Tiny Buddha

Tag: struggles

  • How Admitting Your Weaknesses Could Actually Make You Stronger

    How Admitting Your Weaknesses Could Actually Make You Stronger

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

    Do me a favor and don’t tell my wife what I’m about to share with you.

    I have an absurd number of weaknesses.

    Just kidding. My wife, of course, knows this. She is well aware of my many shortcomings. While she would be happy to add to the growing Encyclopedia of dumb shit I do, I will keep this short and sweet out of respect for your time.

    We live in a weird culture that’s afraid to admit any of us have weaknesses or struggles. We’re terrified because none of us want to look stupid or unqualified.

    We pretend to be squeaky-clean specimens of perfection, but inside, our minds are on the verge of exploding as we obsess over questions like: What will people think of me? Will they think I’m dumb? Will I be passed up for a promotion? Will others discover that I’m struggling? Am I actually a fraud?!

    What makes this even more challenging is that it’s a silly game we all willingly play.

    Think of a typical job interview.

    HR: “So, Terry, we’re really impressed with everything you shared today, but we have one final question. What would you say is your biggest weakness?”

    Terry: “This one’s really hard to admit, but it’s got to be that I work too hard. I’m always willing to go above and beyond to get the job done.”

    HR: “Wow, thank you for being so vulnerable, Terry. You sound like you’d be a great fit for mentoring our new hires as they navigate the challenges of working in a fast-paced environment.”

    Here’s the truth: We both know Terry is full of crap. Like, c’mon, Terry, is that really your biggest weakness? That you work too hard? Are you sure it’s not that you’re an emotional black hole since your divorce, which is why your kids don’t talk to you?

    I’m aware that what I’m about to share sounds contradictory, but it’s true. Admitting you have weaknesses is a sign of strength, not weakness. You must know what you can do and what you can’t, your powers and limitations, your strengths and vulnerabilities, what’s in your control and what isn’t.

    There are obvious circumstances that make admitting our weaknesses easy. In fact, not realizing you are outside the scope of what you know in these situations makes you look about as bright as a jellyfish.

    Break your leg? You go to the emergency room.

    Car alternator blows? You go to a mechanic.

    Time to do your business taxes? You go to an accountant.

    But here’s where we all start to fall apart. What about when you’re depressed, hopeless, or emotionally drained, and you don’t know how to help yourself?

    What do most of us do in the above scenario?

    Sweet eff all.

    Actually, that’s not true. We double down on negative habits like drinking, eating, shopping, or mindlessly scrolling on our phones, hoping something will change our state.

    We’re not weak, right?

    We don’t have a problem, right?

    Who cares if we’re not addressing our emotions? There’s work to be done. I already don’t have time to get everything done, so why would I waste time on crap like this?

    It’s embarrassing to admit that I believed not addressing my weaknesses was a sign of strength.

    My depression only made me weak because I kept it hidden in the shadows—not because mental health struggles are signs of inherent weakness. I endured relentless suffering, tormented by the belief that I was a worthless bag of flesh who subjected my loved ones to my endless mistakes and would be better off dead.

    What was I trying to prove?

    Why was I so afraid of looking weak?

    Would I be less of a man?

    And here’s the irony. By asking those questions, I realized that I was the one labeling these weaknesses as such. That shift empowered me to confront these challenges head-on, seeking the support of a therapist and coach, and hold myself to a higher standard.

    I’ve discovered that these “weaknesses” are sources of extraordinary growth. Therefore, acknowledging our weaknesses is the key to becoming stronger.

    I was blind to the cost of my denial until I gained a different perspective. I needed a new pair of glasses to show me that how you do anything is how you do everything.

    When I viewed these moments as gravity problems—things I couldn’t do anything about—I felt hopeless about everything in my life. But when I realized that these were challenges that I could overcome, I was given the opportunity to see that I could conquer any obstacle in my path if I was willing to embrace imperfection.

    Don’t let the subtlety of this shift in thinking race past you as you read the rest of this story. Understand first that you and I are having this conversation because I chose life.

    If you don’t address a broken leg, you’re going to hobble around like a pirate for the rest of your life.

    If you don’t fix your alternator, you have a 3,000-pound paperweight.

    If you don’t get an accountant to handle your business taxes, you will pay dearly to the tax man.

    And if you don’t address your emotional issues?

    You will forever be anchored to a tiny, scared version of yourself. Never capable of reaching your potential.

    It’s not enough to know that you have weaknesses; you must know when you’ve reached the limit of what you can figure out independently. You’re outside your boundaries if you don’t know which side of the line you’re on, or if there even is a line at all.

    I’m not here to tell you what to do, but you can bet I will leave you with a question.

    Six months from now, what will you wish you had spent time on today? What action would help you get the support you need to overcome something you’ve been struggling with?

    Calling a friend?

    Grabbing breakfast with your mom?

    Booking a therapist appointment?

    That, my friend, is what matters most.

    And nothing else on your to-do list will fulfill you if you don’t prioritize it.

    Choosing not to act now is delaying a better future. So, whatever you’re going to do, do it. Do it now. Don’t wait.

  • The Two Sides of Gratitude: When It Helps Us and When It Hurts Us

    The Two Sides of Gratitude: When It Helps Us and When It Hurts Us

    “When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” ~Shauna Niequist

    Imagine if you had a tool that, with no effort or change on your part, could cast a glow around you, exposing hidden gems within your everyday life.

    You do! It’s called gratitude.

    It has the power to light your way through tough times. And it can multiply the good. Of the many tools I use daily, I love gratitude the most. It is so simple to implement and immediately effective. It’s a powerful way to change the world—through seeing, not doing.

    I’ve invested a lot of thought, time, and deliberate action into creating the life I want. But building a life is one thing; relishing it is another.

    Having gratitude allows me to squeeze every last bit of joy from what already exists around me and within me, creating more with no extra effort. Few things in life are simple, practical, and magical.

    Without gratitude, our tendency is to focus on what’s missing. Life is what we choose to see. Without gratitude, we might waste a lifetime searching instead of enjoying.

    Using this practice keeps me out of dark places. There are days when I find myself in an emotional fog for reasons I cannot explain. I used to dwell in those moments, or days, weighted down and powerless. Though I wanted to feel like myself again, I would retreat within rather than allow myself to engage with the world and resurface.

    Gratitude has forever changed that. I possess a knowing (stemming from a consistent gratitude practice) that gifts are all around me, and I use them like a ladder to climb out of my hole. Gratitude shows me I always have choice.

    I choose to want to feel better and then I ask for what I need—a hug, time, inspiration—and then I allow myself to move on. Spending so much time in awe and appreciation for life allows me to see beyond my temporary state. I no longer confuse my present state with my true state of being—joyful, grateful.

    Gratitude doesn’t eliminate all the icky feelings and thoughts, but it absolutely makes me more resilient. It is my springboard. Not only am I aware of my shifting mood, but I actually take the action I need to take in order to come back to my true self.

    Gratitude and I go way back. As a first generation South Asian, it was instilled in me to always see the blessings around me. My family worked hard to give me a leg-up in life: a life with love, education, and opportunity.

    Gratitude also complements my positive nature. But it took me years to realize gratitude also appealed to my younger self because I was a pleaser, a peacemaker, a don’t-rock-the-boater. It turns out gratitude was also a great tool to keep me small. I used it as a ceiling.

    As my dream job turned into a nightmare, I confused fear for gratitude. I could not bring myself to seek a solution because it felt ungrateful. I was so thankful for the opportunity that I endured a hostile work relationship with a superior that belittled and disrespected me. I am not a complainer, I told myself. This is the price I pay for my dream, I thought.

    Gratitude allowed me to settle for less.

    I have avoided conflict by exercising gratitude. In difficult situations, it gave me an out. Have you ever said or thought the following?

    “It could be worse.”

    “At least they didn’t …”

    “I’m so grateful for this job/partner/friend. Who am I to complain?”

    In all of these scenarios, I wasn’t wrong to see the upside. Things absolutely could’ve been worse. But they also could have been opportunities to practice enforcing boundaries, to see my own self-worth, and to imagine new possibilities.

    I wasn’t able to see it then, but it’s clear now. Gratefulness is a powerful tool, but it should never be a way of accepting less than we deserve. It should amplify us, not diminish us. It should be our springboard.

    Gratitude is a way for each of us to find joy, not a way to make excuses for others.

    Yes, I have a loving family, but that’s no excuse to allow or accept disrespectful behavior. Yes, I work for an amazing company, but no, I don’t have to accept a toxic work environment. Yes, I love my partner, but I am worthy of a healthy relationship and love.

    It can be so easy to slip into limiting beliefs, tricking ourselves into thinking we are grateful when we are actually unhappy. Many of us have more than we need and are aware of how many are in need in our communities, near and far. But we serve no one by making ourselves small.

    How do you know when gratitude is limiting or a springboard? Know this: More is never made from less. Putting yourself below someone won’t create lasting joy, love, peace, or happiness.

    Practicing true gratitude requires understanding that we are equals. No one is better. If you hold yourself to the same (not higher or lower) standards as someone else, then gratitude will be your springboard.

    Gratitude is also a way to find what you’re looking for within your current life. It often requires little to no change. When we’re unhappy or unfulfilled we often think we need to get rid of things, maybe start from scratch somehow.

    But the truth is, what we’re looking for is often already in our lives. We must simply possess (or practice) the ability to see it.

    Gratitude also slows things down for me which, in this day and age, is precious. Being able to identify the gifts I have means knowing what’s important to me and taking the time to cherish them. It’s the ability to find my why—why I work hard, why I sacrifice and give of myself… why I am here.

    That’s a lot to gain from one simple act of seeing. How grateful I am to gain so much from a simple practice.

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

    The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

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

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

    This research can shed some light.

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

    Everything thrived for a while.

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

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

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

    What can this science experiment teach us about real life?

    Everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Everyone Has Struggles, and We All Have Our Own Lessons to Learn

    Everyone Has Struggles, and We All Have Our Own Lessons to Learn

    “The more we love the more we lose. The more we lose the more we learn. The more we learn the more we love. It comes full circle. Life is the school; love is the lesson. We cannot lose.” ~Kate McGahan

    I remember reading somewhere that we are all here on this earth to learn a lesson.

    It’s one that is made for us, and only us. Like a special recipe concocted in the stars and implanted in our tiny developing foetus.

    While it may sound a bit “woo-woo,” it was extremely comforting to read that.

    For much of my life I would compare my life to others. I’d look at those who seemed to have it all together and wonder if they ever struggled. I felt envious as they seemingly sailed through life.

    “Why do I have to deal with this and not them? What did I do wrong?”

    But maybe they are not here to learn my lesson. They are here to learn theirs, whatever that might be.

    While my life has been filled with typical ups and downs, it came to a crushing low when my sister died in 2013.

    The pain of her loss was so intense I wanted to claw myself out of my body. I really believed I was the only person in the whole world who experienced pain this excruciating.

    I would go to parties and watch people laughing and having the best time and feel so incredibly alone. It was like I was banished to another dark and miserable planet while everyone else merrily went about their lives. It angered me that others weren’t suffering like me. I kept asking myself again and again, “Why me? Why my sister?”

    I was too absorbed in my anguish to recognize that others were also going through hardships.

    It’s been seven years since my sister died, and now I understand that while my grief is specific and particular, it is not unique. Grief is just another emotion we human beings will experience during our journey through life. It’s just one of those emotions that don’t get as much airtime as joy, so we assume no one else experiences it.

    Along the way, I’ve met others who have confided in me their stories of trauma and pain that I was completely spared of. It reminded me that while things could have been different, it doesn’t necessarily mean they would have been better.

    This journey of learning that grief is shared by so many others has humbled me deeply. We all experience tragedies and heartbreak. There is no one in the world who doesn’t get hit with some kind of pain, no matter how happy and cheerful they may appear on the outset.

    When we think we are alone in our suffering we are not making it better for anyone, let alone ourselves. Focusing on ourselves and our pain is like a vortex that only isolates us further and makes us feel worse.

    In these times of immense suffering, it’s important to get outside of ourselves. Often the best remedy is to volunteer or help someone who is less fortunate than you. It will suddenly become clear that you are not the only one struggling.

    It can be so easy to forget this, especially since we live in a world of social media. Everywhere you turn there is an Instagram story being born. Everyone seems to be having the best time ever. At least that’s what they want you to think. But how much do you really know about these people you follow?

    There is a whole other side to everyone person you meet, whether online or in person, you may never actually see.

    So next time you catch yourself looking at others or scanning through social media and wondering why your life couldn’t go as smoothly as theirs, remember that there are people looking at your life wishing they had something about yours. It’s sort of like that quote, “Every time you point a finger, there are three pointing back at you.” It can be  applied to this situation too.

    And remember that everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

    Someone may struggle their whole life with an eating disorder and envy a particular model or celebrity for having a perfect body, not realizing that this particular model is coping with severe PTSD.

    The list of struggles we can face is as endless as there are people on this planet. You simply never know what someone is going through. But you can know for sure that everyone has their own path, their own challenges, and their own lessons to learn.

    I wish someone had told me this earlier, but maybe I wouldn’t have listened. Maybe this was one of the many lessons I needed to learn: no one has better or worse, they just have it different.

  • How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

    How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

    “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha

    Just the other day, I had one of those moments with my husband, and not the kind of moment they write about in romance novels.

    The world has been so different these last several months, and so many are feeling the effects of months of struggle, uncertainty, frustration, and limitations.

    I consider myself to be someone who works to see the positive, finds the silver living in situations, and believes in the best of people, and that things can and will always get better. But lately, that has been more of a struggle.

    My husband is amazing, and incredible in so many ways, but he is always the more likely to see the bottom falling out, expect bad things, and struggle with restrictions and limitations being placed on him.

    So, after trying really hard, and I mean really, really hard to stay positive, my better half kept dipping into the dumps, and I finally hit my wall.

    After sitting at lunch and realizing, I really don’t want to spend the rest of this day like this, I gave him an out from this tension and clear animosity growing with each passing minute. I told him to go see his friends, take time away from me, and try and let go of his frustration at least a little, even for a moment (in the hopes that it would also let me release some of mine).

    And then I walked out, somewhat dramatically, like they do in the movies, when you don’t even bother to look back. More like a huff.

    My first thought was that he is driving me crazy, which he has done consistently for almost thirty years, all while acknowledging that the last few months have been awful.

    I felt like I was fuming, and then came back to the question of “Why is it so hard right now? Why is he being like this? Why am I so bothered by him being like this? Why can’t we just figure it out and be gracious?”

    The plain and simple answer is, right now, things just kind of suck. Sugarcoating it seems to downplay the effects of what so many are experiencing, and it minimizes the struggle, which is quite real.

    Right now, we are experiencing a pandemic, which has shifted the entire world and its way of being, in a way few of us have ever known. We have seen economies struggling to keep up. Lives are being lost.  Quarantines have been put in place.

    There is no normal for so many, but somehow, we are still supposed to “act normal.”

    It’s a struggle and coping well can feel like a nearly impossible task, leaving people feeling like they are failing personally, during a time when they are already hurting in other ways. Family members are feeling impatient with one another. Couples are bickering more. People are quick to lose their temper and even quicker to feel anxious, sad, or angry at their lack of control right now.

    People are frustrated, they are scared. Times are uncertain, and there is a sense of gloom and doom that continues to hang over so many.

    There is a sense of powerlessness, and so many people continue to describe the feeling of being “stuck.”  Plans can’t really be made. Vacations can’t be had. Life as normal still ceases to exist, and no one can really say if, or when, things will gain some sense of consistency.

    We need to recognize how stressful that can be, not only for our mental well-being but also in our daily lives, as we interact with the ones we love most.

    So, for myself, after the dramatic exit and a few minutes of driving in the car, the more logical part of myself gained control for a moment.

    I realized that amid situations that feel chaotic, we all need a little “chaos coping checklist,” or maybe now it could be a “COVID coping checklist,” to help endure these stressful times that we are all working hard to get through, day by day. Here is mine.

    1. Stop. And breathe.

    Never underestimate the power you give yourself when you just stop and breathe. Allow yourself to pause and be deliberate with your breath. Take a few slow breaths to reconnect to yourself rather than just the heat of the moment. Let your breath fill you, guide you, and calm you.

    2. Acknowledge your emotions.

    Don’t deny yourself the right to feel angry, sad, or frustrated. And don’t deny your partner, friend, family, or colleague that right either. And definitely do not judge your emotion as not being worthy or valid. Our emotions are understandable given the current state of affairs, and they often clue us in to what we need, so listen to them, and honor them.

    3. Just because you love them, you don’t always have to like them.

    Remember you can love someone unconditionally and still feel angry with them, hurt by them, or want time or space apart from them.

    Couples together forever still have disagreements. Parents get frustrated by their children. Friends can rub each other the wrong way.

    We are human beings, prone to error and able to become easily overwhelmed at times. It is okay to not like the ones you love every moment of the day. Allowing yourself to remember that may help you focus on the love more, and the dislike less.

    4. Give yourself (and others) a break.

    Physically and mentally. Take a moment (or as many as you can and need) to remove yourself from a situation.

    Maybe you need to take a walk by yourself or go into another room and get lost in some music. Let yourself find a quiet spot and read something calming or inspiring, or go have that glass of wine and watch the rom-com or action movie you wanted to watch. Just take a break, you deserve it.

    5. Accept that it is okay to not be okay right now.

    Even if you are that person who always sees the rainbow after the storm, or the bright side to a situation, you may not feel able to do that right now. And that’s okay.

    Naturally, if even the cheerful ones in the room are feeling gloomy, the ones who are more likely to see the storm may feel they are drowning in it. Remind them too that it’s okay, and offer any support you can, if you are able. Someday, hopefully soon enough, we will all find our way back to okay.

    6. Give yourself and those you love the gift of compassion.

    No one out there is perfect, and we should never strive for perfection. Instead, strive to be better than you were before. If yesterday was hard, see what you can learn from it. Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can. If you need to forgive someone for snapping at you, or forgive yourself for being harsh, give that gift.

    Lighten the load you are carrying by replacing it with more compassion. Maybe right now isn’t the time for high unreachable expectations, but rather gentle exercises in kindness and consideration, for others, but especially for yourself.

    These are tough times. Maybe the best thing we can do for ourselves and the people we love is be understand that these “moments” will happen.

    Having these difficult moments with our loved ones, like I had myself, doesn’t mean you are somehow not the amazing person you are striving to be, or for that matter, that they aren’t either. It doesn’t mean you are somehow failing right now if you feel angry, scared, or worried. It means you’re human.

    7. Even in the midst of chaos, seek to find gratitude.

    During adversity and times when you feel unable to find your balance, gratitude can be a tool for comfort. It can remind you that even when you feel frustrated, doubtful, and stressed, you will find your blessings if you look for them.

    Maybe it’s that you have a family, even if they get on your nerves. Maybe you are grateful for that roof over your head that you so desperately long to escape from for a while. Maybe you are blessed to have a job where you can work from home, even if you would rather be at work.

    Gratitude can help ease your anxiety, and when the anxious feelings leave you feeling adrift in a storm, your ability to find blessings and feel grateful can ground you, and leave you feeling abundant, even during adversity.

    —

    The truth is, everyone is doing the best they can right now. Using a mental checklist for the times that leave us overwhelmed gives us a chance for structure amidst chaos. And using a checklist like this, shared and read by many, can remind everyone that the struggle is real, but we are all in this together.

    As for me, the very next day—after going through this whole checklist—the frustration lessened, the fuming went away, and I started looking for my silver lining again.

    I will try and follow this checklist as often as needed and be as gentle with my loved ones as I can, but also with myself so that my compassion is complete.

  • Everyone Has Struggles, So Don’t Stigmatize Yourself

    Everyone Has Struggles, So Don’t Stigmatize Yourself

    “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” ~Brené Brown

    From a psychological point of view, my childhood sucked.

    I didn’t have many friends, I rarely left the house, I was terribly shy, and I used to get bullied a lot, both physically and mentally.

    My teenage years weren’t any different. The psychological issues I had as a child amplified further and created more profound problems.

    When I started college, I didn’t magically become more confident or develop high self-esteem. I was almost the same person.

    Now, I proudly (and humbly) can say that I’ve gotten over most of my childhood and teenage problems, including the ones related to my social life.

    But I’m not here to tell you how I did that. That would probably take a book. And trust me, it’s not as glorious as I wish it were.

    Instead, I want to tell you about one factor that made all the difference during my journey of change and development.

    One factor that made my journey tolerable at times. Without it, I would have given up.

    I’m Bad, Aren’t I?

    When I was younger, I was shy, lonely, and depressed. My social skills were bad.

    That, in and of itself, was hard enough.

    Basically, I was witnessing my life falling apart in front of my eyes, socially and emotionally.

    But do you know what was worse than seeing my life falling apart before my eyes?

    It was feeling bad and ashamed of myself because my life was falling apart.

    It was believing there must have been something wrong with me, and that was why I was suffering.

    It was stigmatizing myself because of my problems.

    I was developing harsh feelings of shame because I was shy, lonely, and depressed. And for a long time, I couldn’t ever feel good about who I was as a person.

    In other words, I didn’t feel bad only because I wasn’t able to go out there and socialize. I also felt bad because I believed having these issues meant that I was worthless and inferior to other people. That I was unworthy of their attention or time.

    When you stigmatize yourself, the feeling of shame very well may cripple you. You likely will not take action to solve your problems. You will think you are already a loser, so why bother?

    Feelings of shame and stigma can never induce positive changes in your life. They will only induce fear, self-hatred, anxiety, and self-pity.

    This was what I did for years and years. I solved nothing. I sat there pitying myself.

    Am I Really Bad?

    We all share the desire to connect with each other. Connection is essential for our well-being. No one can live alone; the “lone wolf persona” is just a myth.

    And here’s where shame comes into play.

    It’s when you feel that you are so flawed that you don’t deserve this connection. It’s when you believe you are too bad for anyone or anything.

    It’s when you believe that, because you have certain problems or issues, you’ll never be as worthy as other people.

    It’s when you stigmatize yourself because of your problems and issues.

    It was only when I stopped doing this that I was able to get up and do something about my problems.

    You know it’s hard when you work with someone who is judgmental about your every action. Someone who believes you are bad because you have issues. What if that person was yourself?

    There’s a difference between guilt and shame. When you feel guilty, you’ll feel bad because of your actions, but you’ll likely do something to correct them. With shame, you’re more apt to do nothing but dwell in self-pity and self-destruction.

    And in the case of stigmatizing yourself because of your problems, it’s shame and not guilt.

    Own Your Problems, Flaws, and Mistakes

    I remember one of the first times I started to adopt this mentality.

    I was supposed to hold a microphone and talk in front of a lot of people. It wasn’t compulsory, but I was advised and expected to do it.

    At that time, I was working on my self-confidence and my social skills.

    But I chickened out. I escaped. I didn’t do it.

    I remember sitting down to have a cup of coffee right afterward. My inner critic was torturing me. I felt like a fraud and a coward.

    After all, I’d been working on my self-confidence, but I still couldn’t do it.

    I started beating myself up. Feelings of shame started to develop. I started to hate myself because I couldn’t be as confident as I believed I should have been.

    But then I stopped and noticed that I was stigmatizing myself because I’d chickened out and escaped. I was calling myself ugly names because I couldn’t overcome my low self-confidence.

    That wasn’t a healthy response. A healthy response would have been to feel bad (and guilty) about the action but not about who I was as a person.

    So, I stopped. And I told myself something like, “Hey, you have issues. But we all have issues because that’s life—everyone suffers somehow. The people around you have issues as well. Uncontrollable childhood events can screw up anyone. Work on a solution and do your best to improve. Feeling bad and inferior because you have problems is worse than the actual issues themselves!”

    And man, did that save my self-esteem from collapsing.

    Don’t Stigmatize; Do This Instead

    This concept isn’t only about social skills or self-esteem.

    It’s about any kind of problem or issue you are facing.

    In fact, it’s not about the actual problems or issues. It’s about every situation that makes you feel ashamed of yourself because you feel like you lack something or something is wrong with you.

    This feeling, the feeling that “something is wrong with me because I have X or Y,” is worse than the actual issues (the X and the Y).

    Whether it’s depression, anxiety, failure, rejection, financial problems, family problems, or any kind of such (usually personal) issues, the concept is the same. Don’t stigmatize yourself because of your problems. Just don’t. It’s destructive. And, from the deepest point in my heart, I know you don’t deserve to feel stigmatized. No one does.

    Instead, recognize that it’s not shameful to struggle, and it is possible to improve if you’re willing to accept responsibility for learning and growing.

    The younger me, who was very afraid then, realized that there was hope when I did that presentation (and a couple more public speeches after). I wouldn’t have made that presentation if I hadn’t held myself responsible for solving my problems. And I wouldn’t have held myself responsible for improving if I had stigmatized myself.

    It’s much easier is to make progress once you accept that having problems doesn’t necessarily mean you are a bad person or that the situation is helpless.

    This lesson is easy in theory, but it takes a large amount of self-awareness, self-care, and self-love to be applied. But once applied, it can move mountains. Mountains of emotional and psychological problems that were beating the hell out of you. Choose, right now, to do that for yourself when you need it the most, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it might be.

  • 5 Ways Journaling Can Help You Get Through the Hard Stuff

    5 Ways Journaling Can Help You Get Through the Hard Stuff

    “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself. The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather—in many cases—offers an alternative to it.” ~Susan Sontag

    My first journal was born into existence when I was twelve. I remember carefully choosing my favorite comics, pictures from magazines, and the odd scribble I’d drawn. Tongue stuck out in concentration, gluing them strategically on an unused exercise book. Wrangling with the clear sticky contact mum used to cover my schoolbooks, I encased the precious creation in it, preserving it forevermore: Nicole’s Diary.

    Needless to say it’s an extremely embarrassing collection of teenage angst, weird bits and pieces like lists of potential names for a child I didn’t and still don’t want; pages of dialogue between myself and other people with in-depth analysis of these conversations beyond anything reasonable; and daydreaming about the life I wished I had or complaining about the life I did have.

    Whenever I happen upon this old journal, It takes strength not to throw it away, just in case some invisible person were ever to discover it and think this was actually me.

    The journals since then have gone through phases. Phases where I wrote every day, or just once every few months. Where I was obsessed with recording quotes or where I collected everything from movie tickets to foreign sweet wrappers. There are endless lists, ways to improve myself, deep sadness, furious anger, joyful enthusiasm, unbridled hope, and ponderings on love during many a loving or loveless encounter.

    Historically journaling has been extremely popular, and if you think about the mountains of YouTubers and bloggers, it still is.

    They used to be more of a private affair, but consider the way we write when we really let the pen go. We’ve derived important pieces of the past from people’s journals. Are they genuine portraits of the time, or just endless, worrisome chatter from a mind trying to figure stuff out?

    These days it’s popular to have a gratitude journal, and I can see why—the idea being to cultivate gratitude as part of our being, and not give so much weight to the negative and the worrying. Remembering what we are grateful for is supposed to give us perspective on the hard stuff.

    But I don’t know. Writing about the hard stuff is actually what helps me get through it. It’s what makes journaling so incredibly powerful.

    Here are five reasons why:

    1. Journaling is the act of processing the past (and sometimes the future) in the here and now.

    For many of us, talking and writing isn’t about performance or the telling of something—it’s actually the processing. Getting it outside of yourself can give it a new shape.

    It’s like opening the clothes dryer mid-cycle. You interrupt the cyclic thinking and the jumble of ideas fall out, allowing each one to be tossed around and thought about on it’s own. The amount of times solutions have begun to appear while I was actually writing is astounding.

    2. Writing is and of itself cathartic.

    Try this: Set the timer on your phone for ten minutes, grab a pen, and write about your day until the alarm goes. Give yourself permission to burn it if you find yourself getting held back by the worries of who is going to read it (or delete it if you typed).

    Even if nothing at all has happened, you will most certainly have thoughts in your head that are dying to get out. Offloading conscious and subconscious stuff helps the mind become clearer and you calmer.

    3. Feelings and experiences become less overwhelming.

    A while ago I wrote a blog post about my partner’s beautiful little old dog being killed in a car accident. When I was writing the piece, I found myself crying almost the whole time.

    As I described the accident, moved onto what she meant to him, as I remembered my own times with her, it became an incredibly meaningful process. I spent some time looking for photos and wanted to honor her and the humans she had touched in her life.

    Writing about the grief helped me immensely. It slowed it down as well as enriched her life. I stopped simply wanting to escape the awful feeling and instead was able to wade through it and just feel. Even if no one read it, I felt like I’d created a full-bodied process—a eulogy—that honored her and helped me hold her light after she’d passed.

    4. Reading back helps reveal patterns.

    Sure, it can be frustrating to look back at a journal from three years ago and see that you are writing about the same thing in the same ways again, but that can also be empowering. It’s a researcher’s dream: go back and investigate and then spend some time reflecting on what keeps you stuck if you notice patterns.

    Similarly, you can celebrate any little (or big) changes you have made. “Wow, I used to worry about what people thought of me so much… it seems now I’m more concerned with what I think of myself and if I’m being a good person. What does that tell me about my journey so far? What do I want to take with me moving forward?”

    5. You can use creative journaling to change your story.

    We tend to tell our stories in the same way over and over, emphasizing the same points in the same ways, and even adding to a narrative by noticing everything that fits in with the story and ignoring everything that doesn’t.

    If that narrative is overwhelmingly negative (e.g.: I’m a people pleaser; I’m a doormat; I’m hopeless; I’m a victim; I’m unlovable; I’m always anxious; I can’t do anything about this; Only jerks like me etc.) then it can lead to a full-on negative identity conclusion based on one pretty shaky theme.

    Try injecting some freshness into a tired story. Journal prompts easily found via Google can help you do that, inviting you to answer questions you wouldn’t normally think of in the context of any given experience.

    Writing requires you to dig a little deeper into stories, where you may find that the ‘full’ conclusion isn’t based on much: you’ve dated a few jerks and have decided that you only ever attract terrible people. But if you are prompted to consider all the facts, there was a decent person who you just weren’t attracted to, so is there a more truthful nuanced conclusion to be considered in this narrative?

    What becomes available when you widen your perspective?

    —

    I can think of a bunch more reasons why journaling deserves a comeback, but I hope these five have injected some enthusiasm in you as a great starting ground. Just last month I began my own personal project of writing almost daily again, as well as launching a little Facebook group to discuss journal prompts.

    Sharing some of your writing has an added benefit of being seen—becoming visible in the ways you want and feel safe to. To acknowledge your struggles as well as find humor in them, and be able to see beauty in who you are no matter what, is more than worthy of the little effort it takes to pick up a pen (or use a voice machine) and pour ourselves onto the page.

  • You Are Not Your Struggles

    You Are Not Your Struggles

  • A Science-Backed Habit That Can Change Your Life for the Better

    A Science-Backed Habit That Can Change Your Life for the Better

    Happy Man Jumping

    “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” ~Epictetus

    When I lost my aunt to cancer three years ago, her death sat over me for months and acceptance didn’t begin until I had dinner with Kathy, one of my best friends.

    Over noodles, I shared with Kathy all the things I wouldn’t be able to do with my aunt: the conversations we would never get to have, the places we wouldn’t get to go, the food we wouldn’t be able to eat, and the grand-nephews and nieces she wouldn’t get to hold.

    Kathy asked me, “what about all the things you did get to do with your aunt?”

    I shared with Kathy how every time I experienced a breakup my aunt would make me a bowl of pho and make time to reassure me that everything would be okay, how every time I thought I was working too hard and not having fun she would invite me to play cards with her, and how when I told my family I didn’t want to be a doctor and my family disapproved she supported me.

    Tears sweep over my face with each story I was telling Kathy, but so did the biggest smile I had in a long time.

    “You’re so lucky to have the known your aunt. Think about all the people who don’t have someone like that in their life,” Kathy said.

    After that dinner, every time I thought about my aunt it would be about the memories I was grateful to have shared with her instead of the ones we wouldn’t get to have.

    Kathy helped me understand that the difference between feeling happy and feeling unhappy was the difference between viewing the world in terms of what you do/did have instead of what I don’t/didn’t have.

    This single lesson not only helped me come to terms with my aunt’s death but also taught me to frame potential negatives in my life into positives.

    Each time my flight is delayed (and it seems to happen a lot), instead of viewing it as missing four hours of my vacation, I think about lucky I am to even have an opportunity to travel.

    Each time, I forget my subway card and choose to walk back to my house to get it, I think how lucky I am to even have a subway near my house.

    Years later, I found that Kathy’s lesson wasn’t just coincident but had been scientifically proven.

    The Science and Data Support Kathy’s Lesson

    Psychologists at the University of Northampton studied how people adapt to grief after exceptional experiences such as death of a loved one.

    While this study had a small sample size and found no single factor can help overcome grief, they found having a lens of appreciating what you have/had instead of what you don’t helped one subject, “gratitude in feeling blessed to have had the time [subject] did with [loved one] as well as the overall change in his perspective, which was found to be transformative.”

    The above finding about gratitude and happiness isn’t limited to just overcoming a personal loss, but can also increase our overall happiness when dealing with every day troubles.

    In one study conducted at the University of California at Davis and the University of Miami, participants were randomly assigned into one of three groups and asked to keep a weekly journal.

    The first group (the gratitude group) was asked to list five things they were grateful for that had occurred in the past week; the second group (the irked group) recorded five experiences that irked them from the previous week; and the third group (the control) was asked to list five events that affected them the previous week with no focus on the positive or on the negative.

    When the study concluded ten weeks later, participants in the gratitude group reported feeling 25% happier and just better in general than the irked group.

    How to Let This Habit Change Your Life

    Though I have shared with you a practice that has changed my life and the science behind it, this habit will only change your life if you actively let it. And this is easy.

    In your everyday life, you will encounter inconveniences and hassles—forgetting your keys at home, being stuck in traffic, or spilling wine on yourself. Each time this happens, simply pause and instead of focusing on the negative outcome, remind yourself of the more positive larger picture—you have a home to come back to, you have time to reflect on your day, and you have access to dry-cleaning.

    Over time by focusing on the positives of an event, you will maximize your outward happiness and minimize inner suffering.

    Happy man jumping image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Things to Remember When Life Feels Hopeless

    4 Things to Remember When Life Feels Hopeless

    “However long the night, the dawn will break.” ~African Proverb

    Were there times in your life where it felt anything that could go wrong went wrong? That was me five years ago.

    In a span of nine months, my marriage to a partner of eight years broke down, I lost four family members to unexpected deaths, and I suddenly found myself hurtled from living the dream life to being jobless, penniless, and homeless.

    To say life knocked the wind out of me would be an understatement.

    Each time I picked myself up, another blow would send me sprawling toward a sense of utter defeat. It was as if a tornado swept through my entire being and left me empty and devoid of hope, strength, and any ounce of self-belief.

    Shell-shocked, I spent that whole year crying. I would wake up crying in the mornings, run to cry in public toilets during the day, and end my days crying myself to sleep. It was a dark period of my life where everything was one blurry haze of tears.

    As those days of hopelessness stretched on, the only thing I could focus on was taking baby steps every day to build a new life and a new future.

    It was an arduous journey where I was often taking one step forward and two steps backward. Many times, I felt like I would never see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I struggled to find the strength to inch forward.

    Five years on, I finally came out the other side. My new life and the new me are still under construction, but I now have in me a spring of strength to propel me forward, regardless of setbacks or how grim a situation seems.

    This newfound capacity did not develop overnight. It grew gradually as I practiced and incorporated into my life the valuable insights below.

    If you’re going through difficult times now, the following four reminders may help you be more resilient.

    1. Remember that life always changes. Things can get better.

    When troubles strike, it can feel like things will only get worse, but that is the pessimist in us talking. If we keep the faith and respond to the situation with positive and constructive actions, we can break out of the cycle and things can get better.

    Sometimes all we need to do is to simply let time pass and to resist the temptation to overreact and aggravate the problem. During times like these, I would distract myself by actively engaging in other areas of my life.

    2. Recall how you overcame similar struggles in the past.

    When plodding through a challenging time, it’s natural to be gripped by fear, self-doubt, and pessimistic thoughts that we won’t be able to surmount the obstacles. We forget that it always feels impossible until it’s done, and that we have overcome similar struggles in the past.

    A simple but extremely effective thing I did was to list down the occasions in my life where I busted through hurdles and rose above the seemingly insurmountable difficulties. As I penned out the victories, I found renewed faith in myself and in the unknown future, which may well bring the good instead of the bad like I feared.

    3. Remember that things aren’t as bad as they seem.

    Zoom out on the issue and focus on the grand scheme of things. More often than not, the raging fires in our lives hijack our attention and we fail to see the big picture. It’s rarely the case that every aspect of our lives went awry at the same time, and it’s critical to keep the right perspective when the going gets tough.

    We need to remember that our problems are merely a subset of everything that’s going on in our lives and not let the worries, fear, and anxiety overtake our minds. Even if every area of our lives—namely health, relationship, work, money, and passion—went haywire, the fact that we’re alive means there’s hope for things to turn around.

    4. Remember that there are still things to appreciate.

    Do not let the darkness blind you from seeing the stars. It’s human nature to get caught up with the things that are not working out in our lives and forget the good bits. I’m a big believer of a grateful heart being a magnet for abundance and miracles.

    No matter how terrible life may seem at any single point, there are always good things if we keep our eyes peeled for them.

    Thanks to the challenges, I came to see who my true friends were, and I also learned to appreciate many of the blessings I had taken for granted. I might have lost a life partner, loved ones, money, and employment, but these setbacks are transient.

    I would always have my degree, knowledge, skills, professional experience and network, and people who care deeply for me to fall back on and to get me back on my feet.

    As I grew stronger in handling life’s curveballs, I was grateful that I had developed this invaluable life skill at a young age so I can have the rest of my life to benefit from it. While maintaining a thankful heart, I realized that even in dark times there are stars we can gaze upon if we view our plight through the right lens.

    Which areas of your life are you struggling with right now? How do you cope and stay resilient?

  • Bounce Back and Thrive: The Secret to Turning Adversity into Opportunity

    Bounce Back and Thrive: The Secret to Turning Adversity into Opportunity

    Man with Arms Up

    “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” ~William Shakespeare                                                                        

    It’s hard for me to write about this. I suppose it stems from being a mutt of Italian and Irish ancestry, two cultures famous for intense pride and keeping personal things “in the family.”

    I wonder if my parents ever loved each other.

    By the time I was eight years old, it was clear they did not get along. I never witnessed them getting along, or even being affectionate toward one another. But I always felt loved.

    My parents told my younger brother and me that they loved us every day, most days multiple times. We never struggled for anything.

    My father had sold his garage door business years earlier, but that money seemed to be drying up. We lived in a 3,000 square foot house that my father had built six years prior. Six years later, it was in foreclosure.

    I’m sure the pressure was tough on them. My mother was not herself either. She was acting erratically. Inconsistent.

    One minute she was playful and full of life, the other she was angry and depressed. We soon found out that she was battling bipolar disorder, and she was forced to spend time in the hospital for evaluation and recovery.

    Shortly thereafter, my parents officially separated, we lost the house, and my brother and I split time between my grandparents’ house (where my dad was crashing) and the apartment where my mom was placed after her treatment.

    Memories of the apartment are vivid. Maybe it was because of the impact it had on me, or maybe it was because, at eight years old, I was beginning to have a strong sense for my environment. Maybe it was both.

    The house was daunting from the street. It was big and blue with white trim. It looked like an old New England colonial that was turned into an apartment building. At the time, it had about eight or nine units.

    Our unit was one room, about 400 square feet, with one bed. When my brother and I stayed with Mom, we didn’t have enough room for all of us to sleep on the bed. I would volunteer to sleep on the floor, so that my mom and Jesse could get a comfortable night sleep.

    There was no kitchen in any of the units. The kitchen was downstairs on the first floor, in a common area, of which all the tenants would share. At dinnertime, it would become crowded, noisy, and often overwhelming for our family…and I am willing to guess most of the other families, too.

    I remember, at eight years old, thinking to myself, “This can’t be all we deserve. There must be something more to our lives than this.”

    It was an intense time, and it would turn out to be one of the key moments of impact in my life. A moment in time that would serve as a reminder, and beacon, for the person I strive to become every day.

    I don’t share this story to gain pity. Nor do I share it as something to compare to your life, and the situations you’ve encountered. I share it to demonstrate how this moment in time is one of a series of moments that I choose to use to my advantage. Without it, I would argue that I would be less full as a human being.

    My adversity is my advantage. The story I tell myself about the adversity I face is that advantage.

    Why? Perspective and practice.

    Think about the first time you tried to hit a baseball. You didn’t know what to expect. You hadn’t developed any muscle memory. No hand/eye coordination. The first pitch you tried to hit was most likely a miss. You failed.

    However, there was something that came along with that miss. You began to get perspective. You tried out skills that you never used before, like self-awareness. Did you swing too late? How about rotating your hips?

    Next time, you made an adjustment. You may have failed again, but each time you did, you were gaining experience that, with the right mental skillset and approach, would better prepare you for the next pitch.

    The same approach applies to adversity. I was able to get early “at bats” with adversity.

    Those early “at bats” were failures, but I was beginning to develop the right mindset to deal with the next pitch. We never become perfect at this, but what you must control is taking advantage of as many “at bats” with adversity as it reveals itself.

    Why Adversity is Critical To Growth

    “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” ~Benjamin Franklin

    Benjamin Franklin was wrong. There is one other certainty: adversity.

    We all face adversity in our lives. Adversity does not just show itself in dramatic ways, like cancer and car accidents. It also shows itself each day, in small ways, through highway traffic or arguments with our significant others.

    Each adversity moment is a learning moment in its own right. We miss countless opportunities to grow because we don’t know how to appreciate and identify these moments.

    Call it what you want: adversity, failure, struggle, obstacles, or barriers. Many of us are taught, at a young age, to avoid these things. Why? Because they are hard. Because our parents, and people who care about us, are hardwired to protect us from harm.

    However, by avoiding these situations we are being harmed in other ways.

    A multiyear study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, surveyed 2,400 subjects who experienced negative life events.

    These events included serious illness, violence, natural disasters, and other major moments. The study found that “those who experienced negative life events reported better mental and overall well-being than those who did not.” This is significant.

    There is also a downside to adversity. Without the right supports or mental skillsets, adversity can cause stress, affecting decision-making and physical health.

    Dr. Nadine Harris, founder of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco, found that adults who were exposed to high levels of stress as children had higher rates of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and significantly higher suicide rates.

    We can control our response to adverse situations. We can turn them into opportunities. We just need the right set of principles to turn adversity into opportunity.

    Building a Growth Mindset

    Mindset is the cornerstone—the keystone habit—to using adversity to your advantage. Mindset allows you the mental flexibility to find the seeds of growth within the (badly packaged) fruit.

    Mindset is the first step—and the most important one—in getting everything right. Your mind sets you up for action. The right mindset is the infrastructure for sustainable growth through adversity. Without it, we are approaching struggle like a house of cards: Success can happen, but over time, it won’t last.

    One can find the best case for mindset in Carol Dweck’s research. Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, had a simple question: Why did some kids crash and burn in response to failure when others embraced it and thrived?

    Her evidence suggested that students who responded negatively to failure believed they just weren’t meant to succeed at the challenge. Students who responded positively believed that the failure was a learning moment: an opportunity to understand what caused the failure and how to improve for the next try.

    Consequently, it was the beliefs that the students held about their intelligence that informed how well they actually did—more so than their intelligence alone. Some students felt that their intelligence was a fixed constant. Others rightfully believed that their intelligence had room to grow.

    What Dweck carefully clarified was that there were two distinct mindsets that set students apart—a fixed mindset and a growth mindset—and the research was conclusive: A growth mindset was seminal in facilitating personal growth, while a fixed mindset hindered potential.

    The students with a fixed mindset didn’t believe they could do better. Each failure was devastating and demoralizing. And for learners, this becomes a problem.

    On the other hand, a growth mindset actively encourages students to enjoy challenges and seek improvement.

    This research reveals an amazing opportunity for us as human beings. In the face of failure, challenge, and adversity, a growth mindset gives us the ability to build and act on resilience. We can build mental strength to break through walls in pursuit of what excites us.

    How to Take Action

    Right now, you may be saying to yourself, “Sounds great Nick, but I don’t know the first thing about how to apply this in my life.”

    I understand. Application is often the most important, but most difficult aspect to skill development.

    Let’s focus on the power of “small wins,” thanks to Charles Duhigg in the The Power of Habit. This theory can help us reduce overwhelm and improve our confidence one step at a time. Here is one action step you could take today to start building or strengthening your growth mindset:

    Finding Your Fixed Mindset “Voice”

    What does a fixed mindset thought sound like? Thoughts such as “What if I fail?”, “I’ll be a failure,” and “It’s not my fault; it’s someone else’s” are fixed mindset questions and statements.

    The goal is to achieve consistency. With time, you’ll be able to develop the ability to catch yourself during a fixed mindset thought, reset, and apply a growth mindset perspective. Here is an exercise to identify your fixed mindset voice: record yourself for a day.

    This may sound extreme. However, think about if you were trying to improve your finances. Your accountant or financial advisor would tell you to record your expenses over the course of a day, week, or even a month.

    By performing this exercise, you are providing an unbiased record of all activities—some that you would remember anecdotally and others you wouldn’t believe you spent money on. Doing this inventory with your self-talk provides a sometimes scary but accurate look at how you respond to events during a day in the life.

    Steps:

    • Every hour, put together a minute-long recording of the events of that hour and your feelings. NOTE: For iPhone users, you can use the “voice memo” app on the device. For Android users, you can download Smart Voice Recorder right from the Google Play store. Here is the link.
    • Work to be honest with yourself. Some hours may not include anything exceptional, but building the habit consists of doing the task consistently.
    • When you have a moment at the end of the day or in the morning, listen to your recordings. Try to identify fixed mind-set and growth mind-set “voices.”
    • Then, ask yourself, “How can I improve this reaction?”
    • Write it down.

    Even if you do this exercise for a day, the goal is to start to develop an awareness of what your “voice” is. This provides us the opportunity to revise this inner voice with growth mindset thoughts, which then turn into positive actions.

    Over time, you’ll hone this muscle, which becomes the foundation of approaching adversity when it shows itself.

    —

    No one’s perfect. I still struggle every day with applying the right principles. I try to remind myself that each day, and each step in our journey, is a chance to get a little better.

    Best of luck with the next step in your journey!

    Man with arms up image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Habit Makeovers That Will Help You Turn Your Life Around

    5 Habit Makeovers That Will Help You Turn Your Life Around

    “Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days ahead.” ~Kris Carr

    Around this time four years ago, my life was a mess.

    Work-wise, I felt like I had hit a wall. The relationship I was in (or so I thought I was) was turning out to be a one-way street on which I was being taken for a long, long, painful ride.

    Taking care of myself was something I did only when I remembered to, or during unpredictable moments of clarity or calm within the little emotional tornado I was spinning around and around in.

    Just surviving each day was my priority.

    The cumulative toxicity of all these wrongs were making me feel jaded, physically ill, and almost on the brink of despair.

    Luckily for me (although I didn’t consider myself lucky at the time), things came to a head just before Christmas of 2013, thanks to one small step I decided to take.

    I decided that I’d had enough, and walked away—for good.

    Despite the pain, my life changed for the better that very instant. I felt lighter. Relieved. Free. As if I could finally rest my head on my pillow and sleep like baby.

    By then, I had also left my full-time job and started out on my own.

    I was ready to move on.

    But before that, I spent months in a self-imposed rehab period, analyzing everything that went wrong in the last couple of years, why I let them happen, and what I was going to do to move not just forward, but upward.

    So where did I go wrong?

    I was a “yes” person.

    Whenever someone asked something of me, I never said no.

    Why?

    Because I wanted to be liked and accepted by everyone. “If I say no, maybe this person wouldn’t love me,” I thought to myself.

    Looking back, it became clear how ridiculous and dangerous this mindset was. No matter how hard I tried or what I did, there was always someone who would get offended, or upset with me. Being a “yes” person was leaving me drained, resentful, and angry.

    The more I said yes, the more I got myself into situations I would later regret, and the more I let myself be used.

    When I reached my breaking point, I finally said no for the first time, and it left me feeling liberated. So I kept doing it, as much as I needed to.

    Life began to feel easier. I had fewer obligations and more time on my hands to focus on re-grouping, healing, and the people I truly wanted to spend time with.

    Your “yes” makeover: Start practicing saying no. You will never be able to, nor should you be obligated to, make everyone happy, even if you tried. And by doing this, you’ll learn how to say yes only when you truly mean it. You’ll start to make better decisions from your gut, not social pressure or a chronic need for validation or approval.

    Nourishing my body was not my priority. 

    When everything seems to be going wrong, you’re anxious, sad, confused, and lost, the last thing you’ll want to do is have to choose between that extra large pizza and salad for lunch.

    Eating might not even be on your radar if you’re going through a rough, traumatic patch.

    But here’s the thing: I’d been on both ends of the spectrum, eating too much and then not eating at all for days when life got overwhelming. Both options left me feeling and looking worse off than I already was.

    Unwanted weight gain sapped my self-confidence and added to my daily stressors, while too little nourishment left me feeling weak and unable to cope with life.

    I adapted by simplifying my meals—I ate more fruit and salads, which didn’t require much cooking and minimal preparation. I let people cook for me and bring me food.

    I took a multivitamin every day. I snacked whenever I could. I scheduled my meals as much as possible so that I was constantly reminded to eat. I knew that if I didn’t eat, I wouldn’t be able to get through this storm. As I healed, so did my eating habits.

    Your diet makeover: When you’re struggling to take care of yourself, know that it’s okay to make imperfect food choices. It’s okay let others help you.

    Add more structure to your meal times so you make a conscious effort to nourish your body. Eat with friends to lift your spirits. The joy will come back. The better you get at this, the better you’ll be able take care of yourself the next time life knocks you down.

    I held on to toxic relationships.

    Whenever I was around the wrong people, I’d feel one or a combination of these emotions: doubtful, sad, agitated, uneasy, or just plain tired, as if the wind had been knocked out of my sails. In contrast, the right people made me feel light, playful, at ease, uplifted, motivated, and supported.

    As I got stronger and started making clear-cut decision about who could stay in my life and who would get the boot, I came up with guidelines that would make the weeding out process easier.

    If someone:

    • Continuously took without ever giving back to me (or anyone else)
    • Turned every disagreement around to make it look like it was my fault
    • Belittled my hopes and feelings
    • Verbally abused me
    • Lied to me
    • Was unable to take responsibility for their mistakes and prefers to play the blame game

    I walked away. No exceptions. Life is way too short to spend with the wrong people.

    Your toxic relationship makeover: Give everyone in your life three chances to make things right when they do something to hurt you. Three strikes later, if nothing changes, don’t just walk away—run. I know this sounds harsh, but doing this has allowed me to regain control over who I want in my life, and who I don’t, and my peace of mind.

    I stopped dreaming.

    It takes faith and determination to keep the fires within your soul burning, even more so when you’re running on empty with a bruised heart and spirit.

    I went on this way for years until I eventually stopped hoping and dreaming, because I felt so trapped.

    My self-imposed ‘rehab’ time was perfect for giving this part of my soul much needed TLC.

    I re-started my fires by devouring as many books as I could. Danielle LaPorte’s The Fire Starter Sessions, Jonathan Fields’ Uncertainty, Napoleon Hill’s Think And Grow Rich, and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth were instrumental in helping me piece back my spirit, world and dreams.

    I spent a lot of time excavating, exploring, tweaking, re-discovering, and building.

    I opened myself up to deeper conversations, made peace with my mistakes and weak decisions, and started connecting instead of avoiding.

    Baby sparks eventually grew into larger-than-life flames.

    Your dream makeover Your dreams didn’t die overnight, so take your time getting them back. Getting clarity about what you really want will help you decide the first steps you’ll need to take.

    Try doing this simple, but powerful exercise: Ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish?” Then with whatever answer you come up with, ask why to that, and so on, five times.

    Start re-kindling your flame from here.

    Too much stillness crept into my life.

    The darker and bigger the grey clouds around me got, the heavier I started to feel, physically and emotionally. I dragged my feet wherever I went. The thought of exercising felt like a chore, using up energy I felt I no longer had.

    So I gradually stopped.

    As a result, I started to feel stagnant, sluggish, and unhealthy. I loved getting my regular flush of adrenaline and post-workout endorphins, but I just couldn’t get going.

    There were, however, two things I could do that I found therapeutic and beneficial to my physical health: walking and yoga. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for high-speed, high-intensity, as-many-rounds-as-possible circuits just yet. And that, too, was okay.

    Long, head space-clearing walks, rhythmic, breath-centered sun salutations, and gentle stretches became my salvation, so I did more of those.

    Your movement makeover: When it comes to exercise, do what is right for you when it is right for you. If hard and fast is your usual routine, it doesn’t mean that you need to force yourself to keep up with it despite not being in the right mental space for it.

    Not listening to your gut (and body) could leave you vulnerable to injury and unable to make the most of your training. If you’ve never exercised, just getting out and moving could make a world of difference.

    But whatever you do, don’t stay still.

    Be gentle on yourself, and learn to bend as the wind blows—you’ll gain a deeper kind of strength from within.

    Are you going through dark patch or on the mend from one right now?

    I’d love to know which toxic habit makeover resonates with you the most, and what you plan to do to turn things around.

  • Why We Get Attached to Our Struggles and Who We Could Be Without Them

    Why We Get Attached to Our Struggles and Who We Could Be Without Them

    “Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.” ~Gordon B. Hinckley

    I have been interested in personal development for as long as I can remember.

    I devour books about increasing confidence, happiness, self-worth, and intuition. I‘m inspired by articles about self-care, living intentionally, and aligning with your purpose in life. I have read many fabulous books over the last decade, all with their own nuggets of wisdom and insight.

    Recently, I was reading the book, Supercoach, 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life by Michael Neill. In his book, Michael describes how many of his clients go through a phase where they feel unsettled as they begin to make positive changes in their lives.

    Michael talks about how his clients literally begin “worrying about not being worried.” They feel that something is missing from their lives when they no longer have the struggles and challenges they once faced.

    The idea that on some level, we are attached to our struggles and fear losing them (or who we might become when we lose them) struck me. Why would we want to hold on to what causes us pain?

    I started to think about my own life. Who would I be without my struggles, challenges, and problems?

    Who would I be if I didn’t have to worry about money or how to pay my mortgage?

    Who would I be if I didn’t have to agonize over decisions about my children, but instead completely trusted my inner wisdom?

    Who would I be if I had full confidence in myself and cared for my personal needs without guilt?

    And maybe more importantly, who would be able to relate to me if I didn’t struggle? What kind of conversations would I have with friends and family if I had nothing to complain about? Would we have anything left to talk about at all?

    The truth is, as I examined these questions, I realized that the answers were mostly tied to my ego: I wanted to have a purpose (which solving problems permitted) and I wanted to be liked (by people who could relate to my problems).

    The more I thought about the answers to these questions, the more I realized that this was not the kind of person that I wanted to be.

    I didn’t want my purpose to be about putting out fires or worrying about the future, and I definitely didn’t want people to feel connected to me only because we shared the same struggles.

    I want to be someone who lives with intention and makes a difference in the lives of the people around me. I want to be someone who enjoys life and who inspires others by living this way. Most importantly, I want to be an example for my children.

    For me, this was an eye opening insight. Ever since, when I notice myself getting worried or stressed out, or when I find myself complaining, I stop and ask myself how I might be attached to my current situation and why. I question whether I can make a different choice or react in a different way.

    I may not be able to change the situation in that moment, but I can change my thoughts about it and my approach going forward.

    Life isn’t always going to be a piece of cake. We’re here to learn, grow, and experience the full spectrum of life. We’ll have good experiences and not-so-good experiences. For some reason, it seems easier to get caught up in the not-so-good ones.

    We can dwell on the challenges because it seems to give us that automatic bond to others who are experiencing the same crisis. We instantly connect with the other sleep-deprived moms, or the co-workers complaining about the boss in the lunch room. As humans, we crave that connection.

    But what if we connected over the joys in life, not just the pains? What if we connected by lifting each other up and supporting each other instead of tearing each other down? What if we talked more about the beauty in life than about the ugliness?

    There will always be times in life where we need support. I can’t promise to never complain again, or stress out, or need to vent to a girlfriend. But I’m working on it. Will you join me?

  • When Life Gets Hard: Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

    When Life Gets Hard: Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

    “You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and darn it, you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.” ~Elizabeth Taylor

    Most of us will experience hard choices, stressful events, and difficult situations that will impact us in one way or another for the rest of our lives.

    Hard times happen. They teach us lessons, make us stronger, and give us a deeper sense of self. After all, would sitting in the sun mean as much if you hadn’t of experienced the storm first?

    Within the past six years I’ve experienced what can only be called “hard times.”

    I lost my stepmother to advanced melanoma in August of 2009. Soon after, I was diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cyst, followed by months of testing and an eventual distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy in November of 2010 for the removal of same.

    I developed massive complications followed by three more operations and over six months of recovery, with more surgeries still to come.

    At the same time, I tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation, which led to a long period of intense screening, doctor consultations, and decision-making regarding what possible surgical steps I needed to look at in order to be proactive in prevention.

    I then made a job change after twelve and half years with the same firm. Within a few months of starting with my new firm, my elderly father had a heart attack, was hospitalized, and then spent months rehabilitating. I was his primary caretaker.

    Shortly after, in May of 2013, I was diagnosed with stage 1a triple-negative breast cancer, underwent a lumpectomy and five months of chemotherapy, lost all of my hair, and developed a severe blood clot.

    At the end of 2013, less than a month after finishing chemo, I elected to have double-mastectomies. In February of 2014, while I was still recovering from bilateral mastectomy surgery, my father fell in his home and suffered a severe head injury.

    This led to a long hospital stay and, finally, a move to a nursing home. Then came the arduous task of cleaning out his house and taking care of his debt-ridden estate. Oh, did I mention personal bankruptcy following my cancer treatment and mastectomies?

    I didn’t put all of this out there to whine or say “poor me.” But I do know this is quite a lot to go through, particularly in the short span of only a little over half a decade.

    My rare cyst, surgeries, complications, blood clot, and cancer tried to kill me, but they didn’t. The stress alone could have killed me, but it hasn’t.

    The countless demanding decisions could have pulled me under, but they haven’t. All the emotions and, at times, overwhelming depression might have taken me out too, but I didn’t let them. I keep living; keep moving forward, one step, one day, and one situation at a time.

    My father had been on hospice care for several months. He passed away on December 3, 2014. I’m still in the midst of grieving, but I’m glad to have developed some tools to help me along the way.

    1. Confront your struggles head on.

    We want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine, as if these bad things aren’t happening to us. We try to numb ourselves from the pain and reality of the situation. I know I do this. But eventually, you have to face it head on. There is no other way.

    There will be times of great heartache when you are forced to make life-altering decisions in which your mind and emotions will play opposing roles. With some of what I have faced, I had to make logical, sound decisions based on the facts available to me at the time. I certainly didn’t discount my emotions, but I moved through them with my eyes wide open.

     2. Realize it’s a process, and the process takes time.

    Nothing will happen right away. It will take time, and you will travel from one emotion to another and then back again. And it takes as long as it takes. These things cannot be rushed.

    Also, we have to remember to take it easy on ourselves throughout the process. For me, this goes back to self-medicating or numbing. I quite often stumble back into old, self-destructive habits. I’m human, not Wonder Woman. Although I like to think that maybe Wonder Woman wouldn’t have survived everything I have.

    3. Kick, scream, get your groove on, and then get spiritual with it.

    Realize that it’s okay to be angry. Find constructive, creative ways to let your feelings flow out of you.

    Climb a hill and once you get to the top, scream until your heart is content. Paint something. Beat up your bedding. It’ll only make it more comfortable. Get in some serious cardio, if you can—try dance. Make yourself really sweat. Then try yoga and/or meditation to even you out.

    Dig down deep and take a look inside yourself for what you believe. Whatever higher power, spiritual path, or religious belief gives your soul comfort—whether it’s at home, out in nature, in a church, encircled by loved ones, or in solitude—take a look at finding out what that is.

    4. Play out your fears about a situation.

    With any given situation, play out the scenarios and then ask yourself, “and then what?” What will I do if this happens next? Keep asking what you’ll do next, how you’ll continue moving forward. This will move you from a fearful, stuck mindset into a more active, productive mindset.

    5. Accept that not everyone will have your back.

    This may be the hardest lesson to learn. I found out, most painfully, that some people kept their distance; or better yet, were willing to take advantage and kick me when I was down.

    Surprisingly, these are often people you thought you could count on the most. Still, others will not only step up, but they will hold you up through the worst of it.

    While this can be an incredibly painful lesson, I believe it is a very necessary one. Interpersonal relationships, like life, are fluid. People will come and go. Some people are around to play with us in the sun, while others will weather through storms and seasons with us.

    I don’t think it’s meant for us to know who’s who ahead of time, only that this is a fact of life and that you will be okay. Maybe this also teaches us to be more grateful for each relationship, past and present, good and bad. Some of these people will be your greatest teachers in life, whether you or they know it or not.

    The best lesson I learned is that you have to keep your focus on the people who stick around instead of the ones who bail.

    6. Change your perspective.

    I now choose to believe that adversity is meant to knock us on course, not the other way round. Focus on looking at the situation differently. I can say from my experience as a cancer patient, you often have to find humor in the small things. This helps get you through each day.

    Even recently, I beat myself up over not yet becoming the perfect picture of optimal health after cancer. I had to realize, with everything I’ve been going through, the fact that I’m still standing at all is true testament to my ability to overcome. This has to be enough for now. Just as I am, I am enough.

    7. Look forward to the sunshine.

    After every storm there is calm, and then the sun shines. If you keep remembering that, you will make it through.

    Give yourself the opportunity to feel and process every thought and emotion. This is what the experience calls for. We all know what happens if we bypass or bury our emotions. We must allow the process to happen and give ourselves the space and time to feel everything.

    Eventually, hopefully, we find ourselves grateful for those hard times, which in turn may make us appreciate the good times even more. I am continually working on all of this, but then again, isn’t that the point?

  • 5 Helpful Things to Do When You Think Life Sucks

    5 Helpful Things to Do When You Think Life Sucks

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    You know that foreboding fear we all have—that something will go terribly wrong and life will never be the same again?

    Mine is that something will happen to our daughter. She is our only child. We battled infertility for years before conceiving her. I keep telling myself that it’s just an irrational fear and that every parent probably has it to some extent, but it’s a constant companion that stealthily follows me around everywhere I go.

    So, on a Saturday evening, when we returned from an evening out to pick her up from the playcare and were greeted by the sight of blood on her face and the sound of inconsolable weeping, my heart just stopped.

    She had fallen off a playscape headfirst. It had happened minutes before we arrived. All the caretakers could tell us was that a tooth was knocked off. We rushed her to the emergency room.

    After what seemed like hours, they gave the all-clear—no head trauma or fractures—and sent us home with a prescription of painkillers and instructions to rest.

    She spent the next twenty-four hours in pain and throwing up. She couldn’t even hold water down.

    I tortured myself with fears that it must be a devastating head injury that the emergency room staff had failed to catch. She felt better the next day, so I brushed my fears away.

    The next week was a whirlwind of visits to the dentist to extract fragmented and loose teeth. During one of the visits, the dentist noticed that her jaw was misaligned. We rushed to an oral surgeon.

    The emergency room staff had failed to catch it—her jaw had broken. And now it was too late. The bone had already started to set in a crooked manner.

    She’d need major surgery to reverse it. She was too young to do the surgery yet, but by the time she turns eighteen the misaligned jaw will likely bother her so much that surgery will be unavoidable.

    A couple of weeks later, as the dust started to settle, I took her to the park to let some steam off. As luck would have it, she had another fall, and this time she broke her arm.

    We hadn’t had any major trauma in her entire life. And now we had two sets of broken bones in as many weeks.

    Waiting for the orthopedic to put the cast on, I couldn’t help but think, “Right now, our life sucks.”

    And this wasn’t the first time I’d thought that.

    A few years back, I’d felt much worse when my husband was in the emergency room, I waited outside with her, and the doctors had no answers for us.

    And before that at work when a colleague was bent on making my life a living hell.

    And when my best friend was lost to depression and wouldn’t take my calls.

    And when I broke up with my first boyfriend.

    And a million other times.

    Every single one of us has these moments. It’s just the way life is. It’s what we do in those moments that matters.

    For the better part of my life, I’ve felt flustered and incapable of handling these moments. Over time, I feel like I’ve figured out a few things that I can start doing to bounce back.

    I’m sharing these with the hopes that some of you will find them as useful as I do.

    1. Replace “Why me?” with “What next?”

    It’s natural; when things go wrong, one of our first thoughts is likely to be “Why me?”

    Here’s the thing though: “Why me?” is a weakening phrase. It only serves to increase our feeling of victimhood and makes us feel incapable of dealing with the situation.

    By intentionally catching ourselves thinking “Why me?” and replacing it with “What next?” we not only gain back a feeling of control, but also figure out what we can actually do.

    Anytime my daughter had a mini accident after that, she would panic. I’d put on my calmest voice, even when I felt like screaming “Why us? Can we please catch a break?” and say, “Aww, poor baby. Are you hurt? Accidents happen. Do you think a boo-boo pad might help?” And yes, a boo-boo pad always helped.

    Ever so slowly, we were back to being resilient in the face of mini accidents again.

    2. Force yourself to practice gratitude.

    It is hard to feel grateful when you are dealt a blow, no matter how big or small it is.

    I was devastated by my daughter’s jaw fracture verdict. I had to practically force myself to practice gratitude.

    Every time I talked to someone, I’d say, “Well, we’re lucky it wasn’t a head injury.” After repeating it a few times, I actually started to believe it and started to feel the gratitude. And that eventually helped deal with the news of the misaligned jaw.

    No matter what you are dealing with, there is always, always something to be grateful for. Force yourself to say it out loud a few times. Your heart and your mind will soon catch up.

    3. Quit blaming.

    When you’re hurt, it is equally natural to look for someone to blame.

    In my case, I was tempted to blame myself, the caregivers at the playcare, the doctors at the emergency room, and so on.

    But blame only serves to prolong the hurt. It makes it harder to let things go. It makes us angry and corrodes us from the inside. It brings negativity into our life.

    So just stop.

    If something is meant to be, it will happen. That’s it. Deal with it and move on.

    4. Don’t give in to fear and despair.

    This is a tough one. It’s so much easier to just give in and surrender to the fear and grief. But we need to stand tall, even when we feel two feet too short.

    It was very hard for me to mask my worries from my daughter and project confidence. But I’m so glad I did.

    Back then, for a while, I’d actually started to wonder if something was wrong. The foreboding fear that was my constant companion kept telling me that something bad was going on.

    But slowly, she gained from my projected confidence and grew more confident herself. And got back to her monkey business. And didn’t having any more accidents.

    And my worries started to fizzle.

    When it comes to fear and despair, you have to fake it till you make it. And, sooner or later, you will make it.

    5. Never give up.

    We didn’t like the jaw surgery verdict. We sought out another opinion even though it seemed pointless.

    The new oral surgeon was old school. She suggested physical therapy. We set alarms on the phone, and my daughter diligently did her exercises (bless her soul, she’s just a wee little kid, but such a sport).

    After a month, the jaw was starting to get aligned again. Things are beginning to look good. Maybe we won’t need that surgery after all. We can only hope for the best.

    No matter where you’re at or what you’re going through, don’t give up. Try just one more thing; maybe it’s just the thing that will resolve it for you.

    It ain’t over, until it’s over.

    —

    As I type this article, I hear my daughter biking around the house.

    And then I hear a loud thud. I catch my breath and wait. And there it comes: “I’m okay,” she calls out.

    Yes. I think we’re indeed okay.

  • 6 Secrets to Moving On From Serious Struggles

    6 Secrets to Moving On From Serious Struggles

    “Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” ~Unknown

    People who knew me ten years ago would probably expect me to be dead now. They wouldn’t expect me to have escaped my problems. They wouldn’t expect me to have stopped drinking, drugging, taking overdoses, and cutting my arms.

    People who knew me ten years ago saw a scared shell of a girl, terrified of her own shadow and on a mission to self-destruct. They wouldn’t expect me to have turned my life around completely. They certainly wouldn’t expect me to be sharing my story and helping others to let go of their struggles, too.

    But then those people who knew me ten years ago didn’t know that I would find the secret to moving on from my struggles. I didn’t know it back then either; I thought that there was no hope for me, and that I would never be over my woes.

    The secrets to moving on came to me slowly. It took years of suffering from anxiety and alcoholism before I found my solution, but it was worth the wait. Whatever your problems, and no matter how inescapable you think they are, the answers are always universal.

    Here are six secrets to moving on from your struggles:

    1. Draw a line.

    When you’ve decided that you’ve had enough of suffering, of tying yourself up in the same old knots and landing up in the same dead ends, draw yourself a nice mental line to mark your decision. Everything up until now was the part of the problem, and everything from now on is a learning experience.

    Use that mental page break to give yourself new courage and enthusiasm for the healing process. Leave any guilt and shame firmly in the past. Decide that no matter what happens, from now on you will do your best to break away from your negative patterns and never give up on trying.

    It’s okay to screw up, to cry sometimes, or to find it hard, as long as you never move back into that space where you’re not willing to try. Let your attitude be part of the solution to your problems; focus on living, learning, and breaking free. Take at least one extra step forward every time you stumble.

    2. Learn from others.

    When an emotional or mental problem is holding you back, don’t try to cope with it all on your own. If you’ve ended up in a sticky place or a cycle of self-sabotage, your own thought processes and feelings will have aided and abetted you. In order to get out of the hole, you must be willing to learn from other people.

    I have always found that those who have previously been down the same rabbit hole are the best people to give you advice and a helping hand. Hang onto the hope they present, learn their lessons, and see how the decisions they made have helped them to succeed in moving on.

    See the patterns in others’ successes, and look for people who live the solutions. If people appear bound by bitterness and negativity, they’re probably not the ones to help you. Look for those who are truly free of their issues—the ones who you aspire to be. There is no need to struggle alone, when others can help you through.

    3. Try everything.

    When it comes to particular problems, you may need to get specialist help to deal with them. You may feel you have tried so much, without success, to find the solutions to your issues that you will never find an answer. I know that trap; I nearly gave up, myself, on the quest to beat my anxiety disorder.

    Counseling, books, courses, pills, potions, and therapy had not provided any solutions. I had almost given up hope. I am so glad I didn’t.

    The last thing I tried was something I had never considered, and it happened to be the one method that gave me back my life. Try everything; think outside the box. The answer is only irretrievable if you stop looking for it.

    4. Let go.

    To truly move on, you must let go of blame, resentment, and anger. Realize that negative feelings are counter-productive. However justified you feel they are, it is only hurting you to hold onto them. Forgive others so that you can be free to follow a new positive path.

    Forgiving yourself is possibly the hardest part of letting go, but it’s also one of the most beneficial things you can do. Accept that you are only human, and humans make mistakes; it’s how we learn, after all. You did the best you knew how to at the time, and now you’re willing to admit it didn’t work out so well.

    Stop criticizing and chiding yourself. Talk to yourself kindly, like a patient teacher, rather than a harsh taskmaster. Unkind words will only make you feel frustrated and sad, dragging you back into that negative cycle. A warm, encouraging tone will help you get the best out of yourself.

    5. Do what works.

    It sounds so simple, but people do what doesn’t work all the time. They wish things were different, bury their heads in the sand, or use sticking plasters that will come unstuck later on. I used alcohol to numb my anxiety disorder, not taking into account the alcohol dependence, the plummeting self-esteem, and the pancreatitis that would punish me for my choice later on.

    Deal with reality to make sensible choices. Don’t allow anger, self-justification, or feelings of unfairness to stop you from doing the right thing. Sometimes the way we have to constantly battle and the things we have to do to solve our problems may feel unfair, but the alternative is staying stuck in pain and self-loathing.

    Keep your end goals in mind when making decisions. Do what works on a consistent basis and you will eventually escape from your problems, making it worth the fight. The longer you keep doing what doesn’t work, the deeper the hole you will have to dig yourself out of.

    6. Change your mind.

    The only permanent solution to our struggles is to change the mind that creates or perpetuates them. While your problems might not be of your own making, the endless suffering that comes as a result of them is down to the way you use your mind.

    It may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility to work on the way you think if you want to be free.

    My own mind-set kept me stuck for many years. It refused to acknowledge the good and was responsible for a lot of negative emotions and responses. It was only by practicing over and over to refocus my mind that my feelings, and responses to life, became more positive.

    Watch what you’re feeding your mind, as well. If you’re feeding it a diet of dross and negativity, don’t be surprised if it’s not all that helpful. Educate yourself, and surround yourself with good, supportive people.

    Your mind and attitude are ultimately the things that can keep you stuck—or end your struggles. Learn to use them wisely, and you can overcome any problem, no matter how serious it seems. Having a supportive mind makes it much easier for you to see clearly, and to be happy and content, even in a life where challenges crop up.

  • Why Self-Pity is Harmful and How to Let It Go

    Why Self-Pity is Harmful and How to Let It Go

    Letting Go of Self Pity

    “Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson

    Some of us experience more adversity and painful events in our lives than others. We wonder why our difficulties don’t happen to the “bad” people out there instead of us. Unfortunately, life is not fair.

    Awful things happen. Dreadful circumstances or tragedies will affect most of our lives at some point. It’s okay to cry and feel sorry for yourself and your circumstances, mope around, or get angry. But at some point you must shake it off, let go of the past, and choose to not let it consume you entirely. Otherwise, you won’t be able to learn from the experience and move forward in a constructive way.

    Now, I am not addressing true clinical depression here. I am talking about self-pity, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a self-indulgent dwelling on your own sorrows or misfortunes.”

    My Own Pity Party

    When I was young, I moved from Florida to Minnesota for a new job. I met a guy there and thought I was in love.

    Then the guy got a new job across the country in Oregon and asked me to move there with him. Thinking I was in love, I got a job transfer as close as possible to his new city (two-and-a-half-hour drive each way) to live with him in his new house. I thought we would get married.

    A few months later, we broke up. (I bet you saw that coming, right?) I had nowhere to live, no friends in that state, and I was stuck all the way across the country from anyone else I knew. I felt alone, abandoned, and unloved. I was also trapped with no money, as I’d put everything I had into his house.

    I was a hapless victim of love, and I played my part like Shakespeare had written it for me. I gave in completely to self-pity. I cried in public for the poor cashier at the grocery store. I wore my swollen eyes like a badge of honor.

    Kind and compassionate coworkers found me a roommate with a twenty-minute commute instead of two and a half hours. They gave me solid proof that I was not alone, not abandoned, and not unloved, yet I refused to be consoled. I allowed self-pity to consume me and held tightly to my belief of being alone and unloved. Poor me, UGH!

    I’m sure there were other people around me who were also in pain, struggling with homelessness, sickness, financial difficulties, bereavement, worries over children. But I didn’t see them or notice them. I didn’t care about them. I only cared about myself and my broken heart. I fed on my own misery.

    When I look back on that time, I see how fortunate I was that I didn’t marry that guy, and I am amazed that I didn’t give more consideration to the kind people who helped me. Self-pity also made me less gracious toward my friends.

    Self-Pity is a Choice

    When we fall into the depression of self-pity, we allow it to take control of our lives. We become completely self-absorbed. It is destructive to dwell on negative events and carry that bitterness and resentment forward. When we keep our focus on the hurt, we aren’t focused on taking control of our lives.

    If we blame negative circumstances for our place in life, we are giving up responsibility and control.

    We whine and feel sorry for ourselves. We can choose to spread our misery, or we can choose to rise above our circumstances.

    Self-pity is a form of selfishness. It makes us less aware of the needs and suffering of others. Our own suffering is all we think or care about in our self-absorbed state.

    The Story of Tony Melendez

    Tony Melendez

    Tony Melendez was born with no arms and a clubfoot. Despite his misfortune, Tony chose to control his own life and happiness. He improved his circumstances as far as he could control them. He made positive choices and took responsibility for his own future.

    As stated in the biography page of his website, Tony is “a man who has spent his life putting personal confidence above his handicap.” How? By learning to play the guitar with his toes!

    He began his career in Los Angeles. Tony is a musician and vocalist with several successful albums. He is also a composer, motivational speaker, and writer.

    In 1987 Tony played for Pope John Paul II in Los Angeles. The Holy Father was so moved that he approached Tony on the stage and commissioned him “to give hope to all the people.”

    Tony took the pope’s words to heart. Tony Melendez Ministries is a non-profit organization that helps people throughout the world, bringing them hope, compassion, scholarships, and other funding.

    Tony Melendez and the Toe Jam Band have a busy tour schedule. There is no room for self-pity in Tony’s busy life because he does not focus on himself. He unselfishly gives to others he feels are less fortunate.

    But don’t expect Tony to play at your pity party. He will give you an example to overcome self-pity and inspire you to achieve a wonderful life.

    You can choose to lift yourself up and enjoy life! You are in charge of your own happiness. It is your personal responsibility.

    So go ahead and cry and mope and feel sorry for yourself and stay in bed all day. Feel the pain and the hurt. Live your reality and misery. It’s okay and even healthy to do that. But then let it go!

    Don’t let it consume your life. You are not alone or unloved. Remember there are other people in your life who need you. There are people you haven’t even met yet who need you! You can’t help anyone else if you only see yourself.

    You cannot change the past, but you can change your future.

    Photo by jeronimo sanz

  • Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Liberated

    “When we…go back into the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.” ~Pam Vredevelt

    There is a way in which we tend to view issues in our lives that makes it seem like the issue is a big, scary monster that chases us around everywhere we go.

    We have commitment issues. Or we are bad with money. Or we have an eating disorder, we drink too much, or we follow-through too seldom.

    We view ourselves and our lives as if they are stable, consistent entities that probably can change, but rarely do. We surely never change without considerable time, money, or effort.

    At one point in my own life, I definitely felt like I had weaknesses and issues, particularly around food. It felt as if they were mine, like I had ownership of them. They were part of who I was.

    It felt as if my “disorder” was a living, breathing monster that I would never fully shake.

    And that’s the way it goes. It begins to feel like the issue is always there, following you around.

    The monster might be right on your heels some days and further away other days, but it’s always there in some capacity. The monster might take naps or even hibernate, but there is the sense that it could wake up at any moment.

    If you’re too loud or not careful enough, the monster will wake up and be right at your back again. So there’s no resting, really. You never get too comfortable. I know I certainly never got too comfortable; always looking over my shoulder for the next time the monster would catch up with me.

    (It’s easy to see how we came to view it this way, between traditional, past-focused psychotherapy and popular addiction recovery movements that say things like “You’re an addict for life” and “One more drink and you’ll be exactly where you left off.”)

    So, guess what happens when it feels like fully resting is out of the question?

    You guessed it—you don’t rest. You’re on guard.

    You hold in the back of your mind the image of that monster waking up and beginning to run after you again.

    You never quite manage to let that thought go because you believe—you’ve been led to believe by well-meaning but misinformed professionals—that the issue is a part of you. Of course it would never occur to you to let go of something you believe you can never let go of.

    Each time the thought of your monster passes through your head, it feels ominous and meaningful. When something feels ominous and meaningful, you naturally pay it some attention.

    If you believe you are bad with money and you go a little overboard at Nordstrom one day, it’s very serious.

    If you believe you have commitment issues and the thought occurs to you to run from your relationship, you might actually act on that thought because it seems real. That thought appears as your reality, not as the fleeting, habitual but arbitrary thought it truly is.

    For me, because I was told I “had” a diagnosis and that diagnosis signified a real and stable thing, anything I ate became a very big deal in my mind. The very common and meaningless act of eating a meal began to mean a whole lot about who I was as a person and it said something—in my biased thinking—about my future.

    You Can Only Feel What You Think

    Aside from the fact that monsters are scary, the other problem with the monster-chasing-you metaphor is that it is completely, factually inaccurate. It is quite far from the truth of how your “issues” and experiences of life work.

    Your actual issues are nothing like a monster chasing you.

    A closer approximation of how it works is something like this:

    Your moment-to-moment experience is a reflection of your moment-to-moment thinking. Said another way, what you feel is only and always what you happen to be (consciously and unconsciously) thinking.

    Sometimes you think a lot about your issue. When you’re thinking about it— especially to the extent that your thinking seems real and true, as if it directly reflects reality—it appears as if you have the problem you are holding in your mind.

    When the thoughts you are experiencing seem like stable truth, you’re naturally locked into them. You elaborate on them, take them seriously, and inevitably act on them.

    But here’s the cool part: Your thinking changes. Often. It’s always changing in obvious and subtle ways. When your thinking changes, your experience changes.

    And, the thoughts in your head are not an accurate snapshot of outside reality. They are quite subjective and personal, actually. No two people see the same thing in the same way, so what you think is only what you think, much more than the way it is.

    The points above work together because the more you see that your thinking is very subjective and personally biased, the less you rely on and respect it as truth. The less you rely on and respect it as truth, the more frequently and naturally your thoughts change because you’re not holding them in place, identifying with them, and owning them as “yours.”

    There Is No Monster

    Since your experience in any given moment is exactly equal to what you are thinking in that very moment, that means that when you’re thinking about your monster, you feel your monster.

    And when you’re not thinking about your monster, your monster does not exist.

    When you’re thinking about your commitment phobia, how your parents damaged you for life, how you’re an incurable alcoholic, or how horrible you’ve always been with money, those issues (monsters) are alive for you in that moment.

    My eating issues were alive for me most of the time in those years solely because I was always thinking about them.

    But when you’re thinking about your cat, or pondering hard wood versus tile in your kitchen, those issues are not alive for you.

    It’s not that the monster is asleep, waiting to strike. It’s that the monster literally does not exist.

    You see, each moment of your life, you start anew. The inner slate of your mind is wiped clear.

    Because we tend to give some thoughts a lot of respect, and because we believe they reflect outside truth, those thoughts tend to come back often.

    In that way, it doesn’t always feel like the slate wipes clear. It feels like the monster is right on your heels.

    But actually, we have infinite potential for brand new thought, which equals infinite potential for brand new experience. We tend to get more new thought when we know that.

    In other words, when you think of your issue as the monster on your heels, that’s what you get. But only because that’s the way you’re thinking about it.

    When you see it more accurately, understanding that you’re only feeling what you’re thinking in any moment and that when your thoughts shift—as they inevitably will—you get limitless new thought which brings limitless new experience, it all changes.

    You see that you’re creating your life anew in each moment. There is no monster, unless you create him right now by thinking about him right now.

    Nothing is actually carried over from the past. Rather you might think right now about the past, but that’s just where your thoughts wandered.

    I’m happy to report that I have had no issues with food for many years. Eating when I’m hungry is a complete non-issue. This is not what my therapists told me would be the case. I was told that because I “had” the issue at one time, I would most likely always have it in varying degrees.

    I was told that I could learn to manage it, and that it may lie dormant if I was lucky, but that in times of stress it would most likely flare up again.

    Nothing could be further from the truth today.

    There is no monster. There never was. There’s only what we think, now. And then now. And then now.

    Of course, thoughts of our “problems” will drift into our mind. We’re only human.

    But because we see that they will also drift right out, there’s no reason to keep constantly looking over our shoulder.

    Photo by Jesus Solana

  • What All Great Relationships Have in Common

    What All Great Relationships Have in Common

    “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough

    My husband and I have been married for almost ten years.

    And before those ten years, we were college sweethearts and had been dating for over six.

    When you know someone for that long, someone whom you are deeply and madly in love with, something funny happens:

    Your collective thoughts, actions, and words become so tightly intertwined that you walk around believing you are one person.

    As a result, you feel ten times taller. Like you can do anything. You feel as though you’ve discovered the purpose for breathing on this planet.

    But something else happens, too. 

    When you really know someone, intimately and with all the deepest parts of yourself, you also hit bumps in the road.

    Times when you argue. Times when you take each other for granted. Times when you’re completely challenged.

    My husband and I have been through it all, especially as college graduates moving out to Hollywood with big dreams in our hearts.

    We were changing so much, like shapeshifters, rapidly taking on new forms and discovering who we really were in the process.

    The truth is, that period could’ve easily destroyed us.

    Not only that, but: Sometimes we felt like we didn’t know each other. Sometimes our matchbox-sized apartment in West Hollywood got under our skin. Sometimes we fought.

    Sometimes we were broke. Sometimes we weren’t intimate. Sometimes our car broke down.

    Sometimes exes popped up out of nowhere, determined to tear us apart.

    We’ve weathered all of these storms, and more. And we will weather them, still.

    Things will happen. Shadowy forms will come out to dance. Life will hurt sometimes. And be hard. But also worth it.

    My husband and I have a beautiful life. I truly couldn’t ask for more. We have a deep, eternal bond, embodied in the form of a brilliant and loving toddler who brings us a deep joy we once never knew existed.

    We also do things that light us up from the inside out. We make films together. We write together.

    We share a love for the arts, books, meditation, politics, quantum physics, and vegan food. We take walks together. Talk about anything and everything.

    Together, alone, we make the stupidest and most politically incorrect jokes you can imagine.

    We challenge one another to leap out of our comfort zones. We make big decisions and set off on bold adventures.

    My point is this:

    If you have true love in your life, don’t let the down, dark, doomy, disappointing, messed-up times fool you into thinking that you. Just. Can’t. Do. This. Anymore.

    Embrace the fact that love—the real, infinite, take-your-breath-away kind of love—will be filled with ups and downs.

    Embrace your every moment together. All of it—the romance, the laughter, the tears, the disagreements, the adventures, the infinite unknowns. 

    ‘Cause if, along the way, no matter how deep the trenches, you each have somebody who cherishes you, supports you, uplifts you, respects you, and thinks the world of you, then you must thank your lucky stars for that gift.

    And throughout the mystifying journey, remember this:

    If the bad times suck hard, then the good times must be really special. That’s why the bad times make us suffer so much—because the good times are something we can’t bear to lose.

    Accordingly, we struggle. We work at it. We fight for our blessings.

    No relationship is perfect. But the ones worth having are always worth fighting for.

  • Keep Shining Your Light, Even When You Feel Broken

    Keep Shining Your Light, Even When You Feel Broken

    “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz

    I keep a prism hanging near the entrance to my home. Its beauty, made possible only by the broken nature of the glass from which it is constructed, serves as a constant reminder that even the broken pieces within each and every one of us can serve as a source of light. It’s a lesson that took me some time to learn.

    Shortly after graduating from college, I took a long, brutally honest look at my life and realized that it had become stagnant and nearly joyless. I was entrenched in a profoundly unhappy relationship, working too much, and laughing too little. I decided then to make a change.

    I acknowledged that the lies I told myself—that I was unlovable, somehow broken, or a victim of an abusive past—had created a world in which deep happiness was seen only in glimpses.

    I accepted as truth that I had not just a right to find happiness but a duty to do so, and I dedicated myself to its pursuit. I ended that relationship, negotiated better hours at work, and set my mind to finding joy. 

    On an academic level, I did everything I could to ensure the growth of my spirit: I cultivated meaningful relationships, I kept a gratitude journal, I did yoga. I read and discussed countless books and articles about age-old wisdom and the secrets of happiness.

    Through dedicated action and a commitment to growth, I was able to rewire my brain to invite and accept happiness in myriad ways.

    But, on a personal level, my path was less clear. Some days I was astonished by the sheer beauty of life and felt fully connected and present. I had profound moments of clarity in which I knew that I was a part of the great fabric of the universe and, as such, deeply beautiful.

    But some days old patterns of dysfunctional thought would creep in. 

    I was astounded to find that my perception of my appearance could throw an entire morning off, or that I still struggled to understand why any person should love me.

    I battled disappointment and sadness as I grappled with those unwelcome thoughts. In those moments of darkness, I began to question whether I had grown at all.

    Meanwhile, friends, family members, and acquaintances would confide in me that my approach to life, cheerful nature, and natural light was an inspiration to them. As I shared some of the wisdom that I had learned during my journey toward self-discovery, I helped those around me ease their own suffering. Yet, still I questioned myself.

    I wondered, “How can I help anyone else when I don’t feel whole?” 

    It was during one of those moments of deep uncertainty that a dear friend urged me to acknowledge my own light.

    He asked me to imagine a world in which I hadn’t shared my joy, a place devoid of the little transformations I had made.

    I had to admit that if I had allowed those moments of darkness to overshadow the clarity I had achieved, the world would be a tiny bit less bright. I acknowledged that it was my duty to prevent that.

    I had to set aside fear—fear that I was not good enough, not complete enough—in order to allow my light to shine.

    There is a quote by Stephen Cope, from The Great Work of Your Life, that I have hanging in my bedroom. It reads, “Each of us feels some aspect of the world’s suffering acutely. And we must pay attention. We must act. This little corner of the world is ours to transform. This little corner of the world is ours to save.”

    With that in mind, I am able to act—to offer love, support, help, and kindness when I can. I am able to shine. It is, in fact, our suffering that allows us to transform the little corner of the world that is ours.

    The path to self-growth is not linear. It is a meandering journey through mountains and valleys, and occasionally there are more lows than highs. But it is a journey ever onward, and it is our light—that same light that exists in every one of us—that guides the way, if only we allow it to shine.

    Invite yourself to embrace every aspect of your being. Perhaps there will be times that you feel less than whole, but when those moments come, encourage yourself to remember a time when you made the world a more positive place. Regardless of where you are on your path, that moment mattered.

    The moment you share your light, the world becomes a brighter place.