Tiny Buddha

Tag: uncertainty

  • What If There’s Beauty on the Other Side of Your Pain?

    What If There’s Beauty on the Other Side of Your Pain?

    “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” ~Albert Einstein

    “I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to be here. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. It’s too hard.”

    I’m curious how many times I’ve heard these words over my lifetime. From different people, ages, genders, ethnicities, and walks of life. The words the same, the heaviness no different from one to the next. Hopelessness has a specific tone attached to it. Flat, low, and empty.

    Being the child of a parent who committed suicide, there is a familiar inner fear that washes over me when I hear these words. A hyper alertness and tuning in, knowing it’s time to roll up my sleeves.

    As a psychotherapist, there is a checklist that goes through my head to make sure I ask all of the right questions as I assess the level of pain they are experiencing.

    As a human, a warm wave of compassion takes over as I feel around for what this particular soul needs.

    After asking the typical safety questions and determining this person is not at significant risk of ending their life, I ask, “So what is the end goal here? What do you think happens after you die? Where will you go? How will you feel? What will feel different when you’re dead versus how you feel right now?”

    The answers vary from “It will be dark and nothingness, no feeling, no existence” to “I’ll be in heaven and done with this,” but more often than not they say, “I don’t know.”

    I sometimes question, “Well, if you don’t know how can you guarantee it will be better than this? What if it’s worse? What if you have to relive it all again? What if you are stuck in a dark abyss and can’t get out?”

    More times than not they have not thought this through. They are not thinking about what is next, mostly because what they are really saying is “I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

    I get that. We all have those moments.

    Then I dig in further:

    “How do you know your miracle is not around the corner? How do you know relief will not come tomorrow if you allow the opportunity for one more day? What would it be like to be curious about what’s next instead of assuming it will all be just as miserable?

    Since you have not always felt like this, is it possible you may one day again feel joy and freedom?

    If you look at your past, you’ll see you have had many fears and low moments. Did they stay the same or did they change? Most of your fears did not come to be, and if they did, you survived them—you made it through. You may have even learned something or strengthened your ability to be brave.

    If you turn around, you can see there is a lifetime of proof that your world is always changing and shifting. You’ll see many moments when it may have felt like things were not going the direction you wanted, but you’ll likely see an equal number of moments that led you to exactly what you needed. Use those as evidence that your surprise joy may be just around the corner.

    During these conversations, my own curiosity resurfaces. I often ponder if my mother held out a little longer what her life would have looked like. I wonder if another medication would have helped her. Or if the words of an inspiring book may have offered her the hope to keep holding on. Or if the feeling of the sun on her face would have kissed her long enough for her to want a little bit more.

    What if she held on to the curiosity of what was to come instead of deciding there were no surprises or joy left? Would she have felt the bittersweet moment of watching me graduate from high school? Would she have been there to cheer me on when I earned my master’s degree hoping to help people just like her? Would she have held my daughter, her first grandchild, and wept tears of joy knowing she made it?

    Who knows what her life would have been like if she held on for one more day? I will never know, but I am curious.

    I have sat with countless children and adults while they are deep in their pain. I ache for them, cry for them, and also feel hope for them. I wonder out loud what will happen next that we cannot see.

    I’ve seen pregnancies come when hope had left, new relationships be birthed when the people involved were sure they would never feel loved again, new jobs appear out of nowhere at just the “right” time. I’ve seen illnesses dissipate once people started paying attention to themselves, and moments of joy build in the hearts of those who were certain there was no light left.

    The truth is, we don’t know what will happen next, but we know we have made it this far. How do we know tomorrow won’t be exactly what we’ve been waiting for?

    I believe our baseline feeling as humans is peace. The loving calm that fills us when we are in the presence of those we adore. The kind of whole that we feel when we’ve done something we feel proud of and we reconnect to the love we are made of. The way we feel when we are giving love to others and the way we feel when that love is returned.

    I also believe that the human experience is filled with struggle and hardship and challenge. I don’t think we are getting out of it. I believe we are equipped with the power to lean into our pain to let it move through us. To use our experiences as our strength and our knowledge for the next wave of frustration.

    I don’t believe we are supposed to suffer, but rather learn to thrive in the face of hardship and use hope as the steering wheel to guide us through… knowing even though the light may not be right in front of us, it’s just around the corner.

    And the more we employ this faith and our practices that support us, the quicker we are able to return to the peace that lies underneath.

    In the moments of hardship, what would it be like to allow for curiosity? To not only acknowledge the feeling in front of us—and feel it—but to also allow for the possibility of what is to come.

    All of our experiences come with the free will to choose how we will respond to them. With openness and wonder or dismissal and resistance. It’s also okay to feel it all at once. The feelings will pass. They always do.

    The next time you feel stuck in a feeling, or what feels like a never-ending experience, consider thinking: I wonder what will come of this. I wonder what I will gain. I wonder what strengths I will develop and how I will support myself. I wonder what beauty lies on the other side of this pain. Don’t push through it but surrender into it.

    Then allow for curiosity. Be open. You never know what surprises the day may bring. Maybe today is the day it all changes. Or maybe tomorrow. You may not know the day, but you can be ready and open for it when it arrives.

  • 4 Reasons to Let Go of the Need to Plan Your Future

    4 Reasons to Let Go of the Need to Plan Your Future

    “No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living in the now.” ~Alan Watts

    I went to college a little bit later in life. Because of that, people often mistakenly believed I was operating on a specific (and somewhat urgent) timetable—as though I was running to catch up with the rest of the people my age.

    However, I was already in a career I loved (teaching yoga) that supported me financially. For me, going back to school was mainly about enjoying the process of getting an education without any pressure to get it over and done with.

    As it came time for me to graduate, I frequently got asked, “So, what’s next?”

    I never quite knew how to answer this question, and to be honest, it always made me a little bit uncomfortable. Mostly it made me uncomfortable because I could sense others’ discomfort with my answer, which was: “Nothing’s next.” People seemed to bristle at my reply and worse, give me a list of reasons why they thought it was risky not to have anything lined-up after I graduated.

    Even though their reactions weren’t personal, and for the most part, didn’t really have anything to do with me, the truth was: I was still insecure about making my own way through life and taking the path less traveled—which in this case was teaching yoga full-time and not making any concrete plans for the future.

    People clearly thought I should go out and get a “real” job (as if teaching yoga didn’t qualify as a real job). Another yoga teacher even asked me if I was going to get a “big girl job” when I graduated. Ouch.

    It seemed as though everyone expected me to launch into a new career or go on to higher education, and in spite of myself, I subconsciously agreed that perhaps I should just make a nice solid plan for my life.

    The problem was A) I already had a plan (which was not making any plans) and B) up until that point, my whole life had been spent making plans, and that hadn’t worked out so well. Over-planning had led to a lot of wasted time and energy. Plus, it had become readily apparent that life doesn’t always go according to plan (and thank God for that!).

    While plans aren’t in and of themselves bad, and they can certainly help lend direction to life, equally, I found it was generally in my best interest to leave things wide open to possibility, and here’s why:

    1. Planning tends to solidify life, and life is simply not meant to be frozen solid.

    Cliché as it may sound, life is a lot like water, and making plans is like placing a whole lot of logs and rocks and other obstructions in life’s way—it clogs up the current. Plans create resistance, and life is usually best when not resisted.

    2. When you’re looking for a specific outcome, you’re often not looking at anything else.

    A whole world of fantastic prospects could be surrounding you, but when you have on what I like to call the “focus-blinders,” all you can see is what you think you want, and nothing more.

    3. This one’s sort of an addendum to number two: We might miss out on opportunities.

    For the most part, people are inclined to think they’ll recognize opportunity when it comes knocking, but it’s been my experience that opportunity comes in all shapes and sizes, and it might easily be missed (or severely delayed) if we’re expecting it to look a certain way.

    4. This last one might be the most important, and it’s that over-planning can cause us to overthink and end up second-guessing or compromising ourselves, as well as our values and goals.

    I’ve learned the hard way (on more than one occasion) that having a plan and sticking to it like glue can be a fast path to rock bottom.

    All those years ago, when I was on the eve of graduating from college and on the verge of having a major planning relapse, I looked back at my life so far and could see that everything had always worked out in one way or another, and often in ways I could never have orchestrated (or predicted) myself.

    While the future certainly looked intimidating from where I was standing, I had the sense that I could trust things would continue to work out. Even if I wasn’t the one carefully planning everything out.

    The story we tend to tell ourselves is that if we don’t make plans, then nothing will happen. And if we’re not in control, then things might fall apart.

    But the gentle truth, which is actually the glorious truth, is: we’re not in control, anyway. Not fully. And that’s such a lot of pressure to take off your shoulders. Even if you don’t plan your life down to the last detail, things will still happen. Opportunities will still show up.

    Phew, it’s not all up to you!

    That doesn’t mean you can’t also have some idea of where you’d like to go—there’s nothing wrong with having dreams and goals. But there’s something to be said for staying open instead of being rigidly attached to a specific outcome.

    That compulsive urge to plan comes from the urge to avoid uncertainty, a protective instinct that’s literally hardwired into our biology. Planning is a powerful impulse to minimize risk and ensure our continued safety and security.

    However, if you can find a way of making peace with a future that is largely unknowable, and also recognize that unknowable doesn’t automatically mean bad, it will help soothe that part of your brain that instantly wants to launch into planning mode.

    Ultimately, real security doesn’t come from the outside—from making plans or holding office jobs or earning Master’s Degrees. Real security comes from within.

    The most control we can exercise is to keep on doing the next right thing, taking steps that move us closer to the center of our Self, and living our lives in a way that reminds us of who we are.

    I still occasionally fall under the spell of planning, but every time I get wrapped up in the false sense of security planning offers, I come once more to the realization that life simply does not function according to my made-up agenda (no matter how well-crafted).

  • How to Welcome Uncertainty into Your Life and Release Your Worry

    How to Welcome Uncertainty into Your Life and Release Your Worry

    “Fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.” ~Celestine Chua

    Uncertainty can be the glue for anxiety if you allow it. One thing can snowball into another and soon you are looking at the road ahead, absolutely dumbfounded about which way to go. It shakes us to our core; it disrupts our security, our stable foundation and makes us feel unsettled, even a bit lost.

    But can our lives change without uncertainty?

    I don’t believe they can.

    Two years ago, I found myself wondering: Is this all there is? The road I’ve been on is where I’ll stay; no passionate youthful ambitions, no joyful exuberance; just working and paying the bills, day in and day out. That’s being an adult, isn’t it?

    At least I have a comfortable life, I told myself, with little disruptions, no drama, and nice friends that I have trouble feeling close to.

    There must be something better, I told myself.

    I searched everywhere.

    Then I found my passion. It was buried deep. I dusted the cobwebs off. I wondered why I had abandoned such a beautiful passion. Then I remembered, convincing myself decades ago, that my passion had no real use, especially in a world that valued money above everything else.

    But it made me happy, so I worked at my passion twice a week in the evenings when I had time. It was a very busy time. I had little space left for my distant friends, superficial dating, or any of the other things that were slowly draining my soul.

    Miraculously, my passion had quickly filled my cup in a way nothing else could, not dating, not friends, and definitely not work. I made a choice to give it all I’ve got; to make a big change.

    This was happiness! I had found it!

    I sold my business and pursued change. I chased it, shedding the old chains that bound me, blazing my own path. Then something happened that I didn’t fully expect.

    Uncertainty.

    It shook me to the core.

    Here I was, with little money, a fixed income, and no clear path ahead of me. Do I turn right or left? Do I go straight or take this side road? Which path is the best path? Will I succeed or become a failure?

    Anxiety gripped me, threatening to choke the air out of my lungs. What have I done? How could this be? I’ve ruined everything.

    I put all my heart and soul into my passion, continuing tirelessly. The negative thoughts tugged at my brain at night, raising my anxiety levels. My sleep was disturbed, and my life was in chaos. Nothing was for certain anymore.

    I analyzed every direction. One direction must be better than the other! But they all seemed the same, fraught with obstacles and inconsistences.

    I started making plans to move but froze. I felt unable to make a decision.

    I mulled things over and over in my mind until I could no longer think about anything. My path was so wide, and the waters were unchartered. I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or where I was going.

    How could this be? How could the path to happiness be so rough and riddled with peril?

    Then I forced myself to breathe. It was going to be alright, I told myself. Exercise and take care of things every day but accept that there will be mistakes. You are human after all.

    I began talking myself out of the crippling anxiety and came up with a list of positive messages to counter the worry:

    1. You are intelligent; you make good choices. You always have. Look at all your past achievements. They are tangible proof.

    2. Trust yourself. You’ll make it.

    3. Change is better than going back to where you were before.

    4. Release your power over things if you want them to evolve.

    5. Go ahead, analyze your situation, but leave many margins for error.

    6. Take a break sometimes and focus your mind on other things that have absolutely nothing to do with your decisions.

    7. If you don’t know the right path, just start swimming in the right direction. The river will eventually take you there.

    So, I started swimming. The river slowed down along the rocks a few times, but I found clever ways to get around them. Sometimes the water was freezing cold and I learned if I kicked my legs faster, I would stay warm. A few times, I just waded in the water, enjoying the scenery.

    While I was admiring the scenery, I wondered if maybe the journey was more important than the destination. Those moments were precious.

    I still have crippling anxiety often, but I have grown an impressive amount of faith in myself. I believe things will work out; they always do somehow eventually.

    Every day I wake up with uncertainty hovering over my head. I wonder how I could rid myself of this unwelcome guest.

    Then I had an epiphany.

    If you want change in your life, you must open the door to Uncertainty. He might stay awhile, so be sure to invite him in and shake his hand. It’s okay, he’s not the bad guy. Uncertainty is actually the guy that’ll introduce you to Future.

    Oh, and that guy Anxiety? Don’t listen to a thing he says; better yet, tell him he’s not welcome and slam the door in his face.

    And remember, you’ll be okay.

  • How to Trust That You’ll Be Okay No Matter What

    How to Trust That You’ll Be Okay No Matter What

    “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” ~Ursula K. Le Guin

    Did you play with cootie catchers as a kid?

    You picked a number and watched anxiously as your friend counted it out. Open. Close. Open. Close.

    You chose a color or picture or word and waited in anticipation as your friend unfolded the flap and read your destiny.

    Or how about that MASH game? Mansion, apartment, shack, house?

    I played these games with an insatiable desire for all the details.

    How is all of this going to play out?

    Where will I live?

    What will become of me?

    I was fascinated with details, and anyone who could supply them. Fortune cookies, horoscopes, and psychic phone readings all held the promise of telling me exactly what I yearned to know.

    Will I be okay? 

    With time, curiosity gave way to hard-core, type A planning. I’d plan everything out in excruciating detail and get my heart set on one specific outcome.

    I’d make a deal with the cosmos. Everything will be okay if it turns out just like this, okay? Okay.

    I craved certainty and the illusion of control.   

    The answer “surprise me,” made me uncomfortable. Playing it by ear was torturous. Penciling it in felt like the easy way out.

    I’ve made a lot of plans along the way: graduation plans, wedding plans, birth plans, career plans. Yet, no matter how painstakingly crafted these plans were, I was always a little surprised with where I ended up.

    My actual wedding dress was nothing like the pictures I collected with friends in high school.

    My thirty-eight-hour, two epidural labor was nothing like my 100% all natural birth plan.

    My house in Arizona is nothing like the one I’d dreamed of having in Northern California.

    And I’ve been okay.

    Okay, universe. I get the message.

    It’s not really about the details.

    We can make the best of difficult times, rising up after we’ve been dragged through the muck. We can surprise ourselves with what it turns out we actually want. And we can rain all over our own parades.

    The details are delicious, though.

    It’s so satisfying to make a list and check things off. It feels so good that sometimes we’ll even write down the things we’ve already done. And there’s something so soothing about having the who, what, when, and where sorted out.

    Best of all is knowing that the whole plan is exactly, perfectly the way you want it. It’s positively intoxicating.

    The only trouble is that the details hardly ever turn out as planned.

    This whole attachment to details thing is getting harder as time goes on. At a time when I most want to know if we’ll all be okay, I suddenly can’t figure the details out. Maybe I’ve lost my touch, or maybe the plans are getting more complicated.

    There are so many more variables and people involved now. Where it was once just me and my cats, there’s now me, my husband, my children, our families, old friends and new friends, employers, clients, school systems, licenses, and a mortgage to consider.

    With each new piece comes countless questions. So many, in fact, that I can’t even picture what all of this is going to look like.

    That’s got to be okay.

    I’m learning to accept that I’ll be okay if I don’t know the details because I know how I want to feel and what I want to leave room for in my life.

    As much as we’d like to take credit for them, the details are often things that just present themselves when they’re good and ready to be seen, anyway. They tend to sort themselves out in ways that we never could have planned.

    We take one step, then another. We prepare the best we can with what we know, knowing how we want to feel when it’s all said and done. Then we reassess along the way.

    Part of me really wants to fight that because it still believes that having all the answers now will guarantee that everything will be okay. Maybe it’s time to start having a little more trust that I’ll find a way to be okay no matter what happens.

    The more comfortable I get with letting the details reveal themselves when the time is right, the more aware I am of all the people who want to know the plan right now.

    They want to know when you’re visiting or moving back to your hometown or having your next child or finally graduating or asking for that raise.

    They ask all kinds of detailed questions about your plan, so much so that it can leave you feeling ashamed for not having figured it out.

    I get it, too.

    People want to feel closer to you or important or useful. They want to be heard.

    Maybe they’re kind of nosy. Or bossy. Or maybe they’re bored.

    Maybe they just really care and want to solve what they think is a problem for you.

    And maybe they also have a deal with the cosmos that everything will be okay if…

    I get it because I’ve been them. I’ve interrogated, and I’ve demanded answers. Even after understanding that I can’t have absolute certainty (or control), I’ve been that person squeezing out the details before it’s time.

    Understanding is different from knowing deep in your bones that you’ll be okay no matter what.

    When you know, you live and breathe it. Instead of seeking control, you seek clarity. Instead of certainty, you seek courage.

    When you know the truth, you also know that it’s supposed to be a little scary to look out into the uncertain future. It’s unnerving to say, “Here goes nothing.”

    It takes courage to walk into the future knowing that you don’t have all the details nailed down. Your next step may be right, it may be wrong, it may lead you nowhere, and people may think you’re crazy, but you have to take it at some point.

    The truth is, no one ever really knows how it’s all going to look, but you probably have a good idea of how you want to feel and what’s most important to you. And if you don’t, maybe that’s why the details are so elusive.

    (But all the same, you don’t need the details.)

    You don’t need to see the details to trust that you’ll figure them out when the time is right, and you don’t need to see your path to know in your heart that it’s there waiting for you to take that step.

    You don’t need to know exactly how every piece will play out to know what the most important pieces are.

    And you don’t need absolute certainty to know that you’ll find a way to be okay no matter what happens.

    I’m not saying, “Let’s all throw caution to the wind from now until forever.” Make plans, yes, but there’s no need to obsess over the details if the details aren’t clear. Meet planning with flexibility and trust. Be curious about what happens next, not controlling.

    So go ahead, daydream, plan, manifest, make a vision board, or whatever calls to you. Just remember to begin from living and breathing the truth: that you will find a way to be okay no matter what.    

    I have no idea where I’ll be working five years from now, what our house will look like, what we’ll do on the weekends, if I’ll have lost the baby weight, or if I’ll dye my greys, but I do trust myself to make the call when the time is right.

    I don’t know all the when’s, where’s, or even how’s, but I do know how I want to feel and what I hold nearest to my heart.

    I want to feel light, energized, and free.

    I want to find meaning in my work.

    I want to be home in time for dinner.

    I want to create space for contemplation and creativity.

    I think I’ve had enough of the heaviness that comes from dragging around a lifetime of plans. It’s too much pressure, and even the most carefully made plans might change in the end.

    I still make plans, and I’m not throwing my bullet journal away any time soon. I’m just not letting my fear that I won’t be okay or that I’ll choose wrong or that people will disapprove suck the life out of living any more.

    So go ahead, universe. Surprise me. I’ll be okay no matter what.

  • How to Get Past Doubt and Do What You Really Want to Do

    How to Get Past Doubt and Do What You Really Want to Do

    “Doubt everything. Find your own light.” ~The Buddha

    As far back as I can remember, I’ve allowed my life to be shaped by external forces.

    On the outside, it appeared like I was just another carefree soul, living in the moment and going through life like a leaf on the wind. But on closer inspection, I was actually running away from having to make any real commitments and avoiding getting into a position where I had to make difficult or important decisions.

    It wasn’t until recently, when I realized it was four years to the date since I’d fallen into the job that I’d despised for what seemed like forever, that I even stopped to realize this.

    But on this day, as I stood looking around and contemplating where I’d ended up, I suddenly—and surprisingly—decided that was all going to change.

    Before I knew it, I was acting on something that, until then, had been just a vague, albeit persistent idea floating around in the back of my mind.

    I was applying to go back to university.

    There was little doubt about the decision; it was something I’d be thinking about for a while but had been putting off for as long as possible.

    But sure enough, the doubt soon crept in. I loathed formal education the first time around, and this time I was going to study something that was sure to stop any conversation dead with 99% of people I knew and make me the best friend of my one quirky aunt who’s deep into crystals and horoscopes:

    Mindfulness.

    I knew it was what I wanted. And I was pleased that for once I’d actually stood on my own two feet and made a decision. Not to mention, I was secretly relieved that I wouldn’t have to make another big one for at least a few years.

    But little did I know that was far from how it was going to be.

    In making such a big life choice, I’d made a complete about-turn from my familiar and reliable strategy of avoidance and chosen to stare life directly in the face.

    And I’d forgotten just how scary-looking life can be.

    My instinct to run was immediately triggered. Maybe this isn’t what I really want. Maybe I’ve changed my mind; people change their minds all the time, don’t they? Life would be simple if I just stayed where I am and found another job. It’s not too late to drop out…

    Instead of fleeing like usual, this time I froze. You could say I’d made progress, but it felt like I’d gone backward—despite being unable to move backward, forward, or in any direction whatsoever.

    I was well and truly paralyzed by doubt.

    And I was going to study mindfulness.

    Just perfect.

    My paralysis came from a long-held belief that I needed to be free from all trace of doubt before I could make any major decisions and move forward in life. But as I quickly came to see, if this was the case, then no one would ever do anything they really wanted to do.

    It’s in the nature of the mind to doubt. And whereas I thought the problem was that I’d rushed the decision or hadn’t considered the other options thoroughly enough, it was that I was, in fact, stirring up the murky waters of doubt with my constant questioning, making it all but impossible to see things clearly.

    Nearly six months into once again being a fresher, I’ve made more decisions than during the rest of my life combined. I rarely experience doubt anymore, but when it does appear, I know why it’s there, and rather than indulge it or push it away, I can simply let the water settle before getting on with what I want to do.

    Below is what I learned about doubt broken down into three steps or rules. If you doubt they’ll stop you from putting off big decisions and second-guessing yourself, put that aside for a moment while you read on and discover for yourself.

    1. There will always be a reason not to do something.

    If you try hard enough, you can always find a persuasive enough reason not to do anything.

    You can’t go to the party because you haven’t gotten as much work done as you planned to.

    You can’t start a family because you need to make at least ten grand a year more first.

    You can’t run your own business because you’re already tired and it’s only going to become more demanding.

    When we’re faced with making a choice, our mind often fishes for reasons not to take action, automatically accepting the ones that seem to fit into our fear-driven stories and justify how we feel.

    In this way, we come to relate to our experience according to the ongoing internal narrative about what’s going on, rather than what is actually happening in the new and ever changing here and now.

    It’s easy enough to understand this when you’re reading it in an article. The tricky thing is that when it happens to you, the stories can appear so real that debunking them feels like an impossible task.

    This is even more true with doubt as all the while it will be telling you things like: There’s no point even trying, there’s a reason you can’t but you just haven’t found it yet, and, you’ll always be this way, so you might as well just succumb to your fate.

    But no matter how sophisticated and convincing the story, if it’s going against what you really want or know deep down to be true, then you can be sure it is the doubting mind.

    As a function of the mind’s problem-solving mode, doubt is an incredibly useful tool that can alert us to impending danger, help us think more critically, and enable us to make better decisions. As we spend most our time in this problem-solving mode, though, this vulnerability-seeking mechanism can become chronically switched on and quickly become debilitating.

    Either way, the doubting mind is not you. But how do you know the difference between you and this part of your brain? Well, you don’t—at least not when you’re stuck in this mode, as by definition that’s what the doubting mind will tell you.

    It will tell you that certainty is possible. It will tell you there will always be a better time. It will tell you that you’ll be able to see the future and know how things will turn out if only you consider things a bit longer…

    First things first, then, to break free from doubt, we need to recognize that when we go fishing, we are going to catch some fish. In other words, when you believe that thoughts will give you an answer and will relieve you of uncertainty, you’re only going to create more and more doubt.

    It’s only by letting the water clear that we can start seeing what it reflects more clearly. And to do this, we don’t suppress the doubt—that only stir things up more. But nor do we passively accept it.

    2. Instead of accepting, learn to doubt the doubt.

    In Buddhist theory, overcoming doubt is not a matter of letting it be and having blind faith in something greater, it’s about exploring it through a process of active investigation.

    And what are we most likely to find when we inquire into this kind of doubt?

    Fear.

    For a long time, I believed that in order to be truly ready for something, I’d need to be without fear. That was, after all, what it meant to be fearless, to be a man, a Buddha, a superhero, or whatever other ideal I was guiding my life by.

    Without knowing it, I had thus long been avoiding fear, shielding myself from it, and denying that I was or could ever be scared of anything.

    In this way, I lost the resilience to be able to do anything that was even the slightest bit meaningful to me, and built a life that was safe, limited, and void of the things I really cared about.

    But fearlessness does not mean being free from all fear. It’s the opposite: it’s learning to be so intimate with fear that it no longer controls you. It’s making such a close friend of it that you can use it to propel you forward instead of treating fear as the enemy and allowing it to hold you back.

    You can uncover fear with the sneaky and perspective-shifting act of doubting the doubt. This is essentially the role of meditation and learning to notice thoughts as phenomena that are separate from yourself.

    Through practice, meditation gives us a welcome alternative to pushing away, passively accepting, or being completely swept away by thoughts, allowing us to relate to our own fear in an entirely new and previously unseen way.

    3. If there’s fear, you’re on the right track.

    Because I failed to recognize fear and denied its existence, my doubting mind stepped in to try to solve the problem.

    As opposed to filling me with angst and making my hands pour with sweat, the doubt appeared as a friend trying to protect me. And that makes sense—our doubts and fears are always trying to keep us safe. But a true friend doesn’t hold us back; instead, he or she propels us forward. And fear can do that for us if we let it. As Ram Dass explains, when “you no longer allow fear to step blatantly before you and shout of cataclysm, it will creep behind you and whisper something reasonable in your ear.”

    If we acknowledge fear as a sensation, before the conditioned responses and makeshift interpretations, we see that it is a bubbling energy of potential that isn’t shouting or whispering to us about what we can’t and shouldn’t do, but signaling to us what we can and could do.

    By trying to push it away and remove it from my experience, then, I was mixing up my own recipe for a life of limited potential and of achieving only what happened to fall into my lap. If I learned to be aware of it and recognize it for what it is, however, I could take the same ingredients and use them to cook up a life of unlimited potential and growth.

    You can’t have change, innovation, creativity, and originality—in other words, life—without insecurity, uncertainty, and fear. And so by embracing these fundamental states and changing how you see fear, you can begin to use them to your advantage and live a full life.

    This isn’t about, say, giving in to the fact that leaving your job is terrifying and so getting it over with as quickly as possible. That would mean still categorizing fear as an unwanted foe and trying to conquer it through blind action.

    This is about welcoming fear as a valuable and even desirable part of your experience. It’s about noticing that when you feel terrified about leaving your job, the feeling is saying wow, you must be doing something really challenging and/or meaningful. It’s learning to see fear as a guide that’s there to help you. It might also suggest that you want to prepare yourself, and wait until after your next paycheck, but if deep down, you want to do something different, the fear is telling you “keep going in this direction, you’re on the right track.”

    It’s only by bringing fear, with all its demons, into the light that we can begin to unravel the excuses we have piled upon them—many of which we don’t know are even there until we look. We can then see fear without any pretense, without any doubt, and only then embrace it as the true ally and source of life it really is.

    And if you immediately think you can’t do it, are overcome by your poor track record, or just immediately zone out or want to run and hide, notice this as the doubting mind. Beat it at its own game and doubt it. And then ask yourself, what sort of life do you choose to lead: one of comfort, dissatisfaction, and surety, or one of adventure, fulfillment, and the thrill of diving into the unknown?

  • How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    “I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

    I once trekked on my own along the Salkantay Trail in Peru between the town of Mollepata and the magnificent Machu Picchu. The journey in total was fifty miles, and it took me four days. I had never backpacked before, let alone on my own, let alone in a foreign country, but the opportunity was appealing.

    Along the way, I learned four important lessons that have helped me accept and make sense of phases of uncertainty. But before I share those, a little backstory:

    The year prior, I experienced many internal challenges. In a short time, I transitioned from having clear direction in my life and knowing what was important to me to having no grasp of what I wanted and feeling lost. The feeling was unfamiliar to me. I had spent much of my life plowing forward, knowing exactly what I wanted, why, and how to get there.

    Almost two years before my trip to Peru, I had just finished working breathlessly on a local political campaign for the 2016 election. The candidate lost, and the outcome of the presidential election left me feeling even more defeated.

    Shortly after, I traveled to Thailand for three weeks with a friend. When I returned to the states, I was unsure of where I wanted to place my next step. I was still feeling politically fired up, and with that energy, I decided to start a nonprofit organization in my state to encourage women to run for office.

    I worked day in and day out putting together statistics, a website, a business plan, and coffee dates with important people in the community. It didn’t take long for the organization to gain momentum because it attracted the support of people who were also intensely moved by the election.

    Meanwhile, I entered into a tumultuous and emotionally exhausting relationship, I moved to a different town after living in my parents’ basement, and I was seeking full-time work to pay bills that I barely had the money to cover. I felt split between two worlds: one of chaos and one of professionalism. In my naive mind, I believed those two worlds existed separately, and I couldn’t find my place in either one.

    When I jumped on the opportunity to start an organization in my community, I wasn’t fully aware of how demanding it would be. Just as it started to gain momentum, I secretly knew I didn’t want to be part of it long-term.

    I knew I was capable of building the organization, but I was also young and inexperienced, insecure, and distracted by the ambiguity of being a fresh college graduate. I chased after a shiny object that I, as I got closer, discovered wasn’t something I was as interested in as I initially thought.

    A year after the organization started, I resigned from the Board of Directors. We then decided to dissolve the organization altogether, and I breathed a major sigh of relief.

    Around the same time, my boyfriend and I split for the second or third time. I was left in a state of confusion and felt defeated again, but it was a different type of defeat. It was a feeling of intense vulnerability. I felt exposed and lost—two feelings I’ve always been good at avoiding.

    When I decided to trek fifty miles through the Andes Mountains, it was an attempt to find clarity. I hoped that hiking by myself in nature would bring sudden insight into what I had just experienced and what I needed to do next.

    I instead learned that clarity doesn’t arrive just because we demand it. Rather, clarity comes in its own time, typically after one has endured the uncomfortable but often necessary road of uncertainty.

    If you’re currently facing uncertainty in your career, relationships, or any other area of your life, perhaps some of my other lessons will be helpful to you.

    1. It will be painful—keep going anyway.

    On the third day of my hike, I grew nasty blisters on the heels and toes of my feet. I also felt a throbbing pain on the inside of my calves. Halfway through the day, simply putting weight on my foot became the most painful task.

    I was walking by myself on a dirt road, and I had no idea how much further I had to walk before reaching my campsite. I wasn’t even confident I was headed in the right direction.

    Okay, just walk to that point, I’d tell myself, looking about 100 meters ahead where the road curved or changed in some way. Maybe the view will change once you get there, I thought.

    A different view meant that I might suddenly see my campsite in the near distance. Not knowing kept me going because there was always the possibility that I was meters away from resting.

    Breaking the hike down into smaller chunks also helped me to stay motivated. If I imagined the total distance I had left to go, it was overwhelming.

    A journey of uncertainty guarantees pain. It’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It’s frustrating. Sometimes we want to lie down in the middle of the road and give up. It feels easier to stay in the same place than to walk toward something that’s unknown.

    But with uncertainty, there is no way out but through. Try to break it down into more manageable parts—can you make it through the day? The week? The next month?

    With uncertainty, you never know when you might turn the corner and suddenly see answers in sight. Tomorrow might offer insight, so why stop now?

    2. Distractions don’t solve uncertainty.

    The beauties of traveling alone are many, but they always come with a degree of loneliness. In Peru, it was difficult to wake up cold and alone in a tent, knowing I only had myself to talk with. I would’ve much rather reached my arm across to pull a warm body close.

    I was jealous of the couples I had encountered on the same trail who were hiking together. I was frustrated with my loneliness and annoyed with myself for being alone.

    Really, what I wanted was love to distract me from the uncertainty I was facing in my life. But I knew that if I wallowed in what I wanted instead of what I had to do, which was to pack my tent and all my other belongings into my backpack and move forward, I would stay stuck in the same place and wouldn’t get any closer to my destination.

    When we’re caught in a phase of uncertainty, it’s tempting to attach to distractions that’ll keep us from focusing on the discomfort we feel. The most appealing distraction when confused about life is to chase after opportunities that aren’t necessarily best for us. The panic we feel when we lack direction is so strong that we would rather seek mediocre, senseless options than stay in the uneasiness as we wait for clearer direction.

    Ultimately, waiting for direction leads us to our greater purpose. But we can’t follow the direction if we’ve already made a decision based on fear.

    3. Trust that there will be guides.

    The first time I went the wrong way along the trail was on day one. I had just walked through some sort of political event. Interested citizens sat along a ledge while they listened to a well-dressed man speak in a confident tone.

    After I passed, I took a left turn at a crossroads. I heard a voice behind me and turned around. It was one of the men from the group, pointing in the opposite direction. He had followed me a few steps up the trail, making an effort to redirect me. “Salkantay?” I said. He nodded.

    On the third day, I arrived at a small village where a family of three lived. After hiking a steep hill, I sat on a wooden stump by their home to rest. I bought and devoured two passion fruits from their garden.

    On my way out, I turned right on a dirt road. A boy about two years old saw me and pointed left. “Salkantay?” I said. He cocked his head. “La Playa?” I said the town where I was headed. He nodded and pointed left again. I turned around and continued to hike along the dirt road.

    On the last day, I passed a turn I needed to take. My senses stopped me. I had just passed a few hikers, and they weren’t behind me any longer. I pulled out a book of directions (which I’m never good at understanding), walked back, and found the small path that led me into the mountains.

    Without unfamiliar faces along the way to guide me, I would’ve easily wound up lost in the Andes Mountains. Maps and written directions aren’t always helpful when standing in a specific place.

    Sometimes, finding the way requires trust. If you haven’t found a sign to help guide you on your path of uncertainty, have faith that it’ll arrive in the right moment. The only way to find the signs is to keep walking—keep taking action and trying new things. The signs and guides are waiting for you to arrive.

    4. Take good care of yourself.

    Near the end of the trek, when my feet were blistered and my legs swollen, it was important that I had enough time to rest before the next day. I knew that in order to push forward, I had to take care of my body.

    I spent the evenings stretching, massaging my muscles, and wrapping tape around my blisters. Though the pain would still be there the next morning, it was a little more manageable than the night before. The pain had subdued just enough that I knew I could continue hiking.

    Since we’re never sure when a phase of uncertainty will end, it’s critical that we take care of ourselves throughout it. Creating time to rest and take care of ourselves—which for me is getting enough sleep, exercising, and journaling—ensures that we will have enough energy to push through the discomfort we feel.

    It’s when we lose our energy that we cling to distractions, miss important signs along the way, or give up. Trust that no matter how difficult a single day is, there is always space to pause and take a deep breath. Sometimes that’s all you might have energy for, and that’s okay. Without rest, there is no journey.

    —

    On my flight out of Peru, I peered out the window at the many trails that marked the earth’s skin like scars. I thought about the trek I had just experienced. I wondered, what did the trail look like from the sky?

    I imagine a life’s journey looks similar. It curves and zigzags through different terrain, some parts uphill, some downhill. It’s never a straight line.

    Uncertainty is a natural and guaranteed part of life. A journey isn’t intended to be seen from a bird’s-eye view. It’s rather meant to be lived in the moment through our own experiences. We don’t need to know what lies beyond what’s right in front of us. We’ll reach it eventually, in the right time.

    There are moments when we reach a lookout point and can make sense of the larger picture of our lives. From that perspective, we can look back at the journey we just accomplished. We can understand the connection between the series of events that have created our lives up to that point.

    But more often than not, we don’t have the ability to see our journeys from the lookout point. We instead see what it looks like right in front of us: a steep hill, thick trees blocking the view, and no signs in sight. We have doubts about what lies ahead.

    When we trust that there’s a grander view of the trail we see directly in front of us, we can muster the energy we need to carry us to a day when, finally, we reach a lookout point. From that view, everything makes sense. Trust that, regardless of what it looks like now, the lookout points are waiting for you along your path.

  • How to Face Uncertainty: Why We Don’t Need to Press the Panic Button

    How to Face Uncertainty: Why We Don’t Need to Press the Panic Button

    “This time, we are holding onto the tension of not knowing, not willing to press the panic button. We are unlearning thousands of years of conditioning.” ~Sukhvinder Sircar

    This morning I awoke feeling uncertain about the direction my life was taking. Was it what I wanted in all areas? Was I right to be living where I wanted to, in London, away from family? Was I doing the “right thing” restructuring my business, and was I doing the “right thing” going away for two months next year?

    I’ve had a few days like this recently, and while I’d like to blame it on my external circumstances, I know differently. I’m simply feeling stuck in thought.

    I learned this in what I perceive as “the hard way.”

    Three years ago, I experienced trauma that left me feeling empty and abandoned. I got married. You wouldn’t think that this was a traumatic experience, but in the space of one month (and for no apparent reason whatsoever), my family told me that I was “no longer part of their family” and that I “deserved” to be abandoned by my dad when I was four, and my new mother-in-law-to-be told me that she had “never liked me but that she would try.” Also, I lost my best friend of ten years.

    It’s safe to say that my wedding day was a blur, and I felt broken. Instead of experiencing wedded bliss, I ended up questioning my relationship and traveling alone to try to “find myself.” Really, I was trying to escape my pain and run from the uncertainty I was feeling about life.

    Fast forward three years, and I now know something different. When we are feeling uncertain or doubtful, trying to predict the future or trying to work out the past—whenever we are not in the moment—it is because we are actually caught up in our thinking.

    Sure, we can blame many of our external circumstances for these feelings and choices—there are plenty of things that have occurred this week that I could say have “made me” feel uncertain. But since I’ve discovered the truth of who I really am, I now know that my uncertainty is, in fact, coming from me.

    Ultimately, our thinking influences how we experience the external world, which means we have a choice in how our circumstances impact us. That being said, it is human nature, and completely normal, to get caught up in our feelings about external events at times. The point is that we don’t need to be scared of our human experience or try to think our way out of it; we just need to accept our feelings until they pass.

    It’s an Inside-Out Reality

    As I journeyed through life after what felt like a breakdown, I came across a profound understanding about the nature of our human experience, which totally transformed the way I saw and danced with life. I now call this my “transformational truth principles.”

    These principles explain how our entire reality is thought-created, which means that everything we see in the world and everything we feel comes from our thinking.

    So, using my current experience as an example: I’ve been feeling uncertain about where I should live, whether I should travel for such a long time, and how I’m going to restructure my business and maintain my finances. I know that I am feeling anxious about these things solely because of my thoughts.

    If I weren’t worried about uncertainty (if I didn’t have an “uncertainty bothers me” lens), then it wouldn’t upset me at all. If I focused on the potential of my business growth, the excitement of the travel journey, and the beautiful feeling of living where I want to be living in London, I’d be feeling that thinking instead.

    So, external events that are happening can’t impact us unless what we believe about them bothers us. It’s the same with anything. If someone criticizes us, it can’t impact us unless we believe it ourselves.

    Say someone criticized my creative talents, for example; I would probably laugh because I see myself as creative. If, like with my wedding, they criticized my worthiness, my ability to be loved, or left me, I might sob into my pillow for days, because at times, like many of us, I doubt my self-worth and question if I’m lovable.

    Just because people thought I was unlovable, that doesn’t mean I am. The only reason it impacted me was because I believed it myself. In this way, the external only ever points us to what we think about ourselves and not to the truth.

    Our Thoughts Are Not the Truth

    We get so caught up in believing our own stories that we often forget to step back and see that what we think is just thought. Thoughts aren’t always facts. What’s more, you might notice how our thinking fluctuates. We can think differently about the same thing in each different moment. That’s because our thoughts are transient, and fresh new thinking is available to us in each moment.

    When you understand this, you might well wonder, “Well, what is the truth then?” The truth is underneath our thinking. Within all of us there is a wisdom—a clarity—that is innately accessible to us, if we just allow the space to listen to it.

    We do this by simply seeing our thoughts as “just thoughts” floating around in our heads. Noticing this allows our thoughts to drop away—without us doing anything.

    Allowing Space and Flowing

    Usually, instead, we are likely to have a whole host of thoughts around how to react when we feel anxious about uncertainty.

    For me personally, I would usually want to force and control things in order to “fix” my lack of certainty over my relationship or whatever my uncertainty might be in the moment—living where I was living, traveling, or restructuring my business.

    You might make lists of action plans, or work out worst-case scenarios, or analyze why it happened.

    This has always been a temptation of mine, and I spent months on this after my wedding, trying to work out if I should be with my husband or not, whether life would forever be difficult if I had children, why my in-laws didn’t like me, and why my dad left.

    But, again, in the same way I now understand that it is not the external that creates my feelings about uncertainty, I also understand that there is no need to force certainty, or even look for the “why.” Sometimes there isn’t one.

    Certainty is an Illusion

    It’s an illusion that there is any certainty in the first place. Life is always evolving, and, as such, there is no safety net beyond the one we imagine. We do this all the time, but the only certainty in life is that there isn’t any!

    Anything we predict is just our mind trying to “fix something,” which is futile. It can seem scary to think that we have no certainty, that we can’t fix things, but when we understand that there is actually nothing to fix—because nothing is broken—we can settle back into the flow of life.

    I’m not saying it always feels easy, but I have experienced how my feelings about my wedding traumas settled down when I began to understand this.

    We are Universally Guided and Already Whole

    We only see that there is something to “fix” because this is, again, our construction of reality. We are unlearning thousands of years of conditioning of how we view the world: ideas that certainty exists and that we need to fix ourselves if things don’t look how we think they should.

    Sydney Banks, the original inspirer of my Transformational Truth principles, said:

    “If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.”

    Because, actually, there is nothing to fear. I believe we are always exactly where we need to be—because we are part of this amazingly miraculous universe, which is guided by some sort of powerful intelligence that no one really understands. In this way, we are already whole, always connected, and always safe. There is nothing to fix because we are not broken.

    Ultimately, the “answer” we are looking for is pointless. There is no “answer,” and we don’t need one. All we need to do is see how life really works and allow ourselves to accept where we are in each moment, knowing that it is a transient, thought-created experience of life.

    We just need to flow, move with what happens, and sit in our feelings, knowing that they are thought-based, they can’t harm us, and they will soon pass.

    In her poem “She Is a Frontier Woman,” Sukhvinder Sircar explains this well in saying that all we really need to do is hold on to the tension of not knowing and not press the panic button.

    Allow the Creative Force of Life Flow

    And so, this morning, as I woke feeling uncertain, I got out my yoga mat and journal. I stretched, I moved my body, and I sat in the feelings I had, knowing that they would pass, even though they felt horrible.

    I knew that they were not part of me, but simply my thinking, trying to convince me of something I believed that was fundamentally not the truth. I let go. I flowed. I accepted what I didn’t know. I didn’t press the panic button. Instead, I wrote this.

    In the space where I could have (and would have previously) worried and attempted to solve things, the creative force of life—which is actually underneath all of our thoughts—simply flowed through me. In a much more beautiful way than it could have done had I indulged my imagined beliefs about the external.

    When we sit back, creation gifts us with exactly what we need in each moment. We simply need to understand how this works and allow it.

  • The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

    The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

    “Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

    She knew it sooner than I did. And more intensely than I did.

    I, on the other hand, may have considered our differences but never thought of them as deal-breakers. I tried to justify the many struggles we had between us and believed that our marriage could work despite the challenges.

    I had this feeling things would get better and stayed hopeful no matter how bad our relationship got.

    I told myself that her extraverted personality and my more introversion could work together. And that her more social and outgoing nature and my more private and homebound inclinations were just minor differences.

    I believed it was both of us trying to settle into our professional careers that led to our conflicts. Or maybe, it was moving away from California so she could complete her professional training that put pressure on our relationship. Or it was because we didn’t have a support system that we weren’t getting along.

    In retrospect, if I’m being completely objective, I can see there were problems.

    There were fights and disagreements that would have landed us on a reality TV show.

    There were days of not talking and threats of leaving regularly.

    There were instances where we ignored each other’s feelings and preferences in our life goals. There was a lack of understanding and compassion for each other.

    Yet, we stayed together for years, and even after our separation, I still didn’t want this relationship to end.

    Even after our divorce, I was hopeful.

    Was this the optimist in me?

    Was I being delusional?

    Are you too wondering why you’re stuck in a relationship that isn’t working and bad for your spirit?

    You may feel the dysfunction on a daily basis and feel frustrated with the constant fights and disagreements.

    Are you wondering why you’re having trouble letting go when the person you’re with isn’t the right person for you? Are you wondering why you’re stuck in dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship? And even worse, not doing anything about it?

    Here are top seven reasons we stay in bad relationships.

    1. We have grown accustomed to people who treat us badly.

    Those of us who grew up in abusive or hurtful households feel used to complicated love.

    We begin to believe that people who hurt us are the ones who truly love us.

    We have learned that it’s okay to be treated poorly, to not have boundaries, and to feel hurt by other people’s behavior.

    Others have taught us that it’s acceptable to accept abuse and dysfunction. We not only can tolerate it but have to come to view this is as normal.

    2. We prefer bad relationships over the unknown.

    This is the biggest reason most of us stay in dysfunctional, hurtful relationships.

    We may despise the person and the relationship, but we hate uncertainty and change more.

    Our brains are simply not wired for changed circumstances.

    We would suffer any amount of pain to avoid dealing with the unknown in the future.

    3. We prefer a bad relationship over being alone.

    We can’t stand being alone.

    We can’t imagine a life by ourselves.

    We see ourselves with cats, other lonely people, and silent walks in the park.

    We hear silence, see no one, and feel like disappearing from earth altogether.

    The alternative we imagine of being without someone feels hopeless and scary.

    4. We don’t value ourselves.

    We have a low sense of self-worth and don’t believe in ourselves.

    When we find people who tear us down and bring us down, we take comfort in their behavior because it confirms our beliefs about ourselves.

    We are open to people treating us badly because we are used to treating ourselves badly by talking down to ourselves, criticizing ourselves, and hurting ourselves.

    We don’t believe we are worth the time and attention of someone kinder and more compassionate toward us. We may even fear being treated well because we don’t trust that we deserve it or that it will last.

    5. We feel rejected, dejected, inspected, and tossed to the sharks.

    Ending a relationship, no matter how good or bad it was, makes us feel unwanted.

    It hits at our self-esteem and self-worth.

    It makes us feel unwanted and unworthy.

    Many of us felt unwanted or abandoned in our childhood, and ending a relationship in adulthood brings all our old feelings to the surface.

    We’d rather stay with someone than fall into a sinkhole of unworthiness, never knowing if we can pick up your self-esteem again.

    6. We feel out of place and out of sorts.

    We don’t know what our place or role in the world is anymore.

    We are no longer the husband, wife, partner of so and so.

    We lose half of our family and friends, our ex’s family and friends.

    We don’t know what to say to people at dinner parties, work, or any other social situation.

    Our society tends to put an emphasis on couples, so without a partnership we become lost and on the outside of everyday life.

    We become talked about, and our relationship status seems to be at the center of attention.

    7. We don’t believe there’s anyone else out there for us.

    A big part of why we’d rather stay together is that we doubt we could ever find someone nearly as compatible again.

    How do we know we can date again? How do we know someone else will find us attractive again? How do we know if love will strike again in the future?

    Instead of uncertainty of a day that may never come and a love that may never bloom, we choose to stay with the person we’ve already found.

    —

    Instead of hanging on to a relationship that is bad for your heart and soul, consider the possibility of moving on, grieving, and letting go of this relationship that isn’t working.

    Trust your gut, know that this relationship isn’t right, and act on your inner knowing.

    Look at the relationship objectively, as I wish I did sooner, and make the decision to walk away before things get any worse. As much as you would like it to get better, if neither of you are working on the relationship, or if you’re just not right for each other, it will not improve.

    Know that brighter days are ahead if you release this person and the unhealthy relationship from your life. You can get through this breakup, as you’ve likely done many times in your life, and can move on from this relationship.

    Brighter days mean being alone sometimes; it means finding peace; it means getting to know yourself and eventually finding yourself in a healthy and fulfilling relationship.

    So many people have gone through heartbreak, have lost that one special person, and have gone on to find the right one.

    Uncertainty after ending a bad relationship is uncomfortable but better than the comfort of dysfunction.

    Letting go and ending this relationship is risky, but with great risk come life’s greatest rewards.

    One day of peace and comfort by yourself is worth a thousand days being in a relationship that is suffocating and dysfunctional.

    Instead of showering love on someone who can’t reciprocate, consider giving yourself that love.

    Open your heart to yourself, speak gently to yourself, do nice things for yourself, make your life comfortable and relaxed.

    Cultivate an inner sanctuary of silence, compassion, peace, and acceptance of yourself, perhaps through yoga, meditation, or spending time in nature, or by seeing a therapist to work through the core wounds from your childhood.

    Work on spiritual practices that help you accept yourself for who you are and be comfortable in your own body without needing to be with someone. This could include breath work, affirmations, journaling, or even some form or art.

    Finally, remember, your ex has helped you grow and lead you to the place you are today, but it’s not healthy to keep them in your journey to the end.

    Letting go of your ex allows you to pick up the journey on your own for a bit so you can grow stronger and be better prepared for healthy, happy relationships in the future.

    After your own solo travels, you can find another love that will help you grow as a person and further reach your potential as a human being. Or will allow you to discover who you are so you can live an honest and authentic life, which will lead you to rich experiences, spiritual growth, and deeper friendships.

    Losing this unhealthy relationship doesn’t mean your world has ended and there will never be someone out there again for you.

    Ending this relationship will open the realm of possibilities for authentic relationships, healthy love, and true happiness.

  • Uncertainty Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

    Uncertainty Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

    One of the prompts from Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal

  • 3 Ways to Stop Worrying and Feel Less Anxious

    3 Ways to Stop Worrying and Feel Less Anxious

    “There isn’t enough room in your mind for both worry and faith. You must decide which one will live there.” ~Sir Robertson

    Do you consider yourself a worrier?

    Maybe even a perfectionist or Type A personality?

    When I’m not at my best, I can be all of those things combined. (Not cute, I know.)

    Because of this, I know exactly what it feels like to be stuck in my head, with tightness in my chest and emotional wrenches in my gut.

    If you also struggle with worry and anxiety, then I feel you. I rode the worry struggle bus for a long time—until I finally addressed my psychology.

    Why Your Psychology Matters Most

    My aunt once told me (after I called her in the middle of a freak out), “You’re worried because you’re trying to control the future Kari, and that’s impossible.”

    Woah. Paradigm shift. That’s when it all ‘clicked’ and I realized that my issues with worry and anxiety were all self-created.

    Then it got me wondering… If I created this worry and anxiety with my thoughts, maybe I can create relaxation with my thoughts too.

    After researching the psychology of worry, I learned some practices that helped transition me from an uptight chronic worrier into a pretty relaxed person. I still have my moments, but it’s nothing like before.

    Today, I’d like to share three of my best practices with you. I hope they can help you reduce your worry and anxiety too.

    Let’s start with the most practical piece of advice.

    1. Practice using coping imagery.

    This involves visualizing yourself handling worst-case scenarios with confidence.

    And just to be clear: You’re visualizing the worst-case scenario, not the best case. It’s like defensive pessimism, which can actually help with anxiety more than positive thinking.

    So instead of worrying about being crushed by the worst-case scenario, try visualizing yourself handling it with confidence.

    Here’s an example (that I cringe to share with you because it seems so silly in hindsight):

    I recently started dating a guy who I developed some serious feelings for. I had the most successful first date of my life with him, and it’s been amazing ever since.

    But instead of getting excited about the potential, I started worrying about all the things that could go wrong. (Like I said, being a worrier is self-created misery!)

    Specifically, I was worried that in the future we wouldn’t be able to see each other for weeks because he was crazy busy. I grew anxious over feeling devastated in the future by the potential lack of quality time I crave.

    Although it wasn’t even a problem yet, I started worrying about making plans to the point where I started sabotaging the romance by “trying too hard.”

    I let my anxiety consume me, and I became the chaser instead of allowing something beautiful to naturally unfold. I hated that I started to sabotage something beautiful, but in that moment, (it felt like) I couldn’t help myself.

    And this is where the switch happens.

    Instead of worrying about how devastated I would feel if we couldn’t spend time together, I started visualizing myself feeling okay if I didn’t get to see him. (I chose “okay” instead of “happy” because it needs to be realistic.)

    Instead of thinking about the void, I thought about all the other wonderful things I could do with my time, like surf or entertain my hobbies.

    This seriously helped put my mind and body at ease! Here are more details for the process:

    How to Do It

    To practice using coping imagery, start by imagining the situation that brings you anxiety. How do you feel? What are you thinking?

    Then, start to imagine a warm glow of confidence radiating from you. Imagine being in that situation feeling totally confident and capable. How does it feel? What are you thinking?

    Then, imagine something going wrong—something that you’re worried about—and imagine yourself handling that situation with confidence and ease too. What thoughts and feelings helped you handle it

    Get comfortable with these thoughts and feelings and keep mentally practicing them.

    This “mental rehearsal” helps activate neuroplasticity, your brain’s ability to rewire itself and form new neural connections, like new thought loops.

    The more you practice using coping imagery, the more you strengthen the new thought loops for positive thinking (or defensive pessimism) and weaken the thought loops for worrying.

    In time, you’ll naturally become less of a worrier because your brain has been trained to think confident thoughts instead of worrisome thoughts.

    2. Be willing to feel uncomfortable.

    Worry and anxiety often come from trying to protect yourself from pain. And I don’t blame you. Our primal brain is wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain; and anxiety is often caused by worrying about the potential pain that we might feel in the future.

    Sometimes we’re so afraid of emotional pain and loss that we forget that they can’t physically harm us.

    And this is where the saying “make peace with discomfort” will serve you very well, because your ability to be uncomfortable is directly related to your ability to be a relaxed person.

    Sometimes we assume that we need to be comfortable in order to be relaxed. But sometimes being relaxed simply means feeling uncomfortable and being okay with that.

    The more discomfort you’re able to tolerate, the less you’ll worry about preventing it from happening.

    For me, I had to develop the skill of tolerating uncertainty (which is an uncomfortable feeling for me) in my dating life. Although uncertainty feels uncomfortable, I learned to make space for it instead of worrying about making it go away.

    If you want to develop the skill of tolerating discomfort too, here’s how you can do it:

    How to Do It

    A great way to train yourself to tolerate discomfort is to take cold showers. Yup! Even just a five-minute cold shower a day can train your brain to tolerate discomfort.

    Not into cold showers? Another great practice is setting aside fifteen minutes every day as your “uncomfortable practice periods.” These practice periods will help you develop the skill of tolerating discomfort.

    So whenever you start to feel uncomfortable in your daily life, use it as practice. Hold space for the discomfort and make peace with it as best you can.

    For example, if you really hate public speaking, then use your weekly company meeting as a place to practice being uncomfortable by speaking up at least once.

    The more you practice feeling uncomfortable, the better you will get at being uncomfortable. And the more uncomfortable you’re willing to be, the less worry and anxiety you will feel.

    You’ll learn to let life unfold naturally without worry.

    3. Plan what you can and let the rest unfold.

    During the months preceding graduation from college I experienced the biggest bout of anxiety and worry that ever consumed me.

    What if I don’t get any interviews? What if I totally flunk the interview I get? What if I get the job and hate it? What if, what if, what if?

    Fueled by tons of stress, I worked really hard to apply to dozens of jobs before I graduated. In constant panic mode, I refused to leave my desk to play because I was convinced that every ounce of my energy needed to be dedicated to solving this problem.

    In the end, I ended up getting a job through a friend who happened to mention the opportunity through random conversation.

    I couldn’t have planned for that.

    All my preparation paid off, but there was one lesson that I took away from all the unnecessary worry and anxiety:

    If I had done everything the same, but did it all in a relaxed fashion, I would have created the same result.

    “Let go of the idea that gentle, relaxed people can’t be superachievers… One of the major reasons so many of us remain hurried, frightened, and competitive, and continue to live life as if it were one giant emergency, is our fear that if we were to become more peaceful and loving, we would suddenly stop achieving our goals.” ~Richard Carlson

    Sometimes we get tripped up thinking that stress is somehow essential for getting things done. And while some stress is beneficial, extreme stress and anxiety are not necessary for success.

    You can be a totally relaxed person and still get everything done—without worry.

    How to Do It

    Sit down and write down all the things you’re worried/stressed about. Then pretend like you’re coaching someone else with those problems.

    What advice would you give them? What steps would you have them take?

    Then, follow those steps and stop there. Don’t worry about whether or not you did enough. You followed your own advice, and you can relax about the rest.

    Plan what you can, and then breathe. Don’t let your mind continue to race about all the things that could go wrong (unless you’re using Coping Imagery).

    Just have faith that what’s meant to be will be, and let the universe carry you for a while.

    You’ve Got This

    Together, these three steps helped me seriously reduce my anxiety and worry. Will you join me and try them too?

    Start by making coping imagery and “uncomfortable practice periods” daily habits. This will help you develop the skill of tolerating discomfort, and your worry and anxiety will lessen.

    In time, you will get better at letting life unfold the way it was always meant to be.

    Some days you might still find yourself on the worry struggle bus. But maybe this time you’ll feel like you’re in the driver’s seat.

  • 4 Things I Needed to Accept When I Was in Transition and Felt Insecure

    4 Things I Needed to Accept When I Was in Transition and Felt Insecure

    “Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.”-  Robert Tew

    I want you to picture this. You are standing on a mountain, and in front of you is a taller mountain with a prettier view. Between the mountains is 100,000 foot plunge to the bottom, filled with jagged rocks. You know that you need to make it to that other mountain and that the only way for you to do so is to jump—but for some reason, you cannot move.

    This is what transition feels like, especially when you have to make huge leaps into new and unexplored territories.

    Recently, I found myself in this very position, paralyzed with fear. All I could think about was how I was going to go from being a graduate student to being a real adult, working and living in the real world.

    To be completely honest, I wasn’t even thinking—I was worrying and putting mounds of pressure on myself to make a move, to act. What’s worse is that in times of transition it seems as though you are being truly tested. 

    Personally, the comfort cocoon I created for myself over my college years unraveled. My friends graduated and left to start their lives. All of a sudden, what used to be continuous social outings changed into monthly check-ins.

    I was confused as to how I got here. I would look around, hoping that someone would show up and be a source of entertainment. That never happened and I found myself alone.

    At first, I didn’t take this as a gift but as a punishment. I wanted to be distracted because if I was, then I wouldn’t have to think about what was coming next. I wouldn’t have to face my greatest fear of being by myself. Luckily, the universe had other plans.

    When I first started being alone, my insecurities and doubts came rushing in to keep me company. I was constantly telling myself that I was not worthy, that I was not enough, and that I was not strong enough to make this transition. I doubted my capabilities and everything I’d earned up until that point.

    When I would interview for jobs, I’d be interviewing out of fear. I thought the people on the other side of the phone were better than me because they achieved what, at the time, I thought I could not.

    I compared myself to others who seemed further along on their life path. I became jealous and angry that I wasn’t as far along as them. I resented myself because I believed I had no life experience. 

    Transition scrambles your life up, both externally and internally. I thought I’d resolved my issue of being alone, yet here I was, mistaking aloneness for loneliness. I thought I was confident and sure about myself, yet here I was, questioning the very foundation I’d built. I slammed into my own mental brick wall and then became idle in moving toward the life I desired.

    One day, as I was sitting by my space heater drinking hot chocolate, I thought about what was holding me back—what I didn’t want to admit myself. After doing some self-reflection, I realized there were several things I needed to accept. They are as follows:

    1. I was scared.

    I wasn’t sure and I am still not sure if what I am jumping to is safe or promising. It’s the unknown, but in admitting to myself that I was terrified, I immediately felt lighter because I was no longer wasting time convincing myself that I was not fearful.

    2. I don’t have everything figured out, and that’s okay.

    I had to tell myself that transitions don’t happen overnight; they happen over days, months, even years. I have plenty of time to discover, to explore, to create, and to decide what my transition will be and how I will get there.

    3. I was in the in-between.

    In the in-between, you are neither here nor there. You are just in the middle. Think of it as though you are hovering in the space between those two mountains. I used to hate this space, because I wasn’t in control. Yet, in all honestly, you are never really in control. In this space, you have to trust—trust yourself, trust the universe.

    The beautiful part about the in-between is that it gives you time to make a plan and to execute it. Taking small steps every day proved to me that I was actively moving toward my desired mountain. I designed a plan that was manageable so I wouldn’t become immobilized again. It made the tasks ahead less daunting.

    4. My thoughts could be my prison or my wings.

    I struggle with this daily and I “fail” at it a lot. It’s hard to erase negative thinking habits and replace them with positive ones. Then, if you add the weight of your insecurities and doubts, it seems like an impossible feat.

    What has helped me the most is taking each moment as it comes. In one moment, I can be completely fine. In the next moment, I can be upset about why I am not this or that, what I look like, what I feel like, why I am wrong or right, etc. In those difficult moments, I remind myself to breathe.

    I breathe through my loud judgmental voice, and I acknowledge her presence in my head. I then tell myself that no matter what the circumstances, I am loved, I am protected, and I am safe. Sometimes this works and other times it doesn’t. The point is that I don’t have a clear-cut solution to this issue; I take it day by day.

    When it comes to appreciating my aloneness, I have gotten into the habit of not inviting anyone over when I am feeling antsy or I feel like I need company to be okay with myself. I sit with that discomfort, and make myself do an activity I can absorb myself in, like coloring, playing Solitaire, or reading. In doing this, I actually spend time with myself, by myself, for myself.

    Everyone’s transition isn’t going to look the same, and it isn’t going to bring about the same issues or ideas. Regardless of what yours looks like, remember that change is the only constant and that transition is a part of change. We must embrace our transition even if it is difficult.

    In doing so we face ourselves and we acknowledge the areas we need to grow in, the areas where we are strong in, and the areas we didn’t even know existed. We help heal ourselves into wholeness so when we do finally decide to make that jump, we are not scared about whether we are going to reach the other side.

  • Leaping into the Unknown: Why We Don’t Always Need a Plan

    Leaping into the Unknown: Why We Don’t Always Need a Plan

    “You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens.” ~Mandy Hale

    Wake up.

    Wish I could go back to sleep.

    Get up and ready for work. Tell myself that today I’ll leave earlier but then leave the same time as usual.

    Walk to work. Pass all the same people I did yesterday. At the same time.

    Arrive at work. Listen to the same people complaining about the same things. Complain about the same things myself.

    Teach my classes. Tell people off for being late—the same people as yesterday and the day before that.

    Go home. Try to work toward my dream life. Collapse from exhaustion after about half an hour and wonder what the point is.

    Go to bed. Cry lots. Hope that I don’t wake up in the morning.

    Wake up again and repeat.

    This was my routine for a good number of months before I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

    Did I have the world’s worst job? No, not really. Did I live in a hell hole? Not at all. In fact, you could probably say that I didn’t have any problems, yet I was possibly more miserable than I’d ever been.

    I couldn’t believe it. How had I ended up like this? I’d tried so hard to change my life. I’d meditated, done yoga, followed my dreams, made a vision board, and bought lots of self-help books. I’d even read them, too!

    What more was a girl supposed to do? Why wasn’t my life changing?

    I desperately wanted to leave my job, but couldn’t. I wouldn’t have the money to pay the rent. I wanted to leave my apartment but I had nowhere to go. Not unless I went to stay with my mother and, I couldn’t do that—not at my age!

    So I plodded on, I tried to be a good ‘spiritual’ person and accept my life as it was. I tried to make the best of things. And sometimes, it worked, but not for long.

    Eventually the feelings of dissatisfaction would return. The feeling of helplessness. Feeling stuck. Wanting to escape.

    But there was no way out. I’d be repeating this day forever. And ever.

    Let It Go

    Around this time, I was reading a lot about how we need to close one door before another can open. I was also seeing colleagues leave work to pursue a life of their dreams.

    Rather than giving me hope, this made me feel more downhearted. It was all right for them; they had money, a partner, a new job, or an already-up-and-running business.

    I was all alone. I was broke. I had no husband to support me. No rich relatives to bail me out.

    Everything I’d done to try to make a living out of work that I loved had already failed. I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. I just knew I didn’t want what I had.

    I’d get irritated when I’d read about how I had to simply quit my job, how I had to follow my heart. What if my heart was only telling me what I didn’t want? What if it was refusing to tell me what was next?

    What if I closed one door and the other one got stuck?

    What then?

    I was so afraid of what would happen, I held on for months, hoping for an answer to drop out of the sky.

    Until the pain of staying where I was suddenly became too much to bear. I couldn’t take it anymore. Suddenly, what happened next didn’t matter.

    I didn’t care.

    I saw the madness of what I was doing: staying in a job I didn’t want to do, to live in an apartment that I didn’t want to live in, to stay in an area that I didn’t particularly like. Just to survive. And even surviving wasn’t much fun.

    So I surrendered. I did what I’d felt called to do all along: I said goodbye to the security I’d been clinging to. With no idea of what was coming next. With no income and little money. And no idea where I was going to live.

    But as soon as I made my decision, I felt a huge sense of relief. I wondered what had taken me so long.

    Of course, it wasn’t long until the fear crept back in. I had moments when I wondered what I was doing and how I would survive.

    But even in those moments of doubt, there was a knowing that leaving my present situation was the right thing to do.

    All my life, I’d put survival first. Now it was time to put myself first.

    My happiness. My sanity. My peace of mind.

    The worst-case scenario may not be so bad. In fact, it might be quite good.

    I was lucky. I was never going to be out on the streets. I knew I had the option of returning to stay with my mother until I sorted myself out. But I really didn’t want to do that. I was far too old for that now.

    Besides, that would mean living in a town far away from anywhere, with no transport of my own. I’d be so lonely. I’d have even less chance of finding work I loved. I’d be even more stuck!

    Despite my best hopes that something else would magically turn up, I indeed ended up returning home. I tried telling myself it would be fine, but the scary thoughts were still lurking.

    However, within a couple of weeks of the move, I saw the new path begin to emerge—chance meetings with like-minded people, work opportunities in unexpected places, community events where I thought there’d be none.

    And for the first time in months, I actually felt happy. Because for the first time in my life, I was truly putting myself first. And I was truly living in the present. Survival was no longer the name of the game. My own peace of mind and happiness was.

    When the pain of being where you are is too much to handle, when life is shoving you in the direction of the unknown, dare to trust it.

    As I said, I was lucky. I know not everybody can do exactly as I did. Not everyone has someone who can help them out while they make a drastic life change.

    I also know how annoying it can be to be told to change your life when you simply don’t see how. But the point here isn’t to do what I did, but to let go where you can even if you have to face your own worst-case scenario.

    When you begin to take care of yourself, when you follow what feels good for you and put your own physical and mental health first, you’ll find the path will begin to open up. You’ll find support from unexpected places.

    You may even find that your worst-case scenario turns out to be the best thing you could have hoped for.

    What I’ve learned is that having a plan is overrated. Sometimes we really do need to let go and see what happens next.

  • When Nothing Is Certain, Anything Is Possible

    When Nothing Is Certain, Anything Is Possible

  • 4 Things You Need to Know When Pursuing An Ambitious Dream

    4 Things You Need to Know When Pursuing An Ambitious Dream

    Dreamer

    “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” ~Christopher Reeve

    Have you ever decided to pursue something that excited you, that seemed really hard to do, and then had your will tested and almost crushed? I have, many times, most recently this year.

    As you may recall, I shared a blog post in January about the newly formed Tiny Buddha Productions, a film company I started with my fiancé, fellow screenwriter Ehren Prudhel.

    If you haven’t read that post yet, you may want to read that now. Go ahead—it’s here. I’ll wait.

    Welcome back! A lot has happened in the six months since we decided to make a short film about loneliness and connection.

    We’ve faced delays, and drama, and disappointment. We’ve questioned ourselves, our idea, and our potential. And we even considered scrapping the whole thing when it all seemed far harder, and success far less likely, than we once imagined it would be.

    But we’ve pushed forward, in spite of the fears and the discomfort. We’ve waded through the guck of insecurity and uncertainty. And here we are, about to start filming our first short film tomorrow.

    As I sit here with a goofy perma-grin on my face, I’d like to share a little of what I’ve learned over the past six months.

    If you’re pursuing a dream, and feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, self-doubting, and scared, perhaps some of my lessons will help.

    1. There’s no shame in being green.

    I knew going into this there was a ton I didn’t know. Although I’d studied acting and writing in college, I didn’t study screenwriting, and I had no experience producing a film or working on a set.

    In addition to what I didn’t know, there was a lot I didn’t know I didn’t know—stuff about permits, and insurance, and securing locations. Every part of this has been a learning process for me, and that can feel incredibly vulnerable.

    It’s easy to feel insecure and embarrassed when you’re working with experienced people and you feel a little ignorant.

    But when I took my ego out of the equation and stopped worrying about what other people might think of me, I realized how fun it is to be at the beginning of a journey.

    It reminds me of when I was in college, and I felt excited about everything—being on campus in Boston, meeting new people, learning from them, getting to share my work, and imagining possibilities for the future.

    Would I feel more confident if I were an expert? Sure. But there’s nothing like the enthusiasm you feel when you’re just starting out. Some day I will be an expert, and I can only hope I’ll maintain this electric passion I feel right now.

    If you too are at the beginning, remember: This feeling won’t last forever, so soak up the best and don’t worry about the worst. No one loses respect for someone just because they’re new. If anything, they highly esteem people who are embarking on an exciting but challenging new journey—especially if they’re not just out of college.

    More importantly, your experience is worth far more than their perception, so enjoy every part of this new path. This is what life’s all about—trying things that excite you and feeling giddy, nervous, and passionately alive. Let yourself bask in it.

    2. Setbacks are part of the process.

    As I mentioned, it’s been almost six months since we decided to do this short film. We originally planned to shoot in in the spring, after speaking to lots of people and hiring a director, who was going to bring his own crew onboard and edit.

    With the most important hire in place, I ran a T-shirt campaign to raise money to fund the film. And then the setbacks began.

    The director—who, I should add, is a wonderful person, who we’d be fortunate to work with—said there were too many locations. So we re-wrote the script.

    Then he told us the budget was still too small, so we increased it, to much more than we originally expected we’d spend.

    Then, after much back and forth, with all our eggs in his basket, he had to back out due to personal reasons.

    As the months went on, I began to feel like the girl who cried film. I’d already publicly announced the project on the blog. I’d run a fundraiser. And there we were, seemingly back at square one.

    For a while I got myself worked up and discouraged. I had no idea how to move things forward with our first project, and I also knew it would be just a small step on a much larger path. But then Ehren and I regrouped and decided that the setbacks weren’t failures; they were part of the journey—to be expected.

    We didn’t need to feel bad about them. We had to view them as par for the course—simply part of the process of doing something new and difficult.

    So often we get down on ourselves when things don’t go as planned. But it’s nearly impossible to make a smart plan when you’re learning as you go because you have no idea what each step will entail. The only thing you can reasonably expect when you’re doing something new is the unexpected.

    The good news is, the unexpected isn’t always bad. It’s usually in putting out mini fires that we learn and grow the most. Every step of a new journey is a classroom—and remember, people pay good money for an education.

    So don’t let the setbacks get you down. See them as signs you’re moving up, because they are, in fact, a part of the process.

    3. It helps to hold yourself accountable.

    I wrote that blog post introducing Tiny Buddha Productions for a reason: I knew that this would be hard. But once it was out there in writing, and because we also told our friends and family, it felt nearly impossible not to follow through.

    I could lie to myself and say I didn’t really want this that bad, but I’d already made it abundantly clear, very publicly, that I did.

    Reading that post has kept me motivated when I’ve felt like giving up. It’s reminded me that this means something to me, and it’s worth pushing through my discomfort to make it happen.

    Tell people what you aspire to do, and not just casually, in passing, like it’s not that important to you. You want this. You dream about this. If you’re like me, you lie awake thinking about it, and it pops into your head first thing in the morning and when you wake in the middle of the night.

    You care—a lot. And it feels vulnerable to admit that, especially since everyone will know if things don’t work out as you hoped they would. Don’t let that deter you.

    Not only does sharing your intentions keep you on track, it also inspires others to do something about the faint murmur they hear in bed at night and when they open their eyes.

    Everyone has something that blows their hair back. Remind them what it looks and feels like to go for it. As the saying goes, “Enthusiasm is contagious. You can start an epidemic.”

    4. An experience can be worth so much more than it costs.

    We raised quite a bit for this project, because filmmaking is incredibly expensive. (In fact, I was shocked to learn how much it costs to make five minutes of film.)

    When I shared with a loved one how much we raised, she questioned if perhaps we should pocket the cash or spend it on something else. “Why spend that money on something that might go nowhere when you could just keep it?” she asked.

    Well, I’d positioned the T-shirt campaign as a fundraiser, so that’s one thing. But more importantly, I knew this experience would be far more valuable than what it would cost.

    Ehren and I each have our own reasons for wanting to do this, and wanting to do it together. His reasons are his to tell. For me, this is more than a project; it’s the beginning of an exciting new life.

    It’s a way to connect with who I was before healing consumed me; an opportunity to create something that will hopefully make an impact; and a chance to do something collaborative instead of spending so much time working on my own, from my computer.

    That’s why I’m doing this film, and I hope many more after it: it’s something I need to do for myself, and want to do with Ehren. If that’s not worth the cost, what is?

    I realize I’m incredibly fortunate to have a means to raise money, and that not everyone has that same advantage. But we all have the ability to invest in ourselves—whether that means a portion of our savings or a portion of our time.

    We all have the potential to put some of what we have toward what we want to create. I know, it can be scary to do it. You can think of a million and one reasons not to use your limited resources.

    There are no guarantees. It might not work out as you hoped it would. People might say, “I told you so.”

    Yes, those things are true. But things could actually turn out better than you’d hoped. And if they don’t, this could be the first step on a different journey you don’t yet know you want to take.

    You don’t need a guarantee to know that taking a risk—stretching yourself and coming alive—is worth it, no matter where it leads.

    —

    Having a dream is a lot like being that little man on the moon, in the picture on top. You know you can fall, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re lost in the music and the view. I’m lost in mine right now. What’s yours?

  • Embrace Uncertainty

    Embrace Uncertainty

    Embrace uncertainty

  • When Life Takes a Detour: Turning Uncertainty Into Joy

    When Life Takes a Detour: Turning Uncertainty Into Joy

    Happy Woman

    “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.” ~Og Mandino

    You know when you get a major wake up call that shakes you to the core and gets you to focus on what’s truly important? That’s what 2014 was for me.

    My boyfriend and I had gotten married in May 2014 after moving from Toronto to a small town to be closer to his aging mother.

    I was working thirteen-hour days to re-establish my wellness business, and things were slowly picking up. I was finally adjusting to the quiet country night and whinnying horses across the road. I envisioned a “happily ever after.”

    Life, however, had other plans.

    In August, three months after our wedding, my husband had a debilitating stroke that almost killed him. Actually, it was his third stroke. The first two left him speechless for a few weeks, but the last one paralyzed him on his left side.

    Boom! Life changed forever, in an instant. He had to learn how to eat, walk, and adjust to the possibility of not being able to use his left hand again. I had to adjust to the idea of being a thirty-four-year old caregiver, and felt so very alone in my new surroundings.

    Between driving back and forth to the hospital every day for three months, the song and dance of having to buy a new car, and having to find a new accessible place to live, in a new town (even farther from my family and friends), I completely lost myself.

    I didn’t know who I was as a wife, and I didn’t know what I wanted in life anymore. There was too much “newness,” and I felt like a boat with no anchor. The transition to the “new normal” was a challenge, to say the least.

    I often dipped back into my memory of how things used to be and stressed out about things I’d never really given a second thought: As a caregiver, would I be able to leave the house at all? How would we cope being farther away from friends and family? What if he had another debilitating stroke and had no choice but to live in a nursing home?

    Thankfully, our adjustment to our new situation and surroundings got better as the months rolled on. After a while, I was able to slowly turn my uncertainty into joy. That is what I want to share with you today.

    Step 1: Make space to process your “now.”

    When you’re dealing with new challenges and uncertainty, it can be disorienting and overwhelming. It almost feels like you’re driving along a familiar route, and in the blink of an eye you’re on a completely different street. You have no clue where you are and how to get back to where you were.

    The first question you may ask yourself is, “What the heck just happened?!”

    When adversity and uncertainty present themselves and you’re left trying to re-establish a life that’s comfortable and familiar, it’s easy to dwell on should, woulda, coulda or bury yourself in distractions.

    This, however, is the perfect opportunity to carve out some time to process how you’re really feeling in the present moment. For me, this was a daily routine of meditation and talking to friends. Make it a point to connect with your body and emotions every day so you can move forward with a clearer head.

    There’s no shame in getting support to process your current situation, either.

    Step 2: Define what a joyful life looks and feels like to you.

    Going with the same analogy above, you can try to find a way to get back to the street you were on, but did that path truly make you happy?

    Before trying to “fix the problem,” it’s important to sit down with yourself and have an honest conversation. What was missing in your life before? What would have to be in place for you to live the joyful version of yourself, every day?

    What I realized through my husband’s health crisis was that I wasn’t making time to actually live. To me, living meant working hard but also making time for family and fun.

    I became committed to unplugging in the evenings to spend time with my husband and ditching my computer every afternoon for daily walks. I now feel more active and connected to my spirit.

    It may take less than you think to make your vision a reality.

    Step 3: Take care of your body to minimize the blues.

    The stress that comes with adversity and uncertainty sometimes leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms. For me, stress leads to carb and sugar binging, which leads to weight gain, which leads to lowered energy and lowered self-esteem.

    Making a date with a friend, your partner, or yourself every day to get outside for ten to twenty minutes might be all you need to boost your mood, energy, and overall health. Exercise is a great mood booster too.

    Step 4: Let go of limiting thoughts around not knowing or not being in control.

    If you’re Type-A like me, you actually beat yourself up for not being able to think up a clever solution. I tried to be the drill sergeant reminding him to do his daily exercises, but this only stressed him out. I put a lot of pressure on myself to make money quickly, but having limited opportunities to leave the house shut that down almost 90% of the time.

    There’s no shame in not being able to fix a situation. Sometimes it’s a matter of being patient instead of fixing.

    Once you let go of the idea of having to control everything and accept yourself for what you are (human, that is), it becomes easier to connect with yourself, others, and your desires from a calmer, joyful place.

    Step 5: Stay curious and explore something new.

    Whether or not you’ve figured out what your perfect scenario would be—the big picture of your what you really want in life—it’s important to stay open to unexpected opportunities that pique your interest. This will help you infuse your day with tiny pieces of joy.

    After my husband’s stroke, I had no clue what I wanted to do, and that was really scary for me.

    Eventually, with some help from a social worker and friends, I started to trust the universe and view my limbo as an opportunity to try something I’ve always wanted to try: drawing. It was soothing for me, low cost, and brought me more joy than I ever thought it could. My ideas and energy started to flow again, and it eventually led me to start a new business.

    Never underestimate the power of exploration with intention.

    What’s in your box?

    You can’t predict the way your life will unfold. There isn’t a book you can read that will prepare you for what you’ll actually experience and feel if the rug is pulled from under you.

    Uncertainty can be a big package of overwhelm and fear. But, actively looking for and believing that there are other things in the box, like gratitude and joy, can make the package you’ve been given a whole lot more rewarding.

    Happy woman image via Shutterstock

  • The Beauty of Uncertainty: Each Day is a Blank Canvas

    The Beauty of Uncertainty: Each Day is a Blank Canvas

    Every New Day

    “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~Mark Twain

    It occurred to me one day, while staring at my computer at work, that I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of having uncertainty in any area of my life.

    I plan my schedule rigidly, including what social/extracurricular activities I’m going to do over the next week. I take very few risks, and when I do take one, I vow to never do it again. You could say I live life very safely and am a “stick to the rules” kind of person.

    At this moment, I am feeling anxiety from thinking about all the things I have no control over.

    I am about to finish graduate school with a doctorate in biology and I have no idea what I’ll be doing next. Will I actually submit my thesis by the March deadline? What will the peer review process be like for my publication—will it require me to delay my graduation?

    This can even go further into my personal life. Where will I be living next? Who will I be with? Will I get married within the next five years? Will I be happy where I am?

    As I sit here and think of these questions, I feel a huge black cloud hovering above me. When I think of the future I don’t see any clear pictures, but instead, a blank canvas.

    I see uncertainty as something to fear because it is unknown.

    Uncertainty leads to changes in life that we may or may not be prepared for, or expect at all. These changes can be good for us, or they could tear us apart. There is even research on the ethics of uncertainty, so I know that I’m not alone in fearing uncertainty, but…

    Why? Why do we fear not knowing? Why must we try to exert control on every aspect of our lives?

    We make schedules every day, we plan ahead for events, we fall into this routine of life because we know what to expect.

    We like knowing what to expect. We know that on Monday we are going to wake up and go about with our morning routine, go to work, come home, and either have plans with other people or continue with our nighttime routine. It’s back to square one on Tuesday. 

    We feel comfortable knowing that we have something to look forward to. When we lose this control, it results in discomfort, anxiety, and fear, and this can break us apart. 

    What if you woke up one day and that certainty in life was taken away from you? What if you were essentially placed on a blank canvas and had to paint your life as you go?

    How would you feel? Even writing about living on a blank canvas stirs fear of uncertainty within me. It’s because uncertainty equals risk. You are risking treading into waters that you’ve never waded through before. You don’t know if there are “sharks” out there.

    But, what if you end up liking what’s in the previously unexplored waters? You’re risking change happening. You are risking doing something you didn’t think you’d do, feeling something you didn’t think you’d feel, or being someone you didn’t think you would be.

    Uncertainty sometimes forces us to explore aspects in life we never even knew existed, and that’s what makes uncertainty and change so beautiful.

    Think back to a time when you tried something new or met new people and it/he/she/they became an important part of your life. It’s because you went past your fear of uncertainty and took a risk.

    Not all risks result in negative outcomes. In fact, all the risks you’ve taken up to this point have brought all those things and people into your life that you have today. Or maybe all the risks taken have led you to eliminate what has been toxic in your life.

    Either way, change and uncertainty are crucial in the process of creating the type of life we want to live and the people we want to be. I think we should open our eyes and embrace not having everything figured out all the time. Every once in a while, we should wake up with no plans and just paint as we go.

    If you think about it, the only thing permanent in life is change. The process of growing from a baby into an old man or woman involves necessary (and quite remarkable) changes. Seasons change. Our minds are constantly in a state of change and help us adapt to physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional choices we make in life.

    Change can be good. We should be grateful that we are alive and even have the choice to change and accept changes. We should be grateful for the changes that life forces us to make that ultimately end up painting a better life for us.

    Each day is a new blank canvas. How lucky are we to be able to continually renew like this? To be able to start all over every day?

    All the uncertainty you’ve openly embraced, the fear you put aside to try something new, and the changes you’ve made thus far have made you the person you are this moment, reading this article.

    While there are certainly (no pun intended?) moments in life that you may not think have been for the better, they are guiding you on the path to where and who you’re meant to be. Take risks in life. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Be vulnerable.

    Just like in the Mark Twain quote above, we should explore life, create room to discover new things, and go for our dreams. We should be open-minded, explore the unknown, meet new people, and accept change and uncertainty.

    We should be excited that every day we get to wake up and automatically have a new beginning on that blank canvas. The whole world is at our hands and feet, and we get to move in whichever direction we choose.

    Let’s wake up every morning, grab that paintbrush, and embrace all the colors and strokes we choose to paint, as well as what life paints for us.

    You have all the colors, brushes, and various materials to create what you envision, but make sure to enjoy every moment of the process, especially uncertain ones, in creating your beautiful masterpiece.

    Every new day image via Shutterstock

  • Choosing Inspiration Over Intimidation: How the Unknown Can Empower You

    Choosing Inspiration Over Intimidation: How the Unknown Can Empower You

    Facing the Unknown

    “When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Lately, I have been reflecting a lot on what I was like when I was a kid.

    Back then, what I didn’t know seemed magical. It gave me room to imagine, to fill in the blanks with my own creative inspiration, and to live with a sense of wonder and awe.

    I loved fantasizing and daydreaming and imagining what magical situation might be brewing in my life.

    As children, curiosity was a natural and automatic part of us, and what we didn’t know didn’t scare us. If anything, it made us into warrior explorers who took adventures into the unknown, unafraid to change direction if something wasn’t working, unattached to the outcome, and perfectly content on the journey.

    As a child, I was open and available to the possibility of the kind of world I wanted to live in. I loved learning about people and their life situations.

    What I didn’t know inspired me to ask questions. And I asked a lot of questions. I was unscripted and unedited. It took people by surprise, but I shook things up everywhere I went and saw nothing wrong with that.

    I was unapologetic about who I was.

    I believed in the good, the magical, and the powerful, and I believed that fairytales were real. After all, no one had told me yet that it was silly, crazy, or impossible. No one had convinced me yet that fantasy was not a useful tool for creating a worthwhile life.

    But sadly, I was only wholeheartedly curious and unedited until about age five. Then I began to doubt, to limit what I knew to be true, and to edit the world I believed was possible.

    I got really good at fitting in and being whatever I thought others would adore. I stopped asking questions, and I went through years of agreeing with everyone all the time.

    I had forgotten who I was and grew fearful of rocking the boat. I now felt threatened by the unknown, and I lived with anxiety because of it.

    All those years of forgetting about who I am wound me up good and lost by the time I graduated college. I went through some pretty heavy rock bottoms in my twenties, super lost and so unsure of myself.

    I struggled because there was this world I believed in, but then there were all the ways in which I had edited myself into a world much smaller. I knew there had to be a way out. It just took me some time to find it.

    As it turns out, the way out was not some external thing that changed for me, but rather the willingness to search inside myself, a place I hadn’t spent much time up to this point.

    I let myself start asking questions again, and I contemplated those questions for months and years. Just asking them was enough to open up a whole new world to me.

    I believe in the practice of taking what we do not know—that precious space where anything is possible—and allowing ourselves to live in its question mark, to play with what we really want, and to dance in the discomfort, challenging ourselves to build and create the world we want to live in.

    If we don’t choose this, then what are we choosing?

    What if we let the unknown be an invitation, a calling to a greater you and me? What if the unknown was a blessing and a gift, presenting us with a blank to fill in with whatever we want to create? What would be available to you if you let the unknown inspire you instead of letting it intimidate you?

    I have so many unknowns in my life right now, and I am pretty positive I always will.

    Will I become a wife or won’t I? Will I be a mom or not? Will I live here for the rest of my life, or will I move again? Will I travel the world again? Is this what I am meant to be doing, or is there something else or something more? What do I really want, and am I willing to do whatever it takes to create that?

    Instead of making myself crazy, trying to get answers that I cannot possibly have in this moment, I choose to practice surrender and mindfulness.

    Whenever I’m facing the unknown and I see myself going into a negative, fearful, victim place, asking questions helps me shift.

    I ask questions like:

    How do I know this bad thing is going to happen? Is that a fact? Since this is not a fact, what is a fact? The fact is that I am facing the unknown.

    What do I prefer to create right now? Where is the magical place that I wish to go instead of this limited place? What do I want this unknown to mean for me? What would it take to create something better that I haven’t even thought of yet? Can I just live in the question of that? How does it get any better than this?

    As we become responsible adults, we need to reclaim our power, remember who we are, and become the person we wish would save us so we can create the world we would be joyful living in.

    It is up to us to let go of the outcome and to be curious and adventurous, like when we were kids.

    When you are faced with the unknown, notice what you do. Become aware of whether you make up a negative story about it. If so, what would happen if you made up a fun, exciting, empowering, inspirational story about it instead?

    Use your curiosity. Investigate your own mind, heart, and spirit. Ask questions. Explore. What adventure do you want this unknown to mean for you? What do you want to create?

    Lastly, look outside your comfort zone. Instead of reaching for what you know based on your past, look outside the bubble that includes everything you’ve ever known. What is a new way for all the pieces to come together? How might this time be different for you?

    Be willing to look beyond what is currently showing up. Sometimes we may not know how something will come into being, so we must stay present with the knowing we hold deep inside and committed to the vision we have for our lives.

    We are human. There will always be uncertainty, but it doesn’t have to overwhelm us or freak us out. It could inspire us and get us excited about what magic is unfolding for us.

    As for me, I am choosing to just be with what is. As I sit with my resistance to what is, I become aware that the temptation to make the unknown mean something scary and bad is just another distraction so I don’t have to sit in the discomfort of not knowing.

    So every day I must recommit to sitting with the discomfort instead of giving in to the temptation to make up scary stories about it. Just embracing what is can be the very relief we are searching for!

    Uncertainty image via Shutterstock

  • A Reason to Feel Less Anxious During Times of Transition

    A Reason to Feel Less Anxious During Times of Transition

    Woman with Butterfly

    “How ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.” ~Elizabeth Lesser

    This past May I graduated from college, where I majored in Environmental Science. I chose this subject for one simple reason: I love learning how the world works.

    There are always strong connections to be made between humans and other species. Every time I hear a unique, astonishing fact about other animals, I feel more connected to the world around us rather than more separate.

    My latest bewildering discovery came from the radio.

    I was driving in my car, heading to the grocery store but mostly in need of some fresh air. I had spent the day inside, applying to jobs and pondering the next step of my life. Riding along, listening to the radio, provided a source of calm.

    The segment was on NPR’s RadioLab and the subject was “black boxes.”

    On NPR’s website, the hosts describe black boxes as: “those peculiar spaces where it’s clear what’s going in, we know what’s coming out, but what happens in-between is a mystery.”

    The hosts announced their first topic of discussion: a caterpillar’s transformation to butterfly.

    The black box, in this case, is the chrysalis within which the caterpillar’s body changes into a butterfly. We know the caterpillar and we know the butterfly, but many of us do not know what happens inside the cocoon.

    I was hooked. Sitting in my car, I had parked but couldn’t turn off the radio.

    I wanted to hear what exactly goes on in the chrysalis. What does it look like inside this hidden chamber? Is it what I’d imagine?

    I predicted that within the cocoon, caterpillar cells begin to replicate on either side of the body in a symmetrical pattern. Maybe the wings curl around the body as they grow.

    I was wrong.

    If you open a chrysalis about a week after its conception, there is no discernible caterpillar. Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar actually digests itself. The enzymes released by this process create a sort of goo in place of the caterpillar.

    The creep-factor of this for me was akin to watching Silence of the Lambs. The story was as perturbing as it was captivating.

    I believe what fascinates me most about the caterpillar’s transition into butterfly or moth is that the original wormy fellow neither stays fully intact nor completely disappears. The “goo” is actually a collection of cells that replicate where they need to.

    The butterfly’s organs, such as the antennae, the wings, and legs, all develop through the constant division and replication of cells that collect from caterpillar goo. Even more interesting, some species of moth have been shown to retain some memory of their caterpillar lives. The cells, therefore, hold qualities of their original character.

    The metamorphic process is evolutionary, and it is encoded in the caterpillar’s DNA.

    I do not believe that the small creature makes a conscious choice to turn himself into goo. Rather, he does so by default just as his ancestors have been doing for millions of years. I know this logically. And yet, there is something abstractly beautiful about the concept.

    I love that the caterpillar trusts it will become a butterfly. It is willing to break itself down for a short period of time, knowing that the result of its self-destruction will be as grand and sensational as a butterfly or moth.

    What fearlessness required, what self-confidence! The caterpillar eats and eats for days, plumping itself up for the process of its own obliteration. That takes some serious bravery and commitment.

    Last month, I put on a graduation cap and gown, and I, along with millions of other graduates, took a leap from the comfortable role of student to something as yet undefined.

    One moment, I could define myself by my courses, my friends, and my ability to navigate campus. The next moment, it became a lot harder to define myself, as my entire environment changed.

    I have been wondering a lot lately about where I’m headed next. Is there any clear-cut path or formula?

    Looking on Instagram and Facebook it seems that everyone is confident in their post-graduation choices, whatever they may be.

    I feel that I am somewhere in between, applying for jobs but still unaware of my first step, and uncertain of the specifics of my future.

    For example, where do I want to live? What types of people do I want to surround myself with? Where do I want to work? More specifically, what type of work will fulfill me?

    The questions are normal, even necessary. But hearing about caterpillars, I realized something important about how I’ve been navigating my transition.

    I, along with many of my friends, have been envisioning my life thus far as having two separate stages: one during college and one after.

    The first stage we view as preparation. We feed ourselves with the tools necessary to grow, just as the caterpillar does. After college, we expect to become a butterfly. On top of this, we expect the transition to occur rapidly and effortlessly.

    Before I graduated, I had a lot of anxiety about remaining active and engaged after graduation. Looking back, I realize I was desperately scared that I’d lose myself—that the transition would seize the “me” I knew and morph me into some worse version. But what if these fears ended up being more dangerous to my growth than the transition itself?

    When I view this period of time as my black box, instead of feeling anxious that I will lose myself, I feel excited by the opportunity to rebuild.

    I trust that whatever is contained within the black box, is still “me.” So what if it gets a little gooey? Times of transition are meant to be gooey; we are meant to settle into ambiguity before we are able to achieve clarity.

    This mentality has helped me to take positive action toward starting on my new path.

    This doesn’t mean it’s easy. My identity is undergoing a breakdown of boundaries. It can be scary.

    I do fear on some level that, like the caterpillar turning to goo, I will lose everything that defined me, other than DNA, of course. But however scary, it can be more fruitful to spend time in the black box than to rush the process of becoming a butterfly.

    During a time of transition, it’s important to give yourself space and time to break yourself down and settle into the uncertainty of the moment, to take a pause before stepping forward.

    Maybe the caterpillar has it right. Before becoming a butterfly, the caterpillar loses all structural integrity; he does not fight to keep his body as it was. Nor does he entirely disappear.

    Instead, he changes form, while maintaining essential parts of his former identity. In the end, he builds himself back up as a better version of himself, this time graced with a pair of wings, and poised for flight.

    I am confident that after time in the black box, I will emerge more capable, more mindful, and more me.

    If you are also in a black box, having just completed one phase while preparing for another, know that nature provides these spaces for a reason.

    These periods of transition, with all of their anxiety and ambiguity, are critical to our growth. There are times in our lives when the best place to be is inside the black box.

    Woman with butterfly image via Shutterstock

  • What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

    What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

    “No one saves us but ourselves. We alone must walk the path.” ~Buddha

    I got a frantic message from a friend last night.

    Everything was going wrong—her job, her relationship, her life—and she didn’t know what to do.

    “Help me, please,” she kept saying. “I don’t know what to do.”

    I tried hard to stifle a giggle. I know, completely inappropriate. But I found it really funny.

    Why? Because I’m the last person anyone should be asking for advice. If I knew what to do, if I knew how to help her, I’d have:

    1. implemented this a long time ago in my own life to solve issues that I, myself, have been grappling with
    2. created a website and published a book and video tutorials with the answer
    3. bought my own island in the Caribbean just from the proceeds of the book sales (I’d give the money from my website ad sales and video to charity, obvs)

    I’d be rich, because this is what every human being confronts at some point in their lives—what should I do?!

    We all hate the unexpected. We all hate uncertainty. These situations usually mean we haven’t gotten what we want or things aren’t going as we wanted them to go. We know we need to make a decision. We know we need to do something. But making a decision is hard, especially when things are uncertain.

    In moments like this, we become frantic, we flail, we panic. I know because I’ve done all three. Several times.

    And then we become obsessed with our problems. We think about them.

    All. The. Time.

    And then we think about them some more.

    Sometimes my brain actually starts to ache from all this thinking and analyzing. We get exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And when we realize we are no closer to solving our problems or making a decision, we start becoming more frantic and we flail and panic even more.

    So of course, it makes sense that we turn to others for answers at times likes this. Because in this moment, we are in no state to save ourselves. My friend is not an exception. Most of us have turned to others at some point or another.

    I couldn’t give my friend any answers that night. I knew she wanted a specific solution to address her issues. But I didn’t have any. And here’s the scary news: no one does.

    You are the only one who can save yourself. You are the only one who can solve your problem.

    Hearing that probably wants to make you hide under your duvet and never come out.

    I don’t know what to do, remember? How am I supposed to save myself?? I don’t even trust myself to change a light bulb!!

    I hear you. And you can stop hiding now and jump out of bed, because here are three simple things you can do in times like this.

    (Note: These three ideas aren’t solutions to your problem. But they help you, they help the situation, and they allow you to get to a place where you are better able to pin down the right decision.)

    I know they might not seem like much, and it’s easy to dismiss them. It might even seem like I’m not taking your problem seriously. All I can say is that I’ve gone through these situations time and time again, and doing the things below has definitely helped me.

    It stopped me from being completely consumed with my problem. It helped me create much-needed space and clarity.

    Also, if you are being put out of balance by one part of you life, your best hope is to bring in some balance from another end.

    What’s the alternative? Thinking more about the problem at hand?

    We both know how that usually works out.

    1. Be frantic, flail, panic … then get it out.

    Whine to your amazing friends who listen to you patiently with nothing but love and empathy, even though you’ve been putting them through this time and time again.

    Then go jogging, go to the gym, go for a swim. Write in a journal. Do something to get all that anger, resentment, fear, and pity out of you.

    You’re in over-active child mode right now—tire yourself out.

    2. Go spend some time outdoors.

    Go for a meander in the woods, walk along the ocean. Observe the birds in action, pay attention to the trees, watch the clouds in the sky. Basically spend some time in nature.

    I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something calming about nature. It slows us down. It tires us out (see point 1). It gives us perspective. It shows us that there is more to life than our problems and worries. Mary Oliver’s beautiful poem, The Shore comes to mind;

    I go down to the shore in the morning
    and depending on the hour
    the waves are rolling in or moving out,
    and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall—
    what should I do?
    And the sea says in its lovely voice:
    Excuse me, I have work to do.

    3. Do something else.

    Worried about whether you should end a relationship? Go learn to play a new musical instrument.

    Worried about how you are going to make your mortgage at the end of the month? Go volunteer at your local charity. Or:

    • Read something uplifting every morning, afternoon and right before going to bed
    • Watch YouTube clips that crack you up
    • Meditate
    • Write five things you are grateful for every morning
    • Start a new habit (i.e.: get up an hour earlier, drink more water)
    • Learn origami
    • Spend some time cleaning your closet
    • Offer to babysit for your friends (kids are amazing distracters!! It’s hard to focus on your problems when you are constantly trying to keep them from falling over or hurting themselves.)

    As humans who lead very human lives, mud gets thrown at us at some point or another. And when you stop flailing and panicking, when you calm down, when you focus on something else, you give the mud a chance to slide off and settle down; you allow the waters to get less murky. And things get clearer.

    Maybe in this clarity you’ll know what to do. Or maybe you will have made your peace with what’s happened.

    More likely, you’ll probably have moved on to something else and forgotten what was winding you up in the first place. Or something else might have happened to completely transform the initial situation.

    That’s the other thing about life. It’s full of surprises.