Tiny Buddha

Tag: thoughts

  • The 3-Day Happiness Adventure: A Simple Guide to Getting Happy Fast

    The 3-Day Happiness Adventure: A Simple Guide to Getting Happy Fast

    Happy Woman

    “You have a choice each and every single day. I choose to feel blessed. I choose to feel grateful. I choose to be excited. I choose to be thankful. I choose to be happy.” ~Amber Housley

    What if I told you that you could dramatically and permanently increase your happiness within three days?

    And what if I told you that it was much easier than you think, based on a simple and logical approach, completely free, and you already have everything you need to succeed? Would you be interested? I assume you would be, but you might be skeptical.

    First, I am going to eliminate any skepticism, and then I will give you a straightforward and simple plan that you can implement for three days that will completely transform you, making you feel happier and leading you into a more grateful and abundant life. Sound good? Let’s begin.

    The Source of Happiness

    We’ve been taught that happiness is something to achieve, something that we go out and find.

    We look for a relationship, job, status, or lifestyle that we believe will make us happy. However, this approach to happiness has one major flaw: we are basing our happiness on things that constantly change and are beyond our control.

    By looking outside of ourselves for happiness, we are sure to have it forever slip through our grasp. Anything that might make us happy will not last, and this keeps us forever searching, always in pursuit. It has never worked and never will.

    But there are those who are consistently happy. What’s their secret? They have turned their attention inward and have realized one of the most thrilling and exciting aspects of life: that happiness comes from within, and that we can consciously choose to feel happy by directing our thoughts.

    Let’s try an exercise to illustrate this.

    Take a moment, close your eyes, and put your hands over your heart. Physically feel it beating.

    Be grateful for your heart and how it has guided you in your life. Ponder the fact that you didn’t have to earn your heart—it’s a gift. Think about how it’s always working for you, even while you’re sleeping. Really allow yourself to feel this. Take it in…

    Did you do the exercise? If not, go back and do it! You deserve a shot at happiness!

    Now, how does that feel? You have just redirected your mind to something positive. Positive thoughts lead to good feelings.

    With a little practice we can redirect our minds to think positively and to feel good. By following the instructions for the three-day happiness adventure, you will come to understand how to do just that.

    It’s All About How We Feel

    Like anyone else, I have had my share of struggle and difficulty. I have had moments of deep sadness, regret, loss, and fear.

    For years, I was involved in a relationship that tore me apart inside. I had pain and anger within me and I wanted to run from it, but I felt stuck and trapped.

    Eventually, it became too much to bear and I broke free from this detrimental relationship, got rid of nearly everything I owned, and moved to the other side of the world, to China.

    While in China, I went on a quest. I investigated Eastern mysticism, religions, and practices such as meditation, tai chi, and yoga. For years I searched, not knowing what I was searching for.

    Eventually, a lightbulb went off and I realized what I was looking for. In the end, it’s all about how we feel.

    We want a relationship, a job, a car, a higher status, to volunteer, or to fall in love because of how we think it will make us feel. And we want to avoid a breakup, a job loss, poverty, embarrassment, and the dentist because of the pain we think we will feel.

    I realized that how we feel is ultimately the result of our thoughts and what we pay attention to. Therefore, happiness and joy rely primarily on our attitude and perspective.

    I resolved to direct my mind. I was determined to focus only on that which I loved and was grateful for.

    Within a couple days, my entire life transformed. I was astonished by the changes that took place so quickly. And I was completely amazed at my ability to direct my thoughts and attention, a skill that I had left dormant all my life.

    Today, I wake up feeling terrific nearly every day. And many days I feel as if I am walking around in total amazement of the beauty around me, and in awe of the power within me. Yet, of course, I still face some difficulty and struggle, but much less than before. And that’s okay; some struggle is necessary.

    From difficulty often come our greatest lessons: loss can teach us what is truly precious, discontent can motivate us to imagine and pursue a greater life, and mistakes show us how we can become better. If we never knew sadness, we would never fully appreciate our happiness.

    Preparing For Your Happiness Adventure

    So our goal here is not to become like a happiness drone, constantly in a state of blissful joy, sitting cross-legged in utter contentment forever.

    Rather, the goal and the outcome of this three-day happiness adventure is to show you how to spend most of your time feeling good, feeling joyful and grateful.

    There is also another empowering outcome from this three-day adventure: it will show you that you are ultimately in charge of your state of mind and how you feel.

    In order to see results—truly exhilarating and mind-blowing results—you should give this your all.

    You will not see major changes if you do this halfheartedly or give up quickly. But if you really go for it and persist, weaving these exercises into the fabric of your life over the next three days, you will emerge from your cocoon as a butterfly, full of beauty and ready to soar for the rest of your life.

    Instructions for the Three-Day Happiness Adventure

    The instructions are simple and nothing needs to be added to this. For the next three days, you are to:

    1. Constantly point out what you love.

    All day, as much as possible, look for what you love and say it out loud.

    When something happens that you don’t like or if you find yourself thinking negatively, don’t fight it, don’t try to rid yourself of the negativity, simply look for something you love and point it out. You can say this to others or to yourself, but you should say it out loud as much as possible.

    Say: I love the way you smile, I love the color of those flowers, I love the smell of this food, I love how you did that, I love how this texture feels, I love how that tastes, I love taking care of you, I love how kind she is, I love this song, I love that I have a roof over my head, I love that I can so easily get light by flipping a switch, I love that I can read, I love that I have hands to do so much with, I love that there is so much beauty in the world and so on.

    2. Take eight minutes in the morning and eight minutes in the evening before going to bed to sit alone and undisturbed.

    Remove all distractions, all books and electronics. Sit only with your mind and list off some things you are grateful for. Say everything out loud.

    As you express your gratitude for each thing, person, and experience, take a moment to really feel how it feels to be grateful for that. Don’t rush through this. You can direct your thanks to a higher power, to your heart, or to nothing in particular; it doesn’t really matter.

    3. Every time you go to the restroom, pause for a moment and think of two things, people or experiences you are grateful for.

    Allow yourself to feel a sense of gratitude for these.

    4. Don’t watch or read any news.

    If you do this for three days, conscientiously and with persistence, you cannot fail to transform your perspective and your outlook. And, by doing so, your life will forever be more beautiful and joyful.

    We know that happiness is a choice. Now it’s in your hands. A path to greater happiness has been laid out for you. Will you choose to follow it?

    Happy silhouette via Shutterstock

  • How Thoughts Can Lead to Emotional Explosions

    How Thoughts Can Lead to Emotional Explosions

    Exploding Head

    “Stay present. Stay conscious. Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    It was approximately 1:20 pm on a sunny Thursday afternoon, and I was halfway through my presentation at a high school, when I was interrupted by a loud automated female voice blowing through the intercom speakers.

    “Please secure your classroom. Please secure your classroom,” it said.

    I was extremely alarmed but mainly confused. I looked at the instructor for direction. His face had turned bright red and it was obvious he was holding back panic. He dashed to the front of the classroom to lock the door and turn off the lights.

    “Please secure your classroom. Please secure your classroom,” the robotic voice continued to blare out.

    In an authoritative voice, the instructor asked everyone to move to the right side of the classroom, away from the door, find a desk, and sit under it in silence.

    I didn’t budge. I was waiting for him to explain to me that this was a routine drill the school had scheduled and that there was nothing to worry about.

    The explanation never came. I did, however, get a stern look signaling me to follow directions.

    I found a spot near the teacher’s desk next to a boy who seemed to be frozen in fear. As I was beginning to wonder how serious the situation could be, my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a group of students snickering and whispering.

    I turned to look at the teacher, who had gotten up from his hiding spot and looked extremely angry. In a loud, terrified whisper he said, “We could be on lockdown for up to four hours, and it’s very important that you don’t make a sound!”

    I tried to keep my cool, but after twenty minutes of dreadful silence, fear began to creep in. Could this be one of those shootings I’ve see on the news? What could possibly be happening out there? I’m in a prestigious neighborhood; could something really awful happen in a place like this?

    A million thoughts were bombarding my head when my mind flashed back to the speech I was just presenting before the lockdown.

    I had just been discussing details and examples from my own life to paint a picture of how persistent negative thoughts can lead to intense emotions. If left unresolved, those feelings can bubble up inside us and eventually cause us to burst emotionally.

    To illustrate this further, I had used a Coke bottle to prove my point.

    I had shaken the bottle for a few seconds, each shake representing one of life’s challenge. Then I opened the bottle, to represent our inability to hoard an overwhelming collection of negative, fearful thoughts. And of course, the soda explosion symbolized our emotional burst, caused by not properly dealing with the war zone within.

    My mind raced back to the present moment. If there did happen to be a gunman walking the school hallways, that person probably had a lot of negative thoughts and emotions they had not dealt with properly, which led up to this particular event.

    More than likely, he/she was not a happy person who woke up that day and just randomly decided to participate in such atrocity. A series of harmful thoughts and emotions had led them to potentially hurt innocent people.

    This is why it’s crucial to recognize and challenge harmful thoughts, and get help if we need it, I thought to myself.

    Our thoughts inspire our perspective, and our perspective is the number one indicator of how happy and peaceful we will feel in our lives.

    Our perspective determines how successful we will be, how happy our marriages are, and how much love and connection we feel toward ourselves. Our perspective is everything.

    Although not everyone’s boiling point will lead them to cause mass pain, it can be extremely detrimental to their own life.

    Not everyone will decide to terrorize a school, a movie theatre, or a mall. Perhaps not all emotional explosions will lead to suicide or self-harm, but they can all lead to adverse circumstances.

    The negative voice in our head can drive us to give up on losing weight or never achieve the financial freedom we crave. It can cause us to feel eternally stuck in a bad situation in life, or feel chronically unhappy and stressed.

    We regain our power when we realize the answer lies within ourselves.

    Becoming the ever-alert guardian of our mind is what will carry us forward.

    This means monitoring our thoughts and only accepting ideas and beliefs that align with strength, love, and grace. It means accepting that things don’t always go the way we hoped, but faithfully knowing that there is a better plan in store for our future.

    To change our reality we must first change our mind. We must consistently, concisely, and deliberately choose an empowering perspective. Then, and only then, will we begin to live a life fascinating beyond belief.

    As these thoughts poured into my brain I heard the instructor say that the lockdown had been lifted and we could all go back to the presentation.

    It turned out that the police were looking for a man who was on the run after committing a crime in the area, and to take extra precaution they asked that the school go on a secure lockdown.

    Whew!

    Thankfully, I had not been part of a ghastly school shooting, but that didn’t stop me from coming out from underneath the desk completely transformed.

    This experience had given my work a lot more meaning and value than I had previously placed on it.

    Sitting under a desk in that dark classroom, anticipating an emotional explosion, took the words of my presentation to another level because it gave me a glimpse of what an unguarded mind can lead a person to do.

    Our thoughts are the precursor to everything else we experience. We must guard them with our life.

    Exploding head image via Shutterstock

  • You Don’t Have to Control Your Thoughts

    You Don’t Have to Control Your Thoughts

    Control Your Thoughts

  • 10 Thinking Patterns That Can Fuel Depression

    10 Thinking Patterns That Can Fuel Depression

    Depressed

    “Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.” ~Buddha

    You know the feeling …

    When out of the blue your mood switches.

    One moment you’re feeling upbeat and optimistic; next you’re feeling down in the dumps.

    You can’t think clearly and struggle to put things into perspective. The bright outlook on life of a moment ago has vanished, and in its place now resides an intense longing for its return.

    You feel disconnected, lost, and confused, and everything around you looks and feels dark and bleak. And even though you have no reason to feel this way, it feels all too real to you.

    And you know where that leads. You’ve been there many times before and don’t want to go back.

    I know the feeling too.

    Recovery is such an illusory term.

    It implies that once recovered, the depression is gone. But those who have recovered know this is false.

    Recovering from Depression Is Not the End of the Battle

    Having spent half of my life depressed, two years after recovery, I still find myself waging the battle of relapse. A battle that at times seems harder to fight than the recovery—just as you tasted the sweetness of the non-depressed life, you never again want to taste the bitterness of depression.

    On the surface, a mood swing looks like “having a bad day.” The kind everyone experiences and snaps out of quickly. But for those with depression, the consequences of mood swings can be severe and lasting.

    First, there’s the sudden change in mood, the one that is more than “feeling-down-soon-will-snap-out-of-it,” followed by a drastic change in outlook. One moment you’re looking at life through clean lenses, and now dirty ones blur your vision.

    Then the inevitable guests start showing up—low self-confidence, paralyzed will, self-loathing, and the most dreaded of all, inertia.

    Not getting completely trapped in the spell of this depressed mood is key in preventing relapse, which is not always easy to do.

    How to Keep Depression from Disrupting Your Life

    I used to believe depression was about “feelings,” so my focus was on understanding and managing my emotions. An approach that not always kept me from relapse—until I learned about the connection between thoughts-feelings-behaviors and about mastering one’s mood, which gave me a new perspective on depression.

    We think. We feel. We behave.

    “It is an obvious neurological fact that before you can experience any event, you must process it with your mind and give it meaning. You must understand what is happening to you before you feel it.” ~David D. Burns, M.D.

    So, how do you master your mood? Well, it’s not that hard. It involves the following:

    1. Detecting the mood change, its severity, and duration.

    For me, the most severe of mood changes, when I’m most vulnerable to relapse, is when it lasts more than a couple of days.

    2. Knowing the consequences of giving in to the depressed mood, as this is key in forcing you to take action.

    In my case, it always leads to the vicious cycle of procrastination, guilt, regret, and self-loathing. A cycle that, once started, is difficult to break.

    3. Taking action to keep the depressed mood from lasting too long.

    The longer it lasts, the more debilitating it becomes, and the harder it is to get back to normal.

    One of the things I used to do as soon as my mood changed was write about how I felt, a strategy that didn’t always keep me from relapse. But when I came across Feeling Good by Dr. David D. Burns and learned about the thinking patterns of depression, I found a new way to battle it.

    The 10 Thinking Patterns You Need to Recognize to Prevent Relapse

    A few weeks ago, I found myself close to relapse after having completed a major project—one I’d been working on for a while that needed to be done—which put all other work on hold. When it was done, I felt pretty good, but the feeling didn’t last long, and I soon found my mood changing.

    One moment I was feeling happy and proud of what I’d accomplished; next I was miserable and beating myself down.

    I had no reason for feeling the way I did, and this was confirmed when I put the thoughts behind the feelings to the test using the ten thinking patterns of depression to challenge them.

    1. All-or-nothing.

    At the core of perfectionism is the tendency to evaluate ourselves in terms of absolutes and nothing in between—good or bad, winner or loser, smart or dumb. In this situation, not being able to do both—complete my project and keep up with other work—pointed to not having achieved the “perfect situation.”

    2. Overgeneralization.

    Believing that if something bad happened once, it will happen over and over and over. “I did it again,” the thoughts that reinforced the belief it will always be this way—unable to manage and prioritize my work.

    3. Mental filter.

    The tendency to focus on one negative aspect of a situation while ignoring all other positive evidence. In spite of having completed the project, my focus was solely on “how behind I was.”

    4. Disqualifying the positive.

    More destructive than mind-filtering, this involves taking a positive experience and turning it into a completely negative one. With all the distorted thinking already stewing in my head, the sense of achievement from this moment was replaced by a sense of failure for not being able to keep up with everything else.

    5. Jumping to conclusions.

    Automatically jumping to negative conclusions without any basis for it. The immediate assumption here was that “I’ll never be able to catch up,” even though I always have in similar past circumstances.

    6. Magnification and minimization.

    The tendency to magnify our mistakes and weaknesses while minimizing our successes and strengths. The heightened sense of failure for not being able to keep up obscured my abilities and skills to overcome this and any other challenges.

    7. Emotional reasoning.

    Looking at life through painful eyes where everything looks bleak and dark. Once the wheels of distorted thinking were set in motion, everything I needed to do to get caught up appeared daunting and impossible.

    8. Should statements.

    The useless mind-noise resulting from being disappointed with ourselves and the world, reminding us of what we could’ve, should’ve, or would’ve done differently. “I should’ve tried harder to keep up.” “I must do all of this to catch up.” These were the thoughts that began popping into my head.

    9. Labeling and mislabeling.

    The constant labeling and mislabeling of ourselves in a self-deprecating manner. Once trapped in this way of thinking, the usual self-loathing terms to devalue myself showed up—loser, not smart enough, can’t do anything right.

    10. Personalization.

    Feeling responsible and guilty when there’s no reason for it. Even though I had a valid reason to do what I did (postpone other work), I blamed myself and felt horrible for finding myself in the situation I was in.

    Everyone thinks in this manner at one time or another.

    But for those with depression, it’s a way of life, with each distortion feeding and supporting the others, keeping us in a constant state of emotional turmoil.

    Transforming the Distorted Thinking of Depression

    Giving the insane thinking of the depressed mind a name, an identity, takes away its power to make us depressed. A power that lies in its obscure nature and that, once exposed, can be seen and defeated.

    This new way of understanding how the depressed mind thinks revealed how most (if not all) of the time when I’m depressed, it has nothing to do with what’s going on in my life but rather the result of distorted thinking.

    Today, armed with this knowledge, whenever I feel the depressed mood coming on, I immediately start jotting down the thoughts that pop into my head. I give them form by labeling them, and then I replace them with rational ones by questioning their validity.

    In this situation, the negative thoughts “I am so behind, and I’ll never catch up” kept me from acknowledging the positive aspects of having completed a major project. A form of mind-filtering, they persisted, making me feel overwhelmed, guilty, and anxious, all potentially leading to relapse.

    On the surface, “falling behind” was true. However, the underlying assumption—that I intentionally procrastinated—was wrong.

    When I realized this, the distorted thoughts lost their validity giving way to a more accurate and rational way of thinking: That this was a major project that needed to be completed and required all my attention. And that “putting everything else on hold” was a conscious choice made and not due to procrastination.

    Master Your Mood and Stop Being Victimized by Depression

    One by one, I challenged and transformed every distorted thought until there were none. As a result, my mood improved, and I went back to relishing the joy and pride the moment warranted for having completed the project.

    You can do it too.

    Master the mood of depression so it doesn’t take over your life.

    Learn to master it, and never again feel the fear of relapse.

    Break the chains of its prison by giving form to its formless thinking, and free yourself once and for all.

    And never allow depression to keep you from fully and uninterruptedly savoring the joy that life brings!

    *This post represents one woman’s unique experience of preventing a depression relapse. If you’re struggling with depression and nothing seems to help, you may want to contact a professional. 

    Depressed image via Shutterstock

  • Let Go of Your Unhelpful Story: Accept, Surrender, and Move On

    Let Go of Your Unhelpful Story: Accept, Surrender, and Move On

    Man in Lotus Position

    “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I recently discovered just how powerful our thoughts can be. I learned that it doesn’t take time for us to accept our current situation; it simply takes a shift in our perceptions and a change in the stories we tell ourselves.

    The catalyst for this realization was sent to me, in a small envelope placed under the windscreen wipers of my car. Yes, it came in the form of a parking ticket.

    At first I was shocked and quite disappointed in myself for getting a parking ticket.

    As I drove home, I found myself building a story in my head: It’s so unfair. I didn’t realize it was rear-to-curb parking only. Other people were parked the same way and they didn’t have tickets. Why me?

    I saw the parking ticket as an attack against me personally, as an indicator that I wasn’t good enough. I was beating myself up and couldn’t understand why I had been fined.

    But then I stopped. I dug a little deeper and tried to unravel why I was feeling so upset. I realized I was making something insignificant into a really big deal.

    I was building a story that did not serve me at all. I was too attached to the current situation.

    The parking attendant didn’t know me personally; he was just doing his job. There was no one else that I could blame for the ticket; I had parked incorrectly and it was only fair that I received a ticket for doing so.

    Once I realized this, I was able to take a step back, and I thought to myself, You know what? It doesn’t matter what story I create. I’m still going to have to pay this fine. I may as well accept it and move on.

    There was no need for me to be so upset, and the only way to move past how unhappy I felt was to change my thoughts.

    In the last few years, as I’ve delved into self-study and spiritual enquiry, I’ve read a lot about the power of non-attachment and our ability to create our reality through our thoughts.

    Hundreds of articles, books, presentations, and videos all encouraged me to become aware of my thoughts, and to watch whether the stories in my mind serve me or take me further away from where I want to be.

    But I had never really put it into practice. At least not until the day I received my first parking ticket.

    As I drove home, I paid very little attention to the road in front of me because I was so caught up in my story about how unfair the whole situation was. Then suddenly a switch flicked inside my mind.

    It was probably the first time that I have truly been aware of my thoughts. I felt like an observer, watching my mind race and witnessing the birth of a new story.

    This sense of awareness made me realize how frequently I create stories in my head and how often I take something insignificant and turn it into something huge. I’ve learned how frequently I create drama and complications in my life.

    It’s certainly true that we can’t always control the situations we find ourselves in and we definitely can’t always control what happens to us. But it’s also true that we can control how we react. 

    When I realized just how petty my reaction was, I was able to shift my train of thought completely.

    I learned that we don’t have to waste twenty minutes or a whole day (or longer) creating stories that get us nowhere. We don’t have to turn a minor annoyance into a huge drama.

    Things can be so much simpler. We can accept what happens, even if we don’t like it.

    We can just watch as something happens, without making it into a personal problem that needs to be solved.

    We can be humbled by our errors rather than trying to shift the blame and pass off any consequences.

    We can accept, surrender, and move on. We don’t have to attach our happiness or sense of self to everything that happens in our lives. 

    The next time (and I know there will be a next time) something I don’t like happens, I will do my best to not take it personally.

    I will bring awareness to my thoughts and I will stop myself from creating a useless and unhelpful story. I will accept the situation, as it is, and I will try to keep my reaction cool, calm, and collected.

    I will react in a way that doesn’t cause undue stress or unhappiness.

    You too have the power to control how you react to the situations that unfold around you. You can bring awareness to your thoughts and to the stories your mind creates. And you can uncover a new sense of awareness and non-attachment without first needing to pay a fine.

    Man in lotus position image via Shutterstock

  • You Don’t Have to Believe You’re Not Good Enough

    You Don’t Have to Believe You’re Not Good Enough

    “I don’t know a perfect person. I only know flawed people who are still worth loving.” ~John Green

    “I’m not good enough.”

    I cannot possibly count the number of times this thought has passed through my head over the years. It’s been applicable to nearly every aspect of my life from childhood to my current status as an adult, parent, and business owner.

    Still, both the frequency with which this thought enters my head and the length of time I spend believing it have dropped considerably, so I think my story and the lessons I’ve learned are worth sharing—especially since I know I’m not alone in struggling with this belief.

    One of my earliest memories, if not my very first one, is of teetering on the edge of a nubby brown armchair, putting my head between my father’s downward cast eyes and whatever book it was in which he was so engrossed.

    Alas, my repeated attempts to get his attention did nothing. What could a preschooler assume in this instance? Even now, more than thirty years later, I don’t see how anything other than “not good enough” or “not interesting enough” could have crossed my mind.

    That was certainly not the last time my father’s behavior fed my worries that I was not enough. However, he has since passed from this world and blaming him does absolutely nothing to help me move forward; I am now an adult capable of making my own assessments of my value as a human.

    In other words: I am responsible for allowing myself to feel not good enough.

    But I didn’t know that for a long, long time, and I let others take me down a notch without ever questioning it.

    When a boy in my gym class made a mean comment about the size of my thighs, I never questioned him; instead, I simply believed he was correct and that I should feel badly about my body.

    When a close friend chose another friend over me and then, years later, a boy over me, I took the blame: obviously I was not enough. It never occurred to me that maybe she was the one with the issue.

    When I got paid less than I was worth, when I my writing was rejected, when I couldn’t solve every single one of my clients’ problems, when someone unsubscribed from my mailing list, I took all of this personally. I took it as proof that I was not good enough.

    Yet the years have certainly changed me for the better. In 2008 I learned that I was, in fact, in control of my thoughts. I could choose to believe or not believe the stories I was telling myself.

    I also learned that everyone struggles with feeling good enough, and that I was not alone.

    I learned that I could spend more time feeling good about myself if I chose to. I learned that the people who taught me I wasn’t good enough didn’t do it on purpose; they struggled with their own self-worth.

    Today I am a grownup who is mostly satisfied and happy with herself and confident in her place in the world.

    Yet it still creeps in. There are times, especially when it comes to motherhood and running a business, when I feel ill-equipped. When I feel the world crashing down around me, and the familiar “you’re not good enough” slithers into my thoughts, nearly undetected.

    But when it does happen, I have the means to turn it around. It doesn’t own or control me anymore. Here are the basics of turning “I’m not good enough” into “I’m really okay the way I am.”

    Your thoughts create your world, and you can absolutely take charge of them.

    It’s impossible to overstate the importance of paying attention to what stories you’re telling yourself and learning how to change those stories into ones that best serve you.

    Yes, you can spend your life repeating “I’m not good enough” over and over, but why? You can write a new script. You can also learn to let your negative thoughts float on by, like a feather in the breeze, instead of grabbing hold of them and getting sucked in.

    Try telling your story a new way.

    Building upon the previous point, try this exercise: Think of the most important events in your life, or a particularly trying period of your life. Write your story down the way you normally would tell it.

    Next, pretend you’ve been told to write the same story, but with a humorous slant. Then write it again, this time as though you were attempting to inspire others with your tale of overcoming adversity. And again, as though you were writing about a great adventure.

    The purpose of this exercise is to see how the same set of events, the events that shaped your beliefs, life, and thoughts, can take on many dimensions depending on your perception of them. Just knowing this may help you see yourself in a new light.

    There is plenty of proof out there that you are good enough, you just need to look for it.

    I bet you can think of a million ways you’re not good enough but struggle to list just a couple of ways in which you are. For instance, sometimes I struggle to feel like I’m interesting enough to be heard, and thus have trouble saying what I’m feeling and thinking.

    To counteract that, I must take the time to list the evidence that I am, indeed, enough. I actually write down the proof in a journal, or say it out loud to my husband so that it feels concrete.

    In this case, examples that I am in good enough include:

    • I do my very best to be open, honest, and authentic, which I know gives my words value.
    • I care deeply about others, so when I speak, I am trying my best to be supportive and helpful, which I believe makes me interesting and worthy of being heard.
    • Others have asked me to tell my story, asked for my help, or just wanted to get together to talk, so I must have something worthwhile to contribute.

    To try it yourself, pick one area in which you’re particularly struggling to feel like you’re enough. From there, look for any proof, any scrap of evidence, that you are. Write down every single thing you can think of, and make a regular habit of rereading the list and adding to it.

    Remember that you’re not alone.

    I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t, at one time or another, felt insecure about their worth or value or skills or intelligence. Somehow I find it helpful to know that even the most put-together, successful person out there struggles with the same things I do.

    Reach out to others, even if it’s only in your mind.

    If you have someone in your life that loves and cherishes you, why not ask for a little boost? I have gone to my husband many times when I felt down on myself, and hearing his perspective or just feeling his embrace does wonders to turn things around.

    Or perhaps you’ve got no one nearby, or want to rely on yourself to feel better. In that case, try thinking about yourself from the perspective of your parent, child, best friend, sibling, or spouse.

    Also, depending on your spiritual beliefs, you can try to see yourself through the eyes of your higher power, if you believe in one.

    In either case, write down what they might say and what they see in you for maximum impact and memorability.

    The truth is, I am good enough, and so are you.

    Maybe you’re not a good enough ball player to make it to the big leagues, maybe you’re not a good enough dancer to make a career of it, but as a human, you are just right. And when it comes to what’s most important, just do your best and tell yourself a new tale: I am good enough.

    Smiling woman image via Shutterstock

  • The Path to Freedom: Facing Painful Thoughts and Feelings

    The Path to Freedom: Facing Painful Thoughts and Feelings

    Sad Man

    “Life is an endless process of self-discovery.” ~James Gardner

    My thoughts lately have been so hurtful.

    Things like: I’m not a good writer. I’m ugly. I’m stupid.

    I’m not funny. I can’t carry a meaningful conversation. I’ll never be special.

    The world is out to get me. People take advantage of me. I’m boring and don’t matter.

    Like I said, hurtful. Crippling, demoralizing thoughts. One not-so-nice thing after another, and it makes me want to cry.

    Why the pain? Why the negative thoughts? Well, recently I spent two weeks playing a video game.   From the time I walked through the door at work till the time I left to go home at the end of the day I played.

    It was my escape. Finally, just recently, I put the game away. I took the toy away from the little boy.

    What I’m left with is that which I try to escape from—my negative thoughts and feelings.

    Whether it’s through video games, women, Instagram, Facebook, or food, to name a few distractions, I’ll use just about anything to check out from me. To not be present with my feelings of low self-worth and low self-esteem.

    That’s what I did with the video game for two weeks. I opted to numb out rather than sit with my thoughts and feelings and the struggles I’ve been facing with writing my first book. The video game was easier than dealing with the pain.

    Funny thing is, the pain from two straight weeks of video games and the inability to put them down became much worse than the pain of sitting still with my thoughts and feelings.

    Each day my eyes would hurt and my contacts would blur so much I couldn’t focus. Each day every muscle in my body would tense up as I followed around a little man on a dirt bike racing around on a tiny computer screen.

    No wonder I’ve had a stiff neck the past few days. No wonder my head feels like it’s in a vice. I’ve been hurting myself.

    We do that, don’t we? Run from our thoughts and feelings, that is. We run from anger, pain, shame, guilt, and fear.

    We run from thoughts that tell us horrible things. Things like we wont amount to anything, that we are not likable, not lovable, and don’t matter. We run and actually think that we’re helping ourselves.

    News flash: Running, checking out, numbing yourself, or whatever you want to call it isn’t helping. It’s hurting. It’s taking you away from the gift of being fully present with yourself. Yes, I just called it a gift. So then why run?

    For me it’s because I was never taught how to like and love myself. I was never taught how to deal with my emotions nor a head full of negative thoughts. Self-esteem? I had none.

    See, my mother died when I was three-and-a-half years old, and I grew up alone with my rageaholic father. Through him, I learned to believe that everything was my fault, that the world was out to get me, and that I didn’t matter. No wonder I want to escape.

    Feel feelings of low self-worth? No, thank you. I think I’ll check out with a video game.

    Don’t know how to esteem myself? Let’s find a woman. She can esteem me and solve all my problems.

    Yet in the end, don’t we always come right back to where we started? Doesn’t checking out from ourselves and our feelings only offer a temporary solution? It sure did, and still does, for me.

    For years I thought a woman was the answer to all my problems. A woman to complete me and make me whole. Yeah, not so much.

    My problems were right there waiting for me when it didn’t work out with the girl. Hi, ugly! So, I’d try again with a different girl thinking I’d get a different result. Nope. Same result. My pain and low-self worth were still right there waiting for me.

    I repeated this pattern for the better part of my adult life, until one day I realized that it wasn’t about finding something or someone to make me feel better about myself; it was about me. I realized that it was about me and my inability to esteem myself. My inability to like and love myself.

    So I did something I had never done before, ever: I turned inward and chose the path labeled self-discovery rather than continue down the one labeled self-pain. Most of us have or we wouldn’t be here on this beautiful site. Be proud of that; love yourself for that.

    Turning inward for me looks like learning how to love the side of myself that’s in so much pain.

    It looks like putting down the video game, wrapping my arms around that side of myself, and remembering that I’m okay and that I always have been. It also looks like me getting honest and sharing what I’ve shared with you here today.

    The path to freedom is learning to sit still with my thoughts and feelings, not a video game. In return, I get better at esteeming myself and recognizing the true authentic me, the beautiful man that I was born to be.

    San man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Stop Believing You’re Not Good Enough

    How to Stop Believing You’re Not Good Enough

    Insecure

    “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha

    Have you ever heard the phrase “your thoughts create your reality”? Have you ever wondered what this means?

    Go back to your childhood and recall a time when you got into trouble. I am sure you have at least one of these memories. This doesn’t have to be a major event. It can just be a time where you were scolded for knocking over your drink.

    Now remember your parents’ reaction. Were they angry or frustrated? Did they yell or give you an annoyed look? Did they send you to your room?

    How did it make you feel? Most likely you felt like you did something really bad or that you were bad.

    This feeling, multiplied by all your other similar experiences, created a belief within you. Through this belief you probably, without your knowledge, created a reality of being bad or not good enough.

    Now fast forward to the present and watch these memories from a new perspective. Have your friends join in. What are your thoughts now? What reactions do they have?

    Through different eyes, through different perspectives, we see and experience different realities.

    Here is a personal experience of mine. I was maybe six or seven, and my family and I were sitting around the kitchen table frosting cookies. This was an annual event at our house. We had all the colors of the rainbow of sugary, spreadable, delectable frosting.

    I was using the green frosting, spreading it oh so carefully on my cookie. When I was finished with the green I set the knife back into the frosting bowl. The knife, not secure in its vessel, tipped backward, sliding gracefully out of the bowl with a loud and splattering of green onto the linoleum floor.

    I don’t remember exactly what my mother said but I do remember her being upset, and I remember feeling like I really messed up and ruined things for my mother and the rest of my family. 

    This experience, along with other similar childhood situations, created a belief that if I did something wrong I would make someone angry or ruin a situation—essentially, I would be bad.

    So what did I do? Whatever I could to not elicit a reaction, including staying silent.

    Now we are going to fast-forward to the present. I can look back at this situation with new eyes. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t ruin the situation, and my mother wasn’t mad at me or even angry.

    The knife was too heavy and long for the shallow bowl, which caused it to tip. It was beyond my control.

    My mother’s reaction was one of frustration not because of green frosting on her easily moppable floor, but probably because she had a long day taking care of four kids and a house and was stuck in an unhappy marriage.

    Similar scenarios often happen to us as adults. I am a natural introvert. Walls are my friend.

    In a crowd of people I usually remain in the shadows, merely observing the happenings around me. In my observations I will notice groups of people maybe glancing in my direction while continuing to talk.

    My thoughts then go into super sensitive mode and create stories of being talked about. My thoughts go on an imaginative ride of insults and attacks, all on me, by those people across the way.

    Now I feel attacked. I am no longer having fun. I no longer want to be where I am.

    My thoughts created a false reality out of nothing. My thoughts had no basis in fact, yet they created a reality for me, true or not.

    Perspective can change the reality of any situation. Really, what is reality but an experience? And if everyone has a different experience from a different perspective, then doesn’t that mean there isn’t just one reality? That reality results from the arbitrary thoughts of many people?

    If we can acknowledge that each person’s thoughts and memories of a same experience are different, then can’t we admit that our thoughts of our experience are no more valid than the next person’s?

    If we have formed opinions about ourselves through the eyes of our thoughts and we have concluded that thoughts have no basis in truth, then aren’t our opinions of ourselves based solely on our thoughts, not truth?

    Is it possible to re-look at our thoughts and see them as just thoughts formed from different perspectives of memories?

    Are you willing to redefine your opinion that you’re not good enough with re-formed thoughts of being more than enough?

    Can you choose to see your thoughts as the controlling factor of your self-worth?

    If you can acknowledge that they are arbitrary thoughts, then the reality formed by said arbitrary thoughts are no more valid than a stranger’s thoughts about you.

    From here on out choose your thoughts wisely, because in some way they will be your reality.

    Insecure man image via Shutterstock

  • Why You Feel Alone with Your Feelings and Why You Never Are

    Why You Feel Alone with Your Feelings and Why You Never Are

    Man Alone

    “Life is actually really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~Confucius

    There were times when I felt that my thoughts had complete control over my life. I could convince myself of anything, really. My thoughts would rarely lift me up and, instead, convince me I would fail.

    I would fail at relationships. I would fail at my job. I told myself I was a failure.

    I honestly believed that I was the only one who experienced this level of personal rejection. Of course, I knew that it wasn’t unique to me because I knew other people struggled with self-confidence.

    Yet, the people in my life never talked about their lives in this way.

    After years of feeling like this, I began to convince myself that I was indeed alone—nobody else could possibly have these crazy thoughts and feelings. As an introvert, even I wasn’t always comfortable talking about it.

    I wanted to know why my stomach always hurt before I talked in front of people, why I always sweat when I was nervous, and why I pushed people away, even though I desperately wanted to feel connected.

    As I discovered more about myself, I realized that I interpreted my emotions rather than actually experiencing them.

    For instance, I continue to get nervous before I formally speak in front of people. I don’t know if this will ever go away. As an introvert, it’s just not something I’m 100% comfortable with. In the past, I would turn this fear into a story.

    “I shouldn’t be nervous. I am better than this. I hate when I get this nervous because everyone will notice. I will look like a fool.” You tell yourself this often enough and you start to believe these stories. It becomes your identity.

    Now, I accept that I am fearful before giving a speech. That’s okay. It’s a human experience and it’s uncomfortable for people like me.

    I notice it and experience it for what it is. I don’t allow myself to make it something it’s not, and the nerves no longer snowball into the sweats, the stomach pain, the anxiety.

    I did this for so long because I couldn’t accept who I was. I wanted to be something I wasn’t. I marveled at people who appeared to be so confident and put together all the time. I wanted to be someone else, and I beat myself up whenever I didn’t meet those standards.

    The mind is a powerful thing—we all know this—so powerful it starts to analyze our basic human feelings, emotions, and experiences.

    Over time, this can cause debilitating anxiety or depression.

    After years of feeling this way, I got to a point where I was just exhausted. It was my own rock bottom.

    As an introverted guy, the biggest lesson I had to learn was that it is okay to feel emotions. That was the first step.

    At a deeper level though, it is also human to feel anything. This is just as natural as breathing, swallowing, chewing, and sneezing.

    I had to stop trying to control it all.

    It doesn’t mean I go around crying, laughing, and yelling at the world around me. I am just aware of my emotions, simply for what they are. Not intellectually aware, experientially aware.

    When we become aware of our feelings, thoughts no longer have the power to interpret them into something they’re not.

    I now understand that this is what connects all of us as people—our innate ability to experience life rather than analyze it.

    We are all capable of this.

    Despite this, why do we default to analyzing rather than experiencing our emotions? For one, I don’t believe we are taught and encouraged to talk about emotions. As a guy, this especially rings true. We are told from a young age to just buck up and figure it out.

    To the best of our ability at the time, we also try and protect ourselves from the world around us. Perhaps it was something we learned to cope as a child or young adult. The emotions were there but for whatever reason, we didn’t allow ourselves or were unable to experience them.

    But those emotions don’t just go away. So we busy ourselves to take our minds off of it. We rationalize how we feel (yet don’t actually feel). We overeat to mask how we are really feeling. Our stomachs continue to churn. We don’t sleep as well. We joke about our situation to make us feel better.

    We consciously or unconsciously build layer upon layer of protection, which only covers up what’s really going on.

    Only when we begin to peel away these layers and experience the pain we’ve covered up for so long can we begin to heal. The intellectual mind cannot do this because it continues to want to control and interpret how we feel.

    The more I peeled away these layers, the more I was able to let go of who I thought I should be and to experience the pain I’d held on to for so long.

    I thought I should be more successful. I thought I should be more driven. I thought I should be a better son, athlete, student, friend, and boyfriend. It was never enough.

    Only when I experienced the pain of the shame I felt as a younger guy, who made mistakes but did the best he could at the time, was I able to let go of that pain.

    The fascinating thing is after I experienced that pain, it no longer ate away at me. There was nothing to hide or cover up anymore. It was so simple. All of that pain was simply gone after years of it buried beneath protective layers of security.

    I let go of what should have been and experienced what was.

    The more you let go of control, the more you are able to experience an abundant life. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the happy, the sad—they’re all part of the human experience. When we allow ourselves to experience all of it, we can then set ourselves free.

    We no longer act from a place of fear but rather a place of awareness.

    Start by allowing yourself to sit with your thoughts. As a thought arises, observe it for what it is—a thought, something this is not a part of your identity. Detach yourself from thoughts and, as you begin to separate thought from experience, you will see the two are vastly different.

    So, there really isn’t anything important in life to we need to make sense of, intellectually. Life is what it is and how we experience it. We need to remind ourselves of this:

    It’s perfectly okay to be human.

    Remember there are many other people out there struggling with some of the same things you are. After all, we are all human.

    We are not alone.

    Man sitting alone image via Shutterstock

  • How To Change The Past By Changing Your Thinking

    How To Change The Past By Changing Your Thinking

    “The most positive action we can take about the past is to change our perception of it.” ~Deepak Chopra

    Death didn’t happen quickly like in the movies.

    A compassionate nurse set the tone and gently guided us through the ordeal. Mom, Dad, my other brother, and I spread out so that one of us held each of Chris’ hands and feet with a person at his head. Time passed in slow motion.

    In horror, I watched for more than an hour as his breathing abated, with the pauses in between his raspy, strained breaths becoming longer and longer. I fervently sent him love and light and wished him peace as I watched the scene unfold through my tears.

    Chris’ lips were chapped and cracked from breathing oxygen through a mask for weeks. A piece of skin on his upper lip fluttered with each breath, but in the prolonged pauses between breaths, it lay still. Each time the skin went inert, I thought, “This is it.”

    But he would take another shallow breath one more time until the flap was frozen and his chest motionless forever. Putting a stethoscope over his heart, the nurse said, “It’s awfully quiet in there.”

    It was New Year’s Eve 1995. After two years of rapidly declining health, Chris, my brother with the wicked sense of humor, flawless taste, and the ability to make me believe he was invincible, succumbed to AIDs at the age of thirty-three.

    In the years following his death, I numbly went on with my life, like I was supposed to, like I had to. Being the mother of two beautiful, energetic young boys, there was plenty to be happy about and thankful for, but I only grew more depressed as the gruesome scenes of Chris’ sickness and death played on an endless loop in my head.

    As time passed, Chris became a distant memory, like a book I knew I’d read once but couldn’t quite recall. I knew how the story ended, but the details were blurred behind a cloud of hurt.

    Over the years, the highlights reel of the ugliness from my eighteen-year marriage and divorce got equal mental airtime along with the drama from a subsequent tumultuous three-year relationship.

    Eleven years after that New Year’s Eve in the hospital, I found myself a depressed, divorced, single mother with no idea who I was or why I was here.

    I couldn’t find anything resembling the strong, smart, feisty sister Chris had loved. In a pill-popping stunt, I tried to commit suicide, which only made things worse—much worse—resulting in a serious brain injury and losing custody of my boys.

    While healing from the suicide attempt, I realized that I had been torturing myself with the painful memories. I was doing it to myself! While this point may be apparent to some, it was a huge “aha” for me, and I also realized that if I was doing it, I could stop it.

    Yes, Chris died and went through a horrible illness. Yes, there were many messy times from my marriage, and hurts from the following relationship. All of it really did happen—no denying that—but I was the one keeping the pain alive and bringing it into the present.

    It really boiled down to making the decision not to do this to myself anymore.

    Because of neuroplasticity, the scientifically proven ability of our brains to change form and function based on repeated behaviors, emotions, and thoughts, the more I dwelled on the sad memories, the more I reinforced them.   

    “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” This saying, from the work of Donald Hebb, means that synapses, the connections between neurons, get more sensitive and new neurons grow when activated repeatedly together.

    Our brains also add a subjective tint to our memories by subconsciously factoring in who you are and what you believe and feel at the time of the recollection. The act of remembering changes a memory. So, as I became more depressed and hopeless, the memories became darker.

    But the good news is that the reverse is also true. Neural connections that are relatively inactive wither away, and a person can consciously influence the process in a positive, healthier way. I made the memories stronger and more painful, and I could make them weaker and more loving.

    Through mindfulness and meditation, I learned to become aware of and take control of my thoughts and mind. By realizing my subconscious influences and consciously choosing which ones I allowed to have impact and intentionally inserting new ones, I changed my past.

    Not literally, of course. But by pairing more positive thoughts and emotions with negative memories and feelings and modifying my perspective about past events, I changed their role in my present, which, in turn, altered my brain and life for the better.

    The goal is not to resist painful memories or experiences and grasp at or try to force positive ones instead. That’s almost impossible and leads to its own kind of suffering.

    In his book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, Rick Hanson writes:

    To gradually replace negative implicit memories with positive ones, just make the positive aspects prominent and relatively intense in the foreground of your awareness while simultaneously placing the negative material in the background….

    Because of all the ways your brain changes its structure, your experience matters beyond its momentary, subjective impact. It makes enduring changes in the physical tissues of your brain which affect your well-being, functioning and relationships.  

    If your head is filled with painful memories of the past, I want you to know that you can change this! I did.

    I certainly still remember Chris’ tragic illness and death, but I choose to focus on the times we laughed so hard that we got the “gigglesnorts.” I prefer to see him on the dance floor working up a sweat. I recall how much he loved me and that adored feeling I had when I was with him.

    I even view his death differently now. Instead of feeling the horror and shock of that night, I can now feel the love and support for him and one another in that hospital room.

    In any life, past and present, there’s always going to be pain, joy, and everything in between. Your experience of your life and your brain are shaped by what you choose to focus on. You can torture yourself with the past or choose better feeling thoughts and memories.

    It really is that simple. Simple, but not easy.

  • You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings, and They Don’t Have to Bring You Down

    You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings, and They Don’t Have to Bring You Down

    Woman in Tree Pose

    “Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ” ~Reinhold Niebuhr

    Think about the future! Don’t do something you’ll regret! You need to plan for tomorrow! I wish I hadn’t done that! Will things ever work out? Why did they do that? Will I ever find happiness? Why has life made me the way I am? What’s wrong with me?

    Around and around it went inside my mind, a never-ending internal conversation full of questions and uncertainties—the not knowing driving me insane and the desperation increasing every day. I must be able to resolve this, I thought. I need answers. I was overwhelmed by questions, uncertainty, indecision, paralysis, and fear.

    I couldn’t hold on to jobs or relationships. I became depressed, hurt the people I loved, and coped with it all by losing myself in drink and drugs. I was either reckless or petrified. I couldn’t communicate for fear of saying the wrong thing, but I desperately wanted to tell someone.

    The truth is I felt liberated when I couldn’t think. When the internal conversation was either struck dumb or so garbled I could laugh it off, I had some sort of respite.

    Later I would learn that I was self medicating for a generalized anxiety disorder but, at the time, I just knew that being out of my mind was preferable to being in it.

    Change Is Possible When We Act Mindfully

    I was extremely lucky. I live in a society that has within it people who understand and services that give support. Most importantly, I have an incredible family and true friends.

    When I needed it, was ready to make a change, and able to accept responsibility for my own behavior, my recovery began.

    During my recovery I was taught and used a behavioral model called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT.) This is based upon three basic concepts:

    Acceptance

    I learned to foster greater acceptance for my own thoughts and feelings, other people, events beyond my control, and the beliefs I held at any given moment. By doing so I was able to break away from my preoccupation with anxiety and focus upon my recovery.

    Commitment

    I committed to change—to focus upon moving toward the things that really mattered in my life and to travel through the spiral of change on my own journey of recovery.

    Behavior

    I changed my behavior through mindfulness. I learned that regardless of my circumstances or the thoughts that colored my perception, my behavior could either move me away or toward the things that mattered to me. I had a choice. Not necessarily an easy choice, but a choice nonetheless.

    The Importance of Just Being

    I was one of the many with an addiction who had learned to act mindlessly. This is not to say that my behavior was without reason. Far from it.

    I always had good reasons to get wasted. I was feeling anxious and told myself I couldn’t cope, or I was angry and couldn’t see the point, or I was happy and felt like celebrating. In fact, I had an inexhaustible supply of reasons.

    I had learned a coping strategy that enabled me to manage my condition. Just like learning to drive or making coffee in the morning, I behaved on autopilot, without awareness of my own behavior.

    There’s nothing wrong with this psychological process. It’s an important part of being able to function. If every time you got behind the wheel or wanted a coffee you had to consciously relearn the process, your day would soon become totally unmanageable.

    Autopilot behavior like this is learned by repetition and sits in our subconscious, ready to be put into action when we need it. This is fine as long as the behavior benefits us and moves us toward the things that we need. Like driving us to work.

    The problem comes when the behavior not only takes us away from the things we value but also starts to create more problems than it solves.

    This was the nature of my addiction. Beyond the physical dependency (brutal but relatively short lived through medical detox), I discovered that my sense of self had been replaced by a yearning to be someone or something else. Something not me. Not me at all.

    I’d developed an obsession with wanting to become—become free from anxiety; become a more interesting person; become relaxed; become fulfilled; become happy.

    It was my desperation to change that led me to stay the same for ten years.

    How Living In The Now Changes Everything

    Acting mindfully and being aware of the now changed everything for me. As Eckhart Tolle so wisely wrote, “…the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

    I discovered that I am not who I think I am.

    My thoughts are my own but they do not describe me. Because I think or feel anxious, that doesn’t mean that I am anxious. It means I am experiencing the symptoms of anxiety, not that I am anxiety.

    If I am aware of now, then I notice these symptoms as they elevate my heart rate, dry my mouth, place intrusive thoughts in my mind, and push me toward “fight or flight response.”

    By noticing these sensations, I can be an observer of them and no longer a slave to them. I choose to identify them and give them a name. I choose to look at them in their stupid faces. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but I have learned to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

    I do not need to compensate for the things I feel or believe because they are simply thoughts and sensations that cannot harm me.

    If we are self-aware and mindful of behavior, then we can exercise choice over what we do right now. We can act not in response to the pressure of our thoughts and feelings, but because we are aware of what we value.

    Noticing is key. If we don’t notice what’s happening, then we can’t have a choice over how we respond to those things (whatever they may be).

    If I go to a room I’ve never been in before, open the door, and meet a person I’ve never met before who then tells me that I look ugly, I will have an emotional response. I can no more control those circumstances or my emotional response than I can the orbit of the planets.

    By noticing my reaction, I can accept my thoughts, feelings, and the reality of my situation. If I don’t, I will probably just react to the way I feel. Perhaps I’ll cry, shout abuse, or even take a substance to “help me calm down.” However, if I am aware and I notice what’s going on for me, then I have another option.

    I can pause before I act. I can choose my behavior based upon my awareness of both the situation and what matters to me.

    I have let go of trying to change the way I feel, and of trying to become something or someone else. I am simply living in the now, and I know that only my behavior shapes my destiny, regardless of my thoughts.

    I am aware of my behavior and I can control it; and, in doing so, I am living my life with purpose.

    If like me, you have struggled or are currently struggling with anxiety, mindfulness could help you, as well. You are not your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. You don’t need to try so hard to control them; you just need to accept them and come into the present moment so you can control what you do.

    Woman in tree pose image via Shutterstock

  • A Simple Technique to Quiet Your Mind and Be Present

    A Simple Technique to Quiet Your Mind and Be Present

    “Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.” ~Osho

    Meditating. It’s one of those things that we all know we’d be better off doing, but most of us struggle with it immensely.

    It’s difficult. It’s hard to find the time. And it often doesn’t seem like it’s working.

    For many years, I’ve tried to make meditation a regular habit. But rarely can I do it consistently. It’s almost always the first thing to go when I’m crunched for time or feeling stressed.

    Of course, those are the times that meditation is best!

    But, for someone like me who has difficulty paying attention in general, the standard “beginner’s meditation” is often insufficient. It’s quite challenging to do nothing but focus on your breath for five minutes, let alone twenty or more.

    This has only gotten more challenging since moving from a university setting to a full-time job. Now my mind is often so crammed with technical details of troubleshooting health information systems that the idea of shutting off my mind for even a few minutes feels nearly impossible.

    I know I’m not alone here. Many people struggle with this, and it is a nontrivial problem. I’m not an insomniac, but on numerous occasions I’ve been completely unable to go to sleep because I simply cannot shut my mind off long enough to pass out.

    Sometimes I’m concerned with what someone said to me at work that day. Sometimes it’s missing my family and friends. Sometimes I beat myself up for not going to the gym that day. And sometimes it’s just a whole mess of thoughts that I can’t quite pin down.

    As such, I’ve been in the market for a meditative technique that can be done any time, anywhere, for as long or short as I’d like, and without requiring the ability for sustained attention. I believe I’ve just found this technique.

    Before going into it, I would like to acknowledge the fact that having the ability to sustain your attention for extended periods is invaluable, and absolutely worth working toward. The technique I will be discussing should be used to help build this capability, not to replace it entirely.

    The Technique Sensory Awareness

    Rather than directing your attention inward, say, toward your breath, what about directing it outward toward the world around you?

    This is an approach that I first came across right here on Tiny Buddha, when Lori described “the noticing game.”

    The idea is that you can expand your awareness by paying attention to the things around you, and trying to notice as much of your environment as possible. A great, common example of this would be “people watching.”

    The noticing game has helped me tremendously as a meditative technique, but it does have its limitations.

    For instance, I’ve found that it tends to cause a feeling of separateness—that I am in some sense isolated from whatever it is that I am observing. In addition, I have a tendency to search around more frenetically than I should, trying to notice the “coolest” thing in my environment.

    Surely, this is not the intention behind the exercise, but I do feel as though it is a consequence of the simplification that comes from looking at it as a game. While the noticing game has benefited me greatly, I’ve recently been taking it to the next level with a slight modification of that approach.

    A couple weeks ago, I came across a great method of expanding my awareness in a fascinating book about Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. You can think of it as a more generalized or holistic version of the noticing game.

    The goal is to maximize the use of your sensory perception.

    When we are not conscious of it, we filter out a huge quantity of sensory data that is not useful for whatever task we are trying to accomplish. This is a great evolutionary strategy, and it also gives us the opportunity to expand our awareness whenever we feel like it. Double win!

    First, let your vision expand peripherally. No need to turn your head, look around, or change your body position at all. You can see (at least in my experience) about 50% more of your environment simply by being conscious of it. Try it out now!

    Expanding your visual awareness like this makes you feel more alert and “in the moment.” In other words, it does much of what traditional meditation does, but without needing to focus on anything in particular.

    But why stop at just visual perception? You can pay more attention to the sounds in your environment as well.

    You need not focus on a particular sound; simply let the noises in your environment get consciously registered in your mind. Huge amounts of ambient noise gets filtered out, but you can easily remove that filter for short periods of time, thereby noticing much more of your environment.

    Next, notice your body. Right now, I’m quite aware of an uncomfortable twinge in the center of my back. But until I started paying attention a moment ago, I couldn’t actually “feel” my butt in my seat, or the bottoms of my feet on the ground.

    These feelings simply got filtered out, because they are bland and uninteresting from an evolutionary standpoint. But they’re actually quite interesting as I pay attention to them.

    There’s really nothing new or revolutionary about this technique. In fact, one of its major advantages is the simplicity of the whole thing; there’s no need for any complicated maneuvers.

    We all have much more awareness potential than we actually use in our daily lives. Instead of actively trying to notice specific things in your environment, you can let the environment come to you and soak it all up together.

    Most of us, most of the time, are experiencing life on autopilot. But without a huge amount of effort, we can begin to spend more and more time in a state of calm awareness, where the trials and tribulations of the day become unimportant.

    Our anxieties and concerns take on a fraction of the significance we normally attribute to them. And who wouldn’t want that?

  • We Are Shaped by Our Thoughts

    We Are Shaped by Our Thoughts

    Shaped by Our Thoughts

    Source

  • The Power of Silence: How to Free Yourself from Painful Thoughts

    The Power of Silence: How to Free Yourself from Painful Thoughts

    “Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.” ~Hermann Hesse

    As a child, I hated when someone told me to sit still and be quiet, and rightly so. I was young and full of energy; every minute of being still and silent was a minute of missing out on this magnificent life.

    Then, as I grew older and entered into teenage and young adult years, it grew into a fear with a capital “F” of being still and silent; for as soon as I was quiet and still, the noise in my head got increasingly louder and more powerful.

    If the chatters of my head were beautiful, joyful, and empowering, that would have been uplifting. But they were voices of judgment, negativity, and self-loathing, nothing else.

    To me, those chatters, voices, and thoughts were me. My head would chatter day and night, even in my sleep. Noise, heaviness, thinking, and more thinking, sometimes my head felt like it was about to explode.

    I wasn’t even aware I was thinking. I was just on autopilot. I would act and react and get triggered into waves of emotions and feelings, which churned into more turbulence, heaviness, and weariness.

    Everything became dysfunctional because I couldn’t interact effectively with people or life. My whole reality, both inside and outside, was warped.

    I was a paranoid, fearful, self-loathing, neurotic human being, so my life and world were full of fear, anger, and depression. Life was an endless battle, as everyone and everything was always against me.

    I got to the point of total exhaustion. I eventually lost all coherence and overdosed on pharmaceutical codeine painkillers, just so I could have peace, silence, and rest. I was totally depleted, and I felt I had lost my battle with life.

    Lying in the hospital, slipping in and out of consciousness, I deprived someone else who was probably critically injured and in need of the bed. But I had a moment of peace and silence because I left my body and head.

    As I stood and looked at my weary body and still very heavy head, I was in the silence. At that moment, the question arose, “If I can see and look at the ‘me’ lying on the bed, then I must not be ‘me,’ so who am I?”

    Of course, I never spoke about this or they would have said I was having hallucinations and sent me straight to the loony bin.

    Amazingly, I survived and took off far away where I couldn’t be found, nor forced to take medication. It was inevitable; I had started on the quest. I had to find that silence again, for it was real.

    What was that silence and stillness that I glimpsed? I knew from that day on there was something more. Over the course of the following years, I rediscovered and nourished that silence, and it grew to be my anchor, healer, and guide. Here’s what I learned.

    Nature’s core is silence.

    Make time for yourself every day to connect in some way with nature. Walk barefoot on the grass, swim in the ocean, watch the sunset, stroke an animal, or even weed the garden. Submerge yourself in nature, and you will experience silent, unconditional, utter bliss and peace from your core.

    Every time I’m in nature, I find that time literally stops and thoughts quiet. All that’s left is the beautiful sounds of birds chirping, water trickling, winds howling, and all the gaps of nature’s silence in between.

    Feed and grow that silence.

    Reading spiritual books or articles, listening to enlightened masters, practicing yoga or qigong, listening to music that you resonate with, dancing and moving your body will feed and nourish your silent core within.

    Meditation is the ultimate channel and food for inner silence. However, unlike nature, which is effortless silence, meditation may be slightly more challenging. Sitting or lying there unmoving and in quietude, the brain may seem anything but silent or still.

    I used to find that whenever there was drama in my life, my brain would get louder. The thoughts were more controlling and dominating, the emotions more intense, and my energy zapped. It was almost like my thinking brain was sucking up all the energy from my entire body.

    But I continued to feed and grow that silence by persisting and holding in quiet meditation, or nourishing it through active meditative activities that anchored it.

    Trust the silence.

    Even if the silence was minuscule, I always chose to stay in it. The less attention I paid to the thinking mind, the softer and dimmer the thoughts became, and the more the silence and stillness grew.

    Instead of resisting or fearing your thoughts, simply be aware. Allow them to be, but don’t attach to them. You have a body that feels and a brain that thinks. They are a part of you, but they are not you.

    In silence, you become aware that you have the freedom and power to choose the types of thoughts you wish to entertain and empower, and the thoughts you wish to ignore and diffuse.

    Silence and stillness came hand in hand. Together, they were my best friends. I loved my early mornings and nights just before bed, for when I shut my lids in meditation I disappeared into the void of peace, stillness, and silence, my essence.

    Silence and stillness are teachers.

    In silence, my head was lighter and clarity emerged on its own accord. Unfathomable strength revealed itself, which helped me let go of my painful past, forgive those who had hurt me, release pent-up emotions, and unfold into compassion and my true nature of unconditional love. Through the healing, my silence is now infused with deep wisdom.

    —

    Sometimes, like myself, you may find yourself careless and allow this connection with your silence to lapse. Perhaps your excuse might be, “No time, too hard, later, tomorrow, next week, after I finish this project, after I solve that issue. Life’s too good right now, I’m fine so I don’t need it.” Then bang!

    A big wave inevitably comes along, catches you off guard, and dumps you straight into the mouth of the controlling mind again. The silence may shrink and disappear. That’s only human.

    Hold yourself in the space of compassion and return to the voice in the heart. That will lead you back into silence and stillness. The voice in my heart is the silent voice, no words, simply a knowing.

    The more I listen and follow, the stronger it becomes. It has about it an air of strength, love, wisdom, and joy. It works magic, it leads me to meet people I am meant to meet, go to places I am meant to go, and do things I am meant to do.

    With devotion and commitment, the work of maintaining and sustaining your silence will naturally become a joyful routine and not a chore.

    There will also come a day when there is only silence and stillness, and that is all. All else arises out of that silence. And flow emerges. The result: Reverence, unconditional peace and love, and infinite possibilities.

    What does this mean? You transcend your limited physical reality, know the true bigger picture, and now integrate your wisdom and truth into manifesting your soul purpose in life.

  • 10 Habits of Unhappy People (And How to Fix Them)

    10 Habits of Unhappy People (And How to Fix Them)

    “Ego says, ‘Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace.’ Spirit says, ‘Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.’” ~Marianne Williamson

    Have you ever felt that something was missing in your life?

    Who am I kidding, everyone has.

    I used to be unhappy. But not just unhappy—miserable.

    I’d look at other people and wonder what they had that I didn’t. I was sick of living my life. And being sick of it was the tipping point that changed it all. It’s what got me moving in the direction of what made my heart sing.

    As I moved forward, I discovered that what was making me miserable wasn’t outside of me, but the habits I had built up over the years.

    I’d like to share with you what those habits were, and how I overcame them.

    1. Waiting for clarity.

    I thought that in order to do what I loved and be happy, I had to know where I was going.

    Turns out that wasn’t. It was just a thought that I believed.

    When I took action despite feeling confused, and simply did my best, I discovered that I could always take one step forward, clarity or no clarity.

    It was like walking in a heavy fog. As long as I kept moving forward, more of my path revealed itself. But if I stood still, nothing would happen.

    Fix: Don’t wait for clarity. Listen to your heart and take one tiny step forward. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

    2. Seeking permission from others.

    I wanted others to tell me I was on the right track. The more I did this, the emptier I felt inside.

    Why? Because I was giving my power away. Instead of listening to my own guidance system, I was relying on someone else.

    It was confusing and disempowering.

    I’ve never had an easy time trusting life. I worry a lot. But over the years I’ve realized that trusting myself is the only way toward living a fulfilling life.

    Once I stopped trying to seek permission, or figure things out, my inner wisdom grew stronger, because it was no longer clouded by thoughts.

    Fix: Don’t look to someone else for validation for your dreams. Go after what makes you come alive. That’s enough.

    3. Hoping for future salvation.

    Another unhelpful habit I have is living in the future, thinking that reaching my goals will make me happier.

    However, I’ve noticed that once again, this is just a thought that I give power to.

    I’ve also noticed that I’ve reached plenty of goals that I thought would make me happy, but didn’t.

    Like me, you’ve probably heard the following phrase over and over again: “Happiness comes from the inside. It’s available right here, right now.”

    For a long time, I wondered, “That’s all fine and good, but how do I use that in my life?”

    The answer was to witness my thoughts and let them pass by. I don’t have to believe every thought that tells me that the future holds the key to my happiness.

    Once I let those thoughts pass, I noticed that there’s a source of joy within, always available to me.

    Fix: When you find yourself living in the future, just notice what you’re doing. Let go of the tendency and observe what’s going on. This is a practice, so don’t worry if you don’t get it perfect.

    4. Wanting to take big leaps.

    When I get caught up in thinking that the future will save me, I want to take big leaps. I want to hurry to my goal.

    Yet this behavior makes reaching my goal less likely. It introduces sloppiness into my work. It produces an aroma of selfishness.

    But, if I let things take their time, and if I let those thoughts pass, there’s a sense of peace.

    As I write this, I’m not in a hurry. I sense the wanting to finish, but I witness it. I don’t get involved. Then I return my focus to writing and letting the words flow on paper.

    And my soul smiles. My heart nods. My breath deepens.

    I remember: “This is it. This is life.”

    Fix: Big leaps assume that happiness is in the future. Take a deep breath. Notice how much happiness is available right now. No big leaps needed, just a remembering of who you are.

    5. Having faulty expectations.

    For a long time, I believed that I could eliminate negativity from my life.

    But every day does not have to be a happy day.

    Life is sometimes difficult. The problem isn’t the difficulty, but how I relate to it. If I think it shouldn’t be there, I suffer.

    Again, it comes down to my thinking. Life is as it is; my thinking creates my experience of life.

    When I notice my expectations, I can let them be. This doesn’t mean I don’t feel the sting of something I label as bad; it simply means that I don’t have to pour more gasoline on the fire.

    I can’t control life, but I can control how I use my attention.

    I don’t have to change my thoughts; just notice what’s going on and how I’m creating my experience of the present moment.

    Fix: Notice how your expectations make you unhappy. Bring your attention to this moment. Do the best you can with what you have.

    6. Taking your thoughts seriously.

    “You’re not good enough.”

    “You’ll end up homeless if you follow your heart.”

    “What will people think of you?”

    We all have thoughts that freak us out. Yet I have days when I don’t care about those thoughts.

    So what’s different between the good days and the bad days? Simply my state of being. When I feel good, my emotional immune system is more stable.

    I remember that my feelings are simply an indication of how trustworthy my thinking is. When I feel bad, it’s a sign that I need to take my thinking less seriously.

    When I feel good, that’s when I can solve problems. But often I find that problems solve themselves, if I’m willing to get out of the way.

    So what I’m repeating over and over again is the fact that it’s our thinking that makes us unhappy, not our circumstances.

    Fix: Experiment with taking your thinking less seriously for sixty seconds at a time. See what happens and how you feel.

    7. Playing things safe.

    When I push the boundaries of my comfort zone, I tend to get anxious, afraid, and worried.

    But after a while the discomfort becomes comfortable. It becomes familiar.

    What changed? My thinking.

    When I let anxious thoughts pass, eventually my thinking returns to normal. But if I try to figure things out, I prolong the “healing” process.

    I’ve realized that to be fulfilled in life, I have to grow and challenge myself. To do that, I need to step outside my comfort zone. I have to stop playing things safe.

    There are no guarantees in this world.

    All I can do is follow my heart and be aware of my thinking. That’s it. I’ll have scary thoughts, but that’s okay. I can still take one tiny step forward.

    Fix: Become aware of the fact that being outside of your comfort zone is simply believing a different set of thoughts. You can always listen to your heart, and take the next step.

    8. Focusing on lack.

    I can have wonderful relationships, do work I love, and have life go swimmingly.

    But if one thing goes wrong, and I focus on it, I make myself miserable.

    And the thing about life is that there will always be something “wrong.”

    The key to happiness isn’t to get rid of your problems, but to learn to live with them. To notice how your thinking gets you in trouble.

    This doesn’t mean I neglect problems. It means that I don’t stress over them. I solve them as well as I can, but I don’t try to force solutions.

    I’ve noticed that when I stop thinking, I allow my inner wisdom to help me. I often get solutions to problems when I’m not thinking, such as when I’m on a walk, washing dishes, meditating, or in the shower.

    I do my best and then I let go.

    Fix: Notice your tendency to focus on the thoughts that tell you something is wrong. Rest your attention in the witness of those thoughts. You are not them. You can observe them, and breathe.

    9. Resisting obstacles.

    For years, I ran away from challenges because I saw them as obstacles to getting what I want.

    And I thought getting what I wanted would make me happy.

    But then something changed: I saw that these obstacles weren’t obstacles, but stepping stones helping me follow my calling.

    Instead of remaining in the habit of resisting obstacles, I get curious. I ask myself: What can I learn from this?

    Everything seems to have a purpose.

    The more I surrender to life, the more powerful I become. And to me, this surrender simply means not trying to figure everything out, or trying to control life.

    Fix: Don’t fight life. Embrace life. Become curious about the problems in your life. Don’t rush to fix them. Let them be for a while and notice the results.

    10. Neglecting your calling.

    Perhaps the biggest obstacle to happiness is neglecting your calling.

    When I neglect my heart, my purpose, my inner wisdom, I become miserable.

    And the way I neglect my calling is through thinking too much. Thinking that something is wrong, or that I’m on the wrong track.

    When I notice this mental habit, I let it be, and I take a deep breath.

    To follow my calling, I have to let go of what I think my path looks like.

    I can’t figure out where my life is going, I can only live it one moment at a time. That’s scary to my mind, but that’s okay. I can let thoughts pass, and I can rest my attention in my heart.

    Fix: Let go of what you think your life should be, and let it become what it was meant to be. Live life one moment at a time. It’s all you can do anyway.

    —

    Happiness is not something you get, but something you are. What’s stopping you from being happy is taking your thoughts too seriously.

    You have wisdom within you, waiting to guide you. All you have to do is let go and observe how you stop yourself from accessing it.

    It’s not easy. It’s a practice. Sometimes it takes time.

    But notice that even the rush to get it right is a thought. Let it be.

    Do your best.

    Follow your heart.

    And remember to breathe.

  • 4 Simple Steps to Freedom

    4 Simple Steps to Freedom

    Happy woman sitting on the beach

    “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    Once upon a time my mind was filled with negative talk and self-doubt. Those thoughts were so loud I could not hear my authentic self shine through. On a deeper level I knew she existed, but I didn’t how to connect with her.

    I believed I would have to work at it, change myself, somehow be good enough so I could be free to be myself. I believed the key to happiness was figuring out how to fix everything that was wrong with me (and oh, was there a lot to fix).

    If I fixed myself, then I could enjoy life and be that free woman I always envisioned myself to be. Little did I know the key to this freedom wasn’t fixing myself at all, but realizing that the little voice coming up with all those things to fix was a big, fat liar!

    The most profound and important realization I’ve ever had came from reading a little book called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It was that I am not my thoughts, but the awareness behind them.

    Wow. My true self is the awareness behind my thoughts, and she is always here! I have the power right now to choose from which place I act—what a magical concept! (more…)

  • Using Your Monkey Mind to Redirect Negative Thoughts

    Using Your Monkey Mind to Redirect Negative Thoughts

    Monkey Mind

    “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    I grew up in what I like to call The Box of Daughter: a rigid structure of rules about values, beliefs, thinking, feeling, and behaving, set forth for me by super-religious parents who grew up in boxes of their own.

    For a large part of my life, my thinking bounced around within the confines of that box—worrying the old worries, thinking the old thoughts, feeling the old pain, and acting out pretty much the same compulsions time after time—stuck in ever-repeating loops of monkey mind.

    I’ve always loved reading about quantum physics and marveling at the infinite possibilities in the universe. But I couldn’t seem to get many of those wonderful possibilities to happen in my life because I was stuck in that old structure, the childhood voices bulldozing their doubts, fears, and negative mumblings right over what I was trying to create.

    As I’ve endeavored over the years to deepen and expand my spirituality, I’ve connected more and more with the divine creative force, the constant, growth-oriented creative energy of life. “This is how I’m meant to live,” I would think, and then I’d go right back to monkey mind.

    I’ve come to believe that there must be a purpose for monkey mind—that nature intended for us to do something with it, that it’s not simply an aberration that evolved in us as life got more complicated.

    One night in the bathtub (which is where I do my best creative thinking), I noticed a correlation between the constant flow of creative energy in the Universe and monkey mind, which is a also constant flow of energy—but in my case, energy that’s ricocheting off the inside walls of the mental box I grew up in.

    After my bath, a hypothesis bloomed in my mind that monkey mind might be a twisted form of what nature originally intended to be constant creative thought.

    My mind turned to one of my favorite pastimes, puttering. When I’m puttering, my mind often flows from one thing to another, seemingly at random, and I usually feel like I’m smack in the now—dealing with one task, then another, in any order I choose to. It may not necessarily be truly creative, but there is a forward flow that I don’t experience with monkey mind.

    When I’m in monkey mind, there are usually only a few selected thoughts going through my mind, circling around and around, bumping up against each other in their rush to be first. There’s no forward movement. I suppose it’s a form of creativity; however, I’m a little fearful of what I create when I’m in monkey mind.

    I’ve been tinkering with different possibilities for manifesting what I want in my life, and that’s led me to discover a way to get out of monkey mind and into creative mind, which not only brings me right into the now, but opens my mind to more and more and more possibilities.

    It’s sort of like the same type of circling thought, but it never returns to the starting place on the circle. The thoughts do not repeat themselves—they curve around from one possibility to the next, to another idea, another way, another dream….

    When I’m working on a task that I hope will encourage something I want to manifest, if I let my creative mind jump from possibility to possibility (“…and then what? And then what happens? And what else?”), I’m able to keep jumping over that little doubting voice that used to create most of my reality (“…it’s not happening, it’s not going to happen, it won’t happen.”)

    As long as I stay in that creative mind, jumping from one possibility to the next like the image I have of a fractal (winding out into more designs and spirals of possibility), that little doubting voice doesn’t have a chance to interject its repetitive thoughts.

    As long as I don’t go back to square one, monkey mind doesn’t get me.

    I’m sure the divine creative force is out there saying to itself, “And what else can I create? What does this make me think of? And what other possibilities might there be?”

    That’s how I think nature intended us to use monkey mind. I can’t imagine It thinking, “Wait, I have to go back and check that flower…Whoops, that tree isn’t quite tall enough… Maybe I shouldn’t have created that volcano…”

    Creative mind is similar to the way I remember thinking as a child: “Why do bumblebees buzz? What do they feel like? Ouch!!”

    But once we get into school, we’re essentially trained to think in monkey mind: reciting facts over and over to commit them to memory, learning the rules of English and using them every time we write (even when we’re writing creatively), and even sometimes having our physical play at recess structured into games full of rigid rules.

    It’s no wonder we learn to think in circles (or in my case, squares) instead of fractally. We learn how to do monkey mind in school, just like we learn how to do everything else.

    So here are a few tips for getting out of monkey mind and learning what creative mind might feel like inside your head:

    1. When doing a repetitive task like washing the dishes, try enumerating to yourself in your mind every step that you’re taking, and start inserting new thoughts.

    “Putting soap on the sponge, rinsing the plate, I wonder who made this plate, rubbing the sponge in a circular motion, and could I rub it the other direction? I wonder what country this sponge was made in, and how are sponges made anyway?” Keep pushing yourself to come up with new thoughts. Don’t let old familiar ones edge their way in.

    2. When you’re making efforts to manifest something in your life, don’t stop with the first picture you get. Keep expanding it.

    “And then what? And what would that mean? And what could I do with that?” Draw other things into the visualization or energy output that aren’t necessarily related in order to keep expanding your vision: “And maybe a surprise would happen, and my health could be better, and I might live somewhere else…”

    I find when I’m trying to manifest that if I try to hold a particular vision for very long, that little doubter elbows its way in and starts telling me how it’s not going to happen. That’s because trying to hold the vision means I’m fixating—same thing as my monkey mind going around in a circle.

    I have to keep changing the vision slightly (preferably growing it) in order to stop fixating, and that prevents the doubter from getting a handhold.

    3. Go for a walk and talk silently to yourself about what you see.

    “That tree’s a little crooked. It’s taller than the others. I saw a bird go by—wonder what kind it is? Sure are a lot of weeds here. I wouldn’t be driving that fast on this curvy road. I can feel my knees every time I take a step…”

    Keep your focus moving, so it doesn’t settle inside your mind. Getting into your body is a great way to get into the now.

    4. When you’ve got the feeling, try it with creating.

    “How would I change that tree so I’d like it better? Can I walk more gently so my knees don’t hurt? If I could change the color of the sky for one day, what would I change it to? What would I put there if there wasn’t a sky?”

    Ever notice how, when children are creating, they say, “And then… And then… And then…”? That’s creative mind: coming up with another possibility, another idea, another option, another dream, like constant brainstorming.

    It’s a little tiring the first few times you get into it, but it “uses up” that monkey mind energy so you can rest afterwards. It does take practice. But I believe from the bottom of my heart that it puts us into powerful alignment with the divine creative force.

    It’s so much easier to keep the mind moving along a creative path than it is to try and shut out negative thoughts. Who knows what you’ll come up with? See if you can get into creative mind, and you won’t have to not think about that elephant that’s not in the room.

    Photo by Hartwig HKD

  • Tending to Your Garden of Thoughts and Keeping Your Mind Weed-Free

    Tending to Your Garden of Thoughts and Keeping Your Mind Weed-Free

    Garden Buddha

    “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha

    Imagine your mind as a garden. Positive thoughts are the beautiful flowers that brighten your life. Negative thoughts are the ugly weeds that spread and suffocate the flowers.

    Tending to my garden is an ongoing process.

    I’m not into chemical pesticides, but my natural weed killers are yoga, meditation, inspirational reading, and hanging out with positive people.

    Sure-fire weed food is worrying about what other people think, taking things personally, and stressing out about situations that don’t matter or are out of my control.

    I used to find myself having drawn-out imaginary conversations: “And if she said this, I would say that…” with absolutely no outcome. Now I catch myself and change the channel.

    I’ve seen firsthand how dangerous it is to let weeds snarl and take over.

    My dear Grandma Betty lived to be ninety-two. She outlived all six of her children, and had a lifetime of good physical health, yet her mind was tangled with weeds that began growing decades before she died.

    She was suspicious, distrusting, and convinced that people didn’t have her best interests at heart or were talking behind her back. I never noticed it when I was a kid, but it became increasingly apparent later on.

    Perhaps she felt lonely when my grandfather died early and she had too much time alone with her thoughts.

    It’s easy to over-think things, jump to conclusions, or get wrapped in negativity when you don’t have others to give you a fresh perspective. It then becomes a bigger problem when you alienate the ones who love you the most because you’re difficult to be around.

    This is what eventually happened. I loved her to bits, but she became challenging to talk to. The cup wasn’t half full; it was bone dry.

    This was in sharp contrast to my Grandma Millie. She was always smiling or laughing with a twinkle in her eye.

    Life dealt her a crappy deck. She was widowed young and had to raise three kids alone. She nursed her second husband through a nightmare of Alzheimer’s. She also experienced the tragic loss of both of her sons.

    But she always picked herself back up and remained positive.

    She drove for Meals on Wheels, delivering to people younger than herself.

    She went blind from cataracts disease in her early eighties but continued to find volunteer work so she could feel useful and keep active and social.

    Insistent on staying in her apartment, she remained fiercely independent.

    I used to ask her how she kept her great outlook when she’d been through so much. Her reply, “Well, I could sit around complaining, but then nobody would want to be around me!”

    Truer words have never been spoken.

    Complaining is pointless. It doesn’t make things any better, and it drains the complainer and everyone else around them.

    I loved both of my grandmas equally, but I know which one I was more likely to pick up the phone and call.

    Having these two amazing examples in my life gave me huge inspiration. I saw for myself how important it is to tend to my garden regularly and give it high quality fertilizers to keep it abundant and healthy.

    My friends are my fertilizers!

    My positive Grandma had a gaggle of girlfriends and those gals knew how to have a good time. They got together and played cards or Scrabble, went off on outings, and even went on a camping trip in their eighties. They were each other’s support systems.

    She used to say to me, when you get married, don’t ever forget about your girlfriends. They may outlive your husband and be all you have in your old age.

    Her very best friend died two days before she did. Both asked after the other in their final moments, neither knowing that the other was dying. They’d been friends for eighty-eight years.

    Both grandmas were my mentors in their very own ways. One being an example of how I want to live my life, the other showing what happens if I allow my mind to become overgrown and tangled with weeds.

    I wish I could have done something to help my Grandma Betty tend to her garden. If she had the awareness, she could have taken a machete to those weeds and felt a lot happier.

    We can all use the garden metaphor to bring an awareness of what helps our own mind grow and flourish, rather than creating a dark, tangled mess.

    What’s on your list of fertilizers and weed-killers? How does your garden grow?

    Photo by Neil Piddock

  • How to Keep Our Thoughts from Making Us Miserable

    How to Keep Our Thoughts from Making Us Miserable

    Dark Clouds

    “Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare

    I thought I knew what happiness was. I experienced it, and did so for a while—that is, what I thought was happiness.

    What I was calling happiness was merely an emotion. Emotions, feelings that arise in the body, come into existence when we have thoughts related to them.

    When I have certain thoughts having to do with anger, then I will feel, actually physically feel, angry. When I have thoughts that are positive, then I will feel the feeling, or emotion, that we call happiness.

    In the past, whenever I felt that feeling, I thought, well I am happy. And how sweet it was. The world seemed perfect, in harmony; nothing needed to change. And I felt it most of the time. When I did, everything was good. But then the feeling would leave. The world wouldn’t seem so balanced or peaceful anymore.

    The feeling would be gone, and I wouldn’t know why.

    I would be able to guess why—maybe I had spent a lot of money recently and didn’t have much left, or a relationship with a woman I liked a lot ended, or maybe I was feeling fearful of the future for whatever reason. I would guess that things like these were the reasons for my lack of happiness.

    I looked closely at my mind. I tried to figure out the patterns. But they weren’t so clear-cut. Sometimes, good things were happening in my life, yet I didn’t feel happy. And then sometimes when things weren’t go so well for some reason, I felt that everything was all right.

    It didn’t make sense. To add to the mess, I couldn’t always control if things were going well or not. Sometimes, I did everything I could, the same things I did when I was happy, and yet the feeling of happiness would escape me. The patterns escaped me until I read an article that told me to look toward thought.

    I looked at what impact my thinking had on my happiness. The article suggested that the thoughts arising in my head were only thoughts and to let them quiet softly.

    I practiced this and new patterns emerged.

    This time, the patterns were easy to see. Every time I was down, it was because I was thinking so much. The voice in my head would ramble uncontrollably, and I would listen to everything as if it were fact.

    The thoughts would pressure me to live and act in a way that would benefit me in the future. They would focus on things I needed to do, things that I wanted, things that would make me happy if I did or attained them.

    They would tell me that I was uncomfortable, to change this, to change that; when I was driving, to drive fast so I could hurry up and get to where I was going; when somebody said something mean, the thoughts would be about how awful this person was.

    But sometimes I would meditate. I’d become aware that thoughts are only thoughts and let them quiet.

    I set time to meditate, but also I tried to do it when I was amongst the regular activities of my life. When I would do this, there would be a period of time when my thoughts became slower, less loud, and they didn’t seem so important that I needed to listen and obey them at all costs.

    Those were the times when I was happiest.

    But then again there were some times in my life when things were going really well. I was on fire. I was killing it in my career; I had good relationships with friends and a woman I came to love. Everything was great. When things went well, I would feel happy for sure.

    I had a hunch, however, that I shouldn’t get too happy just because things were going well. I knew that they could easily change, and they would often; and when things weren’t going great, I would feel miserable. I didn’t want my happiness to become dependent on the circumstances of my life.

    Still, it was hard. The way things were going made me feel happy or didn’t. I couldn’t help it. They would bring about the way I felt.

    When I looked closely, I saw that this was because my thoughts reflected how I was doing. I realized that however I was doing, if I let go of the thoughts about the circumstances of my life, the feelings would go away. I tried to do this even when things were going well and I felt happy.

    I did this because I felt that the happiness that came from the times when I quieted and slowed my thoughts was deeper and more complete than happiness based on my circumstances. It felt more real and less easily shaken.

    And so that brings us to the present. I still struggle to stay centered and avoid becoming connected to my thoughts.

    I try not to focus my energy on making sure things are going well, but I still struggle with this too. When things do go well, I feel happy, but I try not to get too excited about that happiness. I have seen circumstances change in my life so often that it seems silly to be too caught up in them.

    I see others who seem to be going through the same cycles. They seem to get wrapped up in their thoughts, which affects their moods. I see friends whose normal states of mind I know, but when they get caught up in what is going on in their lives and start thinking about it too much, they seem to morph into different people.

    We are all in the same boat. We all have this struggle to stay centered instead of responding emotionally to life in a way that pulls us from the present moment.

    But if we can try to remember that our thoughts are just thoughts, they will fade away and grow silent, and we’ll be filled with a deep feeling of peace and joyousness.

    Photo by Visit Greenland

  • Your Mind Is a Garden

    Your Mind Is a Garden

    Your mind is a Garden

    Source: Positive Outlooks