Tag: wisdom
-
What We Need to Do Before Asking “Are You OK?”
“Connection gives purpose and meaning to our lives.” ~Brené Brown
R U OK Day is a crucial campaign to address mental health problems in our community. Even prior to the pandemic, isolation, loneliness, and disconnection from each other meant that the simple act of asking “Are you OK?” needed to be prompted.
We may go days, weeks without seeing each other in person, instead relying on sporadic whatsapp messages, emojis, or comments on each other’s social media posts. We may spend all our time at our work places, but not make time to see our friends and family.
So, what are we missing? Well it’s that face-to-face, daily interaction where we read each other’s emotional cues, have spontaneous and natural flowing conversations, plenty of eye contact and laughing, chatter, and crying together. Simply put—the human experience of sharing our unique energy with one another.
So, is asking “R U OK” enough? No, definitely not. It is one piece of the empathy and connection puzzle.
In most cases, you have to be emotionally ready for the answer that may await you on the other end of that question. Do you have the time, energy, or motivation to listen to the answer? What if someone says they are not OK, but you have already judged that their life is totally fine—why would they not be OK? What if they tell you that they are struggling, but you feel that you are struggling more? What if they say they are OK, even though they really are not?
In the above cases, your ideas of what a person may answer and your judgment of their situation will greatly influence the way you respond. But also, if you don’t have a prior, strong connection to that person, their ability to open up to you is also greatly diminished.
So, when I think about what this boils down to, I feel it’s about building long-lasting, trusting. and deep connections with the people around us. Without that, we cannot possibly expect real emotions to be shared, and for responses from that person to be loving and supportive.
I think about my own experiences of trying to share difficult emotions with various people in my life.
There was a time when I was a new parent to my second child who was very unsettled, was only managing very broken and limited sleep, looking after two children under five years old, co-running a business, and working part-time during the week.
I remember many instances of sharing my feelings of being so alone, exhausted, isolated. and needing support, only to be invalidated and dismissed by well-meaning individuals, or the person didn’t know how to respond, so therefore detached and moved on from the conversation.
I also recall the confidante being in so much pain themselves, it became a competition about whose pain was worse.
I remember being honest about not coping during stressful periods in my life, resulting in the perception that I was weak and incompetent, and me thus being treated that way.
These reactions can be very hurtful and harmful and can detract us from seeking the help we need. In many cases, that person may not even realize that is the effect of their actions. In fact, their reaction is commonly a mirror to how they may judge themselves.
So the “R U OK” campaign is a great idea, but it’s not the whole solution.
Before we ask that question, we need to foster a relationship in which we make space for the other person.
This starts with being incredibly accepting of ourselves first, including awareness of our emotions and struggles. We then need to be attentive, loving, supportive, and non-judgmental to those we choose to have in our lives. And there has to be deep trust that the person who you are sharing with will only come from a place of acceptance and love.
Only then can “R U OK” be most effective in reaching its purpose. The purpose being: when you are not OK, when you are in pain and are having trouble dealing with it, that person will help you accept these emotions, guide and support you, and make you feel genuinely and authentically loved, in a moment when you may need it the most. For them to remind you that your emotions will pass, but their friendship will not.
Let’s create and foster these connections with one another daily, consciously building our tribes, and reach out often to each other. Let’s intentionally create space and time for these relationships in our busy lives.
We can also get creative about how we meet as couples, friends, families or communities, whether it be regular catch-ups working toward a common goal, meeting up to exercise, play sports and dance, cook together, or group meets at parks to walk and talk (with masks and social distancing as long as necessary, of course).
Let’s also be open to opening up our lives to new people who also need this support. Because not everyone has been lucky to find these connections, or has been able to build their tribes yet.
And finally, if we are always present and conscious with ourselves and our loved ones, asking, “Are you OK?” will come naturally—and so will our response when they inevitably one day say “no.”
-
How to Know If You Should Speak Your Mind
“Integrity isn’t a morality issue; it’s an energy issue.” ~Gay Hendricks
One of the biggest questions I, and many other people I know, face as we go about our days is this: When is it worthwhile to speak our minds, and when should we keep our thoughts to ourselves?
There are usually both good reasons and bad reasons for speaking out or remaining silent, so how do we know which is which? It all comes down to our own energy, and that is something we can learn how to discern.
Integrity means a feeling of wholeness, or being of one piece. For me, the sensation of integrity is one of stillness and calm inside. When I’m upset by something (out of integrity) I feel a buzzing, restless energy in my body, as my thoughts race around and around, thinking about what happened and what I want to say back. This is not the time to say something! So the first rule of thumb in most situations is:
1. Wait until you feel clear.
Unless you or someone else is in imminent danger, your first reaction will probably do more harm than good, because your energy is so swirled up you can’t see what’s really there.
Usually I love old sayings and aphorisms for the wisdom they contain, but there is one that I vehemently disagree with: Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Honestly, in nine cases out of ten, the better advice is: Sleep on it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to bed angry and in the morning could hardly remember what the fuss was about.
When your energy is swirled up and agitated, it’s like a muddy pool that needs time to settle. Once it’s clear again, you can see if there’s still something there that needs to be cleaned out.
The ego (your “small self”) is always on the defensive and ready to over-react when it senses a threat. You can be sure that your ego is activated when you feel that urge to lash out and say potentially hurtful things. It’s only trying to protect you, but often the damage it does to relationships (and your own well-being) is lasting. This is why my second rule of thumb is another aphorism:
2. “Least said, soonest mended.”
You can’t un-say or un-write something you have said or written (once you’ve sent it), so err on the side of caution. Don Miguel Ruíz, in The Four Agreements, says that we need to be “impeccable” with our words, because they are essentially like magic spells we cast, with power to do both good and evil.
In my experience, the ego tends to over-explain and over-justify. There are many reasons for this: maybe you want to show how much you were hurt by what the other person did, maybe you want to elicit an apology or an admission that you were right, maybe you’re taking advantage of the current situation to bring up old grievances with that person (or give voice to free-floating anger that isn’t even related to them!).
The key here—again—is to pay close attention to your own energy. Often we begin a conversation with calm energy and the best of intentions, but then find it spiraling out of control.
When you feel a tightening in your chest, or your breath coming faster, or your voice rising a bit in volume, it’s time to back down. This is a tricky place, because it’s tempting to keep barreling forward. Sometimes you can calm your energy enough by simply slowing your speech and breathing way down, taking long pauses, and focusing your attention in a soft way on the other person. (We tend to get blinders on when our energy is swirled up.)
Say less than you think you should. This is particularly helpful when dealing with a narcissist, who will try to use your words against you or argue you out of your feelings.
If you have to walk away, try not to do it as a punishment or rejection or manipulation of the other person—simply admit that you’re having a hard time keeping your own energy in control and commit to returning when you feel clear again.
This isn’t to say that you can’t express strong feelings when necessary. Ironically, you will be far more forceful and effective in conveying them when your energy is clear.
Some people, especially women who have been encouraged to always hide or deny their anger, feel that they “need” to lose control in order to confront someone else. Unfortunately, this almost always backfires and doesn’t produce real change. The sad truth is that when you lose control of yourself, you turn your power over to someone else.
So let’s re-orient for a moment: What does it feel like when your energy is “clear?” Remember, we called this a feeling of integrity or wholeness. It’s a feeling of being solid and grounded in your truth. (Notice that I didn’t say the truth: We can never really know what the truth is for another person, but we are always on solid ground when we speak our own truth.) Because the small self is so pesky and persistent in muddying up the waters, my third guideline for speaking up is:
3. Check your baggage at the door.
I really had to use this rule recently when I confronted my sister about her new boyfriend. I waited quite a while to see if what I was sensing was truly something that needed saying or was simply my own ego being sad that it was “losing” something important (my sister’s time and attention). It’s easy to fool yourself that you’re acting altruistically, when in reality your main motivation is your own perceived wants and needs.
In reality, these hidden agendas (and our underlying energy) usually speak quite loudly! People pick up on them, consciously or unconsciously, and they only weaken our arguments and put others on the defensive.
On the other hand, when we speak from a clear and grounded place, that energy is read as well, and it allows the other person to hear even very sensitive and raw communications with an open heart.
One way to check for hidden agendas is to ask yourself: What outcome am I hoping to achieve by speaking up?
This turned out to be an important distinction for me. When I first thought about talking with A., my motivation was to convince her to break up with the guy. (That would have made me happy.)
As I sat with the situation for a while, I realized that she truly had the right to her own opinion, and that she might have viable reasons for continuing the relationship. When I ultimately did speak with her, I acknowledged that and didn’t try to “convince” her to follow my advice. I simply told her my fears and observations and left it there.
But what made me think I should say anything in the first place? That brings me to my final guideline:
4. Don’t ignore your gut.
As easy as it is to get into trouble by speaking up when we shouldn’t, it’s equally tempting to squash our instincts to say something if we think it will be awkward, unwelcome, or “pointless” to do so. This comes down to energy as well.
Sometimes when we choose to wait, our energy clears and the situation resolves by itself. (Yay!) Sometimes, we continue to feel upset or to ruminate about the situation. This is the time to check our own baggage. We have to carefully and honestly assess how much of our upset feelings are due to our own issues, and deal with them first. If you have done this honestly and you’re still troubled, that is the time to speak up.
In the case of my sister, aside from my personal sadness, I truly felt that she was getting in over her head with a narcissist. This put me in a bind, because every time she would talk to me about him, I felt inauthentic and upset for hiding my true feelings.
After we spoke, my energetic quandary was resolved, even though the situation remained the same. She chose to stay with him but promised to be careful and go slowly. I no longer had to hide my feelings (which was a relief), but I also gave up trying to change her behavior and worked on my own issues about the situation instead.
—
Learning how to understand and monitor my own energetic integrity has helped me in all aspects of life, beyond just communication (although that’s pretty important!). Deciding whether to speak or not to speak, and what to say when we do, is an ongoing issue throughout every day, and energy is the key to communication that truly achieves what we want it to achieve, with the least potential for harm.
-
If You Think You’re Not Good Enough to Pursue Your Passion
“I think something people need to understand is that others disliking you is not a bad thing. When you are embodying your true authentic self, it creates fear in people who still operate from the ego. If you want to grow, heal, and evolve you have to let go of wanting to be liked.” ~Audrey Kitching
Since I was a child, I have always felt a huge need to express myself and let my inspiration flow. I was a creative and playful kid, with a vivid imagination and an enormous passion for writing.
As a teenager, I became interested in music and wanted to be a drummer. It was a spontaneous decision—my intuition suggested to me that, behind those rhythmic patterns that fascinated me, there was something more.
Something meaningful, spiritual, something that was calling me so strongly that my soul wanted to resonate with it.
Knowing that, I asked my parents to take drum lessons, but they eventually convinced me that I was dreaming too big. I began to think that it was too late to start, I would never be good at it, and that playing the drums was something that only privileged people, perhaps with a big soundproofed room, and the right amount of talent, could do.
I gave up on my aspiration and decided to follow my father’s suggestion to take guitar lessons, which would have been more practical and easier to afford.
I thought it could be an opportunity to learn how to play the songs I loved the most, but after a few months of early excitement, my interest started to decrease because I spent most of the time doing arpeggios and playing sheet music without feeling it.
After almost two years taking classes, I realized something astonishingly simple, yet powerful: I was following a path someone else had chosen for me! How could this have led me to joy and fulfillment?
Immediately after that, I gave up on the lessons. Since then, I have played sporadically, mostly alone. Thanks to video tutorials and the right amount of effort, I’ve managed to get a good technique and to play my favorite music. But, several times, a thought snuck into my mind.
You’re not good at music.
The cheerful kid had been replaced by an insecure teenager trapped in the painful process of growing up. I was pulled down by what the others were thinking about me.
For some years I was verbally bullied and mocked from peers and schoolmates, for no apparent reason—I was just trying to be myself. This created emotional and psychological pain and made me believe that I was different and didn’t fit with what others expected me to be.
I went through dark times and repressed my creativity, thinking that I couldn’t give birth to anything valuable or worth being enjoyed. I subconsciously believed that I would have never been as good as others.
With the support of the right people, and through a long and painful introspective journey, I eventually realized that what made me repress myself were sneaky and dangerous limiting thoughts.
More than ten years later, I had the first glimpse of what I could have become if I’d connected to my innermost passions.
After moving to live in Spain I met some guys who owned a rehearsal room. When I first entered the room, my instinct immediately led me to the drum kit. Before that night, I had played the drums only once, but the idea was still fascinating to me.
Soon after, a thought popped up. When I was twelve I really wanted to become a drummer, what became of that dream? After many years spent denying my passion, it was time to become the architect of my own life, as I knew that I’m the only one responsible for my happiness.
A few weeks later, I was able to find a teacher and start taking lessons. The first time I stepped into the classroom I was a bit nervous because an unpleasant dialogue was taking place in my mind.
“What if he notices that I don’t have a musical ear?”
“My level of Spanish is not that high. How could I understand him?”
“Will I ever be able to continue my lessons, or will I be kicked out on the first day because I am hopeless?”
As soon as I started playing, my fears simply dissolved. My heart felt light and joyful. When the lesson was over and the teacher smiled at me, the negative rush of thoughts was replaced by shining and optimistic affirmations.
“I may not have a good musical ear, but I have an amazing sense of rhythm.”
“I could understand everything he told me; my Spanish is good, after all.”
“I am not that bad, and I’m sure the next time will be better.”
That happened four years ago. Since then, I’ve never stopped drumming. Here are some of the most meaningful lessons I have learned in that time.
Talent is not something we are born with.
Better said, talent is something that very few people are born with.
My timid attempts at learning guitar made me believe that I should give up on music because it wasn’t my thing.
Similarly, when I decided to take drums lessons, I thought I could never improve, because it was too late. I was told that all the good drummers started learning when they were children, that becoming good at drums takes way too long to start when you’re an adult.
Time proved to me that my opinions were wrong. I spent the initial months practicing however I could, doing my homework on pillows, in the office, during my lunch breaks. A few months later, I was rewarded with one of the most amazing gifts I ever received—a friend of mine asked me to join a band.
Like many times in my life, the negative self-talk was about to tell me I was not talented enough to play with other people.
It was time to stop that destructive inner dialogue that had been pulling me down for a long time.
I was mature enough to understand that no one was restraining me but myself: I was creating boundaries that didn’t exist.
I joined the band for about five months and had a great time, mostly because, for the first time in my life, I was playing with other people.
Thanks to this opportunity, the idea of being bad at music was replaced by a genuine sense of self-confidence.
Learning doesn’t require us to be a specific age; we just have to be in the right mindset. The world is full of sprightly and passionate people who realize they have a huge enthusiasm for something later in life and want to enjoy this passion. They know they’d have regrets if they didn’t, so they just start doing it.
We tend to think that if someone is successful, it’s because they were born with a unique talent that we will be never able to develop.
We try to escape introspection, avoid analyzing our resistances, and justify our lack of attempts and passive behavior by thinking that we’re not as lucky as the successful people we admire. That might look like self-defense, but that’s actually self-sabotage. We have to be brave enough to understand and overcome whatever is pulling us down.
My negative self-talk was keeping me away from trying something new: I’m not talented. I will never learn how to play because I’m not able to recognize and sing the notes. I am not creative; I can’t make music.
Those limiting thoughts, coming from my past experience of being verbally abused, had been with me for a very long time, and I was almost convinced that they were true. I never considered the possibility that they were just thoughts.
At one point, I felt exhausted, my energy was drained, and I could not move forward.
I started observing my inner dialogue as if I was a spectator and my thoughts were part of a movie, together with sounds and people that surrounded me. I imagined them coming and going, like trains in a station. I finally came to realize that they didn’t define me—my thoughts are part of me, that’s for sure, but they don’t define me. The difference is huge.
Thanks to consistent practice, I became aware that my mind was tricking me. I was not less creative than others; I had just believed it was true.
To live in the present moment is to really live.
For many years, I struggled with anxiety and overthinking. My mind constantly wandered somewhere between my painful past and a scary future. Then I developed yoga and mindfulness practices, which helped me significantly. For the first time in my life, I was able to connect to my emotions and feel a peaceful relaxation of body and mind.
But it was when I first experienced a strong sense of aliveness and a deep awareness of the present moment that I realized that my whole life I’d been living on autopilot.
The first time this happened was during a jam session with my band. I was sweating, my hands were shaking, and my legs were tired, but my whole body was flooded with endorphins.
I was feeling good, my mind was focused and not involved in that hectic monkey dance that kept it busy all the time. My movements were fluid, gentle, and meaningful. And, the most surprising thing of all, I was not thinking any thoughts!
For a moment that could have lasted ten seconds, a minute, or even more, I felt eternal. I was not aware of time. I was simply living.
Sometimes, this wonderful sensation comes in unexpected ways—I never thought I would achieve this enlightened state in the middle of a jam session, with loud noise all around me!
This happened because my whole self wanted to be absorbed into the process of doing something it really resonated with.
If you are feeling lost or purposeless, take some time to talk gently to yourself. Listen to your soul and explore your most genuine passions and desires so you can connect with them, start doing what you love, and experience this enlightened sensation.
To me, this feeling is one of the things that make life worth living.
Follow your intuition, and this will lead you to happiness.
When I stepped into that rehearsal room, sat behind the drum kit, and started to play, I felt like I had been playing all my life.
My desire had been pawing behind the surface for a long time. When I finally became conscious of it, I couldn’t wait a second more. I had to give myself permission to be creative.
Playing music increased my self-confidence. I stopped comparing myself to others and began to get to know and love myself. We can’t express ourselves if we don’t know who we are. My raised inspiration led me to write more regularly, and with a higher purpose. My light started to shine so brightly and inspire the people around me.
Being a drummer made me cherish everything done with love, passion, and effort.
We all are unique, and the way to fully express ourselves is to open our hearts and souls and let creativity flow through our bodies.
It could be through music, poetry, painting… anything. Don’t limit your creative process. Expand yourself. Express yourself.
If there’s something you want to do that you’ve postponed for a long time, don’t wait any longer. Don’t let the fear of failing and judgment define you. Negative self-talk is ego-driven. Don’t trust it. Dig down below the surface, listen to your primal instinct, and practice positive thinking.
Be receptive, stay open to new experiences, and never say no to the opportunities that may develop your potential, as you never know which one could lead to an important turning point in your life.
Trust your intuition and follow your heart, and everything will flow in the direction of your happiness.
-
5 Meditation “Mistakes” That Increase Our Suffering
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” ~Shunryu Suzuki
So many of us come to meditation through our suffering. Nearly everyone who has come to walk the spiritual path can spin a tale of sorrow, frustration, and often devastation. Through our life struggles and difficulties, we become conditioned into habitual patternings of mind that seem to offer us no escape, and often turn to meditation to find relief.
I always say that anxiety was my first spiritual teacher and it began teaching me at a very young age.
I spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to control my experience in order to limit my suffering. I’ve now come to see that the illusion of control is the root of anxiety, as our stresses are exacerbated by our inability to accept “not knowing” what will happen in life.
In my early forties life handed me a situation that would eventually overpower my ability to control life. Over a seven-year span, my son Mark struggled mightily, suffered deeply, and fought gallantly to try to fend off addiction and mental illness.
Lost within my own mental struggles, I attempted to meet his difficulties through my habitual need to control life. Anyone who has ever had a loved one suffering with addiction knows that we’re never in control of the situation. Nevertheless, I foolishly pressed forward and selfishly tried to control Mark’s experience.
I can remember the day Mark was diagnosed with schizophrenia. My inner controller had an “I can’t do this anymore” moment and finally came to the stark realization that there was no way for me to control his situation.
Something shifted within me, and I felt the “controller” release its grasp on me. There was nothing to control. There was just life moving, and life was just meant to be lived as it comes.
Tragically Mark lost his fight against addiction in 2017. I’ve come to see that Mark was my spiritual guru the entire time, teaching me about compassion, how to love unconditionally, and how to let go of the need to control life.
Mark opened the doorway to meditation for me by teaching my how to let go. He opened up my heart to accepting what is, as it is and taught me how to start shedding my mind’s old habitual patterns of conditioning.
I’ve been formally “sitting” for about four years, and although I feel very good about my practice now, I’ve made my fair share of “mistakes” along the way.
One of the biggest errors I made was trying to use meditation as a means to an end. I wanted to feel better and thought if I sat “well” enough then I would find peace. I initially failed to realize that this mind that was trying so hard to find relief from suffering was the same mind that had created my suffering.
I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels trying to find the right formula to quiet my mind. I thought if I concentrated hard enough, if I focused on the breath the right way, if I limited external noises and distractions… then my mind would quiet down and I would find truth. The mind was the one constantly looking for the right formula, the right path, the right insight.
It took me nearly two years to finally realize that no matter what the mind decided, if the method came from the mind, it would actually prevent me from relaxing into the silence beyond the mind.
This was just one of the many mistakes I’ve made. Putting too much emphasis on how long I sat in meditation, trying to recreate blissful feelings, trying to determine if I was enlightened or not, all contributed to perpetuating my monkey mind.
If you’ve had similar frustrations with your practice, don’t be discouraged. Don’t stop. There’s no wrong way to meditate, because all “mistakes” only serve to exacerbate our suffering, and therefore increase our earnestness to come back to try meditation again. Life is very good at putting in fail-safes against our own ineptness.
If you’ve started meditation and stopped, started and stopped, let years go by, started again and stopped, you’re in good company. Everyone gets frustrated and quits a few times before developing a good practice. In actuality, one must stop “attempting” to meditate before one actually begins to awaken to what meditation is all about.
So let’s go into a bit more detail on these mistakes we want to avoid…
1. Trying to quiet the mind
As I touched on earlier, the number one reason we sit in meditation is we desperately want to silence the inane chatter within our mind. Our monkey mind is quite relentless. It’s like the Terminator: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are…” spiritually awakened.
So why shouldn’t we try to quiet the mind?
The best way to answer this is to ask: Who is trying to silence the mind? Take your time and examine this. What you will find is that your mind is trying to quiet the mind. How could that which is the root cause of the problem also be the source of the solution? It can’t. It won’t listen to our desire to be freed. It’s only interested in furthering its continuity and increasing its own significance.
Our mind wanting to quiet our mind creates additional inner conflict. This inner conflict provides more fuel to the mind, and so our attempt to meditate and quiet the mind has only led to more struggles and frustration.
In order to circumvent this dilemma, we must “do nothing.” Just sit and observe whatever comes and goes. Patient, passive, non-reactive observation is your superpower. Whatever thoughts arise, let them come. Whatever thoughts go, let them go.
It might take a bit of time to settle into observer mode, but once we realize it’s possible to sit and observe the mind from a point of neutral awareness, the mind’s reign of terror is coming near to an end.
2. Sitting too long too soon
I think many of us sit down in meditation envisioning a transformation into a Zen Master on day one. We’ve heard that an hour of meditation is a really good meditation, so we decide to sit for an hour.
Within the first minute we’ve relived every embarrassing event in our life from preschool up until this current moment. We sit and wrestle with our thoughts like a chihuahua puppy tied to a firehose on full blast. We’re tossed around like a rag doll in this mental octagon by our own mind. Beaten to a bloody emotional pulp. Our will is broken…
We quit after five minutes and vow to never sit in meditation ever again.
Don’t do this to yourself. Start slow! Meditation is no different than lifting weights. If you try to do too much too soon, you will only end up hurting yourself.
Do one or two minutes for the first week or two. Add a minute or two every week after that and try to slowly work your way up to at least twenty minutes per day.
This is not a competition. You don’t get any awards for persevering through harsh conditions or adversity. Enjoy the journey. Take your time.
3. Quitting too soon
So we’ve worked our way up to twenty minutes a day. We’ve sat for twenty minutes for two days now and we feel… nothing. Everything feels the same. The mind is still wandering. The monkey mind is still in charge, still kicking us around, and we’re getting frustrated.
The mind is whispering that this is all a really big waste of time and you’ve fallen for it again! How long are you going to listen to that spiritual guru who is unemployed and has no money? Of course he is at peace. He doesn’t ever do anything…
Don’t give into the mind.
Meditation is like walking in fog. We don’t notice much of anything going on, and then we realize that we are soaking wet. If the mind begins to pressure us about sitting without seeing any results, then just observe those thoughts as well.
There is no set time frame for the mind to settle down, but if you are patient you will begin to experience “gaps” of silence in the mind. These small gaps are a good indication that the mind is getting tired of not getting a reaction out of us. So, be patient. Relax. Take up the attitude that you will sit until your last breath, and having no results is not going to deter you.
4. Trying to recreate meditative phenomena
The bliss! Give me some more of that bliss. Can never have enough bliss! Anyone who has come to experience the feeling of euphoric bliss in meditation has definitely tried to recreate it. If you say that you haven’t, you’re lying.
Anything that occurs within the meditation is phenomena. Bliss, lights, colors, auras, sounds, images, dreams, out-of-body experiences, clairvoyance, receiving messages, full-body orgasmic euphoria, alien contact, angels, numbers, time travel, space travel… It’s all just phenomena and it has no real significance in the grand scheme of awakening.
If you become infatuated with phenomena, this means that the mind has become infatuated with phenomena. The point of meditation is to relax into the awareness of life moving. Awareness of life moving includes awareness of mind moving. If we “fall into” the role of mind trying to recreate our meditative experience, then we’ve most likely fallen out of the neutral witness role.
A good rule to remember is to relax and allow whatever comes to come and allow whatever goes to go. Nothing needs to be created. Nothing needs to be removed. Just relax with what is.
5. Holding any expectations about your practice
It’s natural to begin a meditative practice because we want to feel better. Our mind is giving us trouble. Our relationships never work out. We are overworked, underpaid, and complete balls of stress. We are grieving over loss. We are tired. We sometimes just want to give up. It’s all too much.
Again, who wants to feel better? Who is holding this expectation that meditation is the cure all that we’ve been waiting for? The mind! The mind is interested in feeling better, so again, we are creating more inner conflict. The mind doesn’t like the way life is moving, it wants to make life better. We are playing tug of war with ourselves…
Any expectation of getting something out of meditation delays getting anything from meditation. If you don’t want anything, then you will get something. That something is peace of mind.
Peace of mind arises with the deepening of awareness of what is. When we sit in meditation without expectation, the mind’s inner conflict dissolves. There’s no fuel added to the mind when we don’t expect to get anything. Relaxation without expectation is how the mind begins to quiet down.
—
So, to summarize, even though we may make some or all of these five meditation mistakes, life will continue to use our suffering as a way to bring us back to our spiritual practice and back to meditation.
Don’t try to quiet your mind. Don’t try too much too soon. Don’t quit too soon. Don’t try to recreate a pleasurable meditation session. Don’t hold any expectations.
Just sit. Relax and be with what is.
-
What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard
“It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” ~Marcus Aurelius
In 2016 I was about to graduate with high honors from a top university. I had mastered Mandarin. Eleven months before graduation, I had secured a job from a reputable accounting firm. I was in a stable relationship with one of the most gorgeous girls on campus. Life doesn’t get any better than this for an international student 1o,000 miles away from home.
Slowly, things began to change. Three months before graduation all three members of my family fell gravely ill. When I wasn’t awake talking on the phone with them, I was awake worrying myself into insomnia, anxiety, and stress.
Two months before my graduation, the recruiter who’d agreed to hire me wasn’t returning my calls nor replying to my emails. I started to entertain loads of self-deprecating thoughts. Little by little, I was descending into oblivion.
Finally, the big day had arrived. It was my graduation day. Pretending that everything was fine, I put on a big smile and went to the ceremony. Needless to say, there was a fire of frustration and anxiety raging inside. Soon I wouldn’t be able to conceal it any longer.
The atmosphere of the auditorium was filled with laughter and excitement from relatives, teachers, and students. Deservedly so. That day marked the end of countless sleepless nights, embarrassments, exams, and reports. To everyone, it was like the end of a forty-hour marathon in the Himalayas.
Paradoxically, the smile, chatter, and exhilaration of my classmates and their loved ones only added to my woes. I became more and more anxious with each minute that passed.
Suddenly, I was reminded of all the pains my mom had gone through to get me to where I was. When my dad left her because she didn’t agree to abort me, she took it upon herself to move forward with the pregnancy and raise me.
Without a proper job nor a stable source of income, she did everything in her power to ensure that I had a solid education. I would have given anything to have her celebrate such a happy moment with me.
Fearing that I may embarrass myself and spoil my classmates’ happy moments, I left in the middle of the ceremony and rushed back home. I locked myself in my room and cried my eyes out for hours on end.
I came to a point when I couldn’t eat, sleep, or enjoy any activity. For the first time, I was experiencing what psychologists call “anhedonia.” No beautiful movies, social gatherings, or sports appealed to me. As I isolated myself, I became more and more lonely.
On November 10, 2016, at 10pm, the only person that was around during those troubling times decided to put an end to our relationship. Normally, that would have been just another breakup. But to me, it was a breaking point!
Given the grief and pain I was enduring at that time, I had no mental steam to cope with another rejection. The pain that was already eating my soul became even more unbearable. That night and the seventeen days that followed, all I could think of was to simply end it all.
The Turning Point
Eighteen days later, on November 28, 2016, I decided to open up to a pastor and her wife. For the first time, I counted all my pain and griefs to this couple who gave me their undivided attention for three hours non-stop.
That night, I went home with a renewed sense of hope. It felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in eighteen days, life seemed to have more potential for joy than it ever did.
Back to my room in front of my computer, a video by Nick Vudijic on how to overcome hopelessness made its way through my screen as if by magic.
Halfway through the video, a feeling of resentment and shame was washing all over me.
How could someone without limbs have such a positive outlook on life? I understood that there must be more to happiness and peace of mind than the challenges of life.
I was determined to find out what I needed to do to help me navigate life’s difficulties without losing any sense of pleasure or hope. In the subsequent months, I would discover what it takes to turn disappointment into achievement, desperation into inspiration.
Focusing on Your Blessings
I’ve heard it said that counting your blessings is an effective way to deal with challenges of life. It sounded too good to be true to me—and incredibly difficult. How can someone count their blessings when they’re obviously in a total mess?
Still, I took a piece of paper and challenged myself to write ten things that I was grateful for. Within minutes I was all worked up writing positive aspects of my life that had previously eluded me. I may have been anxious, but I wasn’t hospitalized, I had a roof over my head, I had friends that cared for me. My mom may have been sick, but she was alive.
It became clear to me that my attitude toward my problems was clouding my judgments and preventing me from seeing the beauty of life. I realized that no matter what you are going through there are always a thousand reasons to be happy.
I’m not saying that feeling down or frustrated is unnatural, that you shouldn’t feel sad when you are going through hardships. Rather, regardless of how dark a situation is, there is always a silver lining. You simply have to search for it.
I don’t expect you to agree with me. All I’m asking is that you put this claim to test and prove me wrong. You have nothing to lose but a world of peace and relief to gain the minute you put pen to paper counting your blessings.
Put Your Problems in Perspective
As I continued to write my blessings first thing in the morning and before retiring at night, the happiness and peace of mind I experienced became contagious to anyone I came in contact with.
People from all walks of life became attracted to me in ways I never dreamed of before. They were looking for my advice on how to cope with their own life challenges.
Gradually, it dawned on me that some of these people were going through troubles that were way bigger in magnitude than my problems.
I will never forget how much pain one young student felt when she told me the story of her parents. At twenty-four, she found out that her parents had an open marriage and her mother was seeing another man aside from her father. Neither of her parents dared to tell her until she found out herself.
People in Asia, where I live, are very conventional, and most families would not openly live this type of arrangement because of how it would be perceived by society. The shame and betrayal she felt were so disheartening that it affected her studies, her mood, and her sense of self. She was devastated!
As she counted the story, I got overtaken by emotions, lost all professional composure, and began to cry right in front of her. After this incident, it became clear to me: No matter what problems you are going through there are people with similarly painful or even bigger problems out there.
I decided to put my own realization to the test. In addition to counting my blessings, I began to experiment with two additional ways to put my problems in perspective.
First, whenever I feel overwhelmed by a problem, I put the problem I’m facing at number ten on a piece of paper. I then strive to find nine worse problems that I could be facing right now.
Similarly, when I’m facing a problem that feels insoluble, I put my problem at number ten on a piece of paper and strive to find nine others who are going through much bigger problems.
Looking at my problems in this light provided me an excellent and effective way to build a strong sense of humility. Yes, it is absolutely important to see the light that shines through the darkness, but it’s equally important to acknowledge that the darkness may not be as dark as you imagine it to be.
Putting your problems in perspective and realizing that you are not as unfortunate as your distorted thoughts make you believe, will be a valuable asset in helping you take constructive actions toward solving your problems.
The Power Question
As I developed a sense of gratitude and humility, I realized I needed to do more to come out stronger from those challenges. Counting blessings and putting problems in perspective may be effective in the mental plane, but they won’t make problems go away.
As I continued my journey reading, reflecting, and finding means to solve my problems, I came across a famous quote by Epicurus: “Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.” The depth of the meaning of this quote made an immediate and profound impact on me.
I became convinced that everyone must have a set of skills to respond to life’s challenges. I asked myself, “What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?”
Oftentimes, when the going gets tough, we ask ourselves blame questions such as: “Why me?” “Why is this happening to me?”
Or we may simply criticize ourselves by discounting our strengths. “I must be really stupid.” “I’m doomed.” “I’m never gonna make it…”
By asking yourself this power question, you change your perspective and find what it takes to help you out of the rut. You don’t blame, whine, or criticize—you get going!
Asking myself this simple question helped me understand that I could use my life stories to empower others, either in writing or through my speeches, workshops, and seminars.
At the time of this writing, I’m proud to have impacted the life of thousands of young people throughout Asia. I’ve witnessed students, new hires, and even managers develop a positive outlook on life as a result of those stories.
I never would have done any of this had I asked myself the power question.
No matter what you may be going through, I challenge you to ask yourself: What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?
Does this mean I’m problem-free right now? Absolutely not. Much like the clouds in the sky, problems come and go, but I’m no longer tossed around like a piece of wood on a stormy sea.
I’ve developed the mental maturity that allows me to bend without cracking, and to adjust my sails with the whirling wind of anxiety, worry, and stress.
Today, I’m living a life of meaning and boundless joy. I’ve regained my appetite for living. The most meaningful of all my gains is the utmost satisfaction I experience helping others awaken their inborn geniuses. Writing this article is a direct example of this commitment.
It took me three years of applying these principles before I could see any tangible results. Beware of the get-happy-quick scheme. Anything valuable takes time. Your happiness is no different. A combination of a willing heart, a bias for action, and patience are all you need to live your life of happiness and meaning.
If you count your blessings, put your problems in perspective, ask yourself the power question, and take consistent daily actions to strengthen your mind you will get results beyond your wildest imagination.
Who knows? Maybe next time, we will enjoy an article from you!
-
How to Let Go of Your Family’s Expectations and Be Who You Want to Be
My parents often spoke about coming to America from Nigeria with one portmanteau.
I imagine that their suitcase was filled with their hopes, dreams, and expectations, and in many ways, I feel like I was metaphorically handed this suitcase of desires and things the day I was born. It would now be my load to carry and make sense of.
But when I opened that portmanteau, I realized that the clothes didn’t quite fit, and there were notebooks full of expectations I would never meet.
Although I had a reverence for this great object and the hands that had passed this legacy to me, I wasn’t sure if I could carry all that was in it.
I think this is the dilemma of any child in a household filled with hope and expectation, and specifically for the immigrant child, it is often one of the defining questions of our existence. The idea of having a load you are destined to carry, even if you’re not sure you want to carry it…I can’t think of a more spiritual quest than this.
We know all too well that there’s so much more in that portmanteau other than a simple hope or desire. Often, we find that there’s unreconciled feelings, a trauma here or there, grief, and a firm belief in what is right versus what isn’t. So then the question for the immigrant child, and any child who knows what it’s like to come from a family that has its share of challenges, is, What is mine to hold?
In order to sift through all of this, I have had to rediscover who I truly am on my journey to recovery, especially as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Notice how I say “daughter,” which means I have to contend with a gendered reality where I am clearly a part of a larger unit. So these words—daughter and immigrant—imply that there’s a relationship existing between multiple parties with different understandings.
If this wasn’t enough to deal with, when we think of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation that has birthed many people who have committed themselves to making their lives better in service of a vision beyond themselves…well, this lets me know that I come from a place where people have chosen to fuel their inner light.
And like any place, this land that runs through my veins has also birthed people who could not see beyond their fears and chose (knowingly or unknowingly) to feed their inner demon.
All of us, no matter where we’re from, and no matter what we know or don’t know about our particular ancestry, must contend with the fact that our familial histories often carry the light and the shadow. So then naturally, I have to acknowledge that all this complexity has been passed down to me. This was the true start of my recovery, understanding that I come from the very best experiences that humanity has to offer and the very worst.
And let’s not forget that we’re immigrants living in the U.S., which means that we are now first and foremost considered Black people. So my life—like many of my counterparts—is a life of many understandings converging into one.
I have always had friction in my life between who I am expected to be and who I really am. In a way, the expectations I brushed against sanded me down to my most vulnerable parts, where I had to grapple with who I wanted to be.
In a previous reflection, I wrote about this vulnerability and exposure that led me to release a certain expectation that was expected of me in my family as it concerned religion.
“When the God you are told to love is either a brute or woefully withdrawn from the deepest stirrings of your heart, you can become frozen to life. I’ll never forget the day my father prayed about my clothes. I was fifteen or sixteen, experiencing a rapid growth spurt, and experimenting with makeup, bare midriffs, and platform shoes. One afternoon, my father stood as the mighty patriarch, doling out a prayer for everyone in the family. Finally, he got to me: ‘Oh God, please take away the spirit of looseness from, Itoro.’ … I yearned for a closeness to my parents and to my culture, but I also wanted a life free from denial and religious absolutism, where I could feel at peace as I truly was.”
Religious tension was one of the many reasons I imagined a life beyond the cultural expectation that a good daughter stays close to home.
It is a code that many families live by, the hope that you’ll get over any arguments and differences and “make it work.” For the immigrant family, this code of ethics is often vital to our survival. If we all don’t support each other, who will? But really…who will?
In short, there was something greater at stake for me to preserve, and it did seem to boil down to choosing family or the opportunity to become who I really am.
That idea that a good daughter stays close to home and does not disrupt the family unit was a huge expectation to carry, especially because I had a need for independence at an early age. Everyone would be sitting in the living room watching a movie or gathering together, and I would be upstairs dancing or listening to music.
It’s possible to love where you are from and yet want to be free of the expectations you must carry, and sometimes it’s necessary to let it all go.
And there was much more letting go to do. As I followed the small voice that wanted independence, I began to define who I am in present time:
A daughter will call her mother once a week and occasionally send pictures of her travels abroad. A daughter will make a new home and adopt a chosen family while she still holds the family she was born into in warm regards. A daughter will marry (or not) when the time is right for her and not a minute sooner…same goes for having a child. And a daughter is still very much the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, just maybe a daughter who lived up to a standard of her own making. Amen.
In my own experience, we’re often congratulated for our ability to carry a tough load. As Black women, we are often given accolades for our ability to do this and bear more than our share.
For me, the ability to manage relationships that may not be healthy, carry cultural expectations, and achieve at a high level has been the marker of strength, meaning to do anything different shows weakness.
However, I think that my true strength is determined by who I really am, and who I’ve always been is not the archetypal superwoman who can do it all. I’ve always been more on the sensitive and gentle side, and for me this is where my strength lies. My strength lies in the ability to put down the load and give up any expectation that would compromise my sense of integrity.
Where do we go from here?
The answer to the question of how we can free ourselves might be simple (i.e. just let go), but we know that the task of actually letting go is a difficult one. As one immigrant woman I knew said years ago, “I’ve already had to let go of so much…how much more change can one person take?” It takes a lot to give up the load, especially when there’s so much hope zipped into it.
So here are three reflection questions that might help in letting go:
What about my humanity do I need to embrace, challenge, and release?
I think before you can become who you’re meant to be, it’s also important to know where you come from and what you’d like to preserve from your upbringing.
In my particular embodiment as a first-generation Nigerian woman, I make it a point to honor this part of my story while making the necessary changes to broaden my perspective.
I believe this question requires one to really develop an awareness for one’s habits and identify those ego stories that need to go.
After sitting with myself for years, I realized that I was addicted to my anxiety. As a young girl, I always worried that I was doing something wrong and causing the adults in my life anger. Worrying about not being enough was an essential part of my framing, so essential that I wasn’t quite sure who I would be without it. It had shaped me for my entire life, so that feeling at dis-ease was my familiar state of being. But as I kept confronting myself I realized that it may have been familiar but it certainly wasn’t natural.
I was presented with a choice: Do I want to keep this or let this go?
Take your time with this, and if you are working with a therapist or support group, this might be a good question to work on in your process. I think of Eckhart Tolle’s quote in how I approach this question,
“In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization.” So this question is one tool to support you in getting honest with yourself and accounting for who you are. What’s the truth you need to tell?
What has carrying this load taught me about myself?
I think this is explanatory, but to use myself as an example, in carrying this load I realized the stress and resentment that had built up in my life. I also realized that I wasn’t quite sure who I was without it. More importantly, I realized there were actually things within the suitcase I wanted to keep and integrate into my new way of doing things, so in ways, the load wasn’t entirely bad and wasn’t entirely good.
What do I really want?
It’s taken me decades to answer this question. Some people come out of the womb understanding their place in the world and their desires, but for many people, often we have other people’s wants and desires as our blueprints for what think we want. But if no one was there to validate or invalidate your hopes and dreams, and this was a talk between yourself and your soul, what would it be?
—
I hope this helps in some small way, because letting go is complicated, and sometimes we just need the right tools and questions to help us get there.
-
How to Audit Your Life by Asking the Right Questions
“Don’t let your fear paralyze you. The scariest paths often lead to the most exciting places.” ~Lori Deschene
I first learned about the concept of focus creating reality in 2004 when I was given William Whitecloud’s book The Magician’s Way.
The first chapter is about the main character having a magic golf lesson. He learns that when people play golf, most of them think about how to hold the golf club, how to stand, and how to move the club. He calls this the “swing circle” and recounts how golfers often get caught there, rather than just focusing on where they want the ball to go. By shifting their focus, they could shift their results.
What’s wonderful is that the process is entirely replicable for us all in any situation.
At the time, I was two years into being an investment property consultant and part of a team of fifteen consultants throughout Australia. I was driving all over the place seeing clients in their homes—mostly evenings—earning just enough to get by, but I certainly wasn’t thriving.
In fact, I was considered one of the poorest performers. I was working long hours and working hard, and while I believed in what we were doing, I wasn’t really enjoying it that much. So, having read The Magician’s Way, I started to use the ideas to improve my work life.
I visualized having better meetings with my clients; I imagined my clients going ahead with property solutions I proposed; and my results started to improve.
But I thought, there has to be more to this. I felt a very strong pull to study these ideas further. So, I decided to attend a course facilitated by The Magicians Way graduates where they taught clients to realize their dreams by connecting with their authentic selves and innate creative spirit.
One of the things I learned was that we are all intuitive beings. When we tune into our intuitive selves, we become powerful and expansive.
I discovered that when we give ourselves space to tap into our intuition about what we want, it comes through us from our higher selves. By shifting our focus to what would improve our lives and by using our intuition, we are infinitely more powerful and can create a life we love.
For the first time, I was truly creating space to see what I wanted in my life from my unlimited self. I realized that I could choose the direction of my future. That I was the creator of my life.
With this knowledge in hand, for the first time ever, I looked critically at all the different areas of my life to see where I was limiting myself and where I could change the story I had running through my head. I categorized my life into the following areas:
- Career & Business
- Finances
- Relationships
- Health & Well-being
- Home
- Possessions
- Travel & Adventures
- Social life
- Spirituality
- Giving Back
To create change, we first need to be aware of our starting point. In order to move forward we must be honest with ourselves about where we are and face into our current situation.
When I assessed my life I found that, other than my social life, none of the areas were in the shape I wanted them to be.
Usually, we don’t create change without a reason. Change typically takes place when dissatisfaction arises or when we become aware of wanting a solution to our current problem. Being really clear about what we want to change and understanding where we are in relation to that is crucial.
So how do we do that? How can we be objective about our current circumstances?
Most people don’t regularly evaluate all areas of their life and give themselves a reality check. It can be hard to own up to the mediocrity or negativity. But this kind of ‘life audit’ is vital to understanding your current situation so you can then assess how far you are from what it is you desire.
By creating space to see where each area of your life is, you are creating a starting point for change, for expansion and growth. You are allowing yourself to see what’s working, what isn’t working, and what could be improved.
This may be confronting to begin with, but the more you allow yourself to go through this process, the more you will create reason and momentum to move forward in creating the life you love.
A really powerful way to work through this process is to section off the different areas of your life and give yourself a rating out of ten for each—ten being amazing, you couldn’t get any better, and zero meaning that it is nonexistent or lacking.
Here is an opportunity to go deeper with each area of your life and give those areas an honest rating so you will have a starting point for change.
Relationships
Let’s use an example. You might have given your romantic relationship a low rating. Start with what you feel is lacking from your relationship and partner.
Some examples could be:
- We fight too much
- The passion is gone
- We don’t spend enough time together
- They don’t respect me
- I feel like I am being controlled
- We don’t have fun together
Then flip it around. What are you, or aren’t you, contributing to the relationship?
- I lose my patience with them
- I don’t give them respect
- I get angry with them
- I feel like I want to control them
- I don’t instigate quality time together
The more you can analyze how and if you value your relationship, the more you can take responsibility. So, the more you own up to where you are, the more you are able to create change. Focus on yourself first: How am I behaving? How am I responding? Then ask yourself: What can I do differently to help create the kind of relationship I want?
And since there are two people in your relationship, you’ll also need to ask yourself: What would I like my partner to do differently? How can I communicate that without attacking?
Finances
How do you rate your finances? Most of us have blocks around money and money flow, usually because of the beliefs our parents have instilled in us. Unless we are clear on where our finances currently are, how can we change it?
Ask yourself why you rated your finances as you did:
- Do I have enough money?
- Do I just make ends meet?
- I am in debt?
- Do I fight about money with my partner?
Knowing your numbers is crucial. Most people don’t have any idea what their financial position is. Remember, it’s impossible to move forward without knowing where you are right now. I review my full financial position three times a year—at the beginning of the calendar year, the end of financial year, and when I do my taxes.
After you get clear on your numbers, ask yourself the following questions to ascertain how you can improve your financial situation:
- Am I living beyond my means?
- Am I trying to fill an emotional void through buying things?
- What can I scale back on in order to save more money?
- How can I increase my earning potential, if not immediately, in the future?
Health & Well-Being
List out the reasons you rated your health and well-being as you did.
Maybe you are telling yourself:
- I’m unfit
- I feel overweight
- I am not exercising enough
- I eat junk food
- I drink too much
You might bring awareness to what you’re consuming each day. Are you conscious of what’s going into your body or are you unconsciously consuming food and drink? Now it’s time to consider your movement. Do you take regular walks? Are you going to the gym or participating in sports?
Career or Business
How do you rate this area of your life?
Consider these questions:
- Do you love what you do? If so, why? If not, why not?
- If you do love what you do, what areas are there for improvement?
- Are you clear on why you do what you do?
- What is the why?
- Do you feel energized by what you do, or does it deplete you of energy?
- Does your work align with your values?
- Do you enjoy working with your colleagues?
- Are you happy with your marketing and reach?
- How is your time management?
Most of our waking hours are at work, regardless of whether we work for someone else or ourselves. So, if you are not enjoying what you do, that means you are spending most of your waking hours doing what you don’t want to do.
Of course, it isn’t easy to change careers, but the first step is acknowledging your dissatisfaction and getting clear on what might be more fulfilling, and why.
Knowledge & Learning
Are you expanding? Are you learning new things and trying out new experiences?
Ask yourself:
- Am I closed off to new ideas?
- Do I have an open mind, or am I relying on what I already know?
- Do I proactively seek new knowledge for my career or business, or do I only seek new knowledge for fun?
- When was the last time I actively sought out a situation where I could learn something new and expand my horizons?
Travel & Adventures
Ask yourself:
- Am I giving myself space to travel, to see new things, and to have adventures?
- Do I even know what’s out there?
- When did I last go somewhere on a whim?
- If I can’t afford to travel, how could I be more adventurous in my daily live?
- How can I be a “tourist” in my own area—what could I see, do, and explore?
Home
Ask yourself:
- Do I love where I live?
- Is my house a home?
- Do I feel comfortable, safe, and happy in my home?
- Is my home a sanctuary?
- Do I love the city, the suburb, or even the country I live in?
- Do I enjoy inviting people to my home, or am I embarrassed by it?
- Do my friends and family feel comfortable in my home?
If you don’t love where you live, you may be able to change that easily, or you may need to work toward the long-term goal of moving somewhere new. But it might just be a matter of making changes in your environment—decluttering, infusing your home with your personality, or keeping work out of certain areas to make your home more relaxing.
Spirituality
How do you rate this part of your life? Did you even give it a rating? It’s an area that is often neglected. I know when I started my personal growth journey, I considered my spirituality non-existent.
Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean organized religion—it’s whatever it means for you. Simply take time to consider how your spirituality is being nurtured—or not—and what it could mean for you if you positively changed this aspect of your life. Ask yourself:
- Am I part of a spiritual community, and if not, would I like to be?
- Do I allow myself time to connect with nature?
- Do I make time for spiritual practices that renew my spirit?
- What does spiritual self-care mean to me?
Giving Back
Giving back isn’t just giving gifts or donating money or time, it’s also about how much you give yourself; how much you give in service to others, your community, or the environment. It’s also about how well you think of others, your community, or the environment as well as our actions.
Ask yourself:
- Do I give as much to myself as I give to others?
- Is there a balance of giving and receiving in my life?
- How am I serving my loved ones, my community, and the planet?
- How do I want to give back, and why?
Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve reviewed your current reality you might feel a little uncomfortable. This is a good thing and should be embraced. As I said, facing into where you are is so important, as it represents the starting point from which you can grow. It’s this truth that will set you free. Well done for going there.
You may also feel a little overwhelmed if you’ve recognized you’re dissatisfied with multiple areas of your life. That’s okay. You don’t need to change everything all at once, or even any time soon. You can start with the one area that feels most pressing and identify one tiny step to create positive change. Then from there, you can take another step. And another until you feel more satisfied in that area of your life and ready to focus on another.
When I first did this exercise, I realized I didn’t want to continue the way I was living and I wanted things to look different. I knew then that I had a choice. We are at choice all the time.
By owning up to where you are, you’re already moving forward into your vision. You can now begin to really shift your focus on what you want to change—and then start taking action.
-
The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Micheal Jordan
I believe that self-soothing is the key to accessing all happiness and success. All things being equal, when someone is able to self-soothe, they are more resourceful and more powerful than those who haven’t learned that skill yet. Here’s why.
Great success (whether professional or personal) comes with a great deal of responsibility. That responsibility can potentially lead to stress and is often accompanied by failures along the way. Most of us are familiar with that famous Michael Jordan quote—it was even in a ’90s commercial.
Resilience is a great skill. In fact, that path is clearly recognizable to anyone who has achieved a lot. But it’s perspective that shows you that those failures aren’t “this is the end of everything and we’re all going to die” failures. Instead, they’re just medium or even small-sized stumbling blocks.
When you’re not yet at the end of your career or life, how do you know? Well, you don’t. So how can you function when things don’t go your way? How do you stay calm and grounded when something unexpected and shocking happens?
The more “monodimensional” action-oriented side of resilience is to “power through” the hard times, sharpening your blade with your teeth. And while this might work sometimes, it takes a toll on your emotional well-being—can you feel that cortisol going through the roof?
It’s easy to miss that monodimensional, action-based resilience is actually very weak, and ultimately unsustainable, if it’s not supported by a strong and playful mind. And I believe that Jordan had such a mind and demonstrated it throughout his career.
It’s not just persisting despite failures; it’s also how you feel every day, about your failures and in general. It’s about not allowing all the negative experiences to poison your daily well-being.
So how do you make resilience more sustainable? There is a softer way to deal with stumbling blocks, one that hopefully doesn’t lead to too much stress or burnout. One that, when mastered, will keep the emotional well-being floodgates open.
One that you will want to teach to your friends, your kids, your parents, and your enemies too. This second dimension of resilience is self-soothing.
I was raised in the household of Ms. and Mr. Stress. Growing up, I watched them take deep dives into (probably unnecessary) pools of stress. There was always something that wasn’t okay, something that needed to be fixed, not enough money or not enough time.
Here’s a classic scene from my youth: When a piece of equipment, like the washing machine, would break, our whole family had to be part of the sorrow, anger, and anxiety associated with such an unfortunate event. But it wouldn’t be fixed right away (because it might… heal by itself, no?) When it would be absolutely clear that there was no hope for the poor washer, the focus would switch to panicking about the money needed to replace it.
Once the washing machine was replaced, the problem became that perhaps it won’t be as good as the previous one, or it might take up more space, or it’s louder. It was never possible to relax, for fear that everything wasn’t perfect. It was obligatory to look for potential problems, scanning every single detail with “Terminator vision.”
When we could finally be certain that everything was okay, we could then move onto the next thing that needed to be fixed.
I was exposed to chronic stress for most of my childhood and teenage years. I didn’t enjoy the environment, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t have words for it, and I didn’t have the concepts to understand it. I didn’t know that I could live differently. Or better yet, I knew other parents were more relaxed, but I just thought they were luckier individuals.
When I moved out, aged twenty-two, I left the country and moved to Holland, to a tiny student city whose pretty canals were filled with swans and ducks, and where most family houses had cute and well-groomed front yards. I watched kids on tiny bikes ride with their parents to school, and people of all ages sit for coffee in wooden decorated cafes. It was nothing like the stress-filled metropolis I was used to, and people seemed to me to be so calm.
I loved it instantly, and I felt the well-being flood me, but I didn’t know why. Over the course of the following years, I lived in other places too. For some segments of my life, I even went back to my childhood home.
It wasn’t until ten years after I first moved out that I was able to finally learn the names and the concepts that defined the emotional dichotomy I kept experiencing when I would go back and forth.
The understanding came in two steps. During my masters, when studying the brain, I learned how the pre-frontal cortex works as a simulator of experiences. We all, as humans, are capable of imagining in great detail something that hasn’t yet happened and make it just as real as something that happened the day before.
From psychologist Dan Gilbert, I learned that the brain is also capable of synthesizing happiness (or the cocktail of chemicals that we interpret as happiness). And a functioning brain will return you to a state of happiness withinmonths or within a year even after very traumatic events.
In a fascinating TED talk (The Surprising Science of Happiness), Gilbert presents data from two groups of people: people who won the lottery and people who lost the use of their legs. One year after the event, the level of happiness of the two groups is identical.
Very often, we hear people (or even our own selves) say how, with hindsight, some terrible event has revealed itself to be a kind of bliss. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what the cause of happiness was; if it feels like happiness, it is happiness.
The brain is capable of synthesizing happiness (or sadness, or stress, or panic, or even anger, for that matter) independently of the external conditions. This is not surprising. If you think about it, what we attempt to achieve through meditation is nothing but a firmer hold on the steadiness of the brain, which will then lead us (or keep us) in homeostasis, a state of physical balance. This is why meditation feels good, and also why it can be so hard to start meditating when your mind is all over the place if you don’t let yourself ease into it.
Once I grasped these concepts, I made my first leap into understanding emotional well-being. I saw people like my parents constantly training their minds to see faults and problems, rehearsing negative feelings, and therefore leaving completely to chance their effectiveness at reacting to more significant issues.
The second leap happened a few years later. I was done with my studies and was anxiously juggling the various areas of my life.
Over the course of less than a year, I lost my job in academia. I didn’t manage to get a new one (failure one). I got kicked out of a house where I loved to live (failure two) by a person whom I considered a friend (failure three). The man I had a relationship with left to be someone else (failure four), and I injured myself in such a way that was unable to use my right arm for months (failure five). Forget typing—how was I going to apply to new jobs?
As soon as I could, I packed my stuff, moved back with my parents to be taken care of, and got the final part of the treatment for my arm.
This setback happened when I was thirty-three to thirty-four. After the first months feeling loss and mourning for my previous life, I realized I wasn’t making it easy for myself. I was lingering in anger, obsessing over every small thing that wasn’t just right, and being devastated by all the big ones that weren’t right at all.
Then it clicked. My situation was no different than worrying about broken domestic appliances, stressing over taxes, feeling insulted by bad books or movies, getting annoyed by politicians and by lost socks.
I had to make it easier for myself. I had to find the irony in everything and spend more time thinking about what was working.
I wanted to “detox” from the victim mentality. I started looking at my life as the blankest of slates. And felt exhilarated.
In fact, my life was even better than a blank slate. I had all my skills, my knowledge, and my health. I had no ties, no debt, no contracts, and no furniture stored somewhere. Ultimately, I had a very supportive family and a place to stay temporarily in Rome, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Today, this list of positives is easy to make and I could go on. Now it’s easy for me to see how previously I had made myself more miserable, focusing on all that was going wrong. But I can still vividly remember how overwhelming it all felt and how it seemed impossible to stop that snowball from rolling down and becoming more bitter.
From my new place of clarity, balance, and bliss, I decided I’d devise tricks to prevent myself from ever tumbling down into deep negativity again. If I took care of how I felt every day and developed practical techniques to deflect my attention from the small daily problems, maybe I’d develop enough of a muscle that I could use if and when big problems occurred.
So I took a “masterclass in myself.” I learned what it is that makes me laugh, what grabs my attention, what relaxes me. Knowing these things will help anyone to stop that negative snowball before it hijacks your thoughts completely.
I have a great passion for comedy, and I figured out that, regardless of my mental state, listening to my favorite comedian will reset my mood 100% of the time. I know that nature documentaries (especially those about Space) will hypnotize me and make me slightly detached from my body, so when I’m sick or in pain, these are my go-to’s. I know that when I feel flustered or my mind feels scattered, walking and listening to certain music will bring me closer to calm.
Coming up with a list of ready-to-use resources like these ones, but tailored for you, is one of the greatest resources a person can have. And the more these resources are on autopilot, the easier juggling your life will become. For me, today, listening to comedy when I’m annoyed is as natural as drinking water if I’m thirsty. And every day, I’m still adding new practices to my arsenal.
There are two caveats to all this: Be aware of the cause of what makes you feel bad and watch out for escapism.
If you’re chronically depressed, I would never recommend watching comedy from morning until bed. If you have recurring anger issues, I wouldn’t recommend pumping them away at the gym. You need to seek professional help. Similarly, finding things that cheer you up is great, yet spending your whole day seeking ways to entertain yourself might not be the most constructive way to go about your life.
Self-regulation is one of those responsibilities that adults have, and it’s a great one to embrace. A rule of thumb is: If you’re still enjoying whatever it is you are self-soothing with, then great. If you’re neutral about it, it’s time to move on. And if you realize you’re not enjoying other things that you could have been enjoying, then your self-soothing has gotten out of hand. Don’t beat yourself up though; next time you’ll do better.
Generally, though, all it takes is to distract yourself sufficiently from the negative thought/memory of the event. Some other time you might want to consolidate some positivity to that memory. There are many ways (from NLP techniques to meditation techniques to hypnosis, and more), but for simple daily life, what I found works well for me is this three-step process:
1) Allowing some time for my immediate reaction to express itself. I don’t want to suppress anything, but I don’t want that state of reaction to be the place where I now reside.
2) I’ll go ahead with my self-soothing technique of choice and try to reduce the amount of time that my mind broadcasts thoughts about the problem.
3) After a little time has passed, I’ll pick up the topic and briefly discuss it with a trusted friend. Someone who doesn’t have any stake in it, who won’t be triggered by it, and who can provide both constructive and positive comments.
If you master a basic self-soothing practice, you’ll notice an immediate improvement in how you can handle the small daily hiccups. And with a little time (really not much time at all), you’ll be able to handle bigger and more complex problems with a lot less effort.
What’s wonderful about this skill is that it will continue to grow with you. As you add more pieces from your personal growth journey, they’ll strengthen this new skill as well.
A strong self-soothing practice will enable you to help and be compassionate with the people around you. It will also trickle down to your kids, providing them with one of the greatest resources they can receive from you.
-
What You Need to Do If You Feel Overwhelmed
“You are worth the quiet moment, you are worth the deeper breath. You are worth the time it takes to slow down, be still, and rest.” ~ Morgan Harper Nichols
I want to talk about overwhelm, which is something I suspect I’m not alone in dealing with, especially given our current global situation.
Even before the pandemic struck, I was on the edge of overwhelm. I live with two autoimmune conditions—rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia—both of which cause me to have health issues when I’m stressed out.
I started the year completely stressed out, thanks to a new health condition that reared its head: some irregular tissue was growing inside my duodenum, affecting my digestion. On my first visit to a specialist to try to remove it in February, it turned out to be far more extensive than expected, and I had to be rescheduled for a far more involved procedure.
Then COVID hit, and I was deferred for a bit. To say that I was struggling is an understatement: we were isolating at home, my health was in jeopardy, and while we believed that the tissue wasn’t malignant yet, it was definitely the sort of tissue that was trying to become cancer.
I found it difficult to do my usual tasks, and I was decidedly fatigued and somewhat short-tempered from adding all this additional stress and uncertainty into what was already a fraught situation.
Not knowing what else to do, I fell back on some serious self-care practices. I’m not talking about face masks and bubble baths, though I did increase the number of baths I took using Epsom salts, since they soothed the aches and pains that came with my increased stress levels.
I spent far less time than usual on social media, in order to avoid “doomscrolling”: that’s where you keep scrolling through social media to find the latest, most upsetting information on whatever catastrophes are occurring. To my husband’s consternation, it also meant that I stopped watching the nightly news with him; instead, I would read a book, or watch something light and happy on my laptop.
I made sure to get outside every day as long as the weather permitted, in order to allow nature to do its thing and make me feel better. I set and met a goal to exercise at least five days a week for twenty minutes or more, and I made sure to drink a lot of water and not skip meals.
I also returned to my meditation practice, which had lapsed in prior months, as it sometimes does, and established a bedtime routine to set me on a path to successful sleep
Here are my takeaways from that time period.
If you need time away from it all, take it.
If you need to establish boundaries with those around you in order to protect yourself, your emotions, your mental health, and/or your energy, it’s fine for you to do so. You cannot pour from an empty cup, so it’s important to take care of yourself.
Give yourself permission to step away from the noise of the world.
Specifically, you have permission to:
- Turn off the news, or reduce your intake
- Reduce your time on social media if it stresses you out
- Unfollow social media accounts that are too negative for you
- Reduce your contact with negative individuals in your life by setting boundaries
- Put yourself on time out if you need it
- Take a mental health day
- Say no to things you don’t want to do (even if you already said yes)
It is 100% okay for you to take a break. It is okay for you to need time out, or time off. It is okay for you to prioritize your self-care.
Prioritizing your mental health and your self-care are two of the best things you can do for yourself and the people around you, as I learned again this spring. With things the way they are in the world right now, many of us are shaken up and need to boost our physiological needs and shore up our feeling of security.
While I’m not a psychologist, I am familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is usually shown as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are basic human needs such as shelter, sleep, food, water, and exercise. The next tier, which is also pretty large, is safety and security, and it includes things like employment and health.
The pandemic has rocked our worlds in ways that have shaken that pyramid. It’s hard to work on any of the higher-tier stuff, like romance, dreams, and plans, and spiritual matters, when the foundation of our personal pyramids need shoring up.
That’s one of the reasons I returned to basic self-care for myself. Exercise, hydration, nutrition, and sleep were on my list. Those are all from the base level of the pyramid.
Turning down the noise from the outside world, while remaining informed in small snippets, allowed me to remain connected to what was going on without spinning myself into a stress ball.
Being on a more even keel allowed me to move through that time period without completely losing myself to stress and anxiety.
And as for that adenoma? I was operated on the day before my birthday, and though it turned out to be a bigger procedure than anticipated, the biopsies came back clear. One less worry to move forward with.
-
How to Release Your Attachment When You Can’t Let Someone Go
I’m gonna be honest here, I can honestly say that I’ve never had any cords of attachment to a person, place, or thing—that is, until recently. This cord crippled me and broke me down to a point where I questioned who I was and my own personal strength.
I think before I tell my story it’s important to know what exactly a cord of attachment is and how it can hurt you. A lot.
Afterward, I’ll tell you why cutting cords is not very effective and what you need to do instead.
What is a Cord of Attachment?
People come in and out of our lives constantly. Some are blessings, some are lessons. The latter come to teach us things about ourselves. They help us dig deep and heal old ugly wounds that we’ve buried for years.
Some people stay and some leave.
However, some of the ones who leave us, leave a mark. A deep mark. A cord if you will. For whatever reason, we just can’t seem to let go of these people. We think about them constantly, cry over them, and are borderline addicted to them. For most of us, this is a past lover.
Are you with me here? Can you feel me?
This is a cord of attachment. This person has left such a tremendous impact on our lives and we just can’t let go. It doesn’t matter if this person was toxic or not, the cord is rooted firmly and we’re completely attached.
My Story
In 2015 I moved to Guatemala from Canada and fell in love with the country and the people. I decided I was going to stay for the long haul. This was my new home.
In the small town I lived in, the dating scene was almost non-existent. And then my second year in, a new man from the US showed up in town. He was tall, dark, and handsome and fun to be around. We dated for over a year and then he returned to the US.
We stayed in contact (and still are in contact almost daily) and traded our romantic relationship in for friendship. Sounds easy enough to do right? Wrong.
I was okay with being his friend and though I secretly wished we could be more, I knew it would never happen. We were so incompatible in a million ways, independent of the fact we got along really well. We just weren’t meant to be.
But I couldn’t let go. I was addicted to him. All of him. I was so ridiculously attached to him it was borderline toxic to me.
After a year he moved back to Guatemala and I knew this was going to be hard for me. We weren’t dating anymore, he was free to see whoever he wanted. I knew I couldn’t bear to see it or find out he was with another woman.
So I did the only thing I knew would help me. I left the country and moved to Mexico to heal and to be away from him. The cord of attachment I had to him was so strong it was killing me.
I began my healing journey in Mexico.
Some would say I ran away from my problems. It may seem that way. I ran away to save my soul and my heart. It was something I had to do. I also knew I had to cut this cord once and for all.
Guided Meditations Just Didn’t Work
I tried to listen to guided meditations on cord cutting and while they seemed to make me feel better, they were temporary fixes. Band-Aids if you will.
I journaled daily. I would make lists of all the things I wanted in a man and a list of all the reasons why “John” wasn’t good for me.
I wrote, I cried, I called friends to talk to, cried some more, listened to meditations nightly, yet nothing seemed to work. I just couldn’t cut this cord and it was emotionally exhausting.
And then something dawned on me.
Why Cutting Cords Doesn’t Work
Every time I practiced a guided meditation, the cord would sever and I would feel good for a day or two, then I’d be back to where I started. Attached, addicted, and miserable.
I realized it was a temporary fix and the wound went much deeper. I realized I needed to fix me at the root.
But not only that, I also realized I needed to not just cut this cord but completely obliterate it right at its root.
I needed to find out where this attachment came from, what my deep wound really was, heal that, and destroy the root.
Cord cutting simply helps you break free at the moment, in the present. It doesn’t take away the pain and hurt. That’s something we need to work on. Find out what it is, where it came from, and heal from it completely.
Where My Pain Comes From
I discovered that my pain and deep wound comes from a childhood of abuse and never being loved. I gave myself and my love away to anyone who would give me any sort of attention. My longing to be loved so badly was destroying me in so many ways.
And I had no idea.
“John” filled so many voids for me, regardless of how toxic our relationship was at times, and I clung on to that. He treated me well, put me up on a pedestal, and gave me all the attention I’ve been craving all my life.
I didn’t want to let go. It felt so damn good.
But it wasn’t good. It was toxic to me and breaking me down every day.
I reached out to a therapist friend of mine because I desperately needed to talk to someone who could help me with this. I knew I needed to heal, and fast. But I honestly didn’t know how.
She helped me sift through all my childhood trauma and the patterns I was following into my adult life. She helped me see the cord for what it really was.
The Cord I Created and Why Cutting It Just Won’t Work
This cord is something I created myself because of my need for love, attention, and affection. The object at the other end of the cord made me feel good. Filled a dark lonely hole in my heart.
I needed to relearn how to love and appreciate myself for exactly who I was. I had to remind myself that I don’t need a person to fill my voids and that it was up to me to do that.
I also had to learn how to destroy this cord, not just cut it.
When you cut cords, the roots are still attached to your soul offering the cord a chance to regrow. Think about how you cut down a dying plant and then new sprouts and leaves form. We cut off the dead in order to make room for regrowth.
It works the same way with a cord of attachment to a person. We can keep cutting the cord but eventually, the leaves will branch out again and form new growth.
This is why we need to completely destroy the cord, right from the root.
How to Destroy Your Cord of Attachment
You first need to heal from the wound that has created this cord. Find out what still hurts you and shows up in the form of other people.
Was it something from your childhood, high school, or an old boss? Dig deep and pull this hurt out, have a look at it, and then do what you have to do to heal from it.
This will take time. How much time is up to you.
While you are healing you need to address this cord that’s still sticking out of your chest. That’s part of your healing journey.
Instead of cutting it, you need to pull it completely out of your chest and imagine yourself burning the root. When the full root has been pulled, seal the wound in your chest with the most beautiful material you can visualize.
I use rose gold.
Journaling is Important
Write out your feelings. It’s so important to write out how you feel. Too often, we keep all our pain locked inside so no one can see it.
But this is not effective and is hurting you more than you realize. Write all that sh*t out and get it off your chest, out of your heart, onto paper, and then burn it and let it go. Thank me later!
So many of us have so much healing to do, yet healing is a long, hard, and somewhat ugly journey. If we don’t ever heal, the same patterns will keep repeating themselves in our lives and we will never truly be free or happy.
Do yourself a favor, heal.
I began my healing journey in 2012, and though I’ve come an awfully long way since leaving my abusive relationship then, I am still constantly learning about myself, healing, and growing.
It’s a never-ending journey, it’s exhausting and beautiful all at the same time.
If you are still being haunted by the ghosts of your past, I want you to know you don’t have to be anymore. You can be free from them all. Make a commitment to yourself to start a healing journey.
You’re so worth it!
A Year Later
I won’t say my healing journey is over, but I can say my cord of attachment no longer exists. I’m attached to me now and how much I love and respect myself. I still have a long way to go but I’m ready to move back to Guatemala where my heart truly is: with the people, the culture, the freedom, and the land.
“John” and I still talk almost daily but I can see him in a totally different light now. I can safely say I see him as my friend. Nothing more, nothing less. And I’m perfectly happy with that.
