s not just a meditation course that people are getting, it’s really an integrative program that helps people learn the tool of meditation but also learn how to create lasting positive change in their lives.

    7. As part of the program, you feature interviews with more than a dozen mindfulness experts. Looking at the lineup, I’m sure these were all powerful, inspiring conversations! But can you share a couple key insights from these interviews—ideas that you think have the potential to change participants’ lives?

    Critically acclaimed author and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dan Siegel, offers fascinating new research on the benefits of mindfulness and its ability to slow the ageing process, reduce inflammation, and lower both blood pressure and cholesterol.

    He delves into interesting discoveries around mind wandering, explaining that, …”it’s not that unhappiness leads to mind wandering, but, it appears … not being present is making you unhappy. Even if your mind is wandering toward fun things—I’m going to go on a trip to Hawaii or I’m going to go to a fun ski trip, or whatever—that actually isn’t the issue. Somehow being in the present moment and literally having presence is associated with happiness and well-being.”

    Mark Epstein, an NYC Bestselling author and psychiatrist, discusses what anger, restlessness, and worry can teach us about ourselves, and why “letting go” does not necessarily mean letting go of thoughts and emotions. He says, “Letting go does not mean releasing the thing that’s bothering you, trying to get rid of it only makes it stronger. Letting go has more to do with patience than it does with release.”

    8. I know you offer a free five-day mindfulness challenge to offer a taste of Mindful in May. What does that challenge entail, and how can interested parties sign up?

    I know how powerful the Mindful in May program is, but I also know that there are so many offerings online it can be hard for people to discern whether programs are really going to deliver what they promise. So, that’s why I offer a free program, to give people a chance to get a taste and discover the incredibly valuable learning and tools inside.

    The FREE 5 Days To Mindfulness program runs from April 8th-12th, and when you register you get:

    • Daily emails for five days with mindfulness teaching and guided meditations
    • Access to a fascinating video teaching with world leading Stanford mindfulness expert and professor of psychology Kelly McGonical—you’ll learn practical tools that will transform your stress and life for the better!
    • Guided meditations that will help you find greater focus and calm (and take less than ten minutes!)
    • Support from a like minded online community where you’ll be held accountable to stay on track during your five-day training.
    • Experience the power of meditating in community with people around the world through a LIVE online guided meditation with Elise to help you access greater calm and relaxation in the busyness of your life

    9. If people enjoy the free challenge, how can they get involved in the month-long campaign?

    To register for the one month Mindful in May program they need to simply register here.

    When they register they’ll get:

    • Guided meditations from the world’s best meditation teachers including meditations for relaxation, improved focus, better sleep, greater emotional balance, managing difficult emotions like anxiety and anger and more.
    • Sixteen+ exclusive video interviews with mindfulness experts, and neuroscientists including Daniel Siegel, James Baraz, Mark Epstein, and many more…
    • Daily emails to make meditation a habit
    • Access to the online community to help them stay accountable, connected and regularly meditating

    This world-class meditation program is normally $300, but for the month of May, we drop the price to just $49. This gives you a chance to donate some of the difference to the cause. So it’s a win, win—a clear mind for you and clean water for others.

    You can make an optional donation and or create a fundraising page and get sponsored to meditate for ten minutes a day throughout May.

    Every $50 you raise will transform the life of one person through giving them the gift of clean safe drinking water.

    —

    In case you missed the many links throughout this post, you can join the free 5-day challenge here, or get signed up for the full month-long Mindful in May program here. I hope you find the program helpful, friends!

  • One of Those Days? How to Deal When Everything Irritates You

    One of Those Days? How to Deal When Everything Irritates You

    “Be proactive not reactive, for an apparently insignificant issue ignored today can spawn tomorrow’s catastrophe.” ~Ken Poirot 

    Do you ever have one of those mornings where the battle against annoying minutiae begins before you’re even truly awake?

    One of those days where you feel the illusion of control fully slipping away. You try to grasp and pull it back, but you really have no control over this day or its outcome, at all.

    We dread these types of days, don’t we? The control freak in me gets uncomfortable thinking about it. Even the Meet The Parents movies make me unsettled, because as more and more things go wrong, I just want to cry out, “Stop it already! Stop making bad choices!”

    I can’t guarantee that I can help you stop making bad choices, but I can give you tips for handling those days when everything minor breaks, stalls, or gets in your way.

    I had a day like this when I was pregnant with my youngest. I never regained my energy back like they say you will in the second trimester. I was tired, achy, and feeling uncomfortably large one morning last spring. Still, being pregnant, with all its discomforts, was the highlight of my day.

    It started with an alarm that didn’t go off—well, we didn’t set alarms anymore. My daughter always wakes early, so no need. That day, she took the morning off. No wakeup call from the toddler.

    We woke up running late in a panic. Then, as our cats had been doing lately, just for fun, they threw up their breakfast on the kitchen floor.

    I looked at the stream of cat vomit and told my husband, “Your turn, I cleaned it up last time.”

    He gaped at the floor, and then looked as if he was considering adding his own vomit to the pile. “No. Can’t do it.”

    “UHHH!!” I fumed, and thus began a morning squabble, the bane of my existence. I hate fighting in the morning more than cleaning up cat vomit, but I was rattled from waking up quickly, so I just went for it and dove headfirst into a fight.

    Fight over, we went our separate ways—he went to work and I stayed at home with our kid.

    Later, my first new phone in four years showed up in the mail. Now, if you have ever tried to set up anything with a toddler in tow, you know it’s like trying to build Ikea furniture in a tornado. But I was excited and needed to reset the vibe of the day, so I called to set it up.

    A new phone shouldn’t have problems from the start, right? Seems reasonable, but I had to keep explaining to the representative that I was setting up a new phone.

    We lost phone connection three times. My toddler needed helping five times. Suddenly both my old phone (that I was talking to the rep on) and my new one wouldn’t work. Confused, I was interrupted by a loud hissing.

    I was making split pea soup in the cooker, which I had forgotten. The neglected pot was spewing hot soup goo all over. Meanwhile my sink, countertop, and the stove were full of dishes.

    Old-fashioned pressure cookers are unpopular because if you move them quickly, you get burning steam shooting out at you. Most people don’t use old-fashioned pressure cookers because of this—smart people.

    There was nowhere to move the pot.

    So I had to move the pressure cooker pot in slow motion. I watched in horror as more and more hot goo spilled over the stove, counter, and flowed like a green boiling waterfall onto the floor.

    I huffed with frustration and started cleaning up—phone temporarily a backseat issue—while trying to keep my kid away from the literal hot mess.

    But I was also proud of myself. I hadn’t taken my frustrations out on anyone. I had carried myself with calm, even though I was boiling over, like the soup pot.

    Smiling, I went to place the cleanup towels in the hamper. There, one entire corner of the floor was covered with broken picture frames and glass. I was shocked. And now broken glass? I hadn’t heard anything fall?? What?!

    Suddenly, it was all too much. I felt anger and frustration rising inside of me. I had enough! I walked into the room away from my daughter and dad, and gave a little scream—not loud enough to scare anyone, but it was enough to release my steam valve.

    I’m guessing you’ve had a day like this before. When one irritating thing after another happened, building major annoyance and frustration, making it hard to keep your cool.

    How can we stop getting riled up by everything that goes wrong in a day?

    Most of us in the Western world have become very busy and, by default, very reactive. This does not set us up well to handle unexpected annoyances. But there are a few things we can do to prepare for these days in advance, and a number of ways we can cope better so we don’t get epically annoyed with all the irritations happening around us.

    A Preventative Plan for Managing Murphy’s-Law-Kinda Days

    1. Be mindful of the influences around you.

    The people we surround ourselves with and the information we consume affect our overall mood. If you’re constantly bombarded with criticism, judgment, or negativity, you’ll likely be primed to snap at little things.

    Are your interactions with others positive and supportive? Is your partner or best friend kind to you? Do you have people around you who have your best interests at heart? Or is getting through every day like walking through a minefield of aggressive, explosive people?

    I don’t have expertise in the area of extricating yourself from abusive or trying relationships, but there are plenty of people who do, so if you find yourself being mistreated and traumatized, take action to help yourself today.

    If you aren’t surrounded by intentionally harmful people, yet you listen to news that drags you down and spend a lot of time with complainers and energy drainers, you are not protecting your sweet soul from the tarnishing effects of others.

    I’m not suggesting that you insulate yourself from every negative thing, but can you minimize that which is optional?

    Can you make an effort to consciously choose to surround yourself with people and media who lift you up and make you a better version of yourself?

    2. Take good care of yourself so you’re balanced going in.

    To thrive even with adversity, you need to take care of the animal that is your human body. This body needs fresh air, water, exercise, rest, and quality food. If you are depriving your body of any of these on a regular basis, it is simply a matter of time until you’re an angry, reactive mess.

    Keeping up your good habits of exercising and eating well is essential. The food you put into your body affects your mood. Sugar can give us an energy high, but after it wears off then there’s an energy low, which can leave you feeling worse than before.

    An unhealthy diet high in sugar and processed food can contribute to depression. And living a sedentary life is a risk factor is well. Exercise releases endorphins, the feel-good hormone, which can help you keep calm when things go wrong.

    If you don’t currently eat well and exercise regularly, a reactive, frustrating day can be a wake up call to start supporting a good foundation of health. Then you can weather these storms better.

    3. Find some time during the day to be quiet, meditate, and get calm.

    Meditation is like training for your mind. It literally rewires your brain to be calmer and less reactive, and it can significantly reduce stress and anxiety. By taking time on a regular basis to be quiet and contemplate, you can sometimes identify nagging small concerns before they become large concerns.

    Spending time in nature can have a similar relaxing effect. Being in nature helps you center yourself and recharge—and there’s even some research to show that a certain bacteria in soil can act as a natural antidepressant.

    If you can get out to nature, please do so as soon as possible. It always helps me immensely to get outside.

    How to Handle Trying Days When They Happen

     1. Ask yourself: Is it the day that is a problem, or is it me?

    This is a tough love type of question, but I think it’s essential to pause and ask yourself what’s really going on. When you have a day in which everything and anything annoys you, take time to reflect. Ask yourself if it’s just a rough day, or if your reaction is a sign that something in your life is out of whack.

    It might just be a fluke of a day where things are going funky right and left. Or maybe you’ve been letting little things build up, and things are boiling over because there’s something big you need to address that you’re ignoring—dissatisfaction with your work, or a compatibility issue in your relationship, for example.

    If there is something big that you’re avoiding, can you face it? Can you find someone who will help you find the courage to address what you need to do—to face what you are afraid of?

     2. Release your pent up emotions.

    Modern living and working close with others means there are lots of times where we have to filter our words and our reactions to act like a responsible adult. All too often we stuff our feelings down until we’re ready to explode—and often on some innocent bystander who doesn’t deserve our rage.

    A healthier approach is to feel and work through our feelings as they arise, and sometimes the best approach is to physically release them from our bodies.

    The relief that a good primal scream or pillow punching episode can provide is so incredible (though these things are best done in solitude, so we don’t offload our emotions onto the people around us).

    Elevated stress levels can be stored in the body and create muscle tension, and cause many other physical/emotional strain. But if we release the stress, we can fluidly move forward. Exercise can also help with this, since it gets our muscles moving, and our heart pumping—another good reason to get active!

    3. Take the pressure off.

    On some of my worst bad days, I give myself permission to check out and chill out. I take time to watch funny videos on YouTube or do a calming visualization meditation. It can feel tempting to plow through our to-do list, especially since we often tie our worth to our busyness and productivity. But sometimes you just need a break to regroup.

    For example, can you find a few moments when you can sit or lie down? Then you can either relax or fill yourself with something silly and lighthearted. Animal videos, anyone?

    4. Lastly, remember that it is okay to have a low day.

    Life will ebb and flow. It’s all right for us to feel low, defeated, or sad some days. If you can cultivate a sense of non-attachment and tell yourself, “Well, that was one bad day. Tomorrow will be different,” you can release your feelings about what happened. You can acknowledge that one low day might just be a dip in a life that is largely good overall.

    If it’s just one annoying day that is bothering you, you’ve likely got a lot still that you can be grateful for. When you can see that you are doing okay, that you have so many things going for you, even in the midst of challenging situations, then you know things are actually going quite well in your life!

    Here’s to rolling with the tricky days and relishing in the good ones.

  • Life Is Far Less Painful When We Drop the Story in Our Head

    Life Is Far Less Painful When We Drop the Story in Our Head

    “You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” ~Philip Arnold

    Every meditator knows the dilemma of trying to find that perfectly quiet place to meditate, where silence is the golden rule and voices hush to a whisper.

    Oh how perfect our meditation would be if only everyone would be quiet.

    As wonderful as it sounds, we know it just doesn’t always work out that way.

    And that’s what made this particular meditation experience so insightful. It gave me an opportunity to see how my judgmental thoughts can make life far more painful.

    The setting was a camping trip in Northern California. Even though I was in this beautiful place and it’s generally quite peaceful, not everyone was there to commune with nature.

    On the day in question, I was heading back to my campsite after taking a leisurely stroll with my dog. I was relaxed and content as I started preparing for my afternoon meditation.

    Before any sitting I start with some stretching. I don’t know if it’s old age or just tight hips, but I cannot sit without some movement first.

    So as I was preparing my body to sit, my neighbors were preparing for a party.

    I could hear the preparations going on but didn’t give it much thought—that is, until I heard the music.

    Led Zeppelin at full throttle!

    I am a fan under most circumstances, but not at full volume and definitely not when I’m about to meditate.

    So in came the thoughts…

    How can I meditate with such loud music?

    What kind of horrible person would do this?

    The whole park should be quiet right now—I need to meditate!!!

    My initial thought was to forget about my afternoon sitting, as there was no way I was going to be able to meditate through this.

    So, instead of meditating, I just sat there, becoming more irritated and frustrated over the loudness of the music, my anger toward my neighbors increasing.

    At this point I was painting them as serial killers who should be arrested for being so inconsiderate. I imagined all the things I would say to them and how I would get the park ranger to shut this clearly unlawful gathering down.

    Because doesn’t everyone know this is the hour we meditate? Everyone should be quiet!

    The noise that was coming from the music was nothing in comparison to the noise in my head.

    By this time I was furious.

    After mentally torturing myself for about thirty minutes, having my neighbors arrested and convicted multiple times, I finally had a flash of mindfulness and asked myself, what’s really bothering me?

    Is it the music?

    Is it my neighbors?

    Or is it the story I’m telling myself about why they shouldn’t be playing the music?

    The music, in fact, was not painful; as I said, I like Led Zeppelin.

    And my neighbors, whom I had met earlier in the day, did seem like very nice people—highly unlikely there were any dead bodies lying in their trunk.

    What was upsetting me was the story of why they shouldn’t be playing the music and how this made me a victim.

    So I decided at that moment I would meditate, but I would also be on guard for what the real disturbance was. Not the music, not my neighbors, but the story of why they shouldn’t be playing the music.

    Because I was so prepared for the disturbing thoughts, the moment they started to arise, the moment those first few words would creep out: “But they shouldn’t…” “How inconsiderate…” “Why does it…” I dropped them like a hot potato.

    The link between the thoughts and the pain was crystal clear; their seductive power crippled. And as long as I didn’t give the story any fuel it couldn’t sustain itself, so there was nothing to bother me.

    As I sat my concentration got deeper, even as the music blared on.

    When the meditation was over I could hardly believe what had happened.

    I finally understood this teaching I had heard thousands of times: It’s not the situation but what I’m telling myself that’s causing me to be unhappy.

    But why did it have to take so long?

    Our thoughts have enormous power over us, and we tend to underestimate just how much control they really have. How sneaky and insidious they are, how they sweep in and take over before we even know what’s happened.

    At that point it’s too late; we’re so justified in our anger, our rightness, our pain that we can’t let the thoughts go.

    As I reflected on the music, the meditation, and what I could learn from it, I realized what made it so much easier was that I was on the lookout for the thoughts.

    I was expecting them.

    So I started making a list of other recurring thoughts that disturbed me. The same thoughts I had been rehashing my whole life, allowing them to sneak in and steal my happiness over and over again.

    That’s when I came up with my Top 10 Playlist.

    My Top 10 most recurring thoughts that just drove me nuts and had no benefit.

    After writing them out and staring at them in black and white I recognized my theme immediately. It was aversion.

    We all have two main modes of thinking (everything else is a subtext of these two modes). They are wanting/chasing/desire and aversion/not wanting/resisting. We all spend time in both modes, but often we have a preference for one over the other.

    For me, it looked like this:

    I wish I hadn’t said that.

    I don’t want to be disturbed.

    I don’t want to go to this event.

    How many times had I walked away from a conversation and immediately replayed it in my head, to find that one thing I shouldn’t have said? Nothing mean or unkind—just that I would agonize over that one stupid sentence, imagining the other person thinking about me disparagingly because of one measly sentence! Meanwhile, the other person was probably agonizing over the one silly thing they said!

    Or maybe I’d want to be alone and then spend hours disturbing myself (while I was alone) with the thought of not wanting to be disturbed.

    Or I’d dread some upcoming event, spending hours torturing myself ahead of time, only to say afterward, “That really wasn’t so bad.”

    Now that these were added to my Top 10 Playlist, I was on the lookout.

    Just like in the meditation, every time I started to see the familiar thought wanting to arise—“I wish I hadn’t said that,” “What if someone disturbs me,” “I really don’t want to go”—I would say to myself, “Oh that’s a Top 10,” and drop it right away.

    To be clear, I wasn’t suppressing any thoughts; that’s a bad and ineffective strategy.

    I dropped them because I had done the work already. I looked at these thoughts on paper in the light of day, and I couldn’t deny the pattern.

    I knew how long I had been dragging them around with me—my whole life. But what I also knew was that the thoughts were making me unhappy—not the other person, not the situation, not the upcoming event. ME! I was the one causing the pain by always being ready to fuel the story.

    When I’m asked, “How do you let go of negative thoughts,” my answer is always the same: it’s easy to drop them when you see the pain those thoughts are causing you.

    And that’s the problem: We don’t see the pain, or at least we don’t see that we are the ones causing the pain.

    Once we are caught up in a thought-stream, once we’ve created the story where we are once again the victim in this tragedy of our life, it’s too late. So we stay with the thoughts and the pain until we exhaust ourselves and then repeat.

    Keep in mind I’m referring to situations where we haven’t actually been victimized—when life may seem annoying or even unfair, but no one has literally violated us.

    That’s why creating my Top 10 Playlist was such a game changer. It helped immensely to see them all written down and reflect on how many times I’d been caught in these stories, how many endless hours I’d tortured myself, and nothing ever changed.

    But something did change. I brought them to the surface, I wrote them down, and there is enormous power in that exercise.

    For the first few weeks I would look at my list daily, typically before I would meditate and right after. This was when my mind was the most clear, and allowed a great deal of separation between me and the thoughts, because there was no emotion tied to the thought.

    As each day went by I felt more and more space and peace in my mind. Nothing changed, except that I wasn’t thinking these thoughts anymore. These thoughts that had tormented me for as long as I can remember.

    If I was alone and someone did interrupt me, it really did only last a few minutes because there was no story around it.

    As soon as my mind wanted to start replaying a conversation I just had, I’d drop it. I knew the pattern; I knew where the thought would take me.

    For every recurring thought on my Top 10 Playlist, I was prepared. They didn’t have the same emotional trapdoor they had before because I was expecting them.

    Are We Really Free?

    A prisoner isn’t free to choose even the simplest of things—to go outside, to look at the sky, the trees, the birds, the flowers, to feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze of the wind.

    But how free are we when we go about our days not seeing the world around us? Not appreciating even the simplest of things, not because they are not there but because we are always lost in our thoughts: worrying, fretting, constantly rehashing, and replanning our lives.

    We stay in this prison because we think we don’t have the keys.

    But we do.

    Do this exercise for one reason and one reason only—to free yourself. Step outside and see for yourself how much more beautiful life is when we experience it without a story.

  • Today I Will Not Stress

    Today I Will Not Stress

  • How to Feel More in Control When Life Gets Overwhelming

    How to Feel More in Control When Life Gets Overwhelming

    “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” ~Confucius

    I’m in the middle of a career transition and it hasn’t been easy. For the first few months after quitting my job—a job which I thought should have been perfect, where I thought I would stay for years—I was paralyzed into inaction regarding anything career-related. I had lost confidence in my own judgment; after all, I had thought that job would be the one and it wasn’t, so did I even really know what I wanted?

    This kind of self-doubt makes me second-guess myself to the extreme—my goals, my desires, and even the validity of my feelings. This often means I start doing something, question what I’m doing and how I’m doing it, feel stressed and overwhelmed, and then end up doing nothing.

    I’m still in this transition, but where once the self-doubt and overwhelm paralyzed me every day, I’m now taking back control and beginning to shape my life how I want it.

    First, let me present you with a story. Jessica is a high school student in the middle of taking the SAT. She really wants to do well because she knows that getting a higher score improves her chances of getting into her dream school and qualifying for scholarships.

    Everyone has told her how important the SAT is, how hard it is to do well, and (unfortunately) how unlikely she is to get her goal score. On the test, she reaches a tough question and has no clue how to answer it. Here are two of her choices:

    -Option A: Jessica racks her brain, her mind filled with thoughts of her dream school slipping away; she tries a few different methods but only manages to eliminate one incorrect choice; she second-guesses herself and then realizes that time has slipped away from her and, feeling anxious and flustered, she rushes through the rest of the test.

    -Option B: She skips the question, continuing with the rest of the test and answering all the questions she feels confident about. When she returns to the difficult question, she finds that it is not as hard as it first seemed and is able to solve it with confidence. She remains in control of her test experience and finishes the test with confidence.

    What does this example have to do with those of us who aren’t high school teenagers and are going through stressful times? A lot in fact.

    When Jessica encounters an obstacle in an already-stressful time, she can try to force her way through it, as in Option A, or skip the question and come back to it, as in Option B.

    As a test prep instructor, I teach my students to do the second option through a guided exercise, and the students are surprised to find how much easier the “hard” questions are after answering the easier ones. The second approach builds up confidence, while the first approach increases test anxiety.

    I wondered if I might be able to apply this test-taking strategy to life or if it was too ridiculous to work. As it turns out, by temporarily turning my attention to something else—’skipping’ the problem with the intention to return to it later—I was able to minimize my feelings of overwhelm and take steps that I was once paralyzed to take, steps like learning new skills.

    When faced with overwhelm, the best way to handle it is to stop and do something else. This holds true whether we are taking a test or facing a more complex source of stress.

    We rarely do this because it is counterintuitive. When we feel overwhelmed, we often feel that there’s too much to do, there’s not enough time or resources, we don’t know where to start, and in general our goals feel unattainable. If there’s so much to do and so little time, how can we justify “wasting” time doing something else? Won’t that just delay our goals further?

    However, by seeing how ineffective Option A is for Jessica, I realized there might be a parallel to other aspects of life. In the same amount of time that Jessica could spend being frustrated or anxious, she can choose to say “not yet” or “not right now” and move on to something else, knowing that the problem will be sitting right where it was.

    Now, whenever I notice the constricting sensation of overwhelm, I know that my next step is to stop whatever I’m doing and switch gears. I could be ruminating, folding laundry, or writing, but no matter what I must stop and do something else.

    An amazing thing happens when I do this: I regain control over the shape of my life.

    I may not have control over all my life circumstances or even my emotions, but I do control how I react. When I choose to react in ways that nourish my sense of well-being and provide me with a sense of accomplishment, I am able to face challenges for what they are.

    If sitting down to write a blog post seems especially daunting right now, then I’ll do some chores. If the chores seem difficult, I’ll go for a walk. If a walk seems like too much, I’ll journal stream-of-consciousness.

    The specific task that overwhelms us and the task we choose to do instead aren’t what matters most for this method. It’s the inherent power of choice that allows us to brush off societal definitions of success and pursue our own ever-evolving sense of success.

    While it’s not possible to provide specific alternative actions for every scenario, here are some general ideas of things to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed:

    -Go somewhere. It could be as simple as going to another room or going somewhere across town. The change of scenery can bring a fresh perspective to a prior problem.

    -Make something. You could draw, cook, or fold a paper airplane. When we engage our creativity, we have fun and build confidence through effort rather than results.

    -I often feel energized but directionless when I am overwhelmed, and maybe you do too. Enjoying your favorite type of exercise can improve your mood and release pent-up energy.

    -Whether you connect with loved ones or with a spiritual/religious practice, connecting with others helps us feel supported when we try something new.

    While overwhelm is bound to happen in our lives, we can choose to react in ways that enable us to feel confident and in control. It’s not the same as running away from your problems; it’s finding a circuitous route that has an immediate benefit of improving your sense of well-being and long-term benefit of helping you take action and find solutions.

    By taking charge of the content of our lives, we can find that even when overwhelm happens, we have the tools to work with it and the power to shape our lives through our choices and actions.

  • Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

    Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

    “You are strong for getting out of bed in the morning when it feels like hell. You are brave for doing things even though they scare you or make you anxious. And you are amazing for trying and holding on no matter how hard life gets.” ~Unknown

    I couldn’t take it anymore. I no longer wanted to answer to the heart beating on my ribcage, my sweat on my palms, or the breath that got caught in the upper part of my lungs. I wanted the swirling thoughts in my brain to settle. I imagined them falling like leaves finding their place on the ground after a gust of wind forces them into a cyclone.

    Driving my daughter to daycare, I couldn’t calm myself. We had just moved to a new town in what was our last relocation.

    Over the past thirteen years, my husband and I had moved across the country and lived in several cities—Baltimore, Milwaukee, San Diego, Winston-Salem, NC, Oxford—and I was tired. Tired of the stress of packing and unpacking our things. Tired of finding new doctors. Tired of making new friends. Tired of setting up daycare for my toddler. Tired of finding her new therapy providers to address her gross motor delays. Tired of finding new babysitters. Tired of rebuilding our home.

    If tired had been all I had felt, I may have coped better. But, as always, anxiety was there. Like a childhood friend—or foe, or frenemy—it never leaves my side. As long as I have had memories, anxiety tagged itself in.

    So, when driving my daughter to her first day at a new daycare, my thoughts were sent into a tailspin.

    It wasn’t until this last move, during that drive down yet another College Avenue in yet another new city, that I realized my anxiety was something I needed to deal with.

    I asked myself: What if my daughter sees this? Will she learn to live in fear? Will she worry about big things and small things, just as I do? Will she learn to stress over things she cannot change or that have yet to happen? Will she see my tears on our way to her new daycare and wonder if she, too, should be crying?

    My daughter is fun-loving, silly, humorous, and independent. Life never gets her down, even though she was born eight weeks early, spent five weeks in the NICU, and continues to struggle with muscle weakness.

    She cannot run with her friends on the playground. Yet she has friends. Lots of them. All of the children in her classroom call out “Evelyn!” when she arrives in the morning. Teachers from the other side of the building know her. It may be because she uses a walker, or because she has special braces on her feet. More likely, it’s because of her outgoing personality and willingness to try anything.

    She has an empathy that cannot be taught. She pats babies’ backs when they cry. She hugs me when I look sad. At snack time, she shares her crackers. She always wants to play and is sure to include others. All this and she is only three.

    She never worries what others will think of her slow walking. She just walks. She never judges others for being different. She just plays. She never worries about hiding her disability. She just sits down with the group of children playing with the Legos.

    During that drive, with the tears streaming down my cheeks, I knew this excessive angst was something I should not pass on to her. She deserved better.

    My daughter needed a mother who worried less and enjoyed more. A mother who could show her that happiness is found from within. I wanted her to learn that she is worthy of a peaceful life.

    At this point, my suffering had spanned thirty-six years. As a child, when I had started a new grade in school, I cried the night before. When we visited relatives’ homes, they would call me “bashful” or “shy” or some equivalent when really I was none of those things. I wanted to engage more, but fear of saying the wrong thing held me back.

    When I started college, I was certain I would fail. My dream of studying abroad was almost squashed by fear of living in a new country.

    I was afraid of learning to drive, going to school dances, and being invited (or not) to birthday parties. Even attending Girl Scout meetings in grade school meant I had to interact with others whom I feared didn’t like me. I never knew if that was really how others felt. My anxiety didn’t care about truth.

    Anxiety whispers to me: You’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You’ll fail at that. No one will like you. You can’t do that.

    And then the questions start: What if you get lost? What if you have to eat in front of strangers? What if food gets stuck in your teeth? What if your car breaks down? What if….

    So, by the time we reached my daughter’s daycare, when the tears wouldn’t stop, I had had enough. I vowed to get help.

    That night I found a therapist who has taught me the importance of my anxiety.

    “The anxiety won’t completely go away,” my therapist told me. Even though I had hoped she had the secret to an anxiety-free life, I knew she was right. Anxiety is natural. It is useful. Just not at my level.

    I explored it, feeling its crevices and textures. It’s a part of my personality. It makes me me. Anxiety was not the problem. My inability to cope was. Allowing it to take over my thoughts until I became frozen was.

    Now, I’m learning to accept myself. I check in with myself. I allow myself to feel what is there, yet I can step aside enough to analyze what is really happening.

    Through our therapy sessions, I found compassion for my anxiety. It’s there to tell me something. It often points out the paths in life that are most worthwhile. My instinct to fight back, to push myself through the angst, was right. Each time I face my anxiety, I come out the other side victorious. Yet the energy drained from me each time leaves me fatigued. As I reach each threshold between relenting to anxiety or jumping into something something fearful, exhaustion fills my body. I feel as if I could go to sleep and never wake up.

    “I don’t want to have to force myself to do things every time I get anxious,” I told my therapist.

    She responded, “What if you looked at it as not forcing yourself but rather you made a choice to do something despite your fear?”

    Being proud of myself for my achievements despite my anxiety never occured to me. My anxiety didn’t have to be my enemy. It wasn’t the harrowing fight between knight and fire-breathing dragon that I thought it was. My anxiety tested me, pushed me, and ultimately made me who I am. Accepting it would not be conceding, but rather it meant I could live with more sanity.

    It’s not easy to live with anxiety, but with the aid of a few goals, my days now start with more purpose and end with more peace.

    Through my self-exploration, I found a mantra that recenters my focus from one of fear to one stillness; Feed my mind, body, soul. I found a way to leave my ego on the side—that which feeds my negative thoughts about myself—and relax into the present moment. Days on which I manage to include all three elements of focus, I feel the most calm.

    It takes work to achieve them all. One usually fights to take on more weight than the others. But when I insist on balance, I can settle my rattled brain for at least a little while. I do this work daily. The triangle image hangs in my thoughts as I try and balance each side into a perfect equilateral shape. When achieved, I go to bed feeling like my soul has evened out.

    As my therapist had suggested, reframing my self-language focuses on the mind. Just as my daughter can find compassion for the people around her, I am learning to find compassion for myself. I’m not broken. I have emotions and needs and fears. I can allow those to exist. I honor them for what they are while also finding pride for choosing the tough road time and again.

    Giving my mind a safe place to find quietness has also enhanced the this portion of my triangle. But when the battle is with anxiety, that is a difficult feat. Meditation is tougher than I thought. ‘Doing nothing’ is actually doing quite a bit. Yet, when I am able to put aside the noisy chatter in my head, the peace is exhilarating. At times, when the anxious voice is shut out—along with all of the upcoming things I should be worrying about—I feel as if I am floating off my couch cushion.

    Yoga, kickboxing, Zumba—all help drain the anxiety from my body. As the sweat glistens on my skin, the anxiety has no place to be. My heartbeat increases, my blood flows freely, and my focus is on finishing the workout. My body feels cared for.

    I feed my body foods it needs to thrive. I’ve cut back on coffee and leaned more on tea. Fruits and vegetables find their way into every meal and snack. Sugar is limited, although to ban it altogether would go against what is good for my soul.

    My soul begs for me to feed my own inner energy. I engage in activities I enjoy, even when I don’t think there are enough hours in the day. I nurture myself.

    Through writing, I find great solace. It’s meditative and brings me a joy I cannot find elsewhere. Sentences and stories flow through my head, often taking the place of the anxious ones. Just like anxiety, I was born this way. Since childhood, I’ve liked storytelling. The more time I schedule for writing, the less time anxiety can claim.

    I cook. Providing nutritious meals for my family is a privilege. When engaged in new recipes, my focus shifts to one of worry about the future to one of creating something to enjoy.

    I even find time to watch my favorite television shows. When my daughter is at school, and my husband is in the office working, I take my lunch to the couch and turn on Netflix. I often find the comedies. When something can make me laugh when I’m alone, I know it’s the distraction from the tough parts of life that I need.

    I am a work in progress. Some days, anxiety sneaks up on me. Panic can be overwhelming. Instead of criticizing myself for being weak, I allow the feelings to come. I try to slow down. I accept that in that moment, I feel overwhelmed. It will pass.

    Now, when I drive my daughter to daycare, I don’t cry. I sing. I no longer worry about what the driver next to me will think when he sees my mouth moving and hands tapping.

    My daughter and I say “hi” to the busses on the road. We pretend her stuffed Elmo is driving, and we laugh at her silly jokes. She tells me to go “this way” and points the wrong direction to which I respond, “no, this way.” That banter always makes her giggle. We talk about which friends will be at school and what she’ll play outside.

    Through it all, she smiles. And now, so do I.

  • How Practicing Patience Can Relieve Stress and Anxiety

    How Practicing Patience Can Relieve Stress and Anxiety

    “Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.” ~Joyce Meyer

    I used to say, “Patience is a virtue I don’t have.” So, of course, that is how I lived my life. Hurried, exasperated, impatient, and stressed out.

    Not only was I a creating a world where I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off—because everything had to be done now, and anything that got in the way of that had to be removed immediately—but I was creating this world for those around me.

    My children often bore the brunt of my impatience. If they didn’t get dressed fast enough, or show up at the dinner table as soon as I called them, or get into the car when it was time to go, they met my wrath. And, I had a wicked tongue.

    I was constantly haranguing them to stop “being lazy,” “quit dawdling,” etc. Somehow, their lack of speed equated into being lazy or “less than.” Where did I pick up such a mentality?

    Do you find yourself constantly speeding to work, rushing through the grocery store, and generally snapping at people who can’t keep up? How does this make you feel inside?

    For me, it made me feel wound up like a tight ball. I felt a constant sense of anxiety. And, it didn’t make me feel good about myself—certainly my best self was not shining. Mostly, it made me feel chronically stressed out.

    Researchers have recently been able to prove through MRI scans of peoples’ brains under stress that stress causes certain areas of the brain to shut off. This means there is less activity in the brain—which leads to a depressed brain. This also leads to an angry brain because there is less neurological activity happening to process things that are going on in your day-to-day life. It’s like a traffic jam in your brain happens because you don’t have enough snowplows to clear the road.

    This frustration can lead to a trigger-happy mouth—one that blurts out frustrations and snaps angrily at people. Because, the brain is thinking so hard, it hurts!

    This used to be my life: constant impatience and its ensuing anxiety > chronically stressed brain > chronic depression > inner rage and anger.

    The thing with not having any patience is it clouds your entire life. You are so busy rushing from one thing to the next, expecting immediate gratification, that you are often not only disappointed but also emotionally and physically depleted.

    What happens when you yell at your children to hurry up? You’re met with resistance, that’s what happens. They yell back—more stress. Or, they go even slower!

    Does this resolve the issue in the end? No. It only makes matters worse. And, what was the issue in the end? I believe the issue was you had an attitude problem.

    The attitude is this: I have so much to do I can’t possibly get everything done in the day. So, I must rush about doing everything so I can make good progress on my to-do list. If someone or something impedes my progress on my to-do list, I get angry because I can’t possibly get everything done.

    Sounds like a vicious cycle, doesn’t it? The thing with being impatient is it is intimately tied to the judgmental and critical sides of ourselves. This is because whatever is happening in the moment is deemed not good enough in some way shape or form.

    In this case, it’s not happening fast enough. The moment and what’s happening in it has been judged! And it has been criticized.

    Once this occurs, suddenly you find yourself trying to control the situation and making it happen faster. When this doesn’t work—for example, if the person in front of you is driving really slowly—you get angry, which causes your cortisol stress levels to rise. And, we all know stress isn’t good for us.

    So, how do you stop this vicious cycle and where do you find patience? I was at a loss, myself. I didn’t even realize I had a patience problem, because I was telling myself the story that I didn’t have any patience to begin with. From this point of view, why bother since I didn’t have any?

    Well, we believe what we tell ourselves, and if I keep saying I don’t have any patience, well then I won’t.

    The first thing I needed to do was look at the story I was telling myself and change it. I began by saying to myself, “Patience is a virtue I practice daily.” It was a way to shift my mindset. Maybe I couldn’t jump straight to “I am the world’s most patient person” immediately. So, I found a middle group that shifted my old thinking into a different kind of habit.

    I had to write this down. And, whenever I found myself a) telling myself I am not patient or b) in a situation where I was feeling impatient and starting to get frustrated, I’d repeat the mantra “Patience is a virtue I practice daily.” Thus, I could accept the situation as a learning experience for practicing the virtue of patience.

    The other thing about patience is it allows you to slooooow down and actually experience the world. I used to be so concerned about getting to the next wherever I was going—finish a project at work, order off the menu, find a parking spot—that I never actually lived.

    I mean, I certainly wasn’t paying attention to where I was in the moment, or even being in the moment. I was too busy focusing on something else. It’s like I was not living at all. I was simply doing.

    There is a huge difference between doing and living. Many of us wind up confusing the two. This is especially true in western cultures, where output of an action, product, or thing is given so much value. It seems it is given much more value than say, actually sitting there in the parking lot waiting for the person to pull out and enjoying the moment—like noticing the birds chirping in the trees, or the sun in the sky.

    Sometimes we need to realize we have a patience problem and challenge the assumptions that got us there in the first place. Otherwise, we live a lesser life. We live a life in constant stress, we act a diminished version of ourselves, and most importantly, we don’t actually live and enjoy our lives.

    Here’s an exercise for you to try:

    What is the story you tell yourself about how patient you are? If you realize you say to yourself you’re the most patient person in the world, that’s wonderful! If you realize you often tell yourself you’re not patient at all, then consider a different statement you could be telling yourself instead.

    One of the other stories I used to tell myself that was absolutely sabotaging was “I don’t have time for this.” I would think I had to hurry to make the yellow light, because I don’t have time to wait at the red light. So, I’d rush ahead.

    I used to say “I don’t have time for this” when a slow person was entering a store, so I’d rudely rush right past them instead of even considering if there was a way I could help them.

    Or, I’d say I don’t have time to make small talk with my colleagues in a meeting and would just focus on the work at hand. Needless to say, this didn’t help me develop strong bonds with people if I didn’t have time to talk with them and learn something about their day or what’s going on in their life.

    I realized after a while that I had a patience problem. The way I realized this was because I was so stressed and anxious all the time. And, I was constantly angry. This is not an enjoyable way to live your life.

    So, one day I did a thought experience on that “I don’t have time for this” story I was always telling myself. When I was sitting at a light saying I don’t have time for this, I replied back to myself “Yes, you do have time for this.” And so it went all day. Every day.

    I challenged that story I was telling myself and I rebutted it. You know what happened? One day I found out all that time I was trying to save in a day by rushing around everywhere, maybe added up to ten whole minutes at the of the day.

    Was all that angst to get it done so quickly or all that pressure I put on other people worth a whole extra ten minutes? Who even notices an extra ten minutes in the day? Nobody. That’s who. So, what exactly was all this getting me for being so impatient and driving so fast and furious? Nothing. Well, actually it was getting me miserable, that’s what.

    Now, when I’m feeling a little impatient I realize I actually do have time for it. And, this makes me calm and relaxed instead.

    It’s okay if I didn’t make the light and have to wait at it for a minute. I have time for this. It’s okay if my kids arrive at the dinner table when they get there. I have time for this. It’s okay if I spend some time to connect with my co-workers before we begin the meeting. I have time for this. In fact, I have an embarrassment of riches of time! And so do you.

    The last thing I’ll talk about here is a little exercise that I like to do to bring myself off the ledge whenever I am having “a moment.” It’s called count backward from five.

    I know most people have heard of just count to ten if you’re upset about something and that will help. I never did find that very helpful. It was like I was just counting up on my frustration! Then, one day I learned the count backward from five technique. Just start counting: five – four – three – two – one.

    It has a strange calming effect. It is as if whatever it is that is bothering you is dissipating as you count backward. Usually, when I start counting backward from five I notice even by the time I get to three that something has lifted. I feel a shift in my agitation. By the time I get to one, I’m kind of over it. Try it. You may find it really helps you get through a moment.

    In the end, learning how to change your story and your habits when it comes to patience will help you heal from unnecessary anxiety and stress in your life. Will life still be stressful? Sure. But, at least you aren’t inflicting more of it on yourself with a patience problem.

    Surprisingly, when I learned to finally create healthy habits around patience, I began to get a lot better at compassion too. That’s because compassion requires patience.

    That crying child that you wish would stop? Having patience with that and slooowing down enough, makes you pause just enough to consider this child is in pain or frightened. You’ll realize you were once a child and when you felt pain or were frightened, you wished for comfort.

    Maybe instead of scowling at the child wishing they would shut up, you smile at them instead and say, “It will be okay.” In a way, you are also saying this to your inner child in some small fashion. It will be okay and you are okay.

  • 5 Psychological Strategies to Ease the Stress of Perfectionism

    5 Psychological Strategies to Ease the Stress of Perfectionism

    “Striving for excellence motivates you, striving for perfection is demoralizing.” ~Harriet Braiker

    The last three months I’ve been trying an experiment. It’s something that I’ve never done before, and in a certain way, it’s been a huge challenge. However, in other ways, it’s been an enormous stress relief, and I would say a largely successful effort.

    What I’ve done seems to go against conventional wisdom, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wise choice.

    So what exactly is this challenge? Well, I have actively gone out of my way to be average.

    Yep, sounds a little weird, doesn’t it? But hear me out.

    Over the past year, I’ve become more aware than ever of how much unconscious stress I put on myself to be above average. I’ve always known I have a type-A personality, but I didn’t know to what extent this was doing me harm. A large part of this realization came from journaling my dreams and discussing them with a psychotherapist, and another part came about through a mindfulness practice.

    So for six months, whenever I felt like relaxing, and the little voice in my head would pop up and tell me I could be doing more in this moment, I would ignore it. I would decide to watch that extra episode on Netflix. I would choose to sleep in the extra fifteen minutes. I would leave the little bit of extra work until tomorrow.

    What came out of this was unexpected. The more I ignored the voice, the more loud and aggressive it became.

    Coming into contact with this part of myself ultimately did three things.

    Firstly, it showed me that I had an issue with perfectionism that I wasn’t entirely aware of. Secondly, it showed me just how tricky and persuasive the little voice of perfectionism could be. And finally, and most importantly, it taught me how overcoming that perfectionist tendency could lead to less stress, more productivity, and greater well-being.

    So, the moment of truth. How do you know you’re a perfectionist?

    • You often feel weighed down by fear of your goals not succeeding
    • You’re constantly looking for the ‘right’ moment to do something
    • You have a persistent sense of dissatisfaction with what you’ve achieved
    • You obsess over small mistakes that have little impact on the big picture
    • You neglect self-care in favor of achievements

    I came up with five psychological strategies to overcome this perfectionism. This has allowed me to take steps toward accepting the average parts of myself, and it’s helped me let go of a shocking amount of hidden stress.

    I’ve decided to share these steps with you here so you can begin to accept who and where you are, and enjoy the journey a little more.

    1. Rethink what it means to be average.

    In our society, we often consider anything less than greatness to be failure. That’s not an exaggeration; it’s just the reality of our skewed notions of achievement that have failed to account for larger and more interconnected societies in which it’s increasingly difficult to stand out.

    When we hear the terms “average” or “mediocre” we consider them dirty words, although they’re supposed to denote the middle of the pack. If you are average at something, that shouldn’t have any correlation whatsoever to your self-worth. Most people are average at most things for most of their lives. Does that mean that most people should feel bad about themselves?

    Accepting the ways in which you are average doesn’t mean you can’t strive to achieve greatness in some areas of your life. All it means is that the desire to excel doesn’t need to be driven by the feeling that you are incomplete. It can be out of the love of competing with your past self, the need to serve your community, or even just the enjoyment of a challenge in the present moment.

    2. Challenge the all-or-nothing fallacy.

    Perfectionism is a direct result of the all-or-nothing fallacy, also known as black-and-white thinking. When we believe that our value is completely tied to our achievements, for example, we cannot help but obsessively strive to do everything the right way, because any mistake would undermine our entire self-worth.

    We can also see this when we look for the one perfect moment to get started on something, when we put all our efforts into one project and neglect our health, and most toxically, when we try to evaluate our life against the over-generalized boxes of success or failure.

    When you see this type of thinking emerge in your psyche, challenge it, and replace it with more nuanced explanations.

    For example, I used to believe that I was either being productive or lazy. When I was being productive I wasn’t being lazy, and when I wasn’t being productive I was being lazy. I’ve started to challenge that idea with the more nuanced explanation that breaks are sometimes lazy and sometimes productive; they serve many purposes. They can be reinvigorating, rewarding, and sometimes need no justification.

    3. Become friends with what you don’t know.

    Another key trait of perfectionism that I saw in myself is a strong desire to control outcomes. We have this tendency partly because we have a heightened fear of things not going the way we want or expect.

    In part, this is because perfectionism creates stress, and when we are stressed we start to become more susceptible to cognitive biases. For example, we may believe that if things don’t go the way we anticipate, everything will fall apart, we will lose out on opportunities, or we will be criticized by others.

    One way we can counteract this attitude is by becoming more comfortable with the unknown. You can only ever influence a certain amount of any situation you’re in, whether that’s work, money, or relationships.

    I have become more comfortable with the unknown by journaling about my fears over time. By seeking out counterexamples of when your fears haven’t been true (and they often aren’t), you can see how worries about the future are exaggerated by the brain, and you can start to gain more control over your emotions.

    It may also help to practice setting a wide range of goals, with varied levels of difficulty. Meeting the easier goals should fulfill your need to be in control and achieve, and working toward the more difficult goals will simply be a challenge to be creative, go above and beyond, and enjoy the uncertainty of things that are out of your control.

    4. Become friends with what you don’t love.

    Likewise, perfectionism is largely tied to the relationship you have with what you don’t accept about yourself.

    You probably know that acceptance is at the root of love. It’s therefore not surprising that people often advise you to love yourself when you’re dealing with internal conflict. Well, it sounds simple, but it’s never that easy, unfortunately. So I’m going to propose something more manageable: become friends with what you don’t love.

    If there are parts of yourself or your experience that you can’t accept or bring yourself to love, just befriend them. Ask what purpose the things you don’t like serve; become familiar with them the way you would a friend.

    Ease into the changing relationship you have with these harder-to-accept parts of yourself, and over time you’ll see a shift in your perspective that calms your anxiety around them.

    For example, I used to have an antagonistic relationship with my anxiety. The fact that I wasn’t always cool, calm, and collected, was something I found hard to accept, and it created internal conflict and (obviously) more anxiety. When I was able to see that anxiety was just a part of my brain was trying to help me, I was able to accept it. And over time I even started to appreciate this quirky part of myself.

    5. Reassess how you measure your success.

    If your perfectionism is driven by the belief that you’re not successful enough, then it’s not necessarily you that needs to change. It could be that the way you’re measuring success needs to be reassessed.

    For example, it’s common that we compare ourselves to others, and while we’re often told to focus on ourselves, making social comparisons in specific situations—such as workplace evaluations or in competitive sports—does have some (albeit limited) utility. If we didn’t make these comparisons, it would be difficult to see how we were improving and in what roles we could most help the group.

    When you start to generalize this idea to the rest of your life, however, that’s when it becomes a problem. If you start to tell yourself that so-and-so’s life is better than yours or that he or she is more successful than you, that’s almost always a generalization. What makes a life better? What does success mean? Are we talking about financial achievements? Free time? Deep relationships? Take a closer look at how success could be more effectively defined in your life.

    My own definition of success used to be based on how well I compared to people in my life in standardized measures (money, relationships, novel experiences etc.) Now I see success as how well I’m able to find meaning in the present moment, stay motivated for the future, and spend my time working on something that helps me, the people I love, and the rest of the world.

    All of the elements of my definition may not be relevant to anyone else, but because they are more fluid and flexible, and can grow with my personality, they prevent me from falling into the habit of perfectionism.

    To bring this all full circle, consider this: You can be average in one area and successful in another. This doesn’t mean you don’t have value, are not worthy or love or respect, and don’t deserve some down time every once in a while.

    Being average is normal, and it’s not an indicator of worth. You have inherent value just as you are. And if you should want to obsess about a project or be a little bit of a perfectionist every now and then, that’s fine. But be driven by the love of the creative process itself, not the anxiety that you can never do enough.

    What experience have you had with perfectionism? Have you used any of these strategies to find more peace of mind? Let us know in the comments—we’d love to hear from you!

  • To Reduce Stress, Stop Globalizing and Put Things in Perspective

    To Reduce Stress, Stop Globalizing and Put Things in Perspective

    “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” ~Mark Twain

    Life happens. And sometimes when life happens, we can get pretty stressed out. I’ve found that the way we view situations can either reduce our stress or make it worse. Here is just one way we aggravate situations, possibly unnecessarily, and how we can adjust our perspective to keep stress in check.

    A colleague of mine claims that he is “calendar-challenged.” He is often unable to attend meetings at the last minute or shows up late. I am, by contrast, a planner. I live by my calendar and know what I am doing months in advance. The different approach that my colleague and I take in the way we plan—or don’t plan—can cause friction.

    I could interpret my colleague’s behavior as merely irresponsible and chalk it up to a fairly ingrained part of his personality. That situation is irritating at worst. Or, I could take his lackadaisical approach personally by assuming that he doesn’t value me or my time. That’s somewhat stressful. I could even interpret his behavior as intentional and assume that he takes delight in making me angry. That is really going to stress me out.

    Do you see how my interpretation of the behavior can be as benign as “he’s not a planner” and it can escalate all the way to a vengeful person determined to sabotage my career?

    When we draw conclusions about a situation without checking the facts first, we can escalate it into a full-blown crisis in our minds. In other words, our negative thinking can spiral out of control, rapidly increasing our anxiety, unnecessarily.

    That’s called globalizing. How we think about our circumstances can make all the difference in the level of stress we feel.

    Many of us have experienced a workplace where budget cuts or a bad economy results in layoffs. The pall that can settle over an organization going through a period of like this can cause a great deal of stress, even for those employees still employed.

    Enter globalizing. I have what I call “straight to bag lady” syndrome. I can become convinced that if I lose my job I will never find another one, I will become homeless, and then I will be forced to live on the street.

    During the downturn of 2008 when many organizations were shedding employees like leaves in the fall, I occasionally went into this spiral in my mind. My good friend and colleague, however, did not. When I would ask her if she was stressed out by the loss of colleagues around us, she would say, “Yeah, I’m not going to worry about it. Even if they let me go, I assume I can just find another job.”

    Wow. What I wouldn’t give to have her attitude.

    She wasn’t oblivious to the fact that there was a good chance she might lose her job. However, instead of globalizing and assuming everything would just get worse and worse, she was able to stick to the facts in her mind and not globalize. She knew she still had a job. She knew there was a good chance she might lose her job. If that came to pass, she had a plan in mind. Being a bag lady was not part of her plan.

    About a year into our firm’s layoffs, my colleague really did lose her job and she put her backup plan in place. She started her own business, something she had always wanted to do. Most importantly, throughout the year of layoffs, a legitimately stressful time in her life, she didn’t drive herself crazy with worry along the way by imagining the worst.

    I’ve heard that our bodies and brains respond to an imaginary worry in the same way they would if the imagined situation was actually happening to us. Why put ourselves through the stress of something that just isn’t as bad as we think?

    Globalizing places a very negative filter over our perception, causing stress and anxiety to feed on itself. We are, then, far more likely to interpret every situation as disastrous and to give the least benefit of the doubt to every person we encounter.

    The loss of a job is made worse by globalizing that we will never find another job again. The loss of a partner is made worse by globalizing that we will never find anybody else with whom to share our life—or that every member of our pool of potential candidates is horrible. The loss of a marriage is made worse by globalizing that we are not loveable.

    The best way to reduce anxiety is to look at the facts rather than our subjective interpretation of them. It is all the more important to doublecheck facts if we have come from anxious environments, where the people around us were globalizing up a storm.

    Digging into our own background to make sure we have not applied a negative filter to everyone we encounter is an important step. Doing so will cause us to lose the opportunities presenting themselves in times of perceived crisis or to miss out on all the people who would never dream of acting in a negative way toward us.

    Is my colleague’s calendar issue just an irritating quirk, is it part of an overall pattern of behavior that evidences one’s disrespect for another’s time, or is it evidence of something worse, such as intentional sabotage? Is my fear of going “straight to bag lady” based in reality in any way?

    One way I bring my perspective back to an objective one is by whipping out a pen and some paper and making a list that separates the facts from my fears.

    I can list the times that my colleague’s lack of organization affected me. Then I can all of the ways my colleague is respectful of me. When I step back and look at both lists, I will have a better picture of what that calendar quirk of his really means, if anything.

    My lists may show his calendar challenges as an anomaly compared to a long list of behaviors in which he is respectful and supportive of me. In that case, I can chalk up poor planning skills to an irritating and innocent habit, find a workaround to the problem, and be thankful I work with such a good guy. No one is perfect.

    On the other hand, if I see that there is a pattern of behavior in which my colleague seems to genuinely devalue me and my time, or the list reveals someone who is intent on sabotage and it is directed squarely at me, then I have clearly defined the problem at hand. Regardless of the results, they will bring my perspective much closer to reality instead of the anxiety-provoked interpretation that may be in my head.

    In gauging my risk of becoming a bag lady, I can write down all of the factors I have working in my favor. If I have solid work experience, a good education, and a good network of contacts, is there a reasonable expectation that I will find work, even in a poor economy?

    I can also list the backup plans available in case it takes a while to find another job. Perhaps I have savings, supportive friends and family, or an available line of credit at the bank. Since someone is always hiring even in the worst economies, I may need to start exploring other geographic areas or industries with opportunities.

    Reigning in our brains from globalizing a situation—even if it reveals that a problem does exist—still relieves our stress significantly. It defines the problem and it clarifies the extent of it, which enables us to respond appropriately. A problem accurately defined is already partially solved.

    Keeping globalization in check also means that we reduce the stress of the people around us. If we are constantly overreacting to others, assuming they have done something intentionally when their behavior is well intentioned—though perhaps imperfect—we are creating conflict that need not exist. People around us will distance themselves from us, since no one feels they can trust an overly sensitive, over-reactive, and accusatory colleague.

    If I freak out every time another of my colleagues is laid off, then the people around me will also keep their distance. They are focused on keeping their own anxieties in check and a frenetic worrisome person in their midst only makes it harder. Anxiety is contagious, but fortunately, so is calm.

    Are you inadvertently making a difficult situation even worse? Unfortunately, it is human nature to globalize about how badly things might be. It is our ego’s misguided attempt to gain control over an unknown. If we think about the worst-case scenario, then we will be prepared if it turns out to be true, right? Wrong. Globalizing just leads to the escalation of a situation.

    Regaining an objective perspective prevents us from floundering in negativity and enables us to move forward into a resolution that accurately addresses the situation.

  • Give Yourself a Break

    Give Yourself a Break

  • I Refuse to Stress Myself Out Over Things I Can’t Control

    I Refuse to Stress Myself Out Over Things I Can’t Control

  • 3 Things That Are Helping Me Deal with Stress, Pain, and Loss

    3 Things That Are Helping Me Deal with Stress, Pain, and Loss

    “Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness; but it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.” ~Unknown

    Life has not been kind lately.

    My aunt passed away in October. She had been suffering from cancer, but her family kept the extent of her illness to themselves, and hence I did not have a chance to see her before she passed away. I felt bad about that.

    My father followed her a month later, just after Thanksgiving. He had been ailing from Parkinson’s Disease, but his death as well was not expected when it happened.

    Two weeks after him, a friend of mine who lives abroad informed me of her diagnosis with a rare form of incurable cancer. She has since passed away before I had a chance to visit her. She was not yet fifty years old.

    Right after that happened, the veterinarian diagnosed my dog with heart failure, and his days too are numbered.

    In mid-January, my mother, who had been depressed after my father’s death, collapsed with a seizure. A tumor was discovered in her brain. Though easily removed, it was traced back to her lung. She too has a rare form of aggressive cancer and though outwardly healthy, her life will probably be limited to months or a couple of years.

    The whole ordeal until diagnosis unfolded over the course of an extremely stressful month, and the future is both frightening and terribly uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, I have needed to change my life plans—I had been ready to relocate and change jobs.

    In the last two weeks, I have had another friend in her forties diagnosed with advanced cancer with a poor prognosis, and my sister’s marriage has come apart.

    Every week it seems brings some new tragedy. As just about everyone who knows me has said: “It’s a lot.” It certainly is.

    I can’t put a happy face on this. Life has just been awful, and I wake up each day praying for no more bad news. There has been such a procession of misfortune that I feel more numb than anything else.

    And yet, I haven’t been destroyed. I’m not depressed. When someone is depressed, whether it’s situational or clinical, they often become self-obsessed and turn just about any event, however positive, into a negative commentary on their life. I’ve been there before, and this is not depression.

    I’m scared, but I feel strong. I know I can handle this. And, I’m very thankful—thankful for what gave me the strength to endure these times: my spiritual journey.

    In 2012, after a years-long series of illnesses, bad romantic relationships, frayed friendships, work drama, and general instability in my life, I had a total breakdown.

    By “breakdown” I mean the whole nine yards—massive depression, professional psychological help, medication, and inability to work or even function normally. However, following this breakdown came the clichéd spiritual awakening.

    This spiritual awakening taught me so many things, most of which you’ve probably already read about, for example: the ego, the importance of being present, the power of vulnerability, etc.

    It was such a fragile period of intense learning and growth built atop a well of deep suffering. It felt terrible, but I learned and changed so much. Though it’s unlikely that I will experience such drastic spiritual growth in such a short period of time again, I realized that I had embarked on a life-long spiritual journey with no end.

    Along the way, there have been fewer but no less rewarding “Aha moments” and new realizations made possible by the consciousness I had gained. Furthermore, there have been many spiritual tests, and each time I worry that I will fail to live the lessons I’ve already internalized, I surprise myself and come through.

    And now I’ve reached an objectively extraordinarily difficult time. This is not a crisis of egoic drama or hurt feelings but real pain—physical suffering and death for so many people who I care about in a matter of months.

    While the spiritual journey is a continuum with multiple themes that are difficult to unravel from each other, there are a few concepts that are sustaining me through it all:

    1. Presence and the now

    The weight of all of it has pushed me into a very intense NOW. I try not to hope because hope has let me down a lot recently, but perhaps more importantly, hope is focused on an unknowable and largely inalterable future. Though in the context of a lot of terrible events, rarely is there anything wrong with this very moment. Despite the pain of recent events, right now there is so much going right.

    Choosing to focus on the good isn’t delusional—it’s an accurate reflection of reality.

    My mother is dying. We don’t know when and there isn’t too much we can do, but thinking of that future is enough to ruin every day. And yet, with our time together now so valuable, I have no choice but to be fully present with her as much as I can.

    I have experienced so much loss recently, but bitterly clinging to that loss will distract me from the precious time I have left with my mother and friends, and it will do nothing to bring back my dad, my aunt, or anyone else.

    However, there isn’t much wrong with right now. My mom isn’t suffering, I’m lucky to be free from work to be with her, and my family has come together in support of each other. The birds sing each morning, the weather is fine, and the forest near our house is beautiful. That’s all real too, and there is much joy to be had in each moment.

    Should something arise in the moment, that’s when I’ll deal with it. While I do occasionally find myself worrying over the future, that serves no purpose and only spoils the now.

    2. Boundaries

    In times of extreme stress when so many things are going wrong, it is critical to exercise self-care; you cannot be a positive force in the world if you’re falling apart inside.

    Boundaries are key to protecting your time and energy, which are particularly challenged in very difficult times, from behaviors that drain them. However, most of the time life is much easier, so we allow people to skate by and “go along to get along” as not to be difficult. After all, we don’t want to seem mean or selfish or unforgiving. We aim to please.

    However, while the importance of boundaries is particularly stark in times of crisis, even in normal times they play an important role in self-care and building healthy relationships.  This is clear when we see what can happen when we don’t enforce boundaries.

    Oftentimes, trying to be nice and agreeable, we allow someone to repeatedly cross the line with no repercussions. As our resentment builds, we may act out in retaliation, doing nothing helpful for ourselves or the world.

    A relationship of true intimacy and mutual respect should be able to easily withstand one party making his or her boundaries clear. If the other can’t handle that, then how deep of relationship is it anyway? In fact, establishing a level of trust with someone to feel comfortable enough to discuss boundaries is in itself a sign of a strong relationship.

    Enforcing boundaries involves a level of honesty that can deepen relationships.

    During my mother’s time in the hospital, frustrated with being confined to bed, she unleashed a stream of vitriol at me that were without a doubt the most hurtful words anyone has ever said to me.

    As difficult as it was to do with her health in such a fragile state, I felt I had no choice; I had to enforce my boundaries. If I am to be her primary caregiver, I couldn’t endure a situation in which she directs her frustrations at me—it wouldn’t work for me, and it wouldn’t work for her. Unfortunately, it was a repeated behavior of hers over many years.

    Without getting into the details, we had a very frank discussion about this, and to be fair, it’s something I let her get away with for a long time by not enforcing my boundaries.

    While initially very painful, this talk led to me sharing deep dark memories and thoughts I never would have otherwise said and clearing a lot of what stood in the way of our relationship as mother and son. That very likely would not have happened had I not stood firm, and I never would have established that open a relationship with her.  However long she has left in this world, I know that this issue, my past hurt from her actions, won’t stand between us again.

    3. Having an open mind

    When faced with a diagnosis as dire as what my mom was given, unless you completely give up, keeping an open mind is often the only way to find good news that you would have otherwise overlooked.

    For example, in beginning my research on this type of cancer, I was dismayed to learn that there has been no material change to the standard of care in about forty years. All of those recent breakthroughs in cancer treatment you’ve heard about, they don’t apply to this one!

    However, rather than declaring defeat right away, I did decide to dig a little deeper. What I found was that there actually are a lot of clinical trials going on in our area for this type of cancer, many of which may provide a good second-line treatment option. Moreover, one of the trial drugs is very likely to get FDA approval in the next year, giving us some options where before there was none. Taking advantage of these would require changing hospitals, so these are developments I never would have learned about had I given up.

    I’ve been reminded to keep an open mind about people too. My mother, typically pretty volatile, has faced this all with amazing strength and equanimity—certainly more than I’ve shown! For someone totally uninterested in spirituality, she has shown a remarkable perspective on all of this in the context of her life, with which she is very satisfied.

    My sister, also going through marital problems while taking care of her baby and usually very emotional, has coped perhaps the best of any of us and has exhibited some very healthy habits for staying even. My brother, on the other hand, himself a doctor, has probably been the most scattered and emotionally crippled by the recent events.

    The point is that whatever you think you know about a person, it can change any day, any time. People can surprise you, for better or worse. While it’s totally rational to make judgment calls about people’s strengths and weaknesses, abilities and attributes, you must always realize that you can be wrong, or that the person might change—in fact, people are changing all the time!

    Spirituality is not about finding a happy hiding place insulated from temporal concerns. It’s quite the opposite—it’s about moving through life with eyes and arms wide open to whatever happens. It’s the way we get down in the mud and go through the wringer and remain who we are.

    Spirituality is a muscle. It gets stronger with exercise, and exercise causes discomfort. But once recuperated, you find you’re able to lift even more weight than before.

    I’ve never had to deal with such a painful series of events, and hopefully I never will again. But however insignificant what I’ve already been through seems in comparison, that past started me on a spiritual journey that prepared me for this present time. Whatever happens, I know I’ll emerge stronger from this too.

  • Don’t Rush, Don’t Force, Don’t Stress

    Don’t Rush, Don’t Force, Don’t Stress