Tag: wisdom
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How To Make Peace With Your Noisy Mind—7 Tips From An Ex-Monk
“Leave your front door and your back door open. Let thoughts come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.” ~Shunryu Suzuki
There are few things more exasperating in life than having a noisy chatterbox in residence between your ears—a busy mind that never stops and won’t leave you in peace for a moment.
You are sitting by the pool on your long-awaited vacation.
The weather is perfect. Your diary is clear. You settle down on your deckchair with an ice-cold drink and your favorite book.
Everything is perfect—well, almost everything.
The message “on vacation” clearly hasn’t got through to the mind department.
“Man, that drink was expensive. Better suck your belly in, there’s someone coming. You are as white as a sheet. What on earth will people think? Okay, that’s it. I’m starting a diet on Monday. Oops, I forgot I’m on holiday. Okay, I’ll start when I get home.”
Just writing about it is exhausting enough, let alone living it.
Being subjected to a relentless torrent of mindless chatter and having no idea how to stop it can be exasperating to say the least.
I know. It was the intense suffering inside my own head that led me to sign up for a six-month meditation retreat and later become ordained as a monk.
Happily, I quickly discovered that quieting a noisy mind isn’t nearly as difficult as I’d imagined.
Hint: You don’t even have to change or fix your thoughts.
These days, although I still have my crazy moments when the mind shoots off on a mad rant, my general experience is so much quieter and more peaceful than it used to be.
I’d love to share some (possibly surprising) truths that will hopefully help you achieve the same.
Here are seven tips you can start applying right away.
1. Accept that your mind is busy.
Did you know that the average mind churns out around 70,000 thoughts per day? That’s a lot of thoughts.
No wonder it feels so busy in there!
Even people who are relatively laid back have a lot of traffic going on between their ears.
So don’t be surprised that your mind is busy. Don’t create an additional layer of suffering by thinking there’s something wrong with you for having a ton of thoughts. There isn’t.
Expecting your mind not to be busy is like expecting the grass not to be green.
Let it be busy.
2. Engaging with the mind is optional.
If I were to choose one thing I learned about the mind in my time as a monk—the one thing that had the greatest impact on my peace, it would be this:
Engaging with the mind is optional.
It is not so much the thoughts themselves that cause us to suffer but our fascination and preoccupation with them.
We spend our days chewing on them, wallowing in them, stewing in them, and generally giving them an inordinate amount of our time and attention.
And we don’t need to.
Want to know the secret to ongoing peace?
The less you get involved in what the mind gets up to, the more peace you will experience.
Sit back and let the mind do its dance. Your involvement is not mandatory.
Which brings us to the next point.
3. Watch your thoughts from a distance.
In order to disentangle ourselves from our thoughts, we need to create some distance, some breathing space, between ourselves and the mind.
Most of the thinking patterns that rob us of our peace run unconsciously on autopilot. The same old patterns play over and over, day in, day out—like broken records. And it is so habitual, we don’t even notice we are doing it.
The key is to bring more awareness to these unconscious patterns.
The first step when you learn to meditate is to take a step back and watch the mind objectively—with an attitude of curiosity and non-judgmental acceptance.
You may also find that the simple act of watching thoughts, rather than being wrapped up in them, will stop thinking it in its tracks—or at least slow it down.
4. Give your thoughts the freedom to come and go.
If you want to tame an angry bull, the worst thing you can do is to tie him up or try to confine him in any way. This will only make him angrier and more difficult to control.
The best way to calm him down is to give him a huge open field to run around in. Meeting with no resistance, he will quickly run out of steam.
And it’s the same with the mind.
Thoughts themselves don’t cause trouble. Left alone, they appear in your awareness, remain for a moment, and move on again.
No problem.
It is when we try to control or manage them—through labelling them as bad, wrong, or unacceptable—that we get into trouble and create suffering for ourselves.
Let them wander freely through the vast, open field of your awareness and they will quickly run out of steam. Don’t energize them with your resistance.
If thoughts are there anyway, it is much better to befriend them rather than struggle against them.
What happens to a sad thought or an angry thought if you welcome it rather than reject it?
What happens if you don’t mind it being there?
5. Don’t take your thoughts personally.
Seeing that ‘my’ thoughts are not personal was another game-changing insight for me.
For most people, what typically happens is this:
You feel jealous. You feel afraid. You feel angry. And you then beat yourself up, believing you are personally responsible for the thoughts (feelings and emotions too) that show up in your head—believing there’s something wrong with you for having these thoughts.
There isn’t. You are not the author of your thoughts.
If you watch the mind closely, you’ll notice that thoughts appear by themselves, apparently out of nowhere.
In mindfulness training, we use the analogy of “the undercurrent and the observer” to illustrate our relationship with the mind.
The key understanding is that the undercurrent—the continuous stream of thoughts, feelings and emotions that pass through your awareness—is self-arising.
It is not within your control and therefore impersonal.
What most people do is thrash about midstream, like a crazed thought traffic policeman, frantically trying to control the flow—welcoming this thought, rejecting that one.
Trying to control the river is futile and exhausting.
Better to be the observer, sitting calmly on the riverbank watching the river flow by—knowing it’s not personal.
The less involved you are in trying to control the flow, the more peace you’ll experience.
6. Know the difference between thoughts arising and thinking.
Although there’s nothing you can do about the thoughts that show up in your head, thinking is another matter.
Let’s say the thought appears, “My boss doesn’t like me.”
It then triggers a dialogue in your head, “He’s definitely going to overlook me for the upcoming promotion. It is so unfair. I’ve been working here much longer than Jane. But he seems to like her a lot. Things never go my way. I’m just unlucky in life.”
This type of unproductive thinking is the primary cause of suffering for most people—and it is entirely within our control whether we choose to indulge in it or not.
Replaying the past over and over, catastrophising about the future, wallowing in unfounded beliefs and assumptions—these are some of the patterns that can create so much unnecessary misery.
And it’s entirely avoidable.
When you notice you’re caught up in an unproductive mind-movie, STOP.
There is nothing that can compel you to continue if you choose not to.
You’re the one in charge.
Focus instead on being present in the moment. Put your attention on your breath, on the sensations in the soles of your feet, on the sound of the wind rustling through the trees.
Unproductive thinking is mostly a habit. And like most habits, with a little awareness, it can be broken.
7. Live more in the present moment.
One of the main insights in meditation practice is that your awareness can only be in one place at a time.
If you are lost in your thinking mind, you can’t simultaneously be aware of your surroundings. Likewise, when you shift your attention to the present moment, thinking stops.
When you are present here and now, the mind automatically becomes quiet.
Whenever you are aware enough to catch yourself falling into habitual thinking patterns, stop and engage your senses.
Tune into the sensation of the air caressing your skin, feel the weight of your body coming into contact with the chair, listen to the sounds around you.
Be intensely aware that now is happening and notice what happens to your thinking mind
Take Back Control From Your Busy Mind
The mind isn’t a bad thing of course. It would be pretty hard to get through life without one.
It can come in very useful for problem solving, writing articles, booking flights, or remembering which house is yours when you get home from work.
Used productively to carry out specific tasks, the human mind is an incredible tool.
But it can also be deeply destructive—like an out of control Frankenstein monster with a life of its own.
The mind can be a beautiful servant or a dangerous master.
It all depends on who’s in charge.
The next time you’re sitting on your deck chair trying to relax and the mind kicks off with its crazy dance (as it will do) remind it who’s boss.
Don’t give it the power to ruin your holiday.
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How the Past and the Future Can Rob You of the Present
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important and it is now! The present moment is the only time when we have any power.” ~Tolstoy
Stop for a second and tell me: What were you thinking about just now? Chances are very good that you were thinking about something either in the past or in the future.
Of course, some of that thinking is necessary. For instance, we think about what we need to get at the store to make dinner tonight, or what we saw on the news yesterday to consider where we stand and what to do about it.
Sometimes, thinking about the past or future is also a pleasure: remembering happy times or anticipating something exciting in the near future. But often—usually—we end up dwelling instead on things we can do nothing about, because the past and the future exist only in our heads.
We allow our present moments to be filled with negative emotions caused by something that is not even happening right now—and may never happen!
Caught in a mental sand trap of our own making, we miss out on real life—what is happening in front of us in this very moment.
These are the thoughts that rob you of the present. They call up very distinctive emotions: usually regret, anger, and sadness (the past), or fear and dissatisfaction/longing (the future). Although we all indulge in both past and future thinking, I think most of us have a tendency to concentrate on one or the other.
My tendency has usually been to focus on the future. I used to worry a lot, which is a technique many people use to try to control what is essentially uncontrollable—the future—by imagining all possible outcomes and how they might respond in each case.
The extreme version of this future-based thinking is a crippling anxiety that robs the here and now of any possibility for joy. You can’t live your current life when all of your energy is spent worrying about what might happen in the future!
We future-thinkers also tend to be obsessive planners and goal-setters. Rarely pausing to enjoy what we’ve achieved, we’re already focused on the next step in the plan. That (often unconscious) feeling of dissatisfaction with the present and the longing for something different can also take the form of daydreaming about the future.
What we have right now is never enough—there’s always something “out there” in the future that’s missing, the magic ingredient that will finally make us really and truly happy.
Unfortunately, that mythical something we’re chasing is a perpetually moving target that keeps us from experiencing and enjoying our actual lives as we live them.
This came home to me once when I was living in a sweet little rental just blocks from the beach in Hawaii. Obsessed at the time with buying a house (which I couldn’t afford in Hawaii), I moved back to the mainland, only to later regret squandering that wonderful opportunity in favor of the next thing on my list.
Focusing on the past, on the other hand, often keeps people stuck in a pattern of victimhood. We become prisoners of what has already happened to us, carrying our stories and experiences with us like a burden we can’t (or won’t) set down.
Yes, they are a part of us. Yes, we can learn from them, use them, and legitimately own their impact on us. No, we don’t have to continually relive them in the present moment.
This is a hard one. In the case of past physical and emotional trauma, the body actually carries a sensory imprint of the original event that, when triggered, can send a cascade of emotions from your past into the present moment. When that happens, you have no choice but to deal with those very real emotions in real time—but even then, you don’t have to get sucked back into the story. Try this instead:
Acknowledge the emotions that were triggered, let them move through your body, and stay present. What is happening right now, in front of you? Can you feel your feet on the floor, or your back against a chair? Can you take a deep breath and tune in to any sounds or scents around you? Let your physical surroundings gently bring your body and mind back to the present. That’s the only moment when we have any power, remember?
Most of the time, it’s not trauma reactions that keep us mired in the past. Usually, it’s just our stories. Stories about bad decisions we made. Stories about people who didn’t treat us well. Stories about things that happened to us. These are the thoughts that rob us of both the power and joy that can only be experienced in this moment.
You can always recognize when you’re stuck in an unhelpful story by the emotions it stirs up—usually anger, sadness and/or regret.
Most of our stories are very well rehearsed, because we’ve thought and spoken of them many, many times. Their familiarity gives us a sense of identity, and even a strange comfort.
I think of how many times I told the story of my divorce, both to myself and to others, but I wasn’t able to finally heal and move on with my life until I stopped telling the story. I stopped letting it define who I was.
The past and the future exist only in our minds. Focusing on them is a poor stand-in for really living, but for many of us it’s such a pervasive habit that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. This, right now, is the moment when life is actually happening to us, and if we don’t pay attention, it too will disappear into the unreality of the past.
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Why an Internal Focus is The Solution to All of Your Problems
“The moment you take personal responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life.” ~Hal Elrod
I’m an introspective person, and at this point in my life don’t have any problems with taking personal responsibility. When I share my insights or understanding of situations I have been in, people often say, “Marlena, why are you so hard on yourself? What about the people that have wronged and harmed you? Why do you never mention them?”
For most of my life, I was trapped in a victim mindset, which meant that I focused on how I believed other people had wronged me or what I thought they had done to cause me pain. I focused on my perceptions of their flaws, their shortcomings, how I felt they mistreated or harmed me. As a result, I mainly experienced a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, and despair.
I’m not doing that to myself anymore.
What some people may think of as being hard on myself is actually very empowering and liberating for me because I finally look in the right direction. My focus now is on the only thing I can control and change: me.
Instead of trying to figure out how I can stop someone else from harming me, I notice what I’m exposing myself to. I notice how I am suppressing the anger that aims to motivate me to take action and to move away from something or someone that is simply not good for me. I focus on my inactions and my inhibition. I notice how I let old conditioning take over and then I put an end to it.
How someone else treats me is outside my control. Noticing who or what I am exposing myself to is within my control. And so I focus on that.
I reassure myself that I am not doing anything wrong when I speak up on my behalf. I no longer need anyone’s permission to do so because I have found my voice and I now know that my voice matters as much as everyone else’s.
But it’s not about pepping myself up to do something that feels as forbidden as it once did.
I now see standing up for myself as my duty and responsibility. It’s something I do to make everyone’s life easier. It simplifies relationships at all levels because I finally express myself, and by doing so I have grown up and matured in ways I never believed possible.
But all of this came as the result of developing an internal focus. As long as my focus was on other people or challenging situations, I had no power to change anything.
My anxiety and stress levels were sky-high. I was frustrated, angry, and constantly disappointed. I held on to resentments and felt bitter. I developed very negative views of life and people and became more and more stuck in a mindset that served no one.
Worst of all, I was completely blind to it. I didn’t realize that I was disempowering myself because I was stuck in a victim mindset, believing I was born to suffer and endure an existence that was passively happening to me, that I could do nothing about.
My focus on others had made me blind to myself.
When you are unaware of your contribution to situations or problems, you render yourself helpless and out of control because you are not considering all available information or contributing factors.
I didn’t understand that change was something I could do or make happen. In my mind, I was a passive recipient of change and life. Things happened, and I had to just deal with them to the best of my abilities, which left me feeling hopeless and depressed.
If I was with a withholding partner, I just had to go without.
If I was with someone angry, I just had to learn to not let it get to me.
If I didn’t have enough money to buy food for me and my children, I just had to go without so I could feed them.
If no one offered to help me, I just had to do it all by myself.
If someone disrespected me, I just had to toughen up.
I thought that I had to accept whatever was happening. I truly didn’t understand that I could take action and evoke change in that way. I lacked an internal focus and so did not see that my actions, inactions, and reactions shaped my experiences.
This all changed when I started to undergo a huge transformation. It was a process I fought and resisted in the beginning. I was appalled at the suggestion that I had anything to do with my own suffering. Who would want this for themselves? Why on earth would I make this happen? At times, I got furious when I was pointed back toward myself.
But eventually, there was no more denying it. I had too much evidence, and I couldn’t unsee what I was beginning to see very clearly: that I played the main role in all of my problems.
The good news was that if I was part of the problem, then I would also be part of the solution.
And to do that, I needed to really get to know and understand myself. I had to get honest. I observed what I was and wasn’t doing, what beliefs gave rise to my unhelpful behaviors, and what fears I was trying to hold at bay.
I became aware of what I wanted and how I stood in my own way, ensuring I could never get what I wanted as long as I behaved the way I did.
I started to see other people’s responses as reactions to me, and I started to see my reactions to others as expressions of my insecurities. Insecurities that needed tending to. Insecurities that required my attention and loving care, which was something I couldn’t do without first focusing inward. I needed my attention.
Focusing inward created space between me and others. Where once there was conflict, confusion, and chaos, there now was time, space, and clarity, which allowed true connection to form. Blaming became a thing of the past, as did obsessing and ruminating.
I was focusing inward for the first time in my life, and suddenly I felt freer and more powerful than I ever thought possible. I realized that it’s natural to feel out of control and helpless when you try to control what you simply cannot control. It makes perfect sense.
I can’t control if someone withholds love, affection, and intimacy from me. I can control whether I address and talk about it. I can control walking away because it is not the kind of experience I want to have.
I now see that I have choices. I am an active creator of my experience.
Just because something happens to me does not mean that I have to stick around for it and expose myself to it. Old conditioning would make me believe that that was the case, but those beliefs were never true to start with.
They were just old programming that ran unconsciously in the back of my mind. I didn’t notice because I didn’t pay any attention to myself. I didn’t focus inward, and so nothing made any sense to me. Things just seemed to happen because I couldn’t see my part in anything.
But just because I wasn’t aware of it, didn’t mean that I had no impact on what was happening. I did. I know this now. And it doesn’t excuse what other people may or may not have done that I perceived and experienced as harmful or abusive. That is their burden to bear. That is not within my control and it is not something that I need to resolve.
I resolve my issues when I liberate and empower myself by focusing on my part in things, on my business, on my role, on my contribution.
I am now passionate about helping others in compassionate ways to develop their internal focus so that they too can empower themselves and change their lives in ways they currently daren’t dream of.
It starts with being honest with yourself and allowing yourself to see and acknowledge your actions, reactions, and inactions without negatively judging yourself, shaming yourself, or justifying yourself. It means stepping away from blame and not using others’ negative behaviors as an excuse for your negative behaviors.
If you feel helpless over a situation, it’s usually because you can’t see your part in it. Open up to exploring it. Allow yourself to see how it could be different if you made a different choice and acted or responded differently.
Notice what goes on for you: What are you trying to protect? What are you trying to avoid, defend, or control? How are you trying to keep yourself safe and from what?
Then tend to that. Be compassionate. Reassure yourself. Set boundaries. Express yourself. Take action. Do what matters.
This is how you take your power back. Focus on your part. Focus on what you can control.
It is not about being self-critical or taking excessive responsibility.
It’s about focusing on what brings relief and on what decreases our anxiety and sense of powerlessness.
It’s about focusing on where your power lies. Even if you can’t see it yet, just know that it is there.
Even if you don’t feel like you have a choice, remind yourself that you do and try to find it.
Your life will become simpler and much more enjoyable as a result of that.
Because I am living proof of that, I know that you can do it too.
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You Are Not “Too Much” to Be Loved
“If you always feel like you’re too much or too little, maybe you’re adding yourself to the wrong recipe.” ~Sophia Joan Short
There is an art to shrinking yourself.
As a young girl, I was painfully earnest. I hadn’t learned the craft of nonchalance that was as much a requirement for being liked as name-brand clothes and Livestrong wristbands. One day, as I chattered excitedly on the school bus home, my seat-mate scolded me: “Hailey. Calm down. You’re so annoying.”
This is how I learned that my enthusiasm made me unlikable.
At home, short tempers led to angry arguments. After conflicts, my dad would withdraw his love in a stormy silent treatment until I cleared the air—or until we both agreed to pretend that nothing ever happened. I learned the art of walking on eggshells. When I was fifteen, Dad and I got into an argument and didn’t speak for days. We orbited around each other like silent planets in a lonely solar system.
This is how I learned that my anger made me unlovable.
Years later, my first adult relationship began to unravel. I felt the pain of our withering love acutely. My then-partner withdrew further into himself with every argument, every tear, every dissonance. The more I tried to repair our broken love, the more distant he became.
This is how I learned that my needs would push away the people I loved the most.
Where did you learn that you were too much?
Were you bullied at school? Mistreated at home?
Did your caregivers say you were too loud, too energetic, too difficult? Did they neglect your interests, deny your feelings, or punish your anger?
Did your lovers withdraw their affection when you expressed your true feelings? Did they balk at your trauma? Did they hold you at arms’ length?
These experiences leave us with a resounding mantra:
I am too much.
I am too much.
I am too much.But you are not. Here’s why.
The Beauty of “Too Much”
Those of us who give ourselves permission to feel deeply give ourselves the gift of fully participating in this world.
We embrace the vast palette of emotion that living demands. We experience the valleys of loss, the black pain of grief, and the jagged edges of trauma. We also experience the searing catharsis of inspiration, the rich colors of joy, and the deep, calm ocean of love.
Because we feel so richly, our hearts are calm harbors where others’ pain can seek refuge. We are empathetic and expansive, and when we say, “I hear you, I’ve been there,” we really mean it.
We do the hard labor of living, of feeling, every day. We have built within ourselves a powerful infrastructure for empathizing, connecting, and relating. This gives us a profound capacity to connect with others —others who are capable of meeting us there.
It’s Not About You
Every time someone implies that you are “too much,” they express their own limitations.
Emotional intensity scares those who have never learned to access their own emotions. If they don’t know how to feel their own pain, sadness, or joy, they will be incapable of handling it in others.
What they say is:
- “You’re being too dramatic.”
- “Do we always need to talk about our feelings?”
- “Everything’s fine. Why are you so upset?”
- “I can’t do this.”
What they are really saying is:
- “I am afraid of your pain because I do not allow myself to feel my own.”
- “I am afraid of your vulnerability because I never learned how to be vulnerable.”
- “I do not have the tools to handle conflict, so I will avoid it.”
- “I am afraid of failing because I don’t know how to take care of you.”
These folks have spent a lifetime erecting and fortifying walls to keep intense emotions out. They may have learned to do this as a coping skill. They may have been taught to by their caregivers. Regardless, as a result, they may push you away, withdraw, retreat, shame, criticize, or blame—anything to keep their walls intact.
Their judgments are a reflection of their own limitations, not a reflection of you. This does not justify the ways they’ve shamed you, but it may help you feel compassion for the fearful manner in which they’ve lived.
Alongside this compassion, you also have a choice.
Will you choose to shrink yourself to fit behind their stifling walls?
Or will you seek relationships with folks who embrace your capacity for feeling widely—ugly cries and happiness and all?
A Gateway to Wholeness
Despite my many efforts to become invisible, there was a woman within me who had fierce truths to speak, whose heart felt crushing pain and wild joy in equal measure. Repressing my true self was like trying to outrun the morning sun.
I wanted to be seen in all my wholeness, but I was terrified of being abandoned as I’d been before. I needed to learn—not through affirmations and visioning, but through action and supportive relationships with others—that I could be loved for who I was.
And so, I began to practice. I noticed which friends listened when I spoke. I noticed who validated my feelings and who glossed over them en route to their own stories. I noticed who welcomed me with open arms, even if I was feeling blue, tired, or anxious.
Romantically, I sought partners who acknowledged my needs instead of scoffing at them. Words like “dramatic” and “hysterical” became red flags I heeded without exception.
I sought partners who were forthright about their feelings for me—who matched my desire for verbal affirmations, physical touch, and time spent together. I still remember the shock I felt when I realized that there were lovers who wanted more time with me, more intimacy, more depth, instead of less.
Over time, my relationships became the safe containers within which I practiced wholeness. Qualities I forgot I’d had, like humor, confidence, and expertise, blossomed in these new, safe ecosystems.
Now that I’ve experienced the freedom of others’ acceptance, I have zero interest in pursuing relationships with folks who would deem me “too much.” As the saying goes: “You will be too much for some people. Those are not your people.”
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Learning to embrace my wholeness is a daily practice. Some days are harder than others.
When I’m feeling anxious and seek comfort from my partner, sometimes a niggling voice whispers that he will leave me.
When I speak at length about a new endeavor, I occasionally fear that I’m boring my audience.
When I express grievances in my relationships, I cringe at the prospect that the recipient could throw up her hands and declare me “too much work.”
Every time I feel these fears and act anyway, I honor my innermost self. I am teaching myself—slowly, diligently, patiently—that I am worthy of expression and worthy of love. It gets a little bit easier every day.
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Why I Was Desperate to Be With an Unavailable Man
“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be chasing after people who don’t love you either.” ~Mandy Hale
In January, a couple of years ago, I had been declared unfit for work, suffering from anxiety and mental exhaustion. For too long, I had not listened to my body and soul complaining about all the heavy burdens I had been carrying.
Out walking at this time, the bitter cold and relentless rain felt like a blessing to me, grateful to at least feel something. It was on one of these walks that I first bumped into an old school friend, hearing him call my name before I saw him smiling hello at me.
To begin with, I felt reluctant to chat or attempt to return the happy smile as he asked after my brothers, having known us since we were all kids, but I began to walk away feeling a bit less tense and felt an urge to see him again: “Call in for a cup of tea if you’re passing.”
And he did call. But I wasn’t in—I was out battling the elements again, trying to walk through my confusion and melancholy. My adult son called me: “Some weird guy with a ponytail has just knocked on asking for you,” he voiced with scarcely concealed outrage.
I’m not sure whether the outrage was caused by the fact that a man had knocked on our door asking to see his mom or whether it was at the audacity of the man’s long, graying ponytail, at his age.
A week later, he called again and this time I was home. I welcomed him in and shut the door against the winter blackness. The house felt cosier somehow since he was there, noticing my daughter’s artwork on the wall before he had finished taking off his shoes.
Sat together in the lounge, I was struck by the way he curled his feet up easily on the chair as I sat upright and uptight on the couch opposite. Before long, I had confessed my inability to work. He shared that he was off work too as he had recently lost his father and that his mother was now terminally ill.
The next time he called I was out again, so he pushed his mobile number through my door. I lingered looking at the bold handwriting in crimson ink. I do remember I hesitated before I put his number in my contact list.
Why did I want or need his number? Maybe I had identified that he was a troubled soul too. I sent him a text saying: “Thanks for your number. This is mine.”
Now we had both admitted that we wanted to be able to contact each other. From this point the texting became more frequent, and so did his visits to me. But then he told me that for the past year he had been living with somebody and her three children.
Classic rebound stuff—he had moved in with her immediately after the end of a twenty-six-year relationship. Of course, I did the decent thing and said we couldn’t see each other anymore. I wished I could have been angry and indignant, but instead my vulnerable self crumpled a little more as he took me in his arms to give me a hug.
I rebuked myself for being in this position when I was in the middle of so much mental and emotional turmoil. I had survived the break-up of a marriage and another long-term partnership—I told myself I could certainly recover from a few-week-dalliance.
“I need a hug,” the message bleeped. So do I, I thought, but steeled my resolve to not return his message. Some time elapsed and then came another message, “My mum has little time left.”
His pain was tangible. So I put my needs on hold and arranged to see him. A pattern began: talking through the night when the rest of the town slept; trips to doctors and hospitals; visits to see his mum together; soup-runs to him at the nursing home. And I suppressed the nagging question about where his ‘partner’ was in all this.
In March his mum died. Our intimate bubble was burst by the grief, practicalities, and conventions of death. It was his ‘partner’ that stood by his side at his mum’s funeral in April while I sat home alone, bereft at the thought of his loss and facing the reality that I had been cast aside.
I decided I would go away to visit friends for a month to get some distance. I needed to iron out my crumpled life, to see what was worth holding onto and what needed to be discarded.
I also hoped it would give him time to decide if he wanted for us to share a future. Looking back now, I wonder if I was so desperate to be with him because dealing with his pain was a distraction from my own.
“I will be ready for our future when you return.” I was relieved that he was resolved to sort the situation after all of the emotional angst of the previous months. “Only collect me from the airport if you are sorted,” I urged.
The night before my flight he still hadn’t confirmed that he had left her. I needed to know the situation I was walking into: “Sorted?”
“Not quite.” I know, not very fair of him, right? Not just to me, but to his partner who must have felt painfully his constant distraction. I had a long-haul flight to dwell on how another month could have elapsed during which he had made regular and frequent contact with me, promising me a future together, only to have let me down again.
Jet-lagged and sleep deprived, I sat dejectedly in his car—hardly the homecoming I had hoped for. I might be a programmed people-pleaser, but even I could see this was going to dent my damaged self-esteem even further.
“There is no relationship until this is sorted.” I stopped contact with him, but emotionally I hadn’t let it go since the promise of a relationship was still on the table.
Eventually, he decided he would see a hypnotherapist. He began telling his painful tale. But it was still not completely told: he gradually moved his stuff out from her place but couldn’t quite tell her the final line of their story: “I have to leave you now.”
I didn’t see him for over a year as he tried to muster his final resolve. I knew we three were squirming our way through lonely nights and taut days, as we crawled, emotionally spent, toward the end of our story. I knew that it would involve a final, painful telling of, “It’s over,” from one to the other of us caught in this mess.
I had always imagined that it would be him that would make that call to either her or me. This shows just how powerless I felt. It is evident to me now that the three of us were caught in this web for one striking reason: we each didn’t love ourselves enough to withdraw from this damaging situation.
I am so grateful that I eventually gave myself enough distance to heal myself properly. I now really understand what people mean when they say you have to be ready for a relationship. I became strong and I learned how to love myself first.
So strong that I moved away from my old, unhappy life and took myself on an adventure where I had time and opportunity to listen to my own needs. I had spent months trying to fix a damaged and broken man instead of fixing myself.
Many, many months later, when I had a new life and was at the beginnings of a new relationship, he turned up, out of the blue, and asked me to marry him. He hadn’t quite left her yet but would be leaving her that night. It was me who said, “You’re too late. It’s over.”
I’m not proud of my part in all of this. But I have forgiven myself as I know I was so emotionally vulnerable when he first came into my life.
Following this emotionally exhausting experience, I have learned:
- You can only heal yourself, you can’t fix others.
- You will be treated by others as badly as you allow.
- You are responsible for your own happiness.
- To let go of the people who have caused you pain.
- Above all, never wait to start living your life.
It was painful to tell you this; to be reminded of how little I valued my own needs, putting his pain above my own and hers too. I am happy to say I now don’t recognize the me that was so damaged and broken.
I love myself everyday and I’m delighted to know that “nothing can dim the light that shines from within.” (Maya Angelou)
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When You Want to Make Progress Fast and Feel Impatient
“Tortoise was over the line. After that, Hare always reminded himself, ‘Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!‘“ ~The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop’s Fables)
I was sitting in an introduction to calligraphy workshop when a fellow student asked the instructor, “What do I need to become a professional Calligrapher, what would it take?”
We were all on the edge of our seats with that one. It was as if we were about to learn the secret ingredient to Grandma’s cookies.
The answer, to our surprise, was pen and paper.
“The materials are no different than that of a novice calligrapher,” the instructor explained.
The distinction between a novice and professional calligrapher is not in the tools they use, but rather in the professional’s commitment to practice, their pace, and the time they took to learn and do something.
The same goes for any professional at their craft.
I recalled a time when I was on a cruise ship and saw all these tourists with huge camera lenses and gadgets for their cameras. I was incredibly impressed and at times intimidated with their gear as I would hold up my own iPhone to snap a quick picture.
After a while of being on board, you get to know one another well. I realized that despite their top tier lens, basically all of their cameras were set in auto mode.
What good is such an advanced lens when you don’t know how to use it?
They had gone from zero to one hundred with no practice, no skills acquired, just fancier devices.
This lesson on the professional calligrapher has always intrigued me.
When we look up to the expert, we assume that increasing the quality of materials or having access to nicer resources is what makes them great. This assumption overlooks the time it would have taken them to learn something new and to achieve their goal.
Instead, we want to cut corners and are looking for the shortcut. We want to make progress as soon as possible, perhaps because we feel behind in life and think we need to hurry to get ahead, or because we think we’ll be happier when we reach our goal.
Cutting corners is not a strategy that necessarily benefits us. It’s a way for us to be more useful and readily available to others, get more things done, and exhibit productivity.
Our concern for positive feedback and acceptance by others keeps us from taking the time to experience something thoroughly for ourselves, just because we enjoy it or are curious about it.
Just because.
This past year I have been working with my sister to brainstorm new career opportunities. My current goal is to become an independent filmmaker.
Similar to the observations shared above, I found myself quickly approaching the mindset of the calligraphy student: What would it take, what would I need to make the best movies, to be a great filmmaker?
I too, wanted the shortcut. The direct route to achieving my goal. Is there a certain camera lens I need to have, light kit, microphone, or skill that would lead me right to success?
After deep dives into blogs about filmmakers and watching online video subscriptions about filmmaking, it occurred to me that I had all that I needed to accomplish my goal.
There was no shortcut to filmmaking.
It was just going to take time.
Time for me to learn more about the tools that I already had.
Time to pick up my camera and practice shooting interviews.
Time to use a pen and paper to write down script ideas.
Time to make bad videos so that the next time I could make a better video.
Time for repeated effort, continual practice, and eventually, improvement.
It’s easy to get caught wasting time looking for a solution instead of taking time. In the end, we lose energy and motivation looking for the right tools or answers.
We do things with the intention of going fast rather than far. We fixate on the end result and rob ourselves of the fun we’d have and excitement we’d feel if we let ourselves enjoy the journey.
Instead, I’ve learned that I stand with the tortoise, not the hare, “Slow and steady [wins the race].”
Go far. Reach farther. Take the time to become your best self.
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How I Found the Gift in My Pain and Let Go of Resentment
“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud
How much time slips by when you’re living in the pain of resentment? Do you ever question if your bitterness has held you back from living your true destiny? Is blaming everyone else sabotaging your life and future?
It’s only now that I can admit to the years I wasted pointing the finger at everyone else. It was easier for me to say it was their fault than accept responsibility for my own decisions. For me, attaining perfection was validation of my success. If it wasn’t achievable, then it was obviously someone else’s fault.
Until one day, I took the time to watch the Tony Robbins’ documentary movie, Guru, for the second time. Amazing when you watch something again or read a book twice, you get something different out of it.
There was a young girl struggling with the lack of love she received from her drug-addicted father. After admitting that it was her father’s love she craved the most, Tony Robbins led her to a breakthrough perspective.
He told her if you are going to blame him for everything that went wrong, like not being Daddy’s girl, then don’t forget to blame him for making you a strong woman too. He reminded her that she was allowed to blame him for not being around but not to forget to blame him for teaching her how to cope at such a young age.
Suddenly, I felt a shift within me. I connected to the anger deep within me, and somehow it no longer felt so heavy. What was happening? Unexpectedly, I realized the pain of my resentment was actually a gift.
I have carried a lot of emotional weight in my heart, some of which still remains. My heaviness is rooted in childhood memories of hurt and confusion. At the blissful age of eleven, just when I thought life was pretty safe and stable, I had the rug ripped out from underneath of me.
Infidelity and unfaithfulness had crept into our home and turned everything upside down. Everything I knew faded away as my mother threw his things around, screaming and crying. She was so emotional, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Her anger was wrapped up in sadness as she packed up all of my father’s belongings into black trash bags.
One by one out the door, like little pieces of my heart that she was just bagging up and throwing out. She set them out on our front lawn, and I stood there grieving.
She didn’t see the little girl in the corner crying along with her. Someone forgot the little soul who was being traumatized by these big emotions. No one stopped the chaos for a minute to realize my heart was breaking too. My memories of Christmas traditions and Saturdays at the grocery store never came back.
Everything changed, and I hated this new life.
From then on, everyone always seemed sad around me. I recall listening to my grandmother try to comfort my mother as she wept in her bedroom for weeks. I can still see the shame in my father’s face as he came and visited us every once in a while.
The raw vulnerability and pure helplessness I felt during those years were probably the most painful parts. The sense of being abandoned and left with all these intense emotions to deal with was so demanding. The pressure of trying to figure things out with no sense of direction left me with an underlying sense of unhappiness all the time.
It was then a seed of undeniable pain was planted. I would spend years nurturing this seed like it was my life’s purpose.
Growing up, I appeared to be okay with the change, but the days of confusion were simply endless for me. My new normal was abnormal, and the finality of the chaos ended when I accepted the idea that my parents would never get back together.
My mother was left trying to hold it all together, and it was a struggle to watch over the years. For the sake of her children and with the little strength she had left, I watched her work tirelessly to preserve the memory of a good life.
Despite her dedication to her children, the inevitable happened: Her little children grew up. We created our own version of our childhood memories, and our seeds of hurt began to bloom.
It’s a shame how pain, resentment, and fear have a way of spreading like wildfire within us. It shows up in the friends we hang out with, the partners we choose, and the weaknesses that destruct us.
When things fall apart, it’s hard to think clearly, let alone follow a path of success. It’s far easier to point the finger and hand out slips of blame to anyone close to you. But after years of feeling heavy, I was tired. I was ready to let this baggage go.
That evening, I reflected on what Tony Robbins said to the girl: “If you are going to blame people, then blame them for everything.”
This is how I transformed my resentment into gratitude:
If I was hardened by the things I didn’t get as a child, then I must be grateful for the life skills I now possess.
The resourcefulness I’ve gained throughout the years is immeasurable. I don’t say that out of arrogance, but out of pride. I used to resent the lack I grew up with, but now I’m so thankful because it nurtured my resilience. The desire for more fostered an enormous amount of determination within me.
If I blamed my parents for a tough childhood, then I must also thank them for teaching me how to be a great mother.
The insatiable craving to feel loved, noticed, and important gave me the skills to connect with my son on the most fundamental level. I know the value of establishing and maintaining this relationship with him because that’s all I ever wanted growing up, a close connection to my parents.
If I was saddened by the years of confusion in my life, then I must acknowledge the beautiful clarity present in my life now.
The tears shed were not in vain. Instead, they washed away a distinct path for me to travel. I can see the gift of my writing. The dreaded confusion gave birth to my innate ability to connect to others’ pain and articulate what they feel.
If I allowed the pain of my sadness to grow, then I must not forget to appreciate the goodness in my life.
I know what it feels like to be sad, but this led me to experience happiness on a whole new level. I find joy in really simple things, like a good cup of coffee. I can feel bliss when I am with my husband doing absolutely nothing. Most of all, I can live with a sense of true contentment in my life.
If I found fault in everyone for all the things I thought went wrong in my life, then I’m indebted to all these people eternally.
The agony I perceived as targeted was destined to be part of my life. The people I couldn’t forgive, who fostered hate within me, I now love even more. It’s because of them that I now live a fulfilled life with more to come.
You see, this is all part of life’s plan. The people we despise, the rage we harbor, and the bitterness we nurture are actually the tools we need to grow and evolve. The goal of transformation is to gain a higher level of awareness in our lives.
There is no achievement in staying stuck when the goal is to walk through these milestones. The problem does not lie in another person; it’s the fixed perspective you are perpetually protecting. Do not prolong experiencing real joy. Time is fleeting.
Transform your bitterness into sweetness, and your purpose will reveal itself to you. Dig deep, not to find fault in others, but to find the gifts within your soul; therein lies the gift of your pain and the beauty in all that you have suffered.
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How Yoga Gave Me the Courage to Stop People-Pleasing
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.” ~The Bhagavad Gita
Growing up, I couldn’t have been further from my ‘self.’ Early childhood experiences taught me to focus all of my energy externally. To put everyone around me first and to be insatiably attentive to their needs. This kind of thinking instills you with an incredibly low sense of self-worth, disconnects you from your own feelings and desires, and ultimately leaves your happiness pinned to other people.
When you have low self-worth, you mostly want to contract away from the world like a turtle. Hiding in your protective shell becomes a way of life because you fear that by revealing who you truly are people will leave, reject, or mock you.
A common response from those around me was “Don’t worry! Just be yourself!” When you have low self-worth, “being yourself” isn’t just something that worries you, it’s not something that simply makes you feel uncomfortable. It is quite literally something your brain deciphers as high risk. The act of “being myself” was unbelievably terrifying. I had my guard up all the time and a face for every occasion.
In my early twenties, I started to analyze my unhealthy thought patterns and tried three different therapists. Each one encouraged me to give a monologue about my life while they vacantly nodded and asked questions such as “How did that make you feel?”
It did nothing for me. What I desperately needed was to cultivate a loving relationship with myself. I needed to get to know the girl I had been and the woman I was becoming. To be there for her, to soothe her, and to cheer her on.
That’s where yoga came in.
There was no single defining moment. My first yoga class didn’t change my life. Neither did the second, the third, or the fourth. Yet, little by little, as I went to more classes and read ancient scripture, I began hearing one important message reiterated over and over again—the importance of looking inward for validation, love, and support.
Years of looking outside myself for these things had left my worth precariously hinged to other people, yet once on the mat, with only myself, I was challenged to connect with it all—my own fears, my own desires, and my own needs. Without this step, I couldn’t have moved forward in my life.
My yoga practice went deeper when I found yin and restorative; branches of yoga which emphasize gentle support, nourishment, and mindful movement as opposed to any kind of striving or precision.
Unlike the sweaty sequences of fast-paced flow classes, yin is a soft, intuitive practice that slowly guides you toward opening up, both physically and emotionally. Poses open your heart and your hips—places where those with low self-worth are often most closed off.
Positions such as supported twist and swan can be held for over five minutes, encouraging a deep tissue release whereby tension dissolves out of your body and onto the mat. Meanwhile torso opening poses like butterfly and camel can make you feel totally vulnerable.
As you sprawl out across the mat, the urge to close up can be powerful and it’s not unusual to feel emotional. It left me with no choice but to surrender, despite resistance from every cell in my body.
Many of the poses in yin yoga are named after animals and insects we associate with peacefulness. The gentle movement of a swan emits a blissful sense of inner peace. The slow-moving ways of a camel and the flutters of a butterfly convey the kind of quiet strength you feel when you finally reach a solid sense of self-worth. When you know you are enough, the need to prove yourself gradually begins to subside, being replaced by a lightness in both the body and the mind. It is this lightness which yoga instils.
Similar to yin, restorative yoga aims to center you through both stillness and slow movement. It took all the energy I was relentlessly giving out to the world and brought it back to me. It felt like the first time I’d fully, and completely, focused on my own experience. It felt good.
I went to restorative classes on Thursday evenings. I remember the first class I went to vividly because it felt so unnatural. Away from the pace of everyday life, where there are so many opportunities to numb out—with work, TV, socializing—this session involved just four restful poses each held for five to seven minutes.
Poses included reclining hero, where you relax your entire body onto a supportive cushion, and bend your knees gently back, and Supta Baddha Konasana—lying with your legs open, feet together and arms left flat to the side. Whatever the pose, the purpose of it was comfort for the body, rest for the mind, and replenishment of the spirit.
At the beginning I found this practise excruciating. My body was tense and my muscles were contracted. After years of avoiding myself, I simply couldn’t relax and let go because I was scared.
The teacher noticed and he often came over to lightly press my back down onto the mat. Other times, he’d swap the hard cork block I’d picked to hold up my head for the softness of a folded blanket. As with many other yoga teachers, his non-judgemental support provided the safe, gentle push I needed to finally relax into my own body.
These simple yet nourishing acts reflect the philosophy of yoga so well, in that the practice has little to do with who can stretch the furthest, the longest, or the most elegantly. Instead, one of the key tenants of yoga is union with yourself. If a pose feels painful, you adjust. If you’ve reached your edge, you pull back.
This mantra has been repeated throughout every class I’ve been to, and it’s the most tangible evidence I have of the effect yoga has had on my life. If something feels painfully uncomfortable, out of line with my true nature, I now ask “Why am I doing this? Is it for me, or to please other people?”
Chronic people pleasing, in order to gain a sense of self-worth, always felt excruciating to me. It put me at the whim of just about everyone I met. But it was only when I found the teachings of yoga that I realized why it felt so bad and found the courage to change.
When you’ve been so far away from yourself and finally connect to your inner being, it can feel overwhelming. The discovery that, I too, existed in the world, and not only that I had needs and feelings that deserved to be heard, but that who I was really, really mattered, was profound. In this way, yoga worked to highlight how prolifically I’d been neglecting myself in a way that talk therapy never even touched upon.
I began to engage in radical self-care, I started a soothing inner dialogue, regularly asking myself if I was okay: how did I feel? (as opposed to how others felt). Albeit daunting and uncomfortable at first, I gradually stopped doing things to please others and started revealing every part of myself—the goofy side, the quiet side, the intelligent side. Why? Because my self-worth was inherent, it was within me rather than outside of me, and therefore, I had the safety to be exactly who I was.
If you’ve ever struggled with low self-worth, you’ll know that the path to true acceptance is long, tedious, and never linear. It is a one step forward, two steps back process. One where you must wake up every single day and commit to building yourself up rather than down. One where you must silence your inner critic and instead begin to accept every part of yourself—even those which you find unpleasant.
By practicing yoga and learning from the principles that underpin it, that path can be made easier, and a whole lot brighter, too.
