Tiny Buddha

Tag: values

  • 5 Powerful Mindset Shifts to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think

    5 Powerful Mindset Shifts to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think

    “Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” ~Lao Tzu

    We carefully pick out what we wear to the gym to make sure we look good in the eyes of the other gymgoers.

    We beat ourselves up after meetings, running through everything we said (or didn’t say), worried that coworkers will think we aren’t smart or talented enough.

    We post only the best picture out of the twenty-seven selfies we took and add a flattering filter to get the most likes to prove to ourselves that we are pretty and likable.

    We live in other people’s heads.

    And all it does is make us judge ourselves more harshly. It makes us uncomfortable in our bodies. It makes us feel apologetic for being ourselves. It makes us live according to our perception of other people’s standards.

    It makes us feel inauthentic. Anxious. Judgmental. Not good enough. Not likable enough. Not smart enough. Not pretty enough.

    F that sh*t.

    The truth is, other people’s opinions of us are none of our business. Their opinions have nothing to do with us and everything to do with them, their past, their judgments, their expectations, their likes, and their dislikes.

    I could stand in front of twenty strangers and speak on any topic. Some of them will hate what I’m wearing, some will love it. Some will think I’m a fool, and others will love what I have to say. Some will forget me as soon as they leave, others will remember me for years.

    Some will hate me because I remind them of their annoying sister-in-law. Others will feel compassionate toward me because I remind them of their daughter. Some will completely understand what I have to say, and others will misinterpret my words.

    Each of them will get the exact same me. I will do my best and be the best I can be in that moment. But their opinions of me will vary. And that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with them.

    No matter what I do, some people will never like me. No matter what I do, some people will always like me. Either way, it has nothing to do with me. And it’s none of my business.

    Ok, “that’s all well and good,” you may be thinking. “But how do I stop caring what other people think of me?”

    1. Know your values.

    Knowing your top core values is like having a brighter flashlight to get you through the woods. A duller light may still get you where you need to go, but you’ll stumble more or be led astray.

    With a brighter light, the decisions you make—left or right, up or down, yes or no—become clearer and easier to make.

    For years I had no idea what I truly valued, and I felt lost in life as a result. I never felt confident in my decisions, and I questioned everything I said and did.

    Doing core values work on myself has made a huge impact on my life. I came to realize that “compassion” is my top core value. Now when I find myself questioning my career decisions because I’m worried about disappointing my parents (a huge trigger for me), I remind myself that “compassion” also means “self-compassion,” and I’m able to cut myself some slack.

    If you value courage and perseverance and you show up at the gym even though you are nervous and have “lame” gym clothes, you don’t have to dwell on what the other gymgoers think about you.

    If you value inner peace and you need to say “no” to someone who is asking for your time, and your plate is already full to the max, you can do so without feeling like they will judge you for being a selfish person.

    If you value authenticity and you share your opinion in a crowd, you can do so with confidence knowing that you are living your values and being yourself.

    Know your core values and which ones you value the most. Your flashlight will be brighter for it.

    2. Know to stay in your own business.

    Another way to stop caring about what other people think is to understand that there are three types of business in the world. This is a lesson I learned from Byron Katie, and I love it.

    The first is God’s business. If the word “God” isn’t to your liking, you can use another word here that works for you, like the universe or nature. I think I like nature better, so I’ll use that.

    The weather is nature’s business. Who dies and who is born is nature’s business. The body and genes you were given are nature’s business. You have no place in nature’s business. You can’t control it.

    The second type of business is other people’s business. What they do is their business. What your neighbor thinks of you is his business. What time your coworker comes into work is her business. If the driver in the other car doesn’t go when the light turns green, it’s their business.

    The third type of business is your business.

    If you get angry with the other driver because you now have to wait at another red light, that’s your business.

    If you get irritated because your coworker is late again, that’s your business.

    If you are worried about what your neighbor thinks of you, that’s your business.

    What they think is their business. What you think (and in turn, feel) is your business.

    Whose business are you in when you’re worried about what you’re wearing? Whose business are you in when you dwell on how your joke was received at the party?

    You only have one business to concern yourself with—yours. What you think and what you do are the only things you can control in life. That’s it.

    3. Know that you have full ownership over your feelings.

    When we base our feelings on other people’s opinions, we are allowing them to control our lives. We’re basically allowing them to be our puppet master, and when they pull the strings just right, we either feel good or bad.

    If someone ignores you, you feel bad. You may think, “She made me feel this way by ignoring me.” But the truth is, she has no control over how you feel.

    She ignored you, and you assigned meaning to that action. To you, that meant that you were not worth her time, or you were not likable enough, smart enough, or cool enough.

    Then you felt sad or mad because of the meaning you applied. You had an emotional reaction to your own thought.

    When we give ownership of our feelings over to others, we give up control over our emotions. The fact of the matter is, the only person that can hurt your feelings is you.

    To change how other people’s actions make you feel, you only need to change a thought. This step sometimes takes a bit of work because our thoughts are usually automatic or even on the unconscious level, so it may take some digging to figure out what thought is causing your emotion.

    But once you do, challenge it, question it, or accept it. Your emotions will follow.

    4. Know that you are doing your best.

    One of the annoying things my mom would say growing up (and she still says) is “You did the best you could with what you had at the time.”

    I hated that saying.

    I had high standards of myself, and I always thought that I could have done better. So when I didn’t meet those expectations, my inner bully would come out and beat the crap out of me.

    How much of your life have you spent kicking yourself because you thought you said something dumb? Or because you showed up late? Or that you looked weird?

    Every time, you did the best you could. Every. Single. Time.

    That’s because everything we do has a positive intent. It may not be obvious, but it’s there.

    Literally as I’m writing this post sitting in a tea shop in Portland, Maine, another patron went to the counter and asked what types of tea he could blend with his smoky Lapsang Souchong tea (a favorite of mine as well).

    He hadn’t asked me, but I chimed in that maybe chaga mushroom would go well because of its earthy flavor. He seemed unimpressed with the unsolicited advice and turned back to the counter.

    The old me would have taken that response to heart and felt terrible the rest of the afternoon, thinking how this guy must think I’m a dope and annoying for jumping into the conversation uninvited.

    But let’s take a look at what I had in that moment:

    • I had an urge to try to be helpful and a core value of kindness and compassion.
    • I had an interest in the conversation.
    • I had an impression that my feedback might be well received.
    • I had a desire to connect with a new person on a shared interest.

    I did the best I could with what I had.

    Because I know that, I have no regrets. I also know that his opinion of me is none of my business, and I was living in tune with my values, trying to be helpful!

    Though, I could also see how, from another perspective, forcing my way into a conversation and pushing my ideas on someone who did not ask may have been perceived as rude. And rudeness goes against my core value of compassion.

    That leads me to the next lesson.

    5. Know that everyone makes mistakes.

    We live in a culture where we don’t often talk about how we feel. It turns out we all experience the same feelings, and we all make mistakes. Go figure!

    Even if you are living in tune with your values, even if you are staying in your own business, even if you are doing your best, you will make mistakes. Without question.

    So what? We all do. We all have. Having compassion for yourself comes easier when you understand that everyone has felt that way. Everyone has gone through it.

    The only productive thing you can do with your mistakes is to learn from them. Once you figure out the lesson you can take from the experience, rumination is not at all necessary, and it’s time to move on.

    In the case of the tea patron-interjection debacle, I could have done a better job of reading his body language and noticed that he wanted to connect with the tea sommelier and not a random stranger.

    Lesson learned. No self-bullying required.

    At my last company I accidentally caused a company-wide upset. A friend and coworker of mine, who had been at the company for a few years, had been asking to get a better parking spot. One became available as someone left the company, but he still was passed over.

    He’s such a nice guy, and as my department was full of sarcastics, I thought it would be funny to create a pun-filled petition for him to get the better spot.

    I had no idea that it was going to be taken so poorly by some people. It went up the chain of command, and it looked like our department was full of unappreciative, needy whiners.

    And our boss thought it looked like I used my position to coerce people into signing it. He brought the whole department together and painfully and uncomfortably called out the whole terrible situation and demanded it never happen again.

    I. Was. MORTIFIED.

    He hadn’t named me, but most people knew I created it. I was so embarrassed and ashamed.

    But here’s what I did:

    1. I reminded myself of my values. I value compassion and humor. I thought I was doing a kind but funny act for a friend.
    2. When I found myself worrying about what other people must now think of me, I told myself that if they thought poorly of me (of which I had no evidence), all I could do was to continue to be my best me.
    3. When flashbacks of that awful meeting came back to mind, flushing my face full of heat and shame, I remembered to take ownership over how I felt and not let the memory of the event or what other people think dictate how I feel now.
    4. I reminded myself that I did the best I could with what I had at the time. I had a desire to help a friend and an idea I thought was funny and assumed would go over well.
    5. I realized that I made a mistake. The lesson I learned was to be more considerate of how others may receive my sense of humor. Not everyone finds me as funny as my husband does. I can make better decisions now because of it.

    And after a short time, the whole incident was forgotten.

    Stop worrying about what other people think. It will change your life.

  • The Gift of Self-Acceptance: Goodbye Filters, Hello Authentic Self

    The Gift of Self-Acceptance: Goodbye Filters, Hello Authentic Self

    “Beauty doesn’t come from physical perfection. It comes from the light in our eyes, the spark in our hearts, and the radiance we exude when we’re comfortable enough in our skin to focus less on how we look and more on how we love.” ~Lori Deschene

    Swiping though the various filters available, I saw my face go from mine to someone else’s—to someone with better skin, bigger eyes… Oooh look, I think this one makes my face look slimmer. Hello, cheekbones!

    As someone who hated having her picture taken and was utterly convinced that she looked beyond awful in photos, I suddenly saw an easy fix to look good on camera.

    When I first started showing up online for my business in 2020, Instagram Reels had just been launched. It was declared an absolute must to record content as a business owner, and filters were simply a part of it. Harmless fun designed to inspire and create.

    However, as someone who had worn a lifelong “introvert” badge, and with more insecurities than I cared to admit at that point in time, the discomfort I felt showing up in these videos was beyond excruciating.

    As a child raised in an extremely unstable environment, without ever hearing the words “I love you” or feeling in any way that I belonged, I had somewhat unsurprisingly grown into an insecure young woman who had come to rely on validation through physical appearance. A pattern that I was most certainly repeating from my own mother, who was never seen looking anything less than.

    Also, a series of  events in my chaotic childhood had left me with a severe abandonment wound, and I had struggled deeply with “not enoughness” for as long as I could remember.

    And though I had since spent years doing the work to heal myself through the teachings of incredible women such as Louise Hay and Brené Brown, showing up online was about to open a wound that I thought had long healed.

    In my early twenties I used makeup as a mask, refusing to leave the house without an immaculately applied full face of war paint, and never under any circumstances taking it off in front of anyone. So utterly convinced that I was unlovable, with a desire to look perfect for approval, I had inadvertently created a reality in which I had to look a certain way, all the time.

    It was exhausting.

    After spending years working hard to cultivate a deeper connection with myself and striving to detach my self-worth from my appearance, I have since enjoyed a much healthier relationship with makeup.

    I now see my body as a temple, to adorn as I so wish, because I desire it and not because I feel I have to for acceptance or validation. Makeup has now become a creative ritual that brings me joy, an extension of my personality, creativity, and individuality.

    I felt as if I‘d reached a healthy turning point of this chapter in life—until I started creating content.

    As  mumma and stepmumma to a blended family of five, then in my early thirties, I felt daunted stepping out into an online world in which everyone appeared to be a flawless twenty-two-year-old yoga instructor dancing a “how to” tutorial to the latest trending audio.

    There was absolutely no way I was dancing, but using a filter? That I could do.

    I carefully selected one that didn’t dramatically alter my features but undeniably made me look younger, with the same clear, smooth skin as the aforementioned twenty-two-year-old. I then proceeded to use the exact same filter for three years for every single photograph and video. Over and over again, until I wasn’t just using it for online purposes; I was using it as standard practice in my day-to-day life.

    It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I realized something quite sinister had been subconsciously at play.

    Initially, I tried convincing myself that filters were effectively digital makeup, designed to enhance a video the way a photographer does a photograph. But it began to feel different, and yet all so familiar.

    It felt like hiding.

    My first indication that the use of filters was clearly affecting my well-being was when I refused to have a photograph taken without one.

    Red Flag Number One

    More feelings of discomfort began to tug at me after attending a festival as a speaker one summer and meeting people whom I’d developed connections with online. Only I had the awkwardness of not fully recognizing them. I found myself searching for something familiar in their faces, almost cartoon like, squinting my eyes and slightly tilting my head to one side as I saw them approaching from across the room.

    I realized that they didn’t quite look like themselves, at least the version of them I had become accustomed to seeing online. This quickly was followed by a nervous feeling as I pondered the question “What if I don’t look like myself?!”

    Red Flag Number Two

    While the obvious solution here was to stop using filters, I felt trapped in a web of my own making, and old feelings of insecurity and the fear of not being good enough began to creep in. I deeply struggled to marry these feeling up with my own values as a staunch advocate for empowering women to develop self-love and self-belief.

    How could I possibly align these actions with my deepest values? How could I record videos trying to encourage women to believe in themselves when the whole time I was too scared to hit “record” without a filter?

    The hypocrisy was not lost on me. I knew in my heart that my values would have to defeat my vanity, and that it was only a matter of time before I had to change my approach and show up as myself, unfiltered.

    Red Flag Number Three

    This was to be my final red flag—misalignment of values.

    With my thirty-seventh birthday approaching, and a little voice inside saying ”It’s time” getting louder, I gave myself the greatest gift I could have possibly given myself.

    The gift of true self-acceptance. The gift to show up online as the most authentic version of myself.

    The gift of finally healing that old perfection wound and fully detaching my self-worth from my physical appearance.

    The gift of showing up filter-free.

    To some, this may seem insignificant. But to me, the girl who had struggled so deeply with insecurities for as long as she could remember, the girl who had worn these filters as a mask and for approval, this was a monumental breakthrough and a big fat tick in the box marked “be yourself.”

    One step closer to me, and a whole lot closer to being in alignment with my own core values.

    I had anticipated a period of feeling slightly awkward, perhaps a little vulnerable to start with. But what I hadn’t in any way prepared for was a new wave of confidence, self-love, and self-acceptance.

    I felt liberated.

    As if unlocking a level on a video game, I felt as if I’d reached a brand-new level in my life. I began to get curious about why ditching filters had been such an issue. And then one day I asked myself a question that might just be one of the most important questions I’ve ever asked myself:

    Where else in my life am I wearing a filter?

    Where else in my life am I keeping my most authentic version at bay for fear of judgement, rejection, or even ridicule?

    Where else in my life am I hiding?

    There is much power to be found in the questions we ask when seeking answers that lie within.

    For me personally, such questions have led to a surge in my personal growth and self-acceptance along with my overall happiness and well-being. And with each question, its answer brings me closer to a version of myself that feels more and more like me with each passing day. From the clothes I wear, to the way I show up for myself and others, down to the energy I bring and my newfound freedom to create from the heart.

    It’s also been a beautiful reminder that the healing journey is exactly that, a journey. Not a destination. So I will continue to ask myself these questions. I will endeavor to remain curious and compassionate, not only in the pursuit of my most authentic self, but to also honor the practice of self-acceptance along the way.

  • How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    “If your vision of your life centers on your highest values, you will be aligned with your dharma far above everyday existence. Whatever the values are—love, creativity, service, spiritual growth, beauty, or whatever you choose—dedicating yourself to the highest values unites purpose and inner growth as nothing else can.” ~Deepak Chopra

    I wasted almost a decade of my life. Don’t make the same mistake as me.

    On my fortieth birthday, I found myself lying in bed, fully awake at 5 a.m., with a tightness in my throat.

    “A new decade,” I thought, without much excitement.

    Staring at the ceiling, I tried to remember what I had accomplished in the past ten years. As I searched in vain for any memorable moments to celebrate, panic began to fill my chest. “I wasted my thirties,” I thought. “One-eighth of a lifetime.”

    Have you ever felt that way, as if life has passed you by? That you’ve wasted some precious years that you’ll never be able to get back?

    Perhaps you got caught in the hamster wheel, being so busy with work and daily chores that you didn’t realize how quickly time was flying by. Maybe you’ve thought of traveling, writing a book, or learning to play the guitar but continually postponed your projects for a ‘someday’ that has never arrived.

    It doesn’t feel good.

    That morning, I realized I had made a mistake. I spent most of my thirties pursuing a single goal: building my business. It became an obsession that consumed all my time and energy to the point that I forgot to nurture my relationships, travel, or do anything else exciting.

    At forty, I had very few friends and no hobbies, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself.

    Later on, I discovered that this could have been prevented by doing one thing differently: by adopting a simple habit that ensures we live a good life almost every single day and avoid future regrets.

    That’s what I want to share with you.

    How Can We Live a Good Life Every Day?

    A few months after my fortieth birthday, I listened to a podcast with Hal Elrod, the creator of The Miracle Morning, in which he shared his perspective on how to live our best lives every day.

    His realization came on a specific day after spending time with his daughter, working a bit on his business (his life’s work), connecting with his wife, exercising, and eating healthy meals. As he wound down after dinner, he thought to himself, “Today was the best day of my life.”

    He then wondered why he had just had this thought since nothing truly special had happened that day—his child wasn’t born, he hadn’t gotten married, and he hadn’t booked any elite clients. So what was it that made the day so great?

    The day had been filled with all the most important things to him, his top values: his family, his relationship with his wife, living a healthy lifestyle, and inspiring people (his life’s work). He realized that living a good life, a regret-free life, comes down to living in alignment with our top values every day.

    It hit me. This was my solution to avoid wasting another decade: value-centered living.

    Here’s how we can implement this into our daily lives.

    Step 1: Identify your top five values.

    Your top values are what you consider most important and meaningful in your life. They come from your personal beliefs about what it means to live a good life.

    Below are a few questions to help you identify your top values:

    • What do you need in your life to feel fulfilled? Or, what’s missing in your life that you need to feel fulfilled?
    • How do you like to spend your time, and what would you like to have more time for?
    • What do you enjoy spending money on?
    • If your life ended right now, what would you regret not having done, accomplished, experienced, and become? And if you had one year to live, how would you spend your time? What would you focus on?
    • What would make you say you have lived a good life when you are 100 years old?

    I recommend identifying your top five values because if we center our life on just one main value, we risk feeling dissatisfied and even having regrets in the future because we won’t have nurtured the other things that are important to us.

    That’s what happened to me when I just focused on building my business (which is my value of doing meaningful work) and neglected the other areas of my life.

    Another example is a friend of mine who has two kids and highly values being a good mom. However, after a few years of taking care of everyone and not addressing her own needs and other desires—she stopped doing art, put her career on hold, and wasn’t taking much care of herself—she began feeling resentful toward her family. She was giving-giving-giving but not filling her own cup by honoring her other needs and desires.

    So focusing on just one of our values for a long time can create an imbalance in our life. That’s why step one of the value-centered living habit is to identify our top five values, not just the top one.

    Step 2: List actionable ways to honor your top values.

    Once you have identified your top five values, make them actionable by expressing them as verbs. For example, if one of your values is meaningful connections, you could phrase it as “connecting deeply and authentically.” Start each value statement with a verb.

    Next, specify more precisely how you can put each value into practice. For instance, for the value of connecting deeply and authentically, it could be:

    • Being fully present when interacting with someone—giving them my undivided attention
    • Listening with the intention to understand, not just to reply
    • Sharing my honest thoughts and feelings
    • Being open and vulnerable
    • Staying in touch with my closest friends and family by sending them messages and calling them regularly
    • Scheduling time every week for social activities

    Try writing at least five actions for each value. It’ll be helpful for step 3.

    Step 3: Do something daily to embody your top values.

    The last step is the value-centered living daily habit.

    Every morning, look at your list of actions you created in step 2, and decide what you’ll do to honor your top values.

    Personally, I write this in my journal. First, I write down my top five values as reminders, and then I write down what I’ll do to nurture each one that day.

    It doesn’t have to be complicated. For my value of meaningful relationships, I may just write a nice comment on a friend’s post. For self-care, I may go to a yoga class. For purposeful work, I may film a Tik Tok video.

    —

    This simple daily habit makes sure that we give attention to and nurture the most important things in our lives. Every single day, even if the day isn’t perfect, we are more likely to feel satisfied because we’re focusing on what matters to us.

    This simple practice has been a game-changer for me (thanks to Hal Elrod!), and I hope it can serve you too.

  • How I Learned to Let Go of Attachment to Things I Want

    How I Learned to Let Go of Attachment to Things I Want

    “The happiness we seek cannot be found through grasping, trying to hold on to things. It cannot be found through getting serious and uptight about wanting things to go in the direction we think will bring happiness.” ~Pema Chodron

    When I was a kid, my parents used to take me and my younger brother  fishing during the summer with some family friends. Sitting in the backseat of the car as we drove through the countryside, I had no worries about the future. It was a time of innocence.

    On this particular trip, which stands out in my memory, I would try fishing for the first time. I thought attaching a worm onto a hook was gross, but I was excited to do something adults do. Little did I know that I would learn a few important life lessons on this trip.

    When we arrived at the fishing dock, my dad offered me a small fishing rod, one that was suitable for a small child. I was thrilled. While the adults busied themselves, I ran off with my fishing rod, looking for a spot to catch a fish.

    Moments later, I had my fishing line down an eye-shaped hole that opened up between two boards on the dock. It was perfect: a small hole for a small child to catch a small fish. I crouched beside the hole and peered into the shadowy water beneath the dock.

    Nothing happened for some time. Suddenly, I felt a tug on the line, jolting me alert. I had caught something. I was ecstatic! I drew my line up and saw that I had caught a small fish. Unfortunately, the hole in the dock was even smaller. Yet, I didn’t want to lose my catch.

    I called out to the adults for help. One by one, the grownups around me gathered to help get this small fish through a slightly smaller hole. I implored the adults to try harder as they struggled. As we all tried to pull the fish through the hole, it thrashed in defiance with all its might.

    After some time, we managed to force the fish through the hole. However, we all looked down on the fish before our feet, its outer flesh scarred, now barely alive. A sense of sadness and regret came over me. I realized that I had done something terribly wrong. 

    “It’s no good now. We can’t keep it,” said one of the adults flatly. We threw the fish back into the water in its mutilated state. The crowd dispersed as if nothing of significance had happened. I was left alone, dazed by the experience. I didn’t feel like fishing anymore.

    The memory of the fish has stayed with me through the years. What torment had I put the fish and everyone else through that day? I thought the fish belonged to me, and I refused to let go of what I thought was mine. Of course, I was only a child—I didn’t know any better. Yet, I’m left with this sense of guilt.

    What do we own in life? If we acquire something, whether through our efforts or by chance, do we truly own it? Is it ours to keep? How do we know when it is appropriate to relax our single-mindedness?

    That day, the fish taught me about letting go. When I’m caught in the trap of attachment, other people fall away, and all that remains is me, my concerns, and my one object of desire. When that happens, I contract into a smaller version of myself that fails to see the larger picture.

    The fish also taught me the lesson of harmlessness. If my actions, no matter how justified I believe they are to be, are causing others harm, then it would be wise to stop. What do I truly value, and what are other ways that I can get what I really need?

    Reflecting more deeply, I see that my younger self wanted to hold onto a sense of achievement in that scenario. And if I could keep that sense of achievement, I would gain self-esteem. By having self-esteem, I would experience a kind of love for myself. It wasn’t really about the fish at all. 

    Since that event, the fish has revisited me in many different forms. Sometimes it appears as a person, sometimes a project or job, and other times an identity.

    Recently, I felt close to losing a business opportunity I had worked hard to secure. While I experienced deep disappointment, I managed to step back and make peace with the potential loss. I reminded myself that I was enough, and that my work doesn’t define who I am—even if what I do provides me with a sense of meaning and purpose.

    In life, success and failure are two sides of the same coin. In order to know success, we must also know failure. In order to know failure, we must also know success.

    I now know that whether I fail or succeed, I can still find my self-esteem intact. My self-esteem stems partly from knowing I will inevitably grow from both success and failure. Practicing letting go allows me to continue moving toward growth and wholeness.

    There is one more lesson that I learned from this fishing trip, and that’s the lesson of forgiveness. In writing this reflection, I forgive myself for the harm I’ve done in the past out of ignorance. I free myself of the guilt I’ve been carrying and choose to lead a more conscious life.

    It’s incredible how a tiny fish can give a small child such big lessons; ones that he can only fully integrate as an adult.

  • Why I Didn’t Trust Myself to Make Decisions (and What If It’s All Okay?)

    Why I Didn’t Trust Myself to Make Decisions (and What If It’s All Okay?)

    “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver

    Lately, I’ve been taking time to think about what I actually want. Not what I “should” want or what other people want for me.

    One thing I have learned is that mistakes happen when you choose not to follow your inner guidance system. The problem is that, for many years, I chose not to listen to mine.

    Whenever it screamed and pulled at me, desperate to get my attention (“Don’t purchase a car from that shady car dealership! Don’t go out with that person who makes you feel very uneasy! Don’t spend thousands of dollars on a degree that doesn’t make you happy!”), I would simply override it. I would tune out everything my gut was telling me, and instead, justify in my head why doing xyz would be a perfectly fine idea.

    After enough of these experiences piled up, rather than arriving at the realization that I willfully chose to ignore my intuition and that’s what got me into trouble… I arrived at a somewhat different conclusion. I decided that I simply wasn’t good at making decisions.

    So I stopped trusting myself. Before making an important decision about anything, I’d always have another person “validate” it. You know, just in case. My justification was, if I end up making a totally messed up decision, well, I don’t need to feel too badly about it since it was backed by another human being. Evading personal responsibility at its best.

    Now, short term, this sort of worked.

    The people offering guidance and helping me with my decisions were sound-of-mind individuals who cared about me. In fact, some of their guidance was largely beneficial to me, and I’m glad I listened.

    The thing is, while listening to others can be very helpful, it should not be used as a crutch. If someone gently encourages you to make a decision that you know, deep down, is good for you, that is perfectly fine. However, if you are relying solely on input from others because you’re afraid to make the “wrong decision,” that needs to be examined.

    Three problems started to slowly arise for me.

    One, I started to lose my own voice. I started to forget my own taste and what I liked, disliked, agreed with, or disagreed with. I convinced myself that I honestly didn’t know. But oh, I knew. I just was terrified of admitting it to others, much less myself.

    Two, there were occasionally moments where someone’s advice did not resonate with what I wanted. Wait, disagreeing with someone?! Feeling like I might have a separate, completely valid opinion that is different than another human’s?? TOO MUCH TO HANDLE.

    And three, chaos ensued when multiple people had multiple opinions about how I should live my life. And every single person expected me to honor their advice and guidance. And oh my god, what do I even do now?

    After years of dealing with the anxiety caused by trying to do everything everyone wanted, as well as the deep depression that arose as I realized I had become a former shell of who I was, unsure of who I was or what I wanted, I knew that something needed to change. I was lost and slipping away.

    I started making small decisions. It felt terrifying.

    I would like to buy this shirt. I would like to eat sushi for lunch. I would like to stay in this evening, rather than go out.

    Little wins for self-advocacy!

    Then I started making bigger decisions.

    I would like a new job. I would like to stop “hustling” during my non-work hours and just do things that make me happy. I’d like to take more abstract, nature photos than cookie-cutter family photos.

    With each little decision I made, I also made sure to pay close attention to how I was feeling.

    If I felt a tightness in my chest and a feeling of uneasiness, I would pay attention to that. I’d think to myself, “You know what, brain… I know you might object to this for various reasons, but the heart is telling me to steer clear of this decision.”

    I slowly started becoming much more aware of everything my body was feeling at any given moment.

    I also started to realize something else. Maybe there truly are no “shoulds.”

    No matter what decision you make, there will be someone who is all for it and someone who disagrees completely. There are thousands of choices that a person can make in a day. It’s impossible to guarantee that everyone will like or approve of all of these little choices. From the decision to order a cinnamon dulce latte at Starbucks (yes, I see all you Dunkin’ Donuts diehards out there cringing), to the decision to dye your hair purple.

    What about the even bigger decisions? Such as the choice to work a certain job, have a family or not have a family, follow a certain political party, etc.

    What if the whole point is to simply live in accordance with our values, and honor other peoples’ desire to do the same?

    What if it is literally all okay?

    To plant down roots. To fly with wings.

    To be financially abundant and have more than you could need. To have just enough to live happily and comfortably.

    To be tall, short, skinny, fat, lean, muscular, and everything in between.

    To live on your own or to live with others. To be in a relationship or to be single. To work sixty hours a week or five hours a week. To have a job you adore or a job that pays the bills.

    To be a work in progress. To be sure. To be unsure.

    To still be learning. To still be searching. To be saved. To not believe. To be straight, gay, bi, or none of the above. To love men. To love women. To love animals. To simply love.

    What if it is okay to have hard ambition and dreams that are larger than life?

    What if it is okay to have soft ambition and dreams that are just right, which make us happy and honor our capacity?

    What if it is okay to not have any “ambitions,” per se, and to simply focus on cultivating habits rather than reaching goals?

    To experience satisfaction on our own terms without needing to prove anything to anyone, ever.

    What if being enough isn’t about trying to be everything to everyone? Rather, it is about being who you want to be, unstoppably, and nothing more?

  • 7 Self-Reflection Questions to Create Your Own Happiness This Year

    7 Self-Reflection Questions to Create Your Own Happiness This Year

    “Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.” ~Unknown

    This year, I’ve not set New Year’s resolutions nor planned to completely “reinvent” myself or my life.

    The past three years have brought up many unresolved issues, emotions to release, and wounds to heal. It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride, and I want to be gentle with myself.

    Instead of setting resolutions, I sat down with a simple moleskin journal and pondered a few questions to create my own happiness this year based on what matters most to me.

    I’d like to share bits of this process with you—seven questions—to help you achieve the same in your life. Because, let’s face it, we deserve it!

    You may grab your journal or any notebook and a cup of your favorite beverage (mine was a mocha latte), play a music playlist that inspires you, and take some time to reflect upon your life and how you want it to look and feel like moving forward.

    1. What is meaningful to you?

    Or, put another way, what gives your life meaning right now? I say “right now” because it can change over time.

    My mom and I were reflecting on the past three years the other day, sharing how certain things have lost their importance and meaning while other aspects of our lives have become almost vital.

    Conversation topics, activities, and even certain relationships are not fulfilling anymore. As we talked, we realized we’ve been grieving them quite painfully for the past couple of years.

    For example, I’ve become more sensitive, and shallow relationships don’t satisfy me anymore. I want deep and honest conversations and heartful connections. I seek fewer distractions and spend more time in contemplation.

    Although change can be painful, it always opens doors to new horizons. It’s not that nothing has meaning anymore, but that not the same things do, and it’s to us to find what those are.

    So, what is meaningful to you right now? Nurture it.

    2. What’s your most critical need?

    Last year, I realized the importance of regularly identifying and addressing unmet needs as a form of self-care. So, after experiencing mild to moderate feelings of depression for several months—and finding comfort in neither meditation nor bubble baths (nor red wine)—I dug deeper to discover the source of my unhappiness.

    The search began with a question: “What do I need (really) right now?”

    At that time, I was craving social connections and laughter. Once I became aware of it, I started taking the necessary actions to fulfill those needs and soon felt better.

     What’s your most critical need?

    Once you’ve identified it, you could ask yourself, “What’s preventing me from meeting that need today? And how could I start attending to it?”

    3. How would you like to feel this year?

    In the end, we’re all seeking to feel good. “Good” can come in many flavors, like at peace, alive, or loved. Your favorite flavor may change from day to day, but there’s likely one feeling you crave more than others in this season of your life.

    What is it?

    Mine is playful. I’ve been too serious for too long, and my soul is calling for a good laugh.

    What about you?

    Once you’ve identified your top one to three feelings, you may ask yourself, “When do I tend to feel that way?” Think of the past week, month, and even several years, and identify the moments when you experienced those feelings. Try to replicate those moments (or similar ones) more often.

    4. What are your top three priorities this year?

    Greg McKeown wrote in Essentialism, “If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

    Essentialism, as described in the book, is to do fewer things—the most important ones—and do them better. Less in quantity, more in quality.

    It’s about being clear on your priorities and designing your life around them. Doing so makes you feel more satisfied and at peace with yourself and your life. You also experience less stress and overwhelm because your life isn’t cluttered with activities that drain your energy.

    So, where do you want to focus most of your attention and energy this year? Think of no more than one to three aspects of your life.

    If you have difficulty identifying your priorities, another question I ask myself every few months is, “If my life came to an end right now, what would I regret not having done, experienced, accomplished, and become?”

    Almost every time I reflect on this question, the first answer to arise is “not having attained a higher level of consciousness.” And every time, it reminds me to make more room in my schedule for my spiritual practice rather than filling it up with work. It helps me get my priorities straight.

    5. What are your top three goals?

    I used to ignore setting clear goals because having measurable targets to attain made me feel more anxious than excited. ‘That’s until I realized I was going in circles.

    Year after year until my mid-thirties, I found myself in the same place I was the previous year, especially with my creative projects. I wasn’t making any progress, and it got frustrating.

    Eventually, I understood and accepted the value of setting goals: it gives our minds a clear direction to move toward. It helps us to stay focused and avoid constantly getting distracted and sidetracked.

    As Yogi Berra famously said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

    Setting too many goals is rarely effective and can feel overwhelming and stressful. However, I find that having three main ones and perhaps a few smaller objectives is a good number.

    So, what are your top three goals this year?

    6. What are three actions you’ll take to achieve each of these goals?

    That’s the most practical question of the lot, and it invites us to be proactive and think of how we can start tackling those goals.

    I’m very “Vata”—the creative personality type of Ayurveda. Vata is heady, gets easily distracted, and constantly changes its mind. It wants to take all paths and often ends up getting nowhere.

    Defining my priorities, setting goals, and defining three actions to start accomplishing those goals helps me stay focused on what matters and avoid wasting time and energy on what doesn’t. Plus, clarity reduces stress, and it’s a powerful antidote to procrastination. You’re more likely to do something if it’s clear in your mind.

    What three actions will you take to tackle your goals for this year?

    7. What are twelve new things you want to try, learn, or explore?

    Every year, I choose twelve experiments—things I’m curious to try and explore—one for each month. I started doing this a few years ago, at a time when my life felt sort of bland and uninspiring.

    So far, I have attended a cacao ceremony, had a reading with a medium, tried Deepak Chopra’s 21-Day Abundance Meditation challenge, participated in a laughter yoga class, tried ecstatic dancing, had a Quantum Healing Hypnosis session, and experimented with a bunch of other things.

    Doing experiments is a great way to discover new interests that could become passions. It also allows you to meet new people and uncover aspects of yourself—like desires and personality traits—that you didn’t even know existed. Overall, it makes your life richer!

    You just have to pick twelve experiments and assign each to a month of the year. Then, after each experiment, ask yourself, “Did I like it? Do I want to do it again?”

    —

    I hope you’ll find value in some of these ideas and that they’ll inspire you to create your own happiness.

    May this year bring you experiences that make you come alive or give you more of the feelings your soul craves the most in this season of your life.

  • If You Really Want to Change the World: 4 Ways to Be Kind

    If You Really Want to Change the World: 4 Ways to Be Kind

    “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~Maya Angelou

    I’ve now reached the age in my life when every so often, I get an email or text informing me that someone I know has died. Some of the people who have passed away have been former supervisors or teachers from high school. Others have been the parents of friends or elderly members of my church.

    At one time, the news that someone had died was shocking to me. Now it’s nearly a monthly occurrence, and I’ve become accustomed to it.

    Whenever I receive one of these texts or emails, I always go in search of the obituary. This may sound macabre, but I love a good obituary. I like to learn what people chose to do with this one life that they were given. I particularly like the obituaries in which you get a sense of who the person was. Aside from their accomplishments, what was that person really like?

    Because the reality is that your accomplishments aren’t what will have mattered most about your life.  Instead, what matters about your life is how you made people feel, as so aptly put by Maya Angelou. Another way of putting it is this: Were you kind to others?

    Why does kindness matter so much? Because kindness is the only real way to change the world for the better. For example, I can give you $20, and you can use that to buy one meal. Certainly, that is a nice gesture.

    But what if I encourage you? What if I take the time to specifically identify your gifts and talents? What if I explain to you that you have the ability to do great things with your life? Then my kindness potentially has changed your life.

    Kindness is powerful. In fact, being kind is the most important thing that we do in life.

    Below are ways to start incorporating kindness into your daily life. If you make kind acts part of your daily routine, you’ll end up being someone who changes the world in the most beautiful way.

    To Be Kind, Be an Encourager

    We live in a very critical world. Sadly, people are quick to criticize, and they are reluctant to offer praise. Given the harshness of our world, it’s no small wonder that so many people lack confidence in themselves.

    Kind people are our only hope to fight the world’s negativity. That is because kind people encourage others. They are the type of people who go out of their way to comment when someone does something well. And they readily point out others’ gifts and talents.

    But realize that encouraging others is something that we have to intentionally choose to do. For example, often a complimentary thought will float through my head. “Her hair looks great today.” Or “That was a terrific presentation.” But unless I catch myself, that idea will float out of my head just as quickly as it floated in! As a result, I try to make an effort to say those complimentary thoughts out loud whenever I can.

    Realize that being an encourager has to be a conscious choice. Otherwise, those complimentary thoughts will just stay inside our brains. And the other person won’t benefit from those precious words of encouragement.

    So choose to be kind by choosing complimenting over criticizing. Build others up instead of tearing them down. If you do, you’ll make the world a far more pleasant place to be for everyone.

    Be Helpful in the “Right” Way

    Most of us strive to be helpful. After all, that is what good people do—we help others! But the problem is that so often we help others in the wrong way.

    For example, I learned many years ago that to be a good mother, I had to help my daughter in the ways that she wanted help.

    The issue came to the fore one day when her room was messy. I thought I would help her out by tidying it up. Later that day, she returned home from school and wanted help with her homework. However, by that point, I felt worn out because I’d already cleaned up her room. She then said to me, “But Mom, I can clean up my own room. I didn’t ask you to do that for me. What I need help with is my homework.”

    She was right. That moment was a turning point for me. I tend to think that I know what is best for everyone! But after that experience, I came to realize that even if I think I know best, I need to help others in the ways that they want help.

    Because if you help people in the way that you think is best for them, you aren’t respecting them. You effectively are saying, “I know better than you what you really need.” And that attitude diminishes people.

    So part of being kind to others is helping them in a respectful manner. If you want to want to help someone (or give them a gift), find out what that person wants. You aren’t being truly kind and helpful if you simply help them in a paternalistic fashion in which you convey that you know best. Instead, be kind by helping others in the right way.

    To be Kind, Choose Compassion Over Judgment

    Unfortunately, it’s human nature to judge others. After all, how often do we walk by a homeless person and think, “That person needs to get a job!” Or we may have a family member with an alcohol addiction, and we’ll say, “For heaven’s sake, just stop drinking! Pull your life together.” Or we may have a child who is failing math, and we’ll tell the child, “These bad grades are your fault. You need to study more and stop goofing off.”

    But being kind means offering compassion, even when it is oh so easy to judge. I find that the best way to avoid the “judgment trap” is to say this to myself on a regular basis: “But for the grace of God go I.”

    What that means is that some of us get lucky in life. We may have been blessed with a stable upbringing, or with good genetics. Or we may have been born with a gender, skin color, or nationality (or all three!) that simply makes our lives a lot easier than other people’s lives.

    Given that some folks are just dealt a better hand in life than others, it makes sense that we should interact with people who are struggling by coming to them from a place of compassion rather than judgment. Our attitude should be “I’m so sorry that you are suffering. Let’s figure out a way to fix this situation.”

    I’ll concede that it is frustrating when people make big mistakes that negatively affect our lives and the lives of others. Nevertheless, be kind. Remember that to be kind means to be compassionate, even when it is so much easier to judge.

    Value Kindness Over Being Right

    Years ago, I hosted a family gathering in which there was a heated argument about politics. Angry words were said. People insulted each other. And everyone left the gathering feeling terrible.

    What was particularly stupid about the whole thing was that the argument was pointless. Not one of us worked in politics. And not one of us had any sway over politics outside of our one vote in each election. So we didn’t change the world by arguing. We simply damaged our relationships with each other.

    I’ve had a similar experience when it comes to discussions about other hot button topics, like religion. For instance, I happen to go to church. Now, I never try to inflict my religious views on anyone. Rather, I consider religion to be a deeply personal matter.

    Yet, every so often, I’ll receive a snide, insulting remark about my religious faith from people who are atheists or agnostics. I choose not to argue back when I hear those remarks, but I always think to myself, “What was the point of that remark? How did that remark make the world a better place?”

    Realize that problems arise when we are more concerned about being right than we are about being kind. Of course, there are times when we need to voice our concerns. For instance, we should always speak up when we see someone being treated unjustly. But that is different from demanding that others see the world in the exactly same way that we do.

    To treat others with kindness, we have to be willing to agree to disagree. We can’t bully others into our point of view. Instead, we have to value being kind over being right.

    If you really want to change the world, the simplest thing you can do is be kind. Be kind consistently. Strive to be kind, even when you don’t feel like it. Be kind because it is the easiest thing that you can do to make the world a better place.

  • Stay in the Right Lane: Let Yourself Slow Down and Enjoy Life

    Stay in the Right Lane: Let Yourself Slow Down and Enjoy Life

    “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman

    Wow! My last weeks of my career. Though many days and weeks over the last thirty-four years have seemed to last forever, it truly is astonishing how fast time goes. And don’t we often try to make it go even faster?

    Our jobs are stressful. We are often under tight time constraints and deadlines. We have clients and associates who want and need things yesterday.

    We work in jobs we have very little control over. Add that to our daily responsibilities as parents, spouses, partners, friends, children to aging parents and—not to be forgotten—ourselves. It’s a lot.

    Maybe you are like me. When I was younger, I too often:

    • wanted to fast-forward to a new day, a new week, or a new season of life
    • wished time away
    • focused on that vacation that was months away
    • couldn’t wait until my kids were older
    • had my eye on that next job
    • sought to get through tough circumstances I was facing, or
    • desired to be where someone else was in life

    What did it cost me? Memories and opportunities. I don’t remember many details of when my kids were growing up because I was always thinking ahead. I was not in the moment.

    I missed opportunities to learn and grow because I was always focused on that next thing instead of learning what could help me in that next thing.

    I missed all the beauty this earth has to offer because I was driving too fast.

    It cost me time. I wished away something I can never get back. It cost me the fun of simply living life, my life.

    It has taken me sixty-five years on earth to figure out how to make every moment count. And, if I’m honest, it’s something I must work at every day.

    “Don’t focus on making each moment perfect, focus on the perfection each moment provides, be it a good one, or not so good one.” ~Jenna Kutcher

    Notice that I didn’t say “make every moment happy, productive, or memorable.” Just make it count. Be in it. Live it.

    There are many moments that aren’t happy. In fact, they can be downright sorrowful or exhausting. But, at the same time, they help shape you and enable you to grow.

    I missed many good moments in my life because I was too focused on making the ending happy or perfect to enjoy what was happening right before my eyes.

    A few years ago, my son and I met up with a good friend of mine. We started talking about our kids and what fun it was to go to all of their events when they were younger. I was pounding my chest by bragging about being at all of their events.

    My son, to his credit, challenged me. He said I was there physically, but I wasn’t really there. He told my friend I was always on my phone, or otherwise preoccupied. He was right. I was there but I can’t tell you about the goals they scored, the amazing moves they made, or the songs they sang. It was like a dagger went through my heart. But it was true.

    My dear friend Doug told me a great way he is trying to live right now. He said, “stay in the right lane.” I love that. We often want to get somewhere fast, so we pull into the left lane and zoom past everything to get to the destination. 

    I did that most of my life, in all areas of my life. As I start to live in the right lane, I am having an easier time being more in the moment. I am being intentional.

    I start my day with a routine of praying, journaling, exercising, and setting my focus to not be on one or two things, but to be awed by the wonder of what I might encounter. I intentionally set aside days where I do not have a set schedule.

    As I am more in the moment, I am experiencing all sorts of beauty, joy, amazement, clarity, purposefulness, happiness, and opportunity.

    When you look at my photo library, you will see mostly pictures of bugs, birds, flowers, and trees from my walks. My mind has space to be creative and I am finding clarity on the things I want to do in this season of life, for me. My relationships are flourishing because I am actually there, truly experiencing another person.

    Being present has also allowed me to see myself for more of who I am. I have often said I never felt I was good enough. I felt I had to do more in order to be enough. Now that I have more clarity on who I am, I want to do more, because I am enough. I realize that no matter what I do from here on out, I am good enough. Because of who I am, not what I do.

    Many have asked what I will do in retirement. Like, retirement is the end, so how will you live to the end? I am looking at it more as a transition into the next leg of my journey.

    I am going to continue to live in the right lane, enjoy every moment, create and experience new moments, and focus on the journey itself, not the destination. I plan to live as Laurie Santos puts it, “be happy in my life, and with my life.”

    “The most dangerous risk of all…is the risk of spending your life not doing what you want, on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” ~Randy Komisar

    So how do you do that? It isn’t always easy.

    Have good self-awareness (know yourself and trust yourself). Be intentional. Make time for the people and things that matter. Make the time to think about what you really want in life.

    And slow yourself down.

  • Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    “Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving. It’s how children wrestle with life to make it meaningful.” ~Susan Linn, Psychiatrist

    We met at a job interview for a summer camp. At the time, I was twenty-two years old and pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English literature and psychology at UBC. On the other hand, H was attending college in the hopes of one day becoming a high school history teacher. He also “liked to promote and support the development of children.”

    During our first date, we grabbed coffee and spent some time at Indigo Books & Music. I was impressed. I had not only found a boy who was willing to tolerate my endless browsing, but genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

    H was funny, dressed nicely, and most importantly, didn’t know much about me. Later, he would learn that I’d grown up a perfectionist, that I became overwhelmed easily, and that I always took life too seriously. I valued the art of productivity and felt self-conscious when acting silly.

    In our early days, we enjoyed sunbathing at the beach and went “playground hopping,” a term coined after spending an entire afternoon going from playground to playground, sitting on the swings, flirting. We climbed the various structures and found out we could no longer get across the monkey bars.

    We had a typical “summer romance.” We sent each other flirty texts at work, and I chased him around the jungle gym during one of our outings with the kids. We played Connect 4 instead of strip poker and went to the candy store to buy samples of all our favorite childhood treats. He loved to make blanket forts and was always to blame for the ensuing pillow fight. We put on music and danced in our underwear in my bedroom late at night.

    He brought out my inner child. We played handshake games while waiting for the bus without caring about the other commuters’ glances. We painted cheap wooden frames from the dollar store and bought a puzzle at Toys R Us. We went to the kid’s arcade and had a playful Skee-Ball competition.

    After a few months of dating, and as a result of my interest into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), H and I sat down and made a list of what would become our Common Core Values. Out of sixty values, we picked about a dozen. Then, we talked about them.

    Connecting with our values adds meaning to our lives, but clarifying values can be challenging, because most values are words that are vague. Take, for example, the value of respect. Most people I know value respect. But what does it look like? And what does respect look like specifically in a romantic relationship? We recorded our choices in our newly bought couple’s journal.

    Our values included words such as connection (physical, emotional), equality, boundaries, safety, teamwork, gratitude, humility, and kindness, as well as trust, courage, and vulnerability.

    The value that stood out to me the most, though, was play.

    Play has been one of the core tenets of our relationship. When we first met, he had no idea that I was heavily involved in the mental health community.

    I worked at the hospital where I did peer support work and supported children as well as their families navigate the (highly complex) mental health system. I heard devastating stories of families trying to access care.

    I sat on the board of a non-profit organization that held support groups for students every week and spent a lot of my time holding space for others, while at the same time admiring their resilience. Outside of that, I was busy taking classes, and trying my best to care for my own mental health.

    A few years ago, when I fell in love with Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, the chapter that stood out the most to me was: “Wholehearted Living Guidepost 7: Cultivating Rest and Play.”

    In the chapter, she introduced Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist who has studied play. He explained that play is time spent without purpose and can include a variety of “frivolous activities.”

    As a young adult, overachiever, and university student, I spend most of my time working hard, trying to achieve the definition of “success” society has defined for me. At times, there are sleepless nights, two cups of coffee, and skipped breakfasts.

    When H and I play, we lose track of time. We become immersed in our decorating of gratitude jars, tickle fights, and me chasing him down with an ice cream cone.

    My relationship with H has given me one of the greatest gifts: the ability to lose myself in laughter, and permission to focus on leisure without feeling guilt or anxiety. In the words of Brené Brown, it is all about “letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.”

    I like to refer to H as “Mr. Fun” because it’s the part I love most about him. If it wasn’t for him, I would rarely allow myself to play. I often feel self-conscious and judge myself harshly whenever I feel the urge to do something “childish,” like coloring. I tell myself, “Don’t be ridiculous. Grow up. You’re not a child anymore.”

    At the time of our discovering our common core values, we had only been dating for three months. Since then, we’ve grown enormously as a couple. The wonderful thing about our common core values is that we now have a silent agreement. We have both committed to living by those values, so we refer to them as needed, especially during a conflict. When we make mistakes, we refer to the value of forgiveness. It lessens the guilt and shame while still holding us accountable.

    Essentially, play encourages self-enquiry, social connection, and being curious about the world.

    Play has allowed us to cultivate a relationship that is based on vulnerability and helps us cope with the uncertainty of the world. It has enhanced our intimacy and helped us relax during stressful times. After all, we are realistic, and understand that our relationship will encounter many obstacles in the future, including having to cope with economic and political instability.

    From an outsider perspective, I am described as responsible, punctual, and can be found balancing my budget with an Excel sheet, every month. You are more likely to find me writing professional emails than singing in the shower or expressing my creativity.

    Sometimes H and I argue about the pros and cons of having carpet in our future dream home and sometimes we make lists of supplies to buy, like Play-Doh, or Legos. Sometimes we discuss Canadian politics while drinking apple juice in plastic cups. We eat Kraft Dinner as a snack and calculate the cost of a one-bedroom apartment. We are both children at heart and young adults trying to navigate the world.

    And not too long ago, H surprised me with a heart shape made of colourful melted beads.

  • Why Judging People Is Really About You (Not Them)

    Why Judging People Is Really About You (Not Them)

    “It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” ~Doe Zantamata

    “Why doesn’t he say something?”

    I was sitting at the dinner table with my partner and friends. Everyone was interacting and talking to each other, except my partner. He was just sitting there quietly. I had to admit, this situation made me very uncomfortable.

    Why was he so quiet? We had been dating for over six months and normally, when it was just the two of us, he was very talkative, we had vivid discussions, he knew his opinions and was not afraid to speak his mind. But now, at a dinner with friends, he was a shadow of his normal self.

    To be honest, I felt a bit embarrassed. What would my friends think? Did they quietly judge him too? Did they think he was boring and uninteresting?

    When we got back home, I was irritated and annoyed. Have you ever had that feeling, when all you really want is to be brutally honest with someone? To explain exactly what they did wrong and explain how they should behave instead? I wanted to lecture him. To tell him this: “It’s rude not to interact at social gatherings. It’s weird. Can’t you behave? It’s sloppy! What’s wrong with you? What’s your problem?” 

    I didn’t say those things to him. Instead, I allowed what had happened to sit with me for a few days. Slowly, I started turning that finger I was pointing at him toward myself. Maybe this wasn’t all about him, maybe it had something to do with me?

    That’s when it struck me. He wasn’t having a problem. I was!

    I realized that my upbringing had given me certain values and “truths” about relationships and social interactions. This is how you behave: You actively participate during conversations, anything else is considered rude. You ask people questions and share stories during social gatherings; otherwise, people will think that you’re uninterested. That’s what I learned growing up.

    Because my partner wasn’t acting in accordance with what I had been taught, I judged him. Instead of asking myself why he was behaving the way he was, I put labels on him. When we came back home, I had, in my mind, labeled him as rude, boring, self-conscious, and not living up to the standards I wanted in a boyfriend.

    Now, eight years later, I know that my husband was quiet during that dinner because he needs more time with new people before he’s fully comfortable. He didn’t do it because he was rude. On the contrary, I know he cared deeply about me and my friends, he was just showing it in a different way.

    When I understood this, I knew that my judgment really had nothing to do with him—it was all about me. In judging my partner, I realized that I most of all judged myself. My judgment was never about him—it was about me.

    This insight did not only bring me more compassion, less judgment, and more closeness in our relationship, it brought me a new perspective and new values that made my life better.

    Below you’ll find the steps that I followed:

    1. Identify: What judgment do you make about someone?

    The first step is to be aware of the judgment(s) you make about other people. In my case, it was thoughts like “He’s rude and awkward,” “I’m better than him at interacting socially,” and “Maybe we’re not a good match? I need someone who can interact socially.” Often judgments include a feeling of you being superior, that you know or behave better than other people.

    Just become aware of the judgments you’re making (without judging yourself for having them). This is the first step in transforming the judgment.

    2. Ask yourself: How should this person be instead?

    In the specific situation, ask yourself how you think the other person should be or act instead. According to you, what’s the best behavior in the situation? Be honest with yourself and write exactly what comes to mind, don’t hold yourself back here.

    In my case, I wanted my partner to be fully involved in the conversations. I wanted him to be talkative, interested, and curious about my friends.

    3. Go deeper: Why is it important to be this way?

    Be curious and ask yourself, why is it important to be or act in the way that you prefer? If a person doesn’t act that way, what does it signal about the person? What is the consequence of not being or acting in the way you desire?

    For me, social skills translate into good manners and that you can behave appropriately. I used to think that people that weren’t behaving in the “right” way, according to my viewpoint at the time, weren’t taught well by their parents. I labeled them as uninteresting and not contributing to the group. (Now, I know better, but more on that soon).

    4. Spot: What underlying value is your judgment coming from?

    Ask yourself what underlying values and beliefs that are fueling your judgments. What’s the story you’re telling yourself about the specific situation? Be brutally honest here.

    In my case it was the following: Being unsocial is negative and equals weakness. Not being socially skilled is awkward and weird. It means that you are less—less capable, less skilled, less smart/intelligent, and ultimately less worthy. (Just to clarify, this was my judgment and insecurity speaking, and it’s obviously not the truth).

    From my upbringing I had learned that social skills are highly valued. I was taught to be talkative, to engage in social interactions, and to articulate well. If you didn’t live up to these expectations, you felt inferior and less worthy.

    5. Make a choice: Keep or replace your values?

    When you have defined your underlying values and beliefs, you have to make a choice: Either you keep or replace them. And the crucial questions are: Are your values and beliefs serving you or not? Are they in line with your moral standard and aspirations?

    I chose to replace my values. Instead of valuing people based on social skills, I chose to replace that value with acceptance, respect, curiosity, and equality. As much as I didn’t want to judge someone for their skin color, gender, or ethnicity, I didn’t want to judge someone based on how they behave socially.

    Instead, I made a conscious choice to accept and respect all individuals for who they are. And to be curious and kind, because in my experience, every person you meet can teach you something.

    Transforming Judgment to Your Benefit

    Looking back at that dinner with my partner, I was so close to falling into the trap. To get into a fight where I would hurt my partner badly and create a separation between us. It took courage to turn the finger of judgment I was pointing towards him and to turn it towards me instead.

    I realized that my underlying values and beliefs had consequences, not only for the people close to me, but also for myself. They implied that if someone has a bad day and doesn’t feel like interacting, that this is not okay. That others and I are not allowed to be ourselves and to show up just as we are (talkative or not).

    I realized that the values that my judgment stem from did not only make me judge my partner, they also made me judge myself. I was not allowed to just show up. I realized that my upbringing had given me a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. Sure, I had learned how to interact and be the center of attention. But the underlying painful feeling was there. I had to be an entertainer. I had to always be smiling and in a good mood. I had to be curious and ask other people questions.

    If not, I’d be excluded. I felt that I was only accepted when I was happy, outgoing, and enthusiastic. That was stressful and it didn’t make me feel safe.

    Also, to my surprise, once I stopped judging my partner, he became more social and talkative at social gatherings. Why? Because previously he’d probably felt my judgmental look, and that made him even more uncomfortable and introverted. When I stopped judging he felt acceptance and respect. And that, in turn, made it easier for him to be himself, even at social gatherings.

    The bottom line is this: When you judge someone it always comes back to you. What I discovered was that because I judged others, I was also very hard on myself. The more I have worked on this process, the more forgiving, accepting, and loving towards myself I have become.

    Next time you find yourself judging someone else, stop and reflect. Follow the five steps and remember: it’s key to be honest, vulnerable, and curious.

    Free yourself from the chains of judgment and allow acceptance, compassion, and liberation to enter—both for yourself and others. You got this!

  • What Carrots Are You Chasing, and Are They Worth the Sacrifice?

    What Carrots Are You Chasing, and Are They Worth the Sacrifice?

    “Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

    I promise this essay isn’t an attempt to convince you that you’re living inside The Matrix. (Okay, maybe it is a bit.)

    But do you ever find that days, weeks, or even months have passed that you didn’t feel present for? I describe this odd sensation as feeling like you’re going through the motions like Bill Murray trapped in Groundhog Day.

    Every day bleeds into the next because you’re future-focused, and what you’re doing right now only feels valuable insofar as it’s laying the groundwork for something else; the next stage of your career, the renovation that means the house is “done,” a number in the bank account that means you’ll never have to worry about money again.

    I think it’s fair to say we both know this is total BS. We’ve climbed enough mountains in our lifetime to know that as soon as we get what we want, we’re already planning what’s next.

    The problem is not with the aim or the goal but with the belief that we can cross a finish line that will magically make these uncomfortable feelings disappear. In psychology, they call this the hedonic treadmill.

    You know that promotion that would change your life?

    You know that new kitchen you obsess over because it would make life much better?

    You know that extra cash that would mean all of life’s money troubles would disappear?

    Will they provide everlasting happiness?

    Doubtful.

    We can blame this on the hedonic treadmill.

    It’s in our human nature to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.

    Put another way: No matter what we do, buy, or hope will change our life permanently, it’s a short-lived shot of happiness injected into our life.

    I understand why people don’t want to believe this. Because it forces us to question why we’re working so damn hard to change things and to be present with what is right now.

    When I realized this, I began to reflect on what it meant for my life in a way I couldn’t when I was lost in the chase. Accepting that we have a baseline is liberating. Most of what we’re chasing is nothing more than stupid carnival prizes in a game we didn’t know we were playing.

    If the $40,000 kitchen renovation will give you a flash-in-the-pan taste of happiness, is it worth the years of your life you need to sacrifice to pay that off?

    Is it worth more hours in the office?

    Is it worth less time with your family?

    Is it worth the crippling stress?

    You have no control over the hedonic treadmill. Still, you can control how much of your life you’re willing to trade for a future that won’t make you any happier in the present.

    It’s a hard habit to break because, as philosopher Alan Watts explains:

    “Take education. What a hoax. As a child, you are sent to nursery school. In nursery school, they say you are getting ready to go on to kindergarten. And then first grade is coming up and second grade and third grade… In high school, they tell you you’re getting ready for college. And in college you’re getting ready to go out into the business world… [People are] like donkeys running after carrots that are hanging in front of their faces from sticks attached to their own collars. They are never here. They never get there. They are never alive.”

    It’s drilled into us from the day we’re born to always think of what’s next.

    You end up chasing carrots to eat when you’re not even hungry. Hell, you probably don’t even like the taste of carrots.

    This lack of presence is toxic for our children. They end up repeating the same cycle we do when we role model the idea that we need to prioritize a future self (that may never come) over time spent with them.

    Life only feels short because we burn much of our alive time on shit that doesn’t matter.

    Do you want to experience a deep, rich, and fulfilling life?

    Start by asking, what carrots are you chasing? Are they worth the sacrifice? And what values would you honor in the present if you stopped living for the future?

    I can say family means everything to me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to support and provide for them. But if I’m consumed by my phone when I’m with my ten-month-old daughter, what value am I reinforcing? To make more money in my business so I have the freedom to do exactly what I’m too busy to enjoy right now?

    To honor my values means putting the phone down, looking into her eyes, and giving her literally the only thing she wants and needs from me. My presence. And that right there—being present enough to enjoy our lives—is what will give us the happiness we crave.

  • 5 Ways to Start Valuing Your Time and Making the Most of It

    5 Ways to Start Valuing Your Time and Making the Most of It

    “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

    Oh, how I loved sleeping when I was a teenager. I would sleep for twelve hours, just as babies do.

    And guess what else?

    Another favorite activity of mine was taking selfies until I finally had a perfect one, editing it, posting it on social media, and waiting for likes. And scrolling through the feed.

    Wow. So unusual nowadays.

    I didn’t care what I was doing with my life. I chose a university degree just for fun and finished it just because I started it. I don’t even like what I chose. I had no goals, no ambitions. I was just drifting through life.

    But then adult life got in the way. Suddenly, I was married and had a child.

    What a turn.

    Now I don’t even have Instagram.

    Do you know why? Because I started valuing my time.

    And I am here to tell you that you need to do it too if you want to live a fulfilling life.

    Why should you value every second of your life?

    When I became a mom, I barely had time to brush my teeth. I didn’t have time to do anything that wasn’t related to my son.

    I started regretting all the time I’d wasted before.

    But let’s be clear: It’s not about productivity. It’s about living your life to the fullest.

    You see, when you value your time, you start valuing your life. You set your priorities straight and start doing things that matter to you. And that’s when life gets really good.

    Although my situation might be different from yours, time is one thing we have in common. And you’ve heard it a million times, but time is our most precious commodity.

    It is non-negotiable. You can’t buy more time, no matter how rich you are. And you can’t save time either. You can only spend it.

    Time waits for no one. So the sooner you start valuing your time, the better.

    Here are a few things that have helped me start valuing my time and life more that might help you too.

    1. Set your priorities straight.

    Oh, priorities. They are so important, yet we often forget about them.

    If you want to start valuing your time, you need to set your priorities straight. Ask yourself what is really important to you and start making time for those things.

    Ask yourself:

    • What do I want to do, achieve, and experience in life?
    • Who and what matter most to me?
    • What makes me happy?
    • Where do I see myself in five years?

    For me, the answer to these questions was simple: I want to value time with my son more. And I want to find a way to balance work and life.

    What I don’t want is to be glued to my phone while my son is next to me, or to watch movies instead of making small steps toward having my own business.

    Self-care is on my list of priorities too. I make sure to have enough time for myself. Even if it’s just ten minutes a day (to have a cup of coffee in silence), it makes all the difference.

    Self-care keeps me sane and happy. And when I am happy, I can give my best to my family.

    2. Realize the importance of limited time.

    We all have limited time on this earth, and we need to make the most of it.

    The idea of limited time gives so much magic to this life. It makes things more precious. And when you start realizing life is precious, time becomes more valuable to you.

    On top of that, it makes you more aware of your mortality. It might sound depressing, but it’s not. It’s actually very liberating. Just think about it: If you knew you’re going to die soon, what would you do differently?

    Do it now so you don’t end up with regrets about how you spent your time.

    I think about death every day. I accept it. And I thank the universe for being mortal.

    We never know when we are going to die, so the best thing we can do is to live each day as if it’s our last.

    3. Notice what your distractions are and eliminate (or at least minimize) them.

    We all have our own distractions. It can be social media, Netflix, video games, or anything else.

    Here is how I deal with my distractions.

    • My main distraction was Instagram. I deleted it.
    • Then, movies. I decided to watch only one movie per week. No TV series (all they did was make me escape my reality).
    • Internet surfing is another one. I decided to use the internet only for work and research. No more browsing without a purpose.
    • I open the app only if I want to relax for twenty minutes and watch something. Otherwise, it’s a huge time waster (I used to open the app and scroll through it for five minutes with no purpose).

    Once I did that, I noticed that sometimes I even got bored. And I love that feeling of not picking up my phone every time I have a free minute. I just enjoy it.

    4. Consciously choose to do one thing despite countless other activities you could be doing.

    You know those moments when you’re about to do something, but then you wonder, “Should I really be doing this? I could be doing something else.”

    This is a common feeling. We often have so many options that it’s hard to choose just one. But simply do that. Choose one activity and stick to it.

    It doesn’t matter if it’s the “right” choice or not. There’s no such thing as “right” when it comes to how you spend your time.

    I recently listened to a podcast by Oliver Burkeman. He said that we don’t want to make choices. We don’t want to decide. We want to let all the options remain available to us. This is also why we love dreaming about the future. Because all the options are open.

    But we need to make a choice. It is so liberating to make a choice. It gives you a sense of control over your life and your time and it keeps you moving forward instead of standing still.

    So, choose one thing and do it. You will feel so much more in focus because you know where you are going.

    For instance, I am writing this article. I could be doing a million other things, but I choose to do this. And it feels great. I am all in. And I am focused because I am not thinking about other things that I could do.

    5. Know that failure is a sign you’re using your time well.

    When we start a project or an activity, we want to do it perfectly. We need to be the best. Otherwise, we think it’s a waste of time.

    In reality, it is life itself. You can’t prevent failure. You will fail. A lot.

    And that’s a good thing. Failure is a sign that you’re trying something new; that you’re pushing your limits, learning, and growing.

    How can we make the most of our failures?

    • First, accept them. Don’t try to bury your failures or pretend they never happened. Acknowledge them and learn from them.
    • Second, put things in perspective. This one opportunity didn’t work out, but it’s not the last you’ll get.
    • Finally, focus on the successes in your failure. Odds are something good came from it, even if you can’t see it just yet.

    Oh, I failed so many times. I lost years of my life in failure. But I am grateful for every single one of them because they made me grow and become better, maybe even wiser.

    My biggest failure is probably my university degree. It’s three years of my life. I was so naive thinking that I can succeed no matter what bachelor’s I choose. And I chose the easiest one.

    Turns out, there is nothing I can do with my bachelor’s degree. It’s useless.

    I could have spent those three years better, but I am not regretting it. Because if I didn’t fail, I wouldn’t be so motivated today to start my own business and to create something that has meaning.

    —

    As I said in the introduction, I was once horrible at valuing my time. But I am glad to say that I have changed. It certainly wasn’t easy. And I am not an expert at this. I still must remind myself to value my time. To cherish every moment.

    But my alarm doesn’t annoy me when it wakes me up in the morning anymore. It’s a reminder that I get to wake up and enjoy my time on this earth.

    I am grateful to still be alive.

    The time that you took reading this article is valuable. I hope it will make you value your time even more.

    Remember that time waits for no one.

    Remember that it’s non-negotiable.

    Remember that you can’t save it.

    You can only spend it wisely.

  • How to Be a Lot Happier: A Simple Solution

    How to Be a Lot Happier: A Simple Solution

    “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~Leonardo da Vinci

    There’s a funny thing with us humans.

    We spend our lives trying desperately to find happiness, and yet we don’t even know what it is. We can’t explain, describe, or define it. We just know that we want it because it’ll make everything peachy. Time and time again, though, studies have shown that our never-ending quest for happiness is quite often the very thing that makes us miserable.

    Trying to find happiness is an exercise in futility. This is a truth I did not easily come to realize. It took a succession of major depressive episodes, the sudden death of my father, a cross-country move, a broken heart, and countless hours reading airy-fairy, self-help nonsense for me to understand that instead of trying to find happiness, I should consciously take steps that let happiness find me.

    Suffice it to say, you will no longer find me spinning my wheels, dejectedly searching for answers and chasing the abstract. You will no longer find me on a never-ending quest for happiness.

    But given my endless fascination with the subject, my work as a coach, and my ever-present desire for more street cred, I recently found myself immersed in a year-long Psychology of Happiness certification program created by best-selling author and former Harvard professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar.

    During the program, we were asked:

    What was one of the happiest periods of your life?
    What did you do during that period that made it so good?
    How can you generate more happiness in your life?

    I had a profoundly difficult time answering these questions, particularly the first two. But the more I scanned through my mental scrapbook, the more I kept thinking about the months between ninth and tenth grade—my last romp as a camper at the sleepaway camp I’d been going to for six consecutive summers.

    It wasn’t so much what I did—or what we­ did—that made it so good. I think, perhaps, it was what we didn’t do.

    There were no smartphones. So, there were no screens to stare at, no calls to make, no messages to check, no constant dinging notifications.

    There was no social media. There were no Facebook rants, no Twitter trolls, no outlandishly phony Instagram influencers to drum up our insecurities.

    We weren’t constantly comparing ourselves to others while looking at the carefully curated highlight reels from their lives.

    No, we were making our own highlight reels in the middle of nowhere—or, more accurately, in the middle of northern Wisconsin. We hadn’t the slightest idea what anyone else was doing, and we didn’t care.

    There were no dating apps, no heads to swipe on for hours at a time. There was no ghosting, no haunting, no orbiting, no zombieing, no submarining, no breadcrumbing, no roaching. These hyper-specific subtypes of appalling human behavior simply didn’t exist.

    And despite our raging hormones, there was no palpable desperation. You either “hooked up” with someone the night before or you didn’t. Then, you moved on with your life.

    Nobody gave a damn who was president, either. We just knew it was some old, white guy just like it was the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that. He sat in his office, and signed some papers, and maybe spoke to the country every few months and that was it.

    There was nobody on the far left trying to ruin the life of anyone who’s ever made a mildly offensive quip. There was nobody on the far right trying to accelerate conflict and build some kind of white ethnostate. There were no conspiracy theorists trying to convince the world that celebrities run pedophile rings out of pizza parlors or that Jewish folks crisscross the country to start wildfires with space lasers.

    Oh, but Tony, you might be saying to yourself. There were definitely people like that back then! And you get no argument from me.

    But we never heard from them. They didn’t have public platforms. There were no 24/7/365 news channels, there were no online news magazines, and there was no YouTube; so, they just kind of kept their crazy crap to themselves.

    It’s no wonder that one of the happiest periods of my life was the summer of 1997, in the middle of nowhere in northern Wisconsin. We spent all of our time in nature, laughing and singing and bonding and playing frisbee.

    One could theorize that we were happier purely because we were kids, but I’m not so sure. From what I can tell, kids today are lost, distracted, and isolated. They spend most of their time indoors, glued to their devices. They are overstimulated, oversensitive, and overprotected. They are riddled with anxiety and depression as they deal with the psychological trappings of growing up in a technological world.

    Twenty-five years ago, during the summer of 1997, life was just…simpler.

    That’s what made it so good.

    And I don’t think that life in general will ever be that simple again.

    But every time I simplify my own life, even just a little bit, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I de-clutter, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I delete a dating app, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I forgo watching the news or sign off social media, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I turn my phone on Do Not Disturb, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I have a real conversation in real life with a real person I really care about, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I go outside and walk around and do nothing but look at the sky, and the trees, and the architecture, I’m a little bit happier.

    Every time I sit in silence and meditate and let my thoughts pass by like the weather, I’m a little bit happier.

    So, how can you generate more happiness in your life?

    Well, I don’t have a whole lot of street cred. But if I had to take a stab at it: Stop doing the things that cause you unhappiness. Simplify, simplify, simplify. And maybe find a summer camp for adults.

  • How to Enjoy Life Without Buying Lots of Stuff

    How to Enjoy Life Without Buying Lots of Stuff

    “Minimalism isn’t about removing the things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love.” ~Joshua Becker

    Over the recent few years of being a digital nomad, I got a chance to live in Spain, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Canada for a month or longer. As I didn’t have a home base and only had one medium-sized suitcase with me (still do), I couldn’t really afford to buy new things.

    I mean, I would need to put them somewhere, and my suitcase is already over forty-five pounds while most airlines only allow up to fifty.

    Even when I had to go back to my home country and stay there for almost a year because of the pandemic, I knew I’d be on the road again as soon as possible. So I continued to not buy anything other than essential things.

    I was never a shopaholic before, but I still felt miserable wearing the same few-year-old clothes and watching my friends (not even mentioning social media influencers I follow) regularly enjoy new things.

    I didn’t realize that more often than not we only buy things to fill a void or to relieve stress, not necessarily because we actually need or even want them. As soon as I figured that out, I started looking for alternative ways to fill my days with joy that didn’t involve buying new stuff.

    Today I want to share four things that I’m buying now when I want to feel better, which don’t occupy any space in my suitcase!

    1. Online courses

    Maybe it’s just me, but courses that teach me new skills are my favorite things ever! Even my husband knows that giving me a course as a gift will always make me happy.

    I have a ton of hobbies and things that I’m interested in, and each of them could become a full-time thing if I wanted it to. So there is no lack of information to keep learning.

    For example, last year I was into photography and took a bunch of courses on the subject. I learned mobile photography, then normal photography, and even some videography. I studied lots of related things including photo and video editing and even dipped my toes into stock photography.

    This year I’m learning digital illustration. YouTube and Skillshare are my two best friends right now and would probably be the most visited websites in my free time if I were to track my web activity. It just makes me so happy to ace a new thing I couldn’t imagine creating before!

    Honestly, I could never understand people who get bored staying alone at home and don’t know what to do. I wish I had another twenty-four hours in my day just to fit in all the things I want to learn!

    Besides, investing in yourself is never a bad idea. You never know where your new skills might appear useful on your life journey.

    2. Experiences

    You might say that it’s easy to find new experiences when you are traveling, and that’s true. I often go on walking tours, participate in cooking classes, and find other interesting things that my next country has to offer.

    But if you think I didn’t invest in experiences when I wasn’t a nomad, you are wrong.

    My favorite kind was always visiting an escape room. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a quest where you go into a room full of hints and puzzles, solving which leads you to the next one, and so on until the final thing gives you a key or something to escape the room. Usually, there is a specific theme for the room, you have one hour to escape, and there can be more than one actual room involved.

    Over the years, with my friends and coworkers, I went to almost every room that existed in my city at the time (which is a lot). Some were very easy; some were so hard that we didn’t get out on time. I remember the one which was absolutely dark and another one where they put chains around your ankles and wrists at the beginning, which you have to get out of.

    The feeling of nailing another quest room can hardly compare to anything else; it’s like actually being in an adventurous book for an hour. If you happen to be a nerd and avid reader like me, you know what I mean.

    Meaningful experiences strengthen your relationships and create memories for years to come. Do you remember every shirt you buy or reminisce about it with friends? I doubt that!

    3. Little gifts for friends

    This one is a bit of a cheat, as you might actually get to buy a physical thing.

    But, instead of it piling up in your closet, you give it away and feel good about it. Your friend is happy, you are happy, and your home doesn’t get cluttered. Not bad, huh?

    Just make sure to only buy things your loved ones actually want so they don’t start hating you for cluttering their home. Especially if your friend happens to be a minimalist.

    Wanna know my approach to always giving really good gifts? I swear by wishlists!

    I have had one for many years, and I made each of my friends and family members make one. Not everyone likes the idea at first, but I promise you, everyone loves getting specific things they want as presents! And don’t worry, it can still be a surprise, especially if their wishlist is long enough.

    To support the idea of having less stuff, encourage your friends to add items to their wishlists that aren’t physical things. About two-thirds of my own wishlist consists of specific online courses I’d love to take, new experiences I wish to try one day, and gift cards for fun things like massages and yoga classes.

    When it comes to hobbies and lifestyle choices, people usually know exactly what they want, and you can never go wrong with a wishlist. Without it, unless you know for sure all the details, it’s easy to gift someone a book they already have or a course that is too beginner-oriented (or too advanced) for their level. If you have doubts, better buy them a gift card to their favorite store or learning platform, so they can choose a specific item themselves.

    If you think you need to wait for a holiday or a birthday to give someone a gift, think again!

    The best presents are unexpected ones. Try surprising your friend with something they want for no particular reason, and just see how excited they get! They will feel loved and valued, which is something we can all benefit from.

    And as for you, the process of finding a perfect gift and seeing your friend genuinely enjoying it releases dopamine and endorphins, which basically make you feel happier. Win-win!

    4. eBooks

    The last thing on the list of things I still buy is eBooks.

    I am the person who used to read 100+ books per year and had a full bookcase at home. Now I travel with my tiny Kindle and am more mindful about what I’m reading.

    With that said, I still love the smell of real books and the feeling of actually turning pages! I still have a few of my favorite bookmarks. But I only buy digital books as it would be impossible to travel with “real” ones. I wish I had Hermione’s handbag with an extension charm on it, but sadly I don’t.

    I know many people these days don’t read books. With so many kinds of easily digestible visual content options we have online now, books became something of an old era. However, the process of reading still has a ton of health benefits: from improving your concentration skills and vocabulary to releasing stress and anxiety that is a constant problem in most of our lives.

    Nothing else can take your mind off your routines and worries quite as an interesting book can. It may only weigh a few kilobytes, but it has a whole world inside.

    —

    These were my four things to buy that won’t ever clutter your life! They might, however, make a big impact on your self-development, make you smarter, improve your skills and mental health, and make you happier. Not a bad deal, is it? Especially for things that don’t take up any space.

    I hope you can agree with me now that it’s possible to live happily without buying new stuff all the time. I am not exactly a minimalist, but I like the idea of surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy instead of cluttering your life with things that only bring you instant gratification and then get forgotten.

    Try to fill your days with fun experiences and learning new skills, as your memories and abilities are things you can always take with you, wherever you go.

  • Living a Meaningful Life: What Will Your Loved Ones Find When You Die?

    Living a Meaningful Life: What Will Your Loved Ones Find When You Die?

    “At the end of life, at the end of YOUR life, what essence emerges? What have you filled the world with? In remembering you, what words will others choose?” ~Amy Rosenthal

    Most people believe sorting through a loved one’s belongings after death provides closure. For me, it provided an existential crisis.

    After glancing at the angry sky in my father’s driveway for what seemed like hours, I mustered up the courage to crack open the door to the kitchen. The eerie silence stopped me in my tracks. Wasn’t he cooking up a storm in this cluttered kitchen just a few days ago?

    I started with the mounds of clothes and cuddled them gently before pitching them. The sweet aroma of his fiery cologne still lingered. The air smelled just like him.

    My father’s belongings served as physical reminders of how he spent his time on Earth. Some of my favorites included:

    A weathered yellow newspaper clipping of his parents. Cherished family photos, with him grinning ear to ear. A collection of homemade cookbooks. Framed quotes such as Mi casa es su casa. A prestigious Pottery Barn leather chair, distressed by puppy claw marks. Nostalgic t-shirts from the early 90’s.

    Chipped and heavily-used Williams-Sonoma platters. An entertainment center that mimicked a NASA operation center, with 70’s CDs left in the queue. Invitations to neighborhood block parties. An embroidered apron which read “World’s Best Grill Master” paired with still fresh barbeque sauce stains.

    Homemade recipe cards with quirky quotes like “It’s good because it’s cooked on wood.” An entire closet of camping gear. Leftover birthday celebration goodies. Glazed pottery from local North Carolinian artists. Entertaining sports memorabilia on full display. And a tender card from me:

    Dear Dad,

    You’re the best dad ever! I hope you have a birthday filled with tasty BBQ, blaring seventies music, and a pepperoncini pepper to start the day off right. Thank you for being there for me. You are my hero. I can’t wait to celebrate with you this weekend!

    My father collected items that brought him joy, and, clearly shared them with others.

    While you may not know him, or think you have anything to do with him, you do.

    You will be him one day. We will all be him one day. At some point, someone will rummage through our drawers. Scary, isn’t it?

    Weeks later after organizing his possessions, I returned to my lavish apartment with cloudy judgment. As soon as I arrived, I dropped my luggage near the door and waltzed into my closet. The items that once made me proud, made me nauseous. If someone rummaged through my keepsakes, they would find:

    A closet full of color-coordinated designer brand clothes. Scratched CDs listing my favorite nineties bands. An entire drawer filled with vibrant, unused makeup. A high-end collection of David Yurman rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Wrinkled Nordstrom receipts. An assortment of gently used designer handbags. And, pictures of fair-weather friends scattered throughout.

    Do you know what they all had in common? Me.

    ME! ME! ME!

    Comparing my life to my father’s led to a life-changing decision. Should I continue to splurge on meaningless items or start completely over?

    After a moment of contemplation, my life mirrored a blank slate. Products related to “keeping up with the Jones’s” were no longer my jam. Instead, my money was reserved for incredible moments that produced long-term joy and warm memories.

    My new spending habits derived from the following financial values:

    • Seek experiences that make me feel alive.
    • Purchase life-changing products.
    • Invest in creative hobbies that I’m proud of.
    • Provide others with joyous moments.
    • Initiate celebratory activities.
    • Make financial decisions out of love.

    With a little trial and error, I traded in frivolous shoulder bags for top-rated camping gear. Saturday shopping days transformed into baking Sundays. And most importantly, I went from feeling not enough to experiencing fulfillment.

    Twelve years later, I’m happy to share that I continue to evaluate my purchases using a “Will this make a good memory?” lens. In retrospect, mending my financial habits was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

    Why? I’m no longer impressed by status. I prefer art, learning, and the outdoors over any invitation to shopping. In return, my life is filled with purpose, meaning, and long-term satisfaction.

    What I know for sure is that most commodities on their own overpromise and underdeliver, unless we intentionally create an evocative memory with them. Materialistic purchases provide us with fleeting moments of happiness. On the contrary, curating beautiful moments with others delivers long-term joy.

    While you won’t find many luxurious products in my house now, you will find:

    A four-person picnic backpack for sunny days at a park. Bird feeders galore. A fine assortment of tea to share with others. Homemade bath bombs for birthdays. Color-coordinated self-improvement books. Aromatic sea salt exfoliants that replicate a spa experience. Cheery holiday decorations.

    An assortment of various vision boards and bucket lists. Seasonal candles galore. A bathroom drawer filled with citrus soaps, shampoo, and lotions for overnight guests. A collection of homemade scrapbooks featuring beloveds.

    An emerald green trekking hiking backpack for outdoorsy adventures. Crinkled Aquarium tickets. Handwritten family cookbooks. Seeds for a blooming garden. Hygge and cozy themed library nooks. A bright blue hybrid bike, for nomadic quests. A closet full of board games. And my most prized possession of all, a sentimental card from my darling father, John:

    Happy Graduation, Britti!

    I am proud of who you are and proud to be your dad. I like how you hold your head high. You are becoming a beautiful young woman and fun to be around. You have taught me things. You are so important to me. I treasure our time together and will always be here for you! It’s not always easy, but, you have a lot of love around you. I hope that life keeps blessing you. Keep spreading your wings and following your dreams!

    Love, Dad

    The real question is, when someone organizes your belongings, what will they find?

  • How the Deathbed Meditation Can Bring You Clarity, Purpose, and Joy

    How the Deathbed Meditation Can Bring You Clarity, Purpose, and Joy

    “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.” ~Socrates

    There’s a lot of beauty and value in positive, light-and-love approaches to mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

    But I challenge you to go a little deeper and to face something we’re all going to experience eventually:

    Death.

    I know this may sound macabre, bizarre, or downright unappealing. But hear me out!

    There is a certain power and beauty in consciously visualizing and meditating on one’s death.

    What could be more awakening and more revealing than putting your current self into the perspective of your dying self—into your last few moments?

    Such a precious practice helps to bring a stunning clarity and crystalline focus to everything going on in your life.

    Indeed, what is referred to as the “deathbed meditation” helps you to:

    • Figure out what is most important to you
    • Let go of old pains and hurts
    • Focus on what brings you joy
    • Find your true life path
    • Uncover your hidden gifts

    As humans, we tend to live our lives as though they will never end. From one day to the next we live in a kind of autopilot mode where we take everything (and everyone) for granted.

    The deathbed meditation is a powerful practice you can incorporate into your life whenever you feel lost, stranded, stuck, out of focus, or simply aimless.

    My Experience With the Deathbed Meditation

    I’ve always been someone who desperately needs a strong purpose in life.

    But something happened last year that tossed me into a dark existential crisis where I questioned (1) what my place in the world really was, (2) why old wounds were rising to the surface, and (3) why I felt so lost—despite having a strong self-care and spiritual practice.

    With the advent of COVID-19 and the retriggering of old traumas, I felt empty inside.

    You know that feeling of falling and not having anything to catch you? That’s how I felt.

    Witnessing the suffering in the world and in my own circle of family members, I realized something major: “I could die tomorrow.”

    I realized this isn’t a groundbreaking thought; we all have it at some point (I know I have). But in that moment it felt like a lightbulb went off in my head—I suddenly realized that the key to finding the answers to life was to contemplate something so few people dare to approach: death.

    The answers I received from that subsequent deathbed meditation have guided my life, reawoken my purpose, and fuelled me with vision ever since.

    How to Practice the Deathbed Meditation

    Doing the deathbed meditation is an act of radical self-love. There, I said it!

    Why radical? The deathbed meditation is radical because it’s rarely mentioned or practiced by anyone (that I’m aware of) due to its intimidating nature.

    But let me assure you that the answers you can potentially find are so soul-nourishing, so meaningful, so profound, that you will be overjoyed that you courageously took this step.

    Before you embark on this inner journey, please ensure you have a neutral mind—we don’t want minds that are feeling down or frazzled or unhappy for any reason (that will bias your discoveries).

    When you’re ready, let’s begin:

    1. Focus on feeling safe and relaxed.

    Before you begin your deathbed meditation, find a space in your house that feels cozy. You might like to place a blanket over you and a pillow behind your head for extra comfort. Draw the blinds or curtains and ensure the atmosphere is dark.

    It’s important that you feel safe and relaxed so that your heart and mind can open up and gain the most from the meditation.

    Place a blindfold, sleep mask, or cloth over your eyes so that you can’t see anything. Then take some gentle, natural, grounding breaths and settle yourself.

    2. Find some funereal music (optional).

    Some people prefer their meditations to be totally silent, but if you’d like to set the mood, find some funereal music (or music that would be played at a funeral) to prepare your mind for the scene.

    Again, do whatever makes you feel most safe and comfortable. If you prefer total silence, that’s okay too.

    3. Visualize yourself on your deathbed, surrounded by loved ones.

    In your mind’s eye, imagine that you only have a few minutes (or hours) left to live. You feel comforted and at peace with your loved ones surrounding you.

    What kind of room are you in? What kind of bed or seat supports you? Focus on some kinesthetic details to help enrich the visualization.

    4. Ask yourself, “What was I most happy to have done in life?”

    Take some moments to reflect on this crucial question: What were you most happy to have done in your life? Let images and scenes play out in your mind for as long as needed.

    This powerful question will help you to hone in on what truly matters in your current life. If you’re struggling with making an important decision or finding a life direction, this simple question could be the key to unlocking deep truths residing within you.

    5. Ask yourself, “What did I regret not doing?”

    Regret is a natural part of life, yet many of us shy away from it, trying to sweep it under the rug. To avoid accumulating too much regret, ask this simple question within your deathbed meditation: What did you regret not doing?

    Let any thoughts, images, memories, or scenes run through your mind’s eye. Take special note of them.

    6. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing in life to me, above all else?”

    Values are what guide our lives, and yet we are often totally unaware of them. By asking the question, “What is the most important thing in life to me, above all else?” we come to understand, truly understand, what we value deep down.

    Take a few moments in your deathbed meditation to contemplate this question, letting it sink into the recesses of your mind, heart, and soul. The answer you discover can have the potential of shifting, expanding, and empowering your entire life.

    7. Thank your loved ones and end the meditation.

    Once you’re done asking all or some of the above questions, smile warmly to your loved ones and thank them for their presence in your life. Then, when you’re ready, return to the room you’re in, get up very slowly, and do a big stretch.

    You might also like to drink some water to ‘emotionally digest’ your experience.

    —

    The deathbed meditation has been one of the most powerful tools in my life for getting straight to the heart of what I most love, cherish, value, and need.

    After all, what else can put things in perspective other than our own mortality?

    If you’re feeling confused, lost, or in need of direction, I highly recommend that you try this unique meditation at least once. You might be surprised by how intensely transformational such a practice can be!

  • How I’m Honoring My Values Even Though I Have Conflicting Priorities

    How I’m Honoring My Values Even Though I Have Conflicting Priorities

    “No matter what kind of stuff you tell the world, or tell yourself, your actions reveal your real values. Your actions show you what you actually want.” ~Derek Sivers

    I need to be a productivity rockstar if I stand a chance of accomplishing everything important to me.

    There’s a book I want to write, a course I want to create, and a chance to work with an award-winning author that has given me endless projects I want to pursue.

    These are exciting, but they’re creating a ton of anxiety in my life.

    Why?

    Because they’re at odds with being the kind of dad I want to be.

    Time is your most valuable resource as an entrepreneur.

    Time is also your most valuable resource as a present, attentive, and loving parent.

    When I look at the progress I’m making on my work projects, I can’t help but feel like a failure at the end of the week.

    It feels like I’m slacking.

    It feels like I’m being lazy.

    I’ve worked my ass off to get to this point, and now I’m letting it slip through my fingers.

    But what’s most important to me?

    My daughter, Willow.

    It’s a harsh realization to wrestle with because I find my work meaningful. My work gives me purpose. I don’t have some bullshit job I don’t care about anymore. I wake up feeling like I have something to offer the world. That feels light years away from the guy who didn’t care if he lived or died in his twenties.

    I’m not failing to get things done because I’m lazy. I say this, but holy hell, is it ever hard for me to internalize. I feel like a failure for not making progress on opportunities I would have killed for a few years ago.

    Except I’m not experiencing failure, am I?

    I’m experiencing what it means to battle with the beast that is priorities.

    I might not be crushing it as an entrepreneur, but I’m damn proud of the dad I am.

    And even though I feel like I “should” be doing more with my business, it’s not predictive of what I’ll be able to do in the future.

    Willow won’t be a kid forever.

    Whenever I read a particular Cherokee proverb, it stings with the bite of a rattlesnake because it serves as a reminder of what steals my happiness: “Don’t let yesterday eat up too much of today.” It speaks to where I find myself when I drift back into feeling like I’ll never be productive again.

    Whenever I start thinking about what I was able to accomplish in the past and how little it feels like I’ve done since becoming a father, it reminds me that my priorities are different now. But it’s also bringing about a shift in what I think it means to accomplish something with my day.

    Every day we go in and out of emotions based on the thoughts consuming us. Focusing on what we can’t do creates hopelessness; when we focus on what we can do, it creates motivation and a sense that the world is full of possibility. This is why our emotions are such a rollercoaster.

    It wasn’t until I noticed that I was putting entrepreneurship and being a dad at odds that I recognized I was the one creating the painful emotions I was struggling with.

    The better I can learn to manage my fears rather than react to what scares me, the better I can handle these moments when I feel feel like I’m a failure.

    My fear is justified. It makes sense that I’m fearful that I won’t be able to support my family if the business disappears.

    But is the fear based on fact? Not at all.

    All of my clients have expressed that they love working with me. The author I mentioned before said one of the things she admires about me most is my willingness to live true to my values.

    It’s okay to be fearful. It’s a natural part of life that keeps us alive. But if we don’t bring awareness to our fearful thought patterns, they will continue to haunt us.

    If I don’t admit that I have competing priorities, I can’t possibly expect to experience peace of mind in either area of my life. And calmness is the elixir that makes me a creative, innovative entrepreneur and a present and engaged dad. A far cry from the stress case focused on expectations and outcomes, putting me in a position to base my worth on how busy I am.

    We’re all farmers in the business of planting seeds. The more pressure we put on growth, the less we’ll see development because we’ll be too anxious to do anything effectively—and we also won’t enjoy any of it. We’ll be so busy worrying about our wants for the future that it will be impossible to appreciate what we have in the present.

    It’s a life-changing approach for work and an even more powerful way to parent when we remove the pressure of outcomes tied to a timeline. The results you experience in either area are far less important than the commitment to fully showing up, aligned with what you value. Then we’re not racing and stressing but creating a sustainable approach that honors all the things that give us a meaningful life.

  • The False Comfort of Having More: Finding Peace in Living with Less

    The False Comfort of Having More: Finding Peace in Living with Less

    “Be a curator of your life. Slowly cut things out until you’re left only with what you love, with what’s necessary, with what makes you happy.” ~Leo Babauta

    As a kid, I remember begging my dad to take me to Burger King, Wendy’s, McDonalds, and any other number of fast food restaurants. Their food was okay, but that’s not the main reason I went. The toys were what beckoned me.

    Each chain offered different ones, some of which interested me more than others. The Mini Nintendos at Taco Bell? I was there. Assemble your own Inspector Gadget at McDonalds? Count me in on that Happy Meal.

    I remember gleefully jotting my Christmas lists inside the Grinch who Stole Christmas ornament-shaped notepad I’d extracted from beneath a soggy container of fries at the bottom of my Wendy’s kids’ meal bag.

    When Burger King came out with Pokemon toys, I raced on over. My goal was to get enough Poke balls to strap to every belt loop—because people in class, pedestrians sharing the street with me, and my family at home all needed to know how serious, esteemed, and accomplished of a Pokemon trainer I was.

    Meanwhile, the neglected burger and the remainder of fries glistened untouched beneath the fluorescent lights, off to the side.

    Ever since I was little, surplus brought me comfort.

    An all-in kind of girl when it came to my belongings and collections, I threw myself into the hobby of collecting and amassing—everything from Archie comics to souvenir pennies to Pepsi cans featuring photos of different Star Wars characters (which my mom hated and my cat enjoyed swatting around, only to be startled by the noise whenever they crashed against the ground).

    My room contained surplus—whether that was after a trip to the library with my mom, or from Beanie Babies scattering the floor. Bobbleheads crowded my shelves. Shot glasses that I used as cups for my dolls and stuffed animals during our play tea parties did as well.

    So did the pages of my angsty adolescent diary. One poster of Aaron Carter or a single pin-up of J.T.T. didn’t cut it for me—I had to fill the entire wall. How I managed to not feel unsettled falling asleep under the watch of so many prepubescent boy eyes still mystifies me.

    Material surplus as a child became surplus of a more abstract kind as a young adult. People, experiences, a large social circle, and nonstop activities took the place of physical objects. These grown-up versions of childhood collections served the same function my clutter once did.

    I scheduled back-to-back activities, unnerved by the thought of banking on solely one interaction to sustain me though the day. My schedule was constantly full.

    Where Does the Drive for More Come From?

    Reasons for “hoarding mentality” are numerous. I can see looking back now how surplus brought me comfort as a kid. Material excess likely allayed feelings of solitude.

    At one point I even wrote in my journal: “I believe many of us collect to fill voids. More means never going without, never living in scarcity. More confers safety. More means escaping alone-ness. If I just keep accumulating more more more, maybe at some point I can let out all this breath I’ve been holding in.”

    Our cultural climate likely also contributed. It capitalizes upon low self-worth and generalized ennui to sell the message that solutions and relief lie in consumption—consume more to fill the emptiness, may as well be their mantra.

    Additionally, I believe we create surplus when we don’t trust. We don’t trust what we have is enough. Or we don’t trust it’s good enough.

    I think about all the unfinished drafts on my computer over the years. Littering the pages were paragraphs of clumsy prose and scattered ideas, all chucked into the document and then abandoned.

    One paragraph on racial inequality. Introduction, scattered thoughts…  abandoned.

    Two paragraphs of a fiction piece on a one-night stand. Introduction, rising action… abandoned.

    I didn’t trust the voice. I didn’t trust the content. I didn’t trust the direction the piece was going in. I didn’t trust anything about it—so abandoning it felt like the comfortable, somewhat logical option.

    After fleeing it and attempting to start anew, I didn’t trust in the voice of this draft either, so I fled that one as well. Abandonment seemed the common trend, syntactically if not thematically. And over time all these abandonments, fueled by lack of trust, left surplus in its wake.

    I once compared the scatter-focused to the hyper-focused work style: More cups for the scatter-focused worker means less likelihood of failure—because if one’s not working, they can always shift focus to another. A half-finished project isn’t a failure. It just hasn’t been completed yet.

    Or think of it as putting your eggs into different baskets. You don’t want to put too much pressure on any one friend; instead, you spread your efforts onto multiple so that no one gets overwhelmed.

    It’s similar to the way some scatter-focused workers might view tasks. Dividing our attention amongst various simultaneous assignments takes pressure off any single one of them, reducing the likelihood of “botching it.” Because if one’s not working, they can always shift attention to another.

    Some of us who allow surplus into our lives may have difficulty with letting go.

    I grow attached to the things I write, for instance, even if I know they’re bad. A weak sentence, or a paragraph wherein the phrases are all jumbled together and not working in unison—even as this clunky tangle of words on the screen makes my head spin, I still fear hitting that delete button and watching my ideas vanish completely.

    I fear hitting it because even in their imperfect expression, they were still my ideas, born in a moment of generativity. I was adding something to the world, however small and insignificant, when I spawned them.

    Is Surplus Bad?

    I’m not trying to say that surplus is inherently bad; many people not only can successfully juggle multiple commitments, but likely even have to in order to stay afloat in this increasingly demanding world.

    What I am saying is that sometimes the hoarding mentality can prevent us from mindfully attending to what’s directly in front of us.

    As I came to find through my own later life experiences, “‘more” can sometimes feed disconnection.

    I once drove a Lyft passenger who, together with his wife, fostered twenty-two cats—a number he said was a “manageable amount.” He said that he didn’t think he could take in any more.

    “It’s very hard, because we want to say yes to all of them,” Jacob said, “But we’ve also got to think about how many we can realistically care for.”

    He then quipped, “Crazy cat ladies get a bad rap because they’re too idealistic. They’re in over their heads even, is what I’d say. She’s crossed the threshold from cat lover to cat addict.”

    We talked about the point at which a loving impulse turns into an addiction. About how even if the addicted person started out loving the thing they’re now addicted to, once compulsion has replaced it, love may no longer be at the center of the equation anymore.

    Jacob’s saying that he “wouldn’t be able to love fifty-six cats” resonated with me. I recalled how back when I had only one or two Pez dispensers, I really treasured them. They meant more to me. We had as close to an intimate connection as is possible for a human and a chunk of plastic to have with one another.

    The more my supply multiplied though, the less connection I felt with any single one of them.

    Looking back now, I’m just glad those Pez were inanimate objects rather than living creatures with needs and pain receptors—because they surely would have felt the sting of negligence under my care.

    ~~

    Becoming more aware of the roots of these tendencies has helped me to gradually shift them.

    The past few years I’ve slowly and steadily fengshui-ed many of the items accumulated throughout my past. The Pez dispensers were the first to go—to a customer through eBay.

    Next it was 1,050 of my 1,075 Archie comics (I kept a few as souvenirs from childhood, for nostalgic purposes). Writing I’d always found too difficult to part with, I’ve slowly recycled as well (after salvaging whichever remnants I saw some potential value in).

    I’ve sought more one-on-one interactions, careful to not plan too many in too short a period of time—both to preserve my energy and give each encounter the attention I feel it deserves.

    As minimalist Youtuber Ronald Banks said, “Minimalism is living with more of what matters by choosing to want less of what doesn’t.”

    When I do find myself starting to accumulate—be that material items or events on my social calendar— I ask myself questions now. Questions like, Am I saying yes to have one more item to add to my stash? Or because I genuinely connect and derive meaning from it?

    Are my motives extrinsic and escapist—tied more to bolstering my image or avoiding an uncomfortable emotion? Or are they intrinsic and self-actualizing—aimed toward the purpose of connecting?

    I wouldn’t say I’m a minimalist now, but I have become a bit more intentionally resistant toward what I now regard as the false comfort brought by surplus. I realize now I don’t need more things, more friends, more projects, more commitments. I just need to recognize when I’m trying to fill a void and instead focus more on the things I value most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The First Shift

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

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

    I’d forgotten about the Sam that I am.

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

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

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

    Screw the Productivity Hustle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Do you and forget about validation.

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

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

    And I documented it all on social media.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Prioritize joy.

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

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

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

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

    Get real with yourself. And calm the F down.

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

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

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

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

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

    Which brings me to my next point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • How Following Someone Else’s Path Can Lead to Depression

    How Following Someone Else’s Path Can Lead to Depression

    “Your anger? It’s telling you where you feel powerless. Your anxiety? It’s telling you that something in your life is off balance. Your fear? It’s telling you what you care about. Your apathy? It’s telling you where you’re overextended and burnt out. Your feelings aren’t random, they are messengers. And if you want to get anywhere, you need to be able to let them speak to you and tell you what you really need.” ~Brianna Wiest

    Overcoming depression was one of the hardest yet most rewarding experiences of my life. I didn’t understand it when I first started struggling at eighteen, so I let years go by, accepting my state and letting life pass me by, following what I was told was the right path. Listening to my peers and family on career, relationships, money matters, and keeping up with the world. But my illness only grew stronger.

    Later, as I deconstructed social systems and economies through my academic studies in political science—which really meant exploring human nature and society values—I began to make connections to my environment and my upbringing. It gave me the foundation to question everything I was accepting “as is.”

    I slowly began to pull apart my life, moral by moral, value by value, questioning not only my peers but also my family’s interpretation of life.

    I was not very liked, but nevertheless, I became inquisitive. Every time I felt triggered, I went back to the drawing board to reconstruct another lesson. I decided to live my life as an experiment. Over time, I learned four valuable lessons about overcoming my depression, which I will share with you here:

    1. De-construct what you were taught and build your life around your own values and morals.

    As children, we learn what other people teach us is right. This can make it challenging to identify and build our lives around what we believe is right for us personally.

    When I was younger, there was a certain path I was told to take because the path I wanted to follow was difficult. I know that my family did not want to see me get hurt. But as I became my own person, I struggled to make sense of things because my experiences differed from how others had experienced their own life.

    I felt alone with no one to relate to. Then I realized that my values and morals had been passed onto me, and they did not fit with what I actually wanted. My morals and values had been shaped by thoughts, opinions, and experiences of my parents, family, and friends. I had to de-construct what all of this meant for me and recreate these guidelines for myself.

    Depression is a cry for help. As famously stated by Jim Carrey, it is your body telling you, “f*ck you, I don’t want to be this character anymore.”

    I realized that all my experiences were incorrectly matched with my actual values and morals, and hence my personality was not authentic, it was simply how I molded myself according to my surroundings.

    We each have our own version of the “good life.” For some, it means getting a fancy nine-to-five job, getting married, and “settling down.” For some, it means travel, eat, repeat. I realized early on I was following someone else’s idea of the “good life” instead of my own.

    2. Don’t live someone else’s plot and story, write your own one day at a time.

    It took years for me to realize that I was not living my life, I was trying to live a perceived notion of what I thought life “should be.” I was always forcing experiences to fit into this box of what life was supposed to be so I could justify them.

    It is like writing an academic argumentative paper. You try to find primary sources that align with your viewpoint and argument so you can use them as references. The problem was that my references (what I was taught to value) did not align with my argument or viewpoint (what I actually wanted).

    So of course, I hit depression. My life made no sense. It was a hard break on a highway with oncoming traffic.

    Human beings are afraid of uncertainty. We are afraid of not knowing where life will take us, not having direction. It is easier to follow a route with directions. It’s difficult to just take your car, hit the road, and hope for the best.

    I decided to hit the road, literally. I would go on long drives with no destination. Living in Alberta, Canada, the Rockies were nearby, so I would pack my bags and just drive, until I found a place I wanted to stop at. I would reach the British Columbia border and realize I’d been driving for hours. But because I had no destination, the drive was enjoyable, it was therapeutic. Imagine if we all lived our lives this way.

    Because we want to make sure we have our retirement plans figured out, to not end up hungry and broke, we spend all our lives trying to create a life that we will enjoy eventually, without enjoying our current life.

    There was a time in human history when it was necessary to live in survival mode, but that time is not now. I won’t argue that money doesn’t buy happiness, because I definitely needed gas money. But, while we create a plan to make money, support ourselves, and save for retirement, we need to enjoy the moments—because our story is always unfolding right now.

    3. Don’t wait until you become who you want to be to love yourself.

    I used to believe that I needed to become a certain version of myself before I could approve of who I was. Before I was worthy of love, I needed to become someone first.

    I thought I would love myself more if I was smarter. So I became smarter, I got two degrees, but I still felt less than. Then I thought if I became a model, I would feel proud of who I was. So I became a model, but I never came around to loving myself even though I was encouraged externally. Then I thought that if only I had a nice job and more money, I would love myself. So I got a nice job and made more money, but it did not cure my disease.

    No matter who I was or what I tried to be, I kept pushing the prize further and further away. I just would not let myself “make it.”

    I finally looked back at my collection of prizes and recognized how insignificant they all were. No wonder I wasn’t impressed with myself. The point was not to become a certain person so I could love myself, the point was to love myself enough to do and be what I want. To respect myself enough to only reach for prizes that are meaningful to me.

    My collection should be an extension of myself, I am not an extension of them. I define what my accomplishments, character, and life look like, I am not defined by those things.

    I realized that to truly love yourself means to respect yourself. Respect and love yourself just as you are right now as you evolve into who you can be.

    When you give yourself that unconditional respect and love, you tend to move toward things that align with you.

    I moved toward a career in public service. I moved toward writing. I moved toward taking things slowly and enjoying my days. I also became a morning person. I can proudly say this is me and I love myself, even as I evolve further.

    4. Live life with purpose and meaning.

    It is so easy to follow a straight path, doing whatever is expected of you. But to dig deep to find a path that feels right for you provides a high that even drugs can’t replace.

    It does not matter whether you choose to be a humanitarian, a writer, or give up capitalism to become a monk. What matters is that you build a life that suits your personality and aligns with your own morals and values.

    Meaning gives us all a life worth living.

    Human beings are emotional creatures, far more so than other species, hence our life must be ruled by purpose, or we will feel dead inside. Regardless of your profession, make time to do things that excite you and give you a sense of purpose.

    To have purpose and meaning in your life you don’t need to do huge things like leading a nation or moving across the world to be a doctor without borders. Those are noble and great things. But purpose and meaning are personal to you.

    Somebody I know once asked a representative of the United Nations how to get a job with them because they wanted to make a difference in the world. She answered, rather than trying to save the world by being in the UN, do things that make you feel you’re making an impact even if it is just in your local area. We can apply that to our everyday lives.

    Purpose can simply mean you choose to live your principles as a kind person, to others and to yourself by not engaging in negative self-talk. It could also mean building genuine relationships instead of trying to fit into crowds that are clearly not meant for you.

    Staying true to yourself is living life with purpose, and you never know, you might just end up at the United Nations anyway.