Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • 6 Simple Acts to Make the World a Better Place

    6 Simple Acts to Make the World a Better Place

    “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” ~William James

    I’ll never forget the call.

    It was 1989 and, like most college students, I spent winter break in Florida looking for some sun. Stepping off the airplane and being greeted by a burst of warm air was the best. As I entered the terminal, I had the added benefit of being greeted by my maternal grandparents, who lived in North Miami Beach.

    Lounging at the pool, going on walks with them, or eating out, the experience was a wonderful way to decompress after an intense period of finals.

    Although being the oldest of six children came with big brother responsibilities, life was great and my worries were minimal.

    That warm Wednesday afternoon in January, my grandparents and I spent the morning at the pool. We were just coming back when we received a call that would change my life forever: My mother had suffered a brain aneurysm.

    She was just forty-four years old. How could this be happening? Just yesterday we spoke, she laughed, and now, within forty-eight hours, she’d passed away, leaving her parents, a husband, and six children, ages eight to twenty-one, to mourn her loss.

    My world—our world—was turned upside down in an instant.

    We don’t like to think about it, but the truth is our lives can change in an instant, as I discovered so powerfully back then. Reading this now is no guarantee that you will be here tomorrow. The question is whether or not we are doing the utmost today with the time we have left. No one on their death bed is asking for more money; they’re asking for more meaning.

    In the words of Bob Marley, “Live for yourself and you will live in vain, live for others and you will live again.”

    Our actions affect others. “What will be your legacy?” is a question for all of us to reflect upon. It’s a chance to consider past and present actions and vow to make positive changes that will affect not only ourselves and our current families, but possibly future generations. The seeds, whether positive or negative, that we plant today can make an enormous difference.

    It’s important to understand that no matter what is happening in the world today, the first place to look is within ourselves. We have to ask the following questions each and every day:

    1. What did I do today to uplift another person?

    2. Is it possible I could have done more, given more, or listened more to those around me?

    Take a quiet hour and dig deep within yourself. Who are you? Who do you want to be? If you could only speak one more time, what would you say? Why not say it now?

    When I wake up in the morning, I recite a prayer not only in my belief in a higher power but in knowing that the new day is endowed with new possibilities for eternal impact unlike yesterday or tomorrow. This awareness inspires me to seize the day and seek opportunities to unleash kindness in every encounter, for I will not pass this way again.

    If you want to create a life that fulfills your purpose and leaves the world a better place, if you want to create a legacy, here are some suggestions.

    1. Be an agent of kindness.

    When you walk into your local coffee shop or go to work, what can you do to make someone’s day? Pay for coffee for the person standing behind you? Smile and make eye contact with someone passing in the hall? Perhaps the person was having a tough day and by acknowledging them, you’ve made an impact on their lives. No encounter is random but an opportunity to spread some light.

    2. Make courageous choices.  

    We make big and small choices every day, and some are easier than others. Most often we make decisions based on convenience. For example, we might not help someone who needs it because we think we’re too busy, or we might not pursue a career that makes a positive difference because it seems too hard. A courageous choice means we choose based on conviction. What is the right thing to do?

    Upon reflection, many people regret the things they didn’t do. When we die, we won’t be judged against someone else’s life but against our own potential. Did we do the best we could with the hand we were dealt? 

    Wake up every morning and ask yourself, “What can I do today outside my comfort zone to live courageously and make a difference?” No one wants to be remembered for playing life safe but for doing what is right. 

    3. Seize meditative moments.

    Meditate every day to reflect on your own humanity. Use prayers or poems or your own journal writings to think about who you are, your relationships and what you’ve done to make an impact. This gives you an opportunity to consider what you’ve done right, and what you need to correct.

    4. Finding faith. 

    The sources of our faith may be in a higher power, within ourselves, or in friends or a spouse who believes in us more than we believe in ourselves so we can be our best and give our best back to the world. We need the strength they give us to show up every day and make a positive impact, because life can be hard sometimes. Who are your cheerleaders? Who can you depend on to support you in all your endeavors and encourage you when you’re feeling down?

    5. Live inspired.  

    Living inspired stems from an awareness that life can change in an instant. Don’t wait for a huge loss to wake you up to your blessings. Take nothing for granted and don’t assume you’re owed anything. In the age of COVID in particular, we cannot take even one breath for granted.

    Start a gratitude journal that lists new blessings every day. When we live with joy, we exude positive energy, which uplifts the people into our lives and creates a ripple of hope and optimism in our families, communities, and the world.  

    6. Discover your renewable energy. 

    Identify your talents and skills, and what makes you smile. Your life is a gift latent with infinite potential. When do you feel the most alive? Spending your time and energy on the areas in your life that give the most joy will renew your sense of meaning and purpose and motivate you to seize every day to make an impact and create a legacy.

    —

    Sometimes we think we have to be on the world stage in order to make a difference, but the truth is we all have the ability to choose between harm and healing. Your life is a candle. You are a flame. You can ignite thousands of lights in your world every day by intentionally building your own legacy.

    Remember, you may not be able to change the entire world, but you can change the entire world of one person… and maybe many more.

  • Depression Isn’t Always Dark Rooms and Crying Endlessly

    Depression Isn’t Always Dark Rooms and Crying Endlessly

  • Sometimes Closure Arrives Two Years Later

    Sometimes Closure Arrives Two Years Later

  • Healing from Abuse and Reclaiming My Dreams

    Healing from Abuse and Reclaiming My Dreams

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post mentions sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.

    “Along the way I stopped into a coffee shop. All around me normal, everyday city types were going about their normal, everyday affairs…In spite of which—or, rather, all the more because— here I was, sitting in this coffee shop, drinking my coffee, feeling a desperate loneliness. I alone was the outsider. I had no place here… Here I had no ties to anyone. Fact is, I’d come to reclaim myself.” ~Haruki Murakami

    “You don’t have any goals.”

    “I wondered why someone your age and with your qualifications hasn’t done more.”

    Easy statements to make for those who have not led my life. Twelve years of childhood sexual abuse, being silenced, struggling to stop it, people I trusted denying it had happened. Thirty-three long years of battling depression, failing, and constantly taking the easy way out by giving up on myself, my dreams, and my life.

    And yet I kept on moving on, pushing through the bouts of depression. I had lost all sense of a childhood, as I had experienced something traumatic at a very young age.

    I forced myself to have crushes on boys at school so as to feel normal, but I didn’t really feel anything. I couldn’t fall in love like my friends did at university; I tried to like men, but I withdrew from a mere touch.

    In my late thirties when I woke up to a life I had managed to carve out for myself, I dated erratically, thinking I had found love in a six-month relationship. Ten years later I am still alone, and all I can hear is little girl crying as she tries to find her childhood and her lost youth. A woman who hopes to find love but has been held back by self-doubt.

    Some days are better than others, when I think of how much I have achieved in my career despite my handicap, but on other days there is only the loneliness. Even with therapy, Buddhism, a PhD, a well-rounded career, and a family that loves me, sans admittance of the biggest truth in my life.

    Some say there is not much to complain about, and that it’s cultural and generational that my family doesn’t understand. Others get worried when I am in one of my “low moods” and ask me to get help.

    It’s not help I seek, nor attention nor approval—all of which I’ve sought for before. All I want is to have a life in which I can find love. But I think love wants me to find myself first.

    If you, like me, are searching for yourself and/or for love, perhaps what I’ve shared below might help.

    Don’t shy away from your feelings.

    They will come in waves, and they will leave you weak and crying. Let yourself cry. Your tears are precious, as they express what you feel without words, without judgment. Your pain, your grief, is yours; don’t turn your back on it. Hear it, listen to it.

    I have spent, and still do spend, countless hours crying, as the anger, the disbelief that this was my life, and now the grief of having had a tough childhood, makes me weep. I cry for my five-year-old self—the little girl with eyes that said a lot, but which no one paid attention to; the kid whose feelings were labelled as a tantrum and ignored.

    Don’t ignore your tears, or anyone else’s.

    Never silence your thoughts.

    Your thoughts can be both your strength and your weakness. Just like your feelings, don’t judge them. Find a way to express yourself.

    I write, as a researcher and as a means of expressing myself. It was my writing that helped me past a crippling stage of depression in my life. My words written on paper brought many hidden, silenced aspects of my abuse to light for me. I was able to write down things I couldn’t talk about, which helped me make peace with them.

    Get it all out, whether you share it with someone else or keep it to yourself. Release the shame by sharing your story.

    Many people have patronized me or felt sorry for me when I’ve told them about my past. I appreciate them hearing me out, but I don’t open up because I want pity. I do it for me—because talking about my past gives me strength.

    Don’t give up hope.

    I sit here crying while writing this, and I don’t feel that I have any hope in me, but life, our breath, is resilient. And even though my mind tries to convince me that I’m without hope, I know that as long as I’m still breathing, there is always hope. The same is true for you.

    Turn your gratitude inward.

    There is a higher sense of gratitude beyond what we feel for our friends, family, having a good stable job or a house: a sense of gratitude toward ourselves, for having come so far in our life journey, for having pushed through so much pain that we are able to look ourselves in the eye in the mirror and say, “I deserve love.”

    Reaffirm that you deserve love and so much more.

    I have compared my life to others and gone through phases of feeling like I was short-changed in life and others have it all. We all know that we should not compare ourselves to others, but it’s not the comparison that hurts; it’s the fear that we can’t get what other people have.

    We lack faith and trust because years of abuse led to low self-worth and self-doubt. The best way out and back to ourselves is accepting ourselves just as we are, irrespective and inclusive of our past, our grief, the years we have lost, our tears. It all forms who we are, and it’s built us into strong people who deserve love and respect.

    Have dreams.

    I am not giving up on finding love. My abuse took from me the typical trajectory of life, but over the last ten years I have been reconnecting with different parts and sides of myself—for example, my teenage self, the young, depressed girl who wanted to fall in love, but was scared to trust.

    My career took precedent during my twenties and most of my thirties, as work was a safe place. But I now realize love doesn’t have to be unsafe, so I daydream about finding love someday—of having a family and a dog.

    It’s not just my youth that was taken away, but also my dreams, since I didn’t believe I was worthy of love, or that I could ever find it. For everyone who feels as I do, I have only one thing to say: reach out and reclaim those dreams.

    Get your life back because it’s precious and you deserve to live a life full of hopes and dreams.

  • Instead of Fearing Change, Get Excited About Progress

    Instead of Fearing Change, Get Excited About Progress

    “Progress is impossible without change.” ~Walt Disney

    I want you to look in the mirror and tell me what you see.

    Do you look older? Does your skin have more wrinkles? Do you notice dark circles around your eyes or white hair on your head?

    You are looking at massive changes from a decade ago. A lot of it you probably don’t like—changes due to your body growing older. Changes that you cannot resist.

    Now look in the mirror again. Do you notice a more confident person? Someone who is self-assured, optimistic, and happy in life?

    It happened to me a few weeks back when I was getting ready for an interview. For my preparation, I was talking to myself in the mirror, and as I paused, I had this moment of mindfulness in which all I noticed was my confidence, optimism, and positive energy.

    This one epiphany completely shifted how I looked at change.

    That day in the mirror, I saw progress. I saw a shy anxious kid—one who was afraid and bullied— completely flip the script on its head to become a confident, happy, and self-assured human being.

    We all react differently to change. Some of us seek it. Some don’t mind it but won’t actively go looking for it. And others don’t like it.

    Regardless of where we stand, I can bet that none of us like it when change is forced upon us. So we fight it because we feel out of control, and the unknown generally feels scary. But what if taking back control was all a matter of perspective?

    Change is automatic. It happens whether we like it or not, and we have no option but to face it. It is up to us to make the most of it. We decide how we react to it and what we do with it.

    Think Progress, Not Change

    All progress equates to change, but not all change equates to progress. You losing your job is change. You deciding to pursue a career that’s more in line with your values and passions is progress.

    Progress makes us happy. It makes us want to jump out of bed every day with intent and purpose. Progress pushes us forward. It has to be worked on. Unlike change, it is not automatic.

    When I look back at all the progress I have made, it always makes me pause and smile and fills me with joy. It also renews my intent toward my own development.

    You cannot sit on your ass and hope to progress. It requires movement. It demands you put in the hours. And in the process, it pushes you to grow. To become someone capable of handling any problems that come your way.

    Progress, in the end, pays you back tenfold! And it all starts with change.

    Change Can Be Distressing, Progress a Blessing

    For a lot of us, change is a constant source of worry. I don’t have to look very far for examples. My parents get stressed even at the smallest sign of change.

    If you are anything like my parents, at the first sign of change, you start to rumble and complain. Instead of thinking of how this change will benefit your life, you start to think about all the ways in which it will impact you negatively.

    This is evident in the vocabulary we use when we talk about change—scary, hard, overwhelming. It’s also evident in our behavior toward people who push us to change—we may recoil, resist, or even resent them.

    In that moment when we are facing or going through a lot of changes, we have the opportunity to recognize and get excited about the progress we can make, but instead, we often choose fear.

    When we focus on the excitement of progress, change feels a lot less scary and we feel inspired to take action. Because like survival, curiosity is one of our greatest instincts. We get energized when we imagine fun new possibilities and focus on what we can control to create them instead of worrying about what’s out of our hands.

    The next time you’re faced with a change you didn’t choose, instead of asking:

    Why me?
    What did I do to deserve this?
    Why now? I am not ready for this…

    Ask yourself:

    How is this pushing me to progress?
    What new experiences and opportunities will this bring?
    What can I do to be ready for this?

    It’s all a matter of perspective. Viktor Frankl, the famous Holocaust survivor understood this better than anybody else. In his book, he writes:

    “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”

    In one of my previous posts, I shared how I used to rumble and complain. It was easy for me to play the victim card and think only about the negative impacts of change, completely overlooking the good it might bring.

    When I first moved to the US, I hated my life there. I was forced to move against my wishes. I went from a carefree eighteen-year-old kid to someone who had to work minimum wage jobs to help pay the bills and save up for college.

    In that moment, I hated it. I was angry and frustrated and constantly biding my time looking for an escape. But now when I look back, I recognize that my work ethic came from working at a Subway for five years. It helped me grow from an introvert to someone who can easily start a conversation with any stranger at one arm’s distance. Coming from a country where English is the second language, it sharpened my English-speaking skills.

    The change, in hindsight, led to progress.

    When a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, you see progress. And isn’t it beautiful?

    Maybe it’s time you started to look at change in your own life in the same light. You can think of it as losing the safety of your cocoon, or as an opportunity to transform into a beautiful, colorful, magnificent butterfly.

    The choice is really yours….

  • Wanna Break a Generational Curse?

    Wanna Break a Generational Curse?

  • If You’re Resting but Guilting or Shaming Yourself

    If You’re Resting but Guilting or Shaming Yourself

  • Live Every Day As If It Were Your Last Time with the People You Love

    Live Every Day As If It Were Your Last Time with the People You Love

  • People Are Not as Beautiful as They Look and Talk

    People Are Not as Beautiful as They Look and Talk

  • How to Love Yourself and Break Your Relationship Patterns

    How to Love Yourself and Break Your Relationship Patterns

    “And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the sky.” ~Rumi

    I grew up believing love was conditional. My grandmother, as much as I adored her, was extremely controlling, and unless I met her high standards of behavior and gave her a certain level of attention, she treated me with coldness.

    Whenever she disapproved of my behavior, she would tell me, “I love you, but I don’t like you.” As if she had a switch she could turn on and off that stopped or started the flow of love from her heart.

    When I was in her good graces, she gave me the world.

    After my grandfather passed away, I provided her much support and attention. As such, she became very loving and generous toward me. Helping me pay off my credit cards, gifting me valuable pieces of her jewelry, praising me on my accomplishments. It felt amazing to be loved by her. But this kind of love based on conditions is not sustainable.

    Eventually I fell out of her favor, and the switch turned off once again. The flow of love stopped. This pattern continued until she passed away a few years ago.

    I do not fault her or claim to be a victim, as I understand she learned this behavior from her own mother, and it was passed down for generations. Even more devastating, she grew up in Nazi Germany, where her family was prosecuted for being Jewish. These are deep multigenerational wounds that need healing.

    As an adult I am aware enough to break this inherited cycle. I recognize how I have repeated this pattern in my own relationships.

    I am very nurturing and giving to others. This is my love language and it feels good to give. However, when a relationship ends or the flow of love stops, I feel those old emotional wounds resurface.

    When the love I attempt to give is rejected this causes me much pain and distress and makes me question my own value. I make it mean something about myself, as I did with my grandmother. That I’m not enough, worthy, or lovable.

    I have also withheld love and affection toward others when I have felt vulnerable or hurt. We mirror for one another the parts of ourselves we reject, the parts of ourselves that need healing.

    I’ve recognized that the only way to break my unhealthy relationship patterns is to work on healing my emotional wounds and develop love for myself.

    How can we cultivate self-love and change our relationship patterns?

     1. Become the observer.

    The first step to breaking down the barriers that impede self-love is through awareness of our thoughts. By observing our thoughts, we can begin to identify our own destructive patterns and shift our thinking. As Buddha said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” Our thoughts become our words, our words become our actions, and our actions become our life.

    So often we stand in our own way. By living in our own personal dramas. Through our stories and conditioned thought patterns. By our inability to see things as they actually are. So many of these barriers exist in our own mind.

    In order to become more aware of our thoughts we need to carve out space to simply be still and watch them. Meditation and mindfulness are powerful tools to develop awareness.

    If we want to take it one step further, we can write down the flow of thoughts, and from this space we can see the often-ridiculous nonsense our mind produces. The more space we have from our thoughts, the more we can find peace within ourselves and can choose where to direct our energy.

    2. Find ease in your aloneness.

    I find it extremely unconformable to be alone. I have this irrational need to be in constant communication with others, yet at the same time, when I feel I am being stifled or overwhelmed, I have an intense need to retreat and go within.

    Then often when I am alone the negative thoughts and questions of worth resurface. My mind replays all the ways I have failed in my relationships and in my life. I become sad or angry or hurt as I put energy into these thoughts. It’s a toxic dance with my own thoughts and emotions.

    There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Being lonely is where we feel isolated and disconnected from others and from ourselves. Being alone is being comfortable enough with ourselves to sit still in our own presence. To quiet the mind and simply be present with our breath.

    When we find ease in being alone with ourselves, we can move from a place of self-love rather than a place of need or insecurity. The more comfortable we become with ourselves, the more ease we will experience in our relationships, which will be founded on an open flow of mutual love and acceptance.

    3. See the love all around.

    I often ask myself why am I so concerned about the few people who treat me unkindly when love exists all around and within me.

    There are many instances in my life where I have been rejected, and I dwell on these relationships for weeks; meanwhile, my best friend or my puppy or a stranger on the street is demonstrating love toward me.

    When we focus on what is lacking, it closes us off to the flow of abundance always available—the love demonstrated in nature, the love pouring from other relationships in our lives, the love that exists in our own heart.

    When we shift our focus from what is missing and see what is right in front of us, we develop an increased level of awareness and attract like situations, relationships and experiences. 

    4. Practicing presence, trust, and surrender.

    The more present we become, the less we live in our minds and the more we move with the flow of life.

    We can always choose a higher path of acceptance. When we find ourselves in a situation or relationship that is not in our best interest, we can choose not to take things personally or make it mean something about ourselves. We can have enough self-respect to walk away from a relationship or situation that is not healthy.

    Trust is letting go and allowing the beauty of life to flow through us. If we could trust our path like we trust our own breath, that with each exhale a fresh inhale will come and fill us back up again, then perhaps it would be easier to let go.

    Releasing attachment, for me, is a regular practice, which is why I tattooed the word “surrender” in Sanskrit on my ankle as a daily reminder.

    —

    One of my favorite books, The Mastery of Love, by Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., tells the story of the Magical Kitchen.

    The story goes like this: Imagine you have a magical kitchen. You have so much abundance and amazing food to eat that you generously share with everyone. Everyone eats at your house because your kitchen is overflowing with nourishment.

    Then one day, someone comes to your door and offers you pizza for life. All you have to do in return is allow them to control you. What would you do? You would laugh and say, “I don’t need your pizza! I have a magical kitchen, but come in and enjoy the food I have to offer!”

    Now imagine you are starving, and your kitchen is empty. You haven’t eaten anything substantial for days. Now someone comes to your house and offers you the pizza. And you are so starving you accept it, allowing them to control your life.

    All of our hearts are like the magical kitchen, though we forget or get cut off from the abundance of love in our hearts. We accept relationships and situations that are unhealthy for us because we are starving for love and affection. All the while our heart has an eternal flow of love that asks for nothing. We are full of abundance, and once we rediscover this universal truth, we will never be hungry again.

    The most important relationship in our life is the one we have with ourselves. If we want to attract people and situations in our life that are healthy and based on mutual love and respect, then we must heal our emotional wounds, change our patterns, and love all parts of ourselves without condition. Only then can true love flow in our life and our relationships.

  • Rest Tonight Knowing the Storm Will End

    Rest Tonight Knowing the Storm Will End

  • Why Chasing Happiness Won’t Make You Happy

    Why Chasing Happiness Won’t Make You Happy

    “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Most of us are always on the lookout for a big breakthrough—a point in our life where the beam balance tips to maximal happiness so we can enjoy everlasting bliss. What can we do to get there?

    Our pursuit of happiness is like a coyote chasing a roadrunner. But what happens? Just like the roadrunner, happiness slips out of our hands every single time. This leads us to a few questions…

    What if the pursuit of happiness is never-ending? Have we ever considered the caveats of chasing happiness? To save you from months of misery, I’ll share a little of my life experience. From being a typical college kid to suffering from depression, it was my pursuit of happiness that brought me down.

    The Obsession Phase

    It was 2018. I was obsessed with smartphones, and my average screen time per day was ten hours. Getting stuck in a vicious cycle of Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for hours left me miserable and sluggish. In a vain attempt to gain my life back, I deleted all social media accounts. Every social media app went right out the window.

    Fast-forward fifteen days later, my daily screen time still averaged around eight to ten hours. I was the most hard-core addict you could ever find. It wasn’t a good sign, and I desperately wanted to relieve myself from the clutches of my smartphone. So this time I did something different: I sold my smartphone and got myself a shabby Nokia 3310.

    It was a “life-altering experience.” It filled me with eternal joy right away, and… okay, I’m gonna stop lying. I just wanted to pretend to be an Instagram influencer who ditches their phones for thirty days and claims the experience to be life-changing! As if it could be that easy.

    The truth is, quitting my smartphone sucked. Over seven hours of free time with nothing to do. I felt like my head was gonna shatter into a million pieces. I was bored to tears during the first few days, and I spent much of my time staring at my friends with their shiny little companions. Days rolled by…

    One fine day an idea for a short story popped in my mind. It was about a young girl who lost her boxer dad in a fight and lives in poverty with her mother. She’s guided by a guy at school, and they develop a sort of “brother from another mother” relationship. He lifts her up, and she does the same when he falls back.

    With nothing much to do, and with zero expectations, I started writing.

    Every evening after college, I raced to the library to write my story. Weeks passed and I finished my first draft. Guess what? I published it too… packed with tons of typos and errors, but still, I did it!

    Luckily, my compassionate friends overlooked my errors and still read the entire thing. And they (kind of) liked it. Not that I was some writing prodigy or whatever, but it wasn’t bad for a first timer. This kindled writing dreams in me… and things started going downhill from here.

    I was disillusioned that success and fame would make me happy. With this false belief, writing became my new drug of choice. Fast forward a few months, I would wake up as early as 4:30 in the morning and then would work till midnight.

    It wasn’t that I’d write all the time; I’d spend most of my mornings procrastinating, sitting before my desk or banging my head on it for ideas. I fixated on the idea that more work = better chances of success = better chances of becoming happy. The lack of sleep, bit by bit, was taking a toll on my body, and I was turning into an impulsive, depressed, insomniac zombie.

    Though I sat before my laptop for almost one-third of the day, I could have achieved the same amount of work in a single hour. I got carried away with my false definition of success, and this distanced me from my friends, which I’m not proud to admit.

    But a book intervened and saved me from becoming a zombie who feasts on his roommate’s brain for breakfast. The chapter on the importance of sleep made me realize how dumb I’d been. I finally understood the workaholic madness I was under.

    The Recovery Phase

    I started sleeping seven to eight hours per night, despite my fear of becoming less productive. I wrote for enjoyment, started hanging around with friends, went to movies, and took a few short trips as well. But none of this was possible in my workaholic days. It was all work-work-work.

    A week later, I realized I got more quality work done in one to two hours than I was able to achieve in eight, when I was getting poor quality sleep. And with each passing month, things got better and better. This got me thinking…

    “Why am I so happy even though I’m working less? Why am I happy even though I’m not trying to be happy?”

    That’s when I stumbled upon this idea.

    How Happiness Works

    Psst… I am gonna tell you how happiness works. (Cue drumroll) Happiness is an effect, not a cause nor a destination. Let me explain…

    If you’re trying to be happy, you think of it as a destination—somewhere to get to in the future after you do all the right things. Now think of all the moments you were happy: When you passed an exam after multiple attempts, hung out with your friends, celebrated your birthday, danced at a party, played a sport, went on vacations. All these things have two things in common.

    • The activities themselves generate happiness.
    • You don’t set out to achieve happiness. Instead, you enjoy the activity.

    I hung around my friends and went to movies because I love doing this stuff. This generates happiness. I never intended to become happy by watching a flick, I just wanted to enjoy a movie, and I felt happy as a result.

    Chasing happiness is counterintuitive.

    Think back to your childhood days. Did you ever sit by yourself debating what makes you happy? If you’d find happiness by playing cricket or LEGO blocks? You did things if you liked them, not because you intellectually decided they were the key to happiness.

    Even if you successfully find happiness after a long chase, I bet it won’t last long—I didn’t say this, science does—thanks to hedonic adaptation, the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.

    So instead of asking what makes you happy, ask what do you enjoy doing?

    I enjoy the following things. Maybe something here could work for you.

    How Can You Enjoy Life More?

    Passion

    Cultivate a love for something. Research shows having a passion increases our eudaimonic well-being. Art, music, writing, gardening, cooking, programming, dance, designing are a few examples out of a million. If you are trying to find your passion, there are a couple things you need to know,

    -Passion never turns up at your doorstep. You have to create it. This means that you keep working on random things that in turn produce your love for an activity, not the other way around. Only after writing three short stories and fifteen sh*tty blog posts did I discover my passion for writing.

    -The only reason to be passionate about something is because you love the activity in itself, not because you can make money out of it. And it’s totally cool if you don’t make money out of your passion—when you follow your passion it doesn’t feel like work, right? I still love writing and hope to hold on to it forever. It’s not my love for writing that ruined me. The desire to be famous and chasing happiness did that.

    Strive for Work/Life Balance

    Whether you’re eighteen or eighty, you won’t be happy if you overwork yourself, nor if you spend all your time binge-watching TV shows. Always try to have a balance so you have time to get things done, time to enjoy things you love, and time to simply be.

    Channel Your Stress Well

    It’s easier to binge Netflix after a tiring day at work. But how about working out, taking your dog for a walk, watering your plants, or taking your kids to an ice cream parlor? Find things that you enjoy and channel your stress that way instead of mindlessly scrolling social media. 

    Socialize

    Human beings are social creatures, so let’s act like it. Go on a family trip, plan a game night with friends (virtual or in person), or simply have dinner with your family together. Odds are, when you’re laughing with people you love you’ll be so present in the moment you won’t think about anything, let alone finding happiness.

    Take care of the body you live in

    Good rest powers you up for a great day, whereas sleep deprivation destroys your mood and your health. So sleep well, and workout at least three times a week to get your blood and endorphins flowing. You needn’t bench 300 pounds. A fifteen-minute jog would do the job.

    —

    So to summarize: Stop chasing happiness, it makes your life worse. Engage yourself in activities that you enjoy in a variety of fields, e.g.: socializing, passion, hobbies. Sleep well and stay human. Zombies have a terrible reputation on our planet, so don’t become one.

  • Be the Reason Someone Feels Loved

    Be the Reason Someone Feels Loved

  • Self-Love Also Includes…

    Self-Love Also Includes…

  • How Illness Can Be Lonely and What to Do About It

    How Illness Can Be Lonely and What to Do About It

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

    When we think of illness, we don’t usually equate it with loneliness; however, there seems to be a huge connection between the two conditions.

    The fact is, when dealing with health challenges, we are most connected to our bodies: we are one with ourselves. Even when we have thoughtful and caring loved ones in our inner circles, these individuals can never truly understand what we’re experiencing on a physical, psychological, and spiritual level.

    Illness is lonely, but loneliness is not just about being alone; it is a state of mind. Being lonely is about feeling disconnected from those around you, whether from an interpersonal or universal standpoint. Those who are lonely feel empty and drained.

    For years, I’ve pondered the connection between loneliness and illness. My musings began in 2001 at the age of forty-seven with my first bout of cancer.

    While raising three teenagers, and after having a routine mammogram, I learned that I had an early-stage form of breast cancer called DCIS. I was given the option to receive radiation, which would result in a severely deformed breast, or to have a mastectomy. I chose the latter. I thought it would be better living without a breast than being grossly deformed.

    The shock of the diagnosis magnified my already complicated feelings about being an only child. My loneliness grew deeper because my surgery was the week of 9/11. While the country was mourning the horrific terrorist events, I mourned the loss of my breast. The presence of both internal and external mourning magnified my already intense feelings of loneliness.

    I chose the best surgeons in the country, and my post-op recovery went extremely well; however, I struggled emotionally. No matter how many hugs my husband gave me, telling me how beautiful I was, I couldn’t shake the idea that part of my womanhood had been removed—the part of me that nourished my three amazing children.

    In spite of all the love around me, I felt a deep sense of loneliness that I was unable to adequately describe or shake. What helped me most was tapping into my lifelong journaling practice. My journal had always been my confidant and best friend, and its role became more vital during this time.

    Fast-forward to the present. I’m thinking about a good friend’s experience with loneliness as she navigates her health challenge (she has stage 3 lung cancer). If you met her, you’d think, I want to be this woman—she has it all: a wonderfully devoted husband; many friends; a successful interior-design business; and what appears to be a full, deeply spiritual life.

    Working primarily in an upscale California community, she brings magic and joy into the homes of some of America’s most beautiful estates. Because she has such a magnetic personality, many people turn to her for love and support, but sometimes when life shifts in ways beyond our control, we can no longer offer that type of support, and we can only try to help ourselves stay afloat.

    We all know how life can shift from one day to the next. What happened to my friend over the course of two years was horrific.

    In the early-morning hours of January 2018, she lost her beautiful home in the Montecito mudslide disaster. The following year, she watched her mother’s slow death from lung cancer. After being knocked down by those two events, she picked herself up and continued with her design projects.

    Just when she thought there could be no more horrible news, she was asked to deal with one more life challenge—a cancer battle.

    It all began at the end of her workday, when she came home and told her husband that she felt weird but couldn’t identify why. They decided to pay a visit to the local emergency room where an EKG was done. The doctors found that the lower part of her heart wasn’t working.

    The end result was that she was told she needed a pacemaker, but in preparation, she had a chest X-ray, which showed a large mass on one of her lungs. The first priority was to manage her heart issue, and then deal with the lung mass, which surgical intervention showed to be malignant. This was followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

    Under normal circumstances, this story is terrifying, but in this particular case, the terror was magnified by her mother’s recent passing from the same disease and being in the midst of a pandemic. My friend’s own health status triggered memories of her mom’s last months of life, and her slow deterioration in hospice care.

    Like myself and others who have navigated a cancer journey, my friend contemplates the fragility of her life—but as she does so, a deep sense of loneliness and sadness often overwhelms her.

    It’s been said that there is a “cancer personality.” Those who are generous, loving, and have a tendency to keep their emotions locked inside are more prone to the disease. My friend asked me if I had been scared when I received my breast-cancer diagnosis. I told her there was fear, but my overwhelming feelings were those of loneliness.

    “Having cancer was the loneliest experience of my life,” I told her.

    “Oh, thank you for telling me that,” she said. “I was feeling that myself, and I wondered if it was normal. It brings me relief to hear that you felt the same way.”

    Learning of my friend’s health challenges, I was once again reminded of how lonely illness can be.

    I thought back to the day of my breast-cancer diagnosis. The news was given to me on a speakerphone in the office my husband and I shared, as we sat side by side. He hugged me close as I glanced at the black-and-white photos of my three children on the wall, wondering how their lives would change if they lost their mother.

    I was glad that my husband listened attentively to the doctor’s words, as I was alone in my thoughts—thoughts that I couldn’t express except in puddles of tears. A deep sense of sadness permeated my being. Knowing that something cancerous is growing inside your body is daunting.

    No matter how many hugs my husband and kids gave me, I was unable to shake my profound sense of being alone. Even as I write this article, I feel alone. I never wanted to join cancer groups, which might have helped dissipate my feelings of loneliness. I felt that absorbing other people’s narratives could be exhausting. As an empath, it would drain me, and I needed space for my own healing.

    The fact is, that even without having to deal with illness, we’re living during very lonely times. Social media and video calls have now taken the place of direct human interaction, and in many ways, loneliness has become an even more prevalent epidemic, even for those not battling cancer.

    Whether dealing with health challenges or the isolation associated with being quarantined as a result of the pandemic, loneliness is a serious mental-health concern. Studies have shown that loneliness can decrease your lifespan by 26%, make you more prone to depression, result in decreased immune-system function, and cause stress to the cardiovascular system.

    According to Mayra Mendez, a psychologist in Santa Monica, California, the most helpful thing to know about loneliness is that it isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something you can control. She says that it’s important to find new and creative ways to deal with loneliness and to connect with others by whatever means available to you.

    Ways to Deal with Loneliness 

    • Video chat with friends or loved ones, who may feel lonely too, but might feel too scared to admit it.
    • Write a letter to someone you care about, opening up about what you’re going through, sharing your feelings, and asking them what’s going in their lives.
    • Take up a new hobby so you can meet likeminded people. It’s much easier to form a deep bond when we connect over shared passions.
    • Take an online course so you can interact with people with similar interests.
    • Learn a new language so you can connect with even more people.
    • Play digital word games with new friends. We don’t always need to have deep conversations to ease our loneliness. Sometimes it helps just to do something fun with someone else.
    • Make friends with a book.

    Let’s never forget: We’re born alone and we die alone. But there’s a lot we can do in between to nurture our souls.

  • How Amazing You Really Are

    How Amazing You Really Are

  • The Black Sheep Is Sometimes the Only One Telling the Truth

    The Black Sheep Is Sometimes the Only One Telling the Truth

  • What Helped Me the Most When I Thought My Life Was Over

    What Helped Me the Most When I Thought My Life Was Over

    “What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me.” ~Helen Keller

    I used to think that life should be easy, and if it wasn’t easy, then I was doing it wrong.

    I’m older and wiser now, and I’ve learned that if it is hard, that means I am probably doing something right.

    I had a good childhood. I had a loving family, plenty of opportunity, and I excelled at whatever I put my mind to. But I was a high-anxiety kid, and a relentless perfectionist. As I grew older, that need to have everything flawless impeded my ability to be happy because I didn’t like myself very much.

    When I got married, I felt like I had added a notch to my self-worth belt. As someone who didn’t have a whole lot of self-esteem or love for herself, when someone else loved me, it was just what I needed to feel validated, or so I thought.

    But that wore off too.

    Then, I had kids, which was amazing—I love being a mom. But there was still something missing. I was happy enough, but I didn’t feel alive. There was this little whisper the whole time that said you are not where you’re supposed to be.  

    I felt this urgency to figure out how to be happy, but at the same time, I didn’t. I was happy enough, and there was that guilt. I should be happy. I was so blessed with two beautiful children, a husband, a gorgeous home—you know, the American dream. I’m a terrible, selfish person if I’m not thankful for everything I’ve been blessed with.

    And life was comfortable. It wasn’t what I had dreamed of, or as beautiful as I had thought it would be, but everything was “fine.” And the comfort of “fine” and certainty seemed better than the unknown.

    And then it happened.

    That whisper turned into a very hard and abrupt shove into another lane, as if I didn’t get the hint the first time.

    I could have taken it as a punishment for not being one hundred percent happy with where I was at, and, I suppose I did for a while. But now, I know it was the universe trying to tell me something, and it wasn’t whispering anymore.

    The universe was now yelling at me, loudly.

    The lane-changer happened the day I discovered my husband of seventeen years had been cheating on me with another man.

    The life I knew—the life that I was happy enough with—was gone in an instant on a hot, sweaty July day.

    I did not handle it gracefully. I was an utter hot mess for months and months. The better part of a couple of years, really.

    But I made it through the other side into my “new lane.” and I want to share a little bit about what helped me get here, and what helped me be truly happy here.

    The reason I was so devastated when I was thrust into my new lane is that I had been clinging to this vision of the life I thought that I should be living—the life that was “normal.”

    I was attached to so much—having a husband, having children, having a home, doing married-people-with-kids things. I could have never imagined my life a different way. In fact, it was scary to imagine my life differently.

    As I got older, my world shrunk. My comfort zone got bigger.

    When the crisis with my marriage happened, I tried to hold on tightly to everything that had just crumbled in front of me. But there was nothing left to hold on to –I was experiencing complete groundlessness.

    That attachment to the way things had been was all I had. I didn’t have a ton of self-love, or “I’m okay on my own” mentality. My identity was “we” with my partner for nearly twenty years, and I didn’t know how to function as a “me.”

    I had taken the little things, and the big things for granted.

    So what helped me survive this?

    Someone asked me this after I was feeling like my life was back on track, and after really thinking hard about it, three things came to me.

    Gratitude, mindfulness, and self-love.

    I’m often amazed at how succinctly I was able to boil down these lessons into a few things that were the tipping point for me to find myself, and my happiness again.

    Start with Gratitude

    Focusing on what we are grateful for is a super-simple and powerful tool that is often overlooked. We have access to gratitude at all times, and it is absolutely free. How’s that for a deal?

    Practicing gratitude on the regular has a ton of benefits. Focusing on what you’re grateful for has been shown to increase self-esteem, make us less self-centered, improves health, helps us sleep better, improves our relationships, and… gratitude makes us happier. Boom!

    Remember, gratitude is a practice. The more you cultivate it, the more you will feel it. Stick with it and try these simple ideas:

    1. Make the decision to be grateful. It all starts here.

    2. Keep a gratitude journal. Putting pen to paper (or a gratitude journal app if that’s more your speed) is a great way to get in the habit of focusing on the good things in your life, rather than the not-so-good things. Aim to write down at least 3 things you are grateful for every day.

    There are other neat ways to do this too, such as sharing something you’re grateful for at the dinner table each evening, or keeping a gratitude jar, in which you write what you’re thankful for on slips of paper and drop them in the jar.

    3. Create visual reminders of things you’re grateful for. Maybe a vision board? Or just a journal filled with images you love. If you’re an artist (or even if you’re not!), an art journal can be fun!

    4. Think of ways you can show your gratitude in everyday life, like doing something nice for a homeless person because you are grateful to have a roof over your head

    5. Think about how you can be grateful for the setbacks you’ve had—it’s hard, I know, but I promise you can find a silver lining in anything if you try! Journal about them.

    6. Think about how you’d feel without something. How would you feel if you had ZERO family or friends? Or if you hate your job, how would you feel if you didn’t have a paycheck?

    Next, Practice Mindfulness

    I know, I know. Everyone talks about how mindfulness will help you be happier.

    That’s because it works.

    The benefits of practicing mindfulness are many. Personally, in terms of the quest for happiness, I think the greatest thing that you can learn being mindful is how to observe your thoughts without judging them.

    Have you ever tried meditating, and found thoughts popping in and out of your head like a whack-a-mole game? And, if you’ve been in that space, have you been hard on yourself for not being able to meditate “properly”?

    There is not a right or wrong way to meditate. You will have thoughts that pop into your head and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The point is to notice the thoughts and let them be there without any judgment (good or bad).

    Starting to pay attention and notice your thoughts is a huge step toward seeing which thoughts and patterns are getting in the way of your happiness. And then, once you begin to notice those thoughts and patterns, you can start to form new ones that will better serve you on your quest for happiness.

    Finally, Treat Yourself Like You’d Treat Someone You Love

    Once you’ve become more mindful of your thoughts, you might notice that your inner critic can be quite nasty sometimes, telling you you’re not _______ enough or not worthy enough.

    Chances are, you’d never speak that way to your children, best friend, or partner. So why on earth do we say such horrible things to ourselves?

    Think about it this way: Your inner critic has a lot of information that it has assimilated over the many years of your life. Some of it is helpful, and some of it just isn’t.

    I used to hate my body. I was not nice to myself at all.

    One day, it occurred to me that I would never say the things I said to myself to my daughter, and as someone who spent much of my adult life struggling with an eating disorder, I certainly did not want to pass that on to her.

    I committed that day to work on talking to myself like I would talk to my daughter. To caring for myself like I would care for my daughter.

    That started with telling myself I was worth self-love and self-care.

    The second step was noticing when my inner critic was telling me that I was not worth that love and care.  Once I was able to notice those thoughts, I was able to start replacing them with more helpful thoughts and words.

    Is any of this going to happen overnight?

    Nope.

    Happiness is something we all spend an awful lot of time looking for, and this feeling of peace and contentment that we all hunger for seems pretty elusive sometimes. But remember, it is in you. You already have everything you need inside of you. These three practices are some pretty simple things that you can do to start your journey toward happiness using what is already inside you.

    Everything is a process. You don’t get from point A to point B overnight. It’s the little things that you take the time to do every day that get you there. If you stare at a blade of grass, you can’t see it growing minute-by-minute, but when your lawn needs to be mowed, you can be pretty sure it grew a lot!

    The end result will come, but you must have patience. You must be grateful for the process to learn and grow. And during the process, you must treat yourself with love, kindness, and respect.

    When you can embrace this truth, you are sure to end up in a beautiful place, and one day, you too, will live from a place of happiness, purpose, and fulfillment.

  • I Love to See People Happy and Succeeding

    I Love to See People Happy and Succeeding

  • If Your Heart Hurts a Little After Letting Go

    If Your Heart Hurts a Little After Letting Go