Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

    It’s massively important how we define our world and the experiences we have in it. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to learn that early in my life.

    When I was twelve, my stepfather was a homicidal-leaning, violent alcoholic. I believe my mother must have suffered a Stockholm Syndrome kind of relationship with him. They were together for thirteen years even though they separated several times.

    He tried to kill us all on more than one occasion. Car … double-barreled shotgun … with his bare hands.

    Bill died of suicide some years after their divorce. “I’ll show you!” he said to his wife just before he jumped out in front of a speeding car on the highway. I felt sorry for the woman driving the car.

    I learned a specific lesson about defining an experience one fall day. We lived in Florida. It was drizzling rain on this particular Sunday. We were traveling from where we lived near the Atlantic coast in Cocoa, to visit Bill’s mother in Orlando.

    Bill had been drinking as he usually did on weekends. And, of course, when he drank, he often got belligerent and argumentative.

    We had to drive through a long stretch of swampy land, then we came out on open ranch land where Brahman cattle grazed.

    Bill and Mother argued. The four of us children sat quietly, afraid to move or say anything with the tension building in the car. Things could get ugly if he turned his attention to one of us.

    All of a sudden, the car swerved. It started to spin sideways in one direction, then all the way around in the opposite direction. It spun completely around three times, continuing down the highway, before it finally came to a stop.

    But when it stopped, we could feel the car teetering, rocking back and forth. We were precariously balanced on a culvert on the side of the road over a small creek.

    If the balance tipped forward it would flip the car over, putting us upside down in two feet of water.

    I sat there with my heart beating like a hummingbird’s for several seconds. A conglomeration of emotions exploded through my being. I couldn’t keep up with them. Each one was more intense than any feeling I’d ever experienced up until then.

    I knew that I dared not move. None of us could, or it could put us all in grave danger, maybe even drown us.

    Everybody in the car fell silent. All you could hear was the water trickling in the creek.

    The car continued to teeter.

    The emotions welling up inside me built to a crescendo. It was going to be impossible for me to contain them anymore. Something was going to express.

    But I was afraid. If Bill had a hysterical kid screaming behind him, in his present state, he just might literally beat me to death.

    Reason seemed to peel away the hysteria a little here and there until it all came down to two fundamental choices. I had to express something even if it meant flipping into the water.

    My choices were to let it fly and scream out—crying uncontrollably—or to burst out laughing.

    In that moment, I had an epiphany about life in general. I did have a choice. The emotions didn’t dictate my experience of life. I could make my choice deliberately. It had 100% to do with how I defined the experience. The experience itself was neither good nor bad. It just was. What was important was how I defined it. 

    And so, I made my decision. I relinquished all control and burst out laughing! I consciously chose to identify it as an exciting thrill that we’d all survived, rather than identifying it as the sheer horror I could have called it.

    My mom turned around, eyes wide in fear, not sure of how Bill would react. Apparently, I was the only one in the car who identified it as anything but terror.

    Bill turned around and stared for a second, then set about determining how we could all get out safely.

    That afternoon was sixty years ago, but I remember every detail of it. I’ve referred to it many times in my life.

    We have a choice in how we define our experiences. That decision changed the way I saw the rest of my life. I get to choose how I define the events in my life. We all do.

    Years later that experience led me to see other parts of my life from a healthier perspective.

    Growing up, I resented Bill for what he put us through. No kid should have to endure that kind of psychological and physical abuse. It ate at my heart.

    When adult friends discovered some of the things I experienced as a kid, they expressed indignation too. That reinforced my sense of misfortune.

    But I remember telling my wife about the spin-out experience one day and I had another insight. I listened to myself saying that I had a choice of how I defined my experiences. My perspective on my entire childhood changed in that moment. I had been defining it in a way that didn’t serve me. But I could change that, just by changing how I identified it. 

    Had it been scary staring down the wrong end of a double-barreled shotgun at age six?  You bet it was! Had it been hard grabbing my pillow, a change of socks and underwear and sneaking out the window to meet my mother and siblings at the car—on several different occasions—growing up? Only to wake up the next morning four states away where I knew no one? Sure.

    Most people would say I had a terrible childhood. But they don’t get to define it for me. I do.

    I learned how to be flexible, because I had to be. My life changed unpredictably. But I chose not to let that make me bitter and resentful.

    I learned how to keep my thoughts to myself when I need to. It came from a survival need and developed into a skill of diplomacy.

    I learned how to make friends easily, because I never knew when I would have to leave old friends and establish new friendships. So, I just became a friendly person with everybody around me.

    I learned how to adapt and learn new things. It was more productive than trying in vain to hold onto things that may not be possible to keep with me. I learned how to let go. I learned how to embrace new things in life.

    I learned how to appreciate people when they offer me help and appreciate my ability to help other people when I can.

    I learned how to love people and allow them to love me.

    I learned that negatives in life aren’t necessarily negatives.  How we choose to identify them makes things negative or positive.

    I learned that everybody has challenges that are hard for them. We can endure a lot if we choose.

    We get to decide what all that means. Life is simply what it is. We determine what we want it to mean.

    So, I urge you, the next time you’re scared or angry or worried, the next time life seems to be dishing out unpleasantries; the next time you feel like life has treated you unfairly; ask yourself, is there another way I can define this? A way that works better for me? A way that can serve me better in the future?

    It’s always your choice.

  • If You Can’t Share Your Feeling, Standards, and Expectations

    If You Can’t Share Your Feeling, Standards, and Expectations

  • If You’re a Giver…

    If You’re a Giver…

  • How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    1. It will be painful—keep going anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Distractions don’t solve uncertainty.

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

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

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

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

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

    3. Trust that there will be guides.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    4. Take good care of yourself.

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

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

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

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

    —

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • If You Love Something, Love It Completely

    If You Love Something, Love It Completely

  • Even If I React, It Won’t Change Anything

    Even If I React, It Won’t Change Anything

  • How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    “My biggest fear is that I’m not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I’ve been battling for years that says, ‘You’re not really talented enough. You don’t really deserve this.’ ” ~Rachel Platten

    When we’re continually surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards in the media and highlight reels of others’ success on social media, it’s no surprise that many of us feel like we don’t measure up or fit the ideals of perfection.

    At some point in our lives maybe we were rejected for the color of our skin, the shape of our bodies, or for the way we looked, and we decided that we were somehow separate from the world.

    These events can be detrimental to the beliefs we hold about ourselves and turn into thought patterns that continually chip away at our self-esteem.

    For me, the feeling of not being good enough started in my early childhood. My older sister looked like she’d stepped off the catwalk, and she was extremely academic. I, on the other hand, consistently got low grades at school and was rarely complimented for my chubby appearance.

    My feelings of low self-worth continued when I started high school. I was the only Indian girl at my school and was constantly bullied for my skin color, my religion, and being ‘different.’ Kids would throw things at me on the bus and push me around in the hallway. I started to hate who I was and the color of my skin and felt even less attractive than I did to begin with.

    As I reached my teens, I would jump from one relationship to the next, hoping that validation from a boyfriend would somehow make me feel better about myself, but it didn’t. The highs were short-lived, and those relationships soon spiralled into a cycle of rejection, which made me feel even more unworthy.

    Like me, maybe you too experienced a string of events while growing up that made you feel like you weren’t good enough. Whatever the experience was, no matter how trivial, when we have low self-worth, our internal dialogue keeps it alive, like an echo that continually reverts to unresolved traumas long after they have passed.

    Most of us don’t enjoy digging to the root of our beliefs and delving into why we think, feel, and act the way we do; instead, we’re wired to sweep things under the carpet and use alcohol, food, drugs, or sex as crutches to help us to mask our emotions and maintain our sanity.

    It can feel unnerving to unearth years of buried emotions and take a trip down memory lane to explore painful events, but to break free from low self-worth it’s vital for us to understand what parts of us require healing. Otherwise, it’s like going to a doctor with a pain in our tummy and asking them not to take a scan to determine its cause.

    The way we feel about ourselves on the inside directly influences what we will create for ourselves on the outside. If we don’t feel good enough when we’re in the privacy of our own thoughts, it often impacts the quality of our relationships, the level of our financial success, and the amount of love, health, and joy we allow ourselves to experience in our day-to-day lives.

    Many of us trap ourselves by looking at our lives through a lens of low self-esteem and telling ourselves stories based on outdated perceptions of past events.

    For a long time, I clung to the story of how I’d been a victim. I believed I had no control over what had happened to me—the abuse, the bullying, the heartbreaks, and the rejection. I would pity myself for having to endure all the events that had played out in my life.

    Instead of believing I had the power to take responsibility, I allowed past events to define who I was and how I saw myself, because I didn’t have the knowledge, awareness, or tools to know any differently.

    I was taught the importance of focusing on my education, finding someone to marry, and how to build a home, but I wasn’t taught resilience, I wasn’t taught about unconditional love or self-acceptance, and I wasn’t taught how to deal with life’s challenges.

    I wanted more from my life, but the story I told myself made me believe I wasn’t worthy of having it and that it just wasn’t going to be my fate. I would replay events in my mind and continuously felt like things were happening to me. I couldn’t see that the events were happening for me.

    If I hadn’t been bullied, I wouldn’t have built resilience. If I hadn’t been abused, I wouldn’t have developed compassion and empathy. If I hadn’t have been abandoned, I wouldn’t have the drive and ambition to be independent.

    When I recognized all I’d gained from my past, I was able to shift my perception and start seeing myself not as a victim but as someone who was strong and empowered. I began to re-frame my experiences.

    Knowing I’d been through hardship helped me to recognize that I had an inner strength to overcome challenges, and my strong sense of compassion and empathy toward others allowed me to recognize my ability to be emotionally intelligent. Seeing the gifts in my challenges allowed me to view myself in a more empowered way, and as a result, I started showing up in the world differently.

    It’s easy for me to see this now that I’ve moved through my story, but when I was in a war with myself I found it difficult to embrace the lessons.

    It’s hard to appreciate the painful events that have plagued your life and destroyed any ounce of self-esteem you had. It’s easier to blame the world than accept that although you may not have deserved what happened to you, it happened, and that the only choice you now have is to pick up the pieces and move beyond it.

    Most of us struggle to move beyond our stories and continue replaying them repeatedly in our minds, which only reinforces our beliefs into our reality. The more we replay our negative story in our minds, the more we continue to manifest the same events—until eventually we get fed up of living life on a loop and are desperate to break free.

    We may believe we don’t have the power to reshape our stories because they are so deeply ingrained into who we are and how we respond to situations, but we do. And when we rewrite our stories, we break free from our past and transform our lives.

    If you would like to release your feelings of low self-worth and shift the energy you put into the world, this powerful exercise can help.

    Story Time

    Take a journal and write down the story of your life.

    How do you define yourself?

    Is your story full of your greatest achievements and happiest moments? Or are you listing down all the bad things that have happened to you and how unhappy you are?

    When you pen down your thoughts you’ll instantly get insights into how you currently view yourself.

    Are you able to spot any common patterns? Is there a recurring theme of rejection, shame, or resentment? Are you blaming specific people or events for how your life has panned out?

    You’ll soon get valuable clues on what beliefs or experiences are dictating your story, and how you choose to view your life.

    Now, journal your answers to the following questions:

    • What did those experiences help you to learn?
    • What skills have you gained because of those experiences?
    • How can you apply those lessons and skills to your current life?
    • If you could go back in time, what would you change about those events? Or do differently?
    • Are you ready to let those experiences go? And if not, how does it serve you to hold onto those experiences or feelings?

    With this newfound awareness, I’d like you to re-write your past story, and see if the language you are using to describe your past has shifted.

    Often, when we look back on our past with a newfound perspective, we’re able to re-frame our negative experiences into positive lessons that have shaped the person we are today. Without our experiences, we wouldn’t be blessed with the wisdom we’ve gained because of them.

    When we allow ourselves to move into a space of gratitude for all that we’ve learned, we automatically shift away from feeling like a victim and reclaim our power.

    Remember, you, as much as anybody in this universe, have the power to change the direction of your future. You just need to be willing to let go of what no longer serves you.

  • Beyond Sorry: A Better Way to Handle Conflict in Your Relationship

    Beyond Sorry: A Better Way to Handle Conflict in Your Relationship

    “Sorry isn’t always enough. Sometimes you actually have to change.” ~Unknown

    When I was young I was like every other kid, always in and out of trouble. I pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in order to see what I could get away with. When I pushed, I’d often keep on pushing until someone said “stop.”

    During my childhood I heard lots of:

    “STOP!!” 

    Quickly followed by:

    “Say you’re sorry.”

    Say those two magical words, “I’m sorry,” and all the pain will go away. Then I’ll be back in the good books and can go play with my friends again.

    During this time I received another strong message that many children hear. It’s the one that says some of your feelings are not a good thing. That’s because I was told:

    Don’t look sad.

    Don’t cry.

    Don’t be scared.

    This led to me feel guilt and even shame about the expression of certain feelings. As a result, over time I was less able to acknowledge feelings in myself and others. These two elements, when combined years later, went on to cause real problems for me. This is because I was now in front of an angry partner and I went back to what I learned as a child.

    I repressed my feelings, tried to look sad, and said “I’m sorry.”

    This time, however, I wasn’t speaking to my parents. It was my partner who was very sensitive to the fact that the words alone weren’t enough.

    My apology now created more harm than good, and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it. My relationships suffered for years, as we would both regress back to childhood archetypal patterns of behavior. This is where we’d indulge in hierarchical relationships, playing out childhood habits with the husband/wife dynamic expressed as mother/son or father/daughter. This killed the trust and intimacy in our relationship, and was a fast track to either breakup, or long-term dissatisfaction and resentment.

    In one particularly fractious relationship I remember always saying sorry because I thought it was what my partner wanted me to say. I knew that she thought she was right, and therefore I must be wrong. We didn’t have the skills to navigate ourselves to a mutually agreeable resolution, so the shortcut to a life of harmony was for me to accept that I was wrong.

    Based on what I learned as a child, saying sorry was the natural response. It seemed to be by far the easiest way to resolve our differences, but it didn’t work. The hierarchy this created ultimately ended that relationship, as I failed to communicate with my partner on the equal footing we both needed for it to work.

    How I’d learned to behave all those years ago clearly wasn’t working, and I desperately needed an alternative to manage the difficult conversations I was now having in my relationships.

    As I moved from relationship to relationship I managed to work through this and developed new skills that helped me grow and heal the wounds from my past. These new skills required me to access the very emotions I was encouraged to repress when I was young and helped me create the connection, trust, and safety my relationship craved.

    Assuming you’re in a non-abusive, healthy relationship, there is an alternative, and is something I now practice almost every day. Here are four steps you can follow the next time you find yourself about to utter the dreaded words “I’m sorry”:

    Step 1: Slow down, acknowledge what’s happened, and take responsibility for your part in it.

    In any relationship there is 200% responsibility to be split 50/50 between both people. Problems happen when the split isn’t equal and people either take too little responsibility (i.e.: the victim) or too much (i.e.: the co-dependent).

    Developing an honest, open, trusting relationship starts with ensuring you take 100% responsibility for what is yours to take, and no more. By doing this you can create a clear line between what is yours and what is not. This then empowers your partner to do the same.

    A while back I noticed how my relationship had become strained, and I felt as if I was either saying “I’m sorry” to my partner, or she was expecting me to. I had been trying to resolve the problems we were having by looking outside of myself and blaming my partner; so I decided to turn things 180 degrees. I looked at myself, got honest, took responsibility, and I told my partner.

    I told her that I had noticed things were strained and I was committed to doing something about it. I explained that I had been projecting lots of beliefs on to her about her not being good enough. These were beliefs I held about myself, and it wasn’t fair to project these on to her. I apologized for doing that and said I was taking my judgments back and owning them.

    Taking responsibility in our lives is key to developing positive relationships of trust and intimacy where there was previously victimhood and blame. Even when you think others haven’t noticed your victimhood, they have. People notice when you are projecting onto them, and they can feel the difference when you stand powerfully in your truth and take full responsibility for your actions.

    Step 2: Describe your feelings regarding what happened. Speak honestly and share what comes up for you.

    Feelings can be used as weapons in relationships in order to apportion blame, such as claims like:

    “You made me feel like this.”

    But when we connect to our own feelings, take responsibility for what we feel, and honestly communicate them to others, we provide a platform for connection. From this place of vulnerability we stop being like teflon, with everything sliding off us, and instead become sticky and able to create bonds and connection with our partners.

    When I took responsibility for the problems in my relationship I shared how I felt. I explained how I was embarrassed about how I’d behaved. I shared how I was scared what she might think of me for being so honest, and I was sad that I hadn’t managed to open up about it sooner.

    Think of the times in your life when you really bonded with your friends or partner. This happens during times of high emotion, both the good and bad. It’s easy to bond and create connection during periods of high emotion and good mood. It takes a lot more to use more difficult emotions to create deep connection. However, it’s these emotions and the vulnerability that we bring to them, where the deepest connections are made.

    Step 3: Empathize by sharing what feelings and emotions they must have felt in response to what happened.

    When we say “I’m sorry” it encourages us to access the situation from our perspective and via our feelings and emotions. In order for our words to be heard we need to demonstrate that we truly understand our partner’s world and not just our own. For that, we need empathy.

    Empathy is a difficult skill because it requires us to recognize the uncomfortable feelings our partner is feeling. It also requires us to access those feelings within ourselves, and then reflect them back to our partner. Lack of empathy is a symptom of us not wanting, or able, to be vulnerable to others’ difficulties because of the way their feelings will make us feel. That’s why it’s important for us to get more familiar with the full range of our emotions, and not just the “good” ones.

    Here are two quick tips to help you to develop more empathy. Firstly, start with the sentence string “I imagine…” This is because it encourages you to enter your partner’s world for a moment. It encourages you to get out of your point of view and see things with fresh eyes. For example: “I imagine you must be feeling really angry and sad about what happened.”

    Secondly, notice your tendency to blame and judge. Judgment is the antithesis of empathy and should be avoided at all costs.

    Step 4: Validate your partner by telling them that what they have shared makes logical sense to you, and why.

    For reasons I am yet to fathom, we are guilt- and shame-creating machines. We love to make ourselves feel bad about what we do and create doubt about what we feel. That’s why being validated for what we feel is so important.

    The reality is we don’t have any choice about what we feel. Something happens and our body, mind, and soul respond in a certain way that’s beyond our control. We can’t select the positive emotions we want to feel in response to what’s happened and avoid the ones we dislike.

    Deep down we judge ourselves for whether our response is right/wrong or good/bad. So being told that our response makes complete sense helps us feel accepted and seen. To be told why it makes sense is like the cherry on top of the cake. It helps us feel as if someone really understands us and sees us for who we really are and how we really feel.

    —

    The intention behind saying “I’m sorry” is focused on yourself. Its primary intention is to get a quick resolution to the problem, and move on. However, the intention behind this alternative approach above is focused on your partner. This time the primary intention is to demonstrate that you understand them and to own your part in what happened.

    Apologizing and clearing resentments are two of the most important skills you can learn in a relationship. No one taught us how to do this, so instead we can regress to childhood habits in order to navigate these delicate areas. As I look back to when I started applying these changes in my relationship I’m amazed what a powerful impact it had on me and my partner.

    Coming from this new place felt freeing and very powerful. Instead of apologizing and feeling lesser or smaller, I stood taller like some weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

    The impact it had on my partner was huge. She now felt seen, understood, prioritized, and safe. She trusted me again in a much deeper way than before. That’s because when we take responsibility and apologize in this deeper way it frees us of our burdens and makes us feel more authentic and real, as a result. This can help us to use conflict in our relationship to actually improve and deepen connection and that’s a skill we could all do with.

  • You Will Be Okay

    You Will Be Okay

  • You Don’t Have to Maximize the Potential of Every Day

    You Don’t Have to Maximize the Potential of Every Day

  • The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” ~Nietzsche

    A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences found that a ninety-minute walk in nature slows our worried, troublesome thoughts about ourselves and our lives. Even better, it reduces the neural activity in parts of the brain linked to mental illness.

    On the other hand, if you spend your time walking down city sidewalks, don’t expect much. The science says you’ll have no change whatsoever in your neural activity. Or even in your thoughts about yourself.

    This means that if you’re inclined to be anxious, depressed, grieving, or harried, go find the nearest nature trail.

    But I could have told you that.

    I road tested this concept at the very worst moment in my life, in the year following the sudden death of my daughter. At the time my life had fallen apart completely. Not only had my daughter just dropped dead from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest, but a few months earlier I lost my relationship and the home that came with it.

    I’d also recently closed a successful business that had pushed me to the point of burnout. So not only did I need to grieve, I needed everything to grind to a halt. Then I needed to do a radical reboot of my entire life.

    Unable to fathom how to even begin, I found my way north to the country. Once there, I moved in with a friend.

    A nearby park with rambling blackberry lined paths beckoned to me—even in the rain soaked northern California winter. Unable to even keep two thoughts in my head at the time, the only thing I could do was to walk.

    Every day, I would pull on my rain gear and my big rubber rain boots and walk along the park’s muddy trails for hours. It was a rough and tumble place, but it was beautiful, as well. More importantly, I was alone out there as I slowly memorized every dormant blackberry bush, every rain puddle rut, and every sweeping field of grizzled grape vines.

    Sometimes I sobbed as I walked. Sometimes I smiled at the pileup of bittersweet memories that poured through my body. Sometimes unexpected ideas would pop up for things I wanted to write, or places I wanted to go. Sometimes I’d remember lost wisps of memory from my childhood, things once said to me or stories I’d been told.

    These walks became nothing less than a time of reckoning.

    Most of the time, I just needed the active motion of my legs pumping and my feet moving through the mud. I needed to feel my feet on the ground in order to somehow get a grip—and to be reminded, perhaps, that everything would eventually be okay.

    By the time summer came, I knew every path, every rock, and every tree. Gradually, my grief began to lift as my walks in nature gradually worked their magic.

    I felt held out there by something bigger than myself. More importantly, I reveled in the sheer predictability of my surroundings. It was important that I walked in this park, at this time, down these paths every day. In the absence of a job, walking these trails and letting my thoughts and feelings pour through me became my work.

    Turns out there is science behind my random decision to hike in the rain.

    Stanford University researchers have found that walking of any kind—outdoors or on a treadmill—increases our ability to hatch creative ideas. Yet, they’ve also found walking in nature actually produces the most high-quality, unique ideas. Not only that, the effect lasts when you sit down to do your work afterwards.

    I happened to have proof for this as well. Because as I walked, ideas would descend on me. I’d stew over things that bothered me. But then I found myself plumbing those experiences for some sort of meaning or lesson learned. As I uncovered these insights, I realized I needed to share them. So I began to unravel the mystery of what was to come next.

    Each day as I came back to our house, renewed and rain-soaked, I would I sit down at my computer. Then I’d write through what I’d discovered. By the following fall, I was working again in earnest. The ideas that had drifted into my consciousness as I walked now fomented into something real and tangible. So, slowly, I began again.

    These days I live in a city, though I still walk several times a week. But researchers say that’s okay, too.

    Just a stroll in a nearby park will help to clear your head. Yet, if you can’t get to the park, views of green space can also help. Simply gazing out a window at nature has been proven to yield better memory,

    This could be why the first thing I did every morning during that bleak period was to spend several moments just looking at the meadow behind my friend’s house. In the winter, a natural pond would pop up, becoming home to all manner of visiting birds.

    The scene was simple and serene, and it was so beautiful to see a white snow goose come flying in and land to take a drink. Little did I know my neurons were appreciating this as well.

    The NAS study suggests that having access to nature may become increasingly critical to our mental health as the years go on. All I know is that I now rely on a regular walk to carry me through my day. And not just any walk.

    I walk where there is natural beauty, even if it’s the small lake in the middle of my city. I’ve found it to be nothing short of a healing miracle. This truly is one that anyone can enjoy.

  • How to Set Better Boundaries: 9 Tips for People-Pleasers

    How to Set Better Boundaries: 9 Tips for People-Pleasers

    “Boundaries are a part of self-care. They are healthy, normal, and necessary.” ~Doreen Virtue

    I still have the journal entry that sparked my journey into boundary setting. It says, in striking black pen, “I wish I could speak my truth. If I can learn to speak my truth before I die, I will die a happy woman.”

    Dramatic? Maybe. But I was tired of being a pushover, a people-pleaser.

    I’d written it the day after I’d been the recipient of unwanted advances at a bar. For thirty minutes, a stranger had engaged me in aggressive conversation, peppered in flirtation, and slipped his bony hand around my waist. I’d tolerated his behavior with a fake smile before escaping to the bathroom.

    As often used to happen, I couldn’t speak up for myself. I’d waited in silence, hoping the man would mind-read my discomfort and give me space. The next morning, I took my pen and articulated what I saw as my Great Frontier in life: setting boundaries, communicating authentically, and heeding the needs of my inner self.

    This challenge presented in all areas of my life. My tendency to people-please led to a sense of imbalance in relationships with friends, lovers, and colleagues. Sometimes, it manifested as mildly as staying too long in a conversation that bored me, or offering to help a friend when I didn’t have the time. Sometimes it was as extreme as sleeping with someone I didn’t want to sleep with because I didn’t want to “hurt his feelings.”

    I was constantly betraying myself, constantly designing my life around others’ desires. The result was a life that felt mediocre, underwhelming, and not quite my own.

    From an early age, women are taught to be people-pleasing, accommodating, and self-sacrificial. Over time, we can lose our connection to our authentic, empowered selves beneath the weight of our commitments, our imbalanced relationships, and our carefully constructed personas.

    Everything changed when I went through a challenging breakup and awoke to the reality that I’d always been the sole person responsible for my own happiness.

    I realized that this was my chance to develop a nurturing, supportive relationship with my inner self: the woman beneath the performing and the people-pleasing. For the first time, I made a commitment to become my own first priority, set firm boundaries, and communicate authentically with others. The rest is history.

    If you leave conflicts wishing you’d spoken up for yourself; if you feel drained in social situations because you feel like you’re performing; if you over-commit to obligations and under-commit to activities that bring you joy; if you agree to be intimate with people, but later regret your decision; if you feel like you give much more than you receive in your relationships: this can be the year you break the pattern and begin speaking—and living—your truth.

    Here are nine tips that break down the boundary-setting journey into simple, actionable habits.

    1. Name your feelings in interactions with others.

    Challenging emotions like overwhelm, anger, and frustration can be helpful guideposts as you uncover when, where, and with whom to set boundaries. These emotions signal that others might be impinging on your personal time or space. Developing literacy with your own emotions enables you to set impactful boundaries in the future.

    Instead of pushing the feelings away, ask yourself, “What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? What would need to change for me to feel safer?”

    2. Prepare your well-being disclaimer.

    Preface conversations about boundaries with a disclaimer to set the stage for a compassionate, permissive discussion. (This can be a particularly useful tool if you’re concerned about rocking the boat by changing entrenched patterns in existing long-term relationships with family or lovers).

    Break the ice by sharing your resolution to set boundaries. Explain why it’s important to you and how you believe it will benefit you. Centering your own well-being sparks a meaningful exchange around an indisputable value: your own wellness and health.

    3. Express gratitude when others set boundaries.

    Folks who have trouble setting boundaries usually have trouble responding to boundaries set by others.

    Before I began setting my own boundaries, I often felt dismissed, angry, or rejected when friends or lovers put limits on our interactions. As I began to understand that people set boundaries to protect their own well-being, I intentionally cultivated an attitude of gratitude by responding to others with “I value your honesty” or “I appreciate you sharing that with me”—even if the boundary was hard to hear.

    These friends and lovers became my role models and helped me envision what a healthily boundaried life could look like.

    4. Practice saying “no thanks” without giving a reason.

    It’s common to feel like you need to explain your boundaries to others. But you don’t—and sometimes the simplest, most honest response is “No, thanks.” (Giving an excuse or falsifying your reasoning can ultimately leave you feeling guilty or out of alignment with your inner self.)

    Practice saying “No, thanks” and nothing more. Start small; say “No, thanks” when your housemate asks if you want to watch a TV show, or “No, thanks” to the person who wants to buy you a drink at the bar.

    5. Craft a VIP-Only list.

    Without a clear sense of your own boundaries, you may regularly overshare personal information. Though truth-telling is a powerful exercise, sharing too much too quickly can make others feel uneasy, and may leave you feeling uncomfortably overexposed.

    If you have a history of TMI, create a VIP-Only list: a list of sensitive topics that you will only discuss with trusted people who make you feel safe and seen. Using this list as a guideline will help you develop a sense of self-trust as you maintain your privacy and build a community of dependable confidants.

    6. Take a break from a toxic friendship.

    Perhaps you have a friend who constantly uses you as a sounding board for his or her dilemmas, or asks for favors but never gives in return. Perhaps you have a friend whose personal struggles impose on your own sense of well-being.

    One of the most difficult, yet most rewarding forms of boundary setting is to take a break from the relationships that no longer serve you.

    If you have a one-sided friendship that leaves you feeling unseen, unheard, or disrespected, resolve to take a break from that relationship. And remember: It is not selfish or cruel to put your own well-being first. Healthy friendships are reciprocal and mutually nourishing, not one-sided and depleting.

    7. Create a post-boundary-setting mantra.

    If you have a history of people-pleasing, setting boundaries will be a major adjustment to old patterns, complete with the requisite growing pains. As such, it’s totally normal to feel guilty, selfish, or embarrassed after setting a (completely valid) boundary.

    Be gentle with yourself and acknowledge that your boundary-setting muscle takes time to develop. In the meantime, prepare a mantra to refer to after setting difficult boundaries with others. It can be as simple as: “I set boundaries to feel safe,” or “Setting boundaries is an act of self-love.”

    Your mantra can be your anchor, a permanent reminder that this journey, though difficult, has your best interests at heart.

    8. Designate a cheerleader.

    Throughout my boundary-setting process, I benefitted immensely by sharing my successes with a best friend who cheered me on at every turn. She bore witness to my journey and helped me acknowledge my progress when I was feeling self-critical.

    Set yourself up for success by designating a cherished friend, family member, or partner to be your boundary cheerleader. Explain your intention to set better boundaries and your desire for a supportive buddy throughout the process. When you set a new boundary, let your cheerleader know, and carve out the space—in person, over the phone, or with a high-five emoji—for the two of you to celebrate your success.

    9. Imagine how your life will be different.

    Instead of focusing on oversharing and people-pleasing less, imagine the many ways you will benefit from setting boundaries. Gently allow yourself to imagine how your life will be different when you begin to speak your truth. How will you change? How will your daily life become richer? How might you feel more authentic in your relationships? Keep your vision at the forefront as you make the decisions that are best for you, day by day.

    —

    Boundaries are tools that enable us to feel safe, strong, and empowered in our relationships. As your journey progresses, you’ll begin to feel more empowered by the truth that it’s not only your right, but your duty, to make the choices that are best for you.

  • Just Take It One Day at a Time

    Just Take It One Day at a Time

  • What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    “I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way. The challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul’s growth.” ~ Marianne Williamson

    At the age of nine, I was sitting in a doctor’s office at Baylor University with both of my parents when we were all told I wouldn’t live to see twenty-three. The doctor casually told us my dad would probably never get to walk me down the aisle and I’d likely never make my mom a grandmother, but there was great chicken pot pie in the cafeteria on the first floor.

    Enjoy the rest of your day.

    Eight months later, on my tenth birthday, the possibility of my dad walking me down the aisle was permanently taken away when he died suddenly of an aortic and thoracic aneurysm. He had the same genetic abnormality I have, which caused the aneurysm, so by my logic, confirmed by the doctors, my demise was not far behind.

    I had no idea the day I turned ten, the day I lost my dad, my misguided and broken heart gifted me a license to be entitled and reckless until the day I died. Which, according to the medical community, wasn’t that far away.

    Let me back the medical drama bus up back to the day in Texas at the hospital just for a quick, minor detail to note.

    That day my dad and I were simultaneously diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome.

    In a very tiny nutshell, it’s a connective tissue disorder found on the fibrillin one gene. It essentially weakens all connective tissue in the body. The result is a body whose heart, lungs, eyes, and spine are severely impacted. A prominent and common feature with this condition is “abnormal” height. People affected are relatively tall (I’m 6’2”, my dad was 6’9”).

    For precautionary purposes, we both stopped participating in any activities that raise the heartbeat, to decrease the risk of having an aneurysm or potentially causing damage to the face due to dislocation of the lens in the eye.

    No contact sports, no exercising, no gym at school. I was basically told I could walk, bowl, or golf. I hated sports anyway, so I was excited to not have to dress for gym.

    This consequently led to a lifetime of comments like “You don’t play basketball or volleyball?! That’s a shame!” or “Omg, you’re so tall!” As if I wasn’t already painfully aware, but I digress…

    Point being, I was told from a very young age on a fairly regular basis, “You can’t.” So I learned to habitually answer, “I can’t” every time someone asked me to do pretty much anything.

    What possible negative effects could this have?

    I couldn’t see it at the time, but this led to a lifetime of constantly assessing every situation based on whether it was going to speed up my untimely death or not.

    I didn’t learn how to question whether or not I liked things but whether or not it was something that was going to kill me sooner or later. In turn, I missed a million opportunities to get to know who I was as a young woman.

    All I knew and all I was told were all the things I couldn’t do all the time.

    This short-term life span turned my life into a short-term life plan. Soon enough the emotional pains of being a teenager and the new kid in high school, along with unresolved daddy issues, kicked into high gear, and I had no idea how to deal with any of it.

    So, I drank. A lot.

    The rest of high school and most of college was a blur. I got married at twenty-three because, well, time was running out for me. And then, when I was twenty-four, doctors told me my life expectancy had suddenly increased to forty.

    (If there’s one emoji to express how I felt it would be the face with the wide eyes and red cheeks that looks like he would say “Oh sh*t!” if he could talk.)

    I panicked and started trying to speed up the clock. Living wasn’t for me. I wasn’t raised to live; I was raised to die. Live all the places, have a baby, buy the stuff, laugh all the laughs, and then die.

    This is where my excessive drinking turned into full-blown alcoholism and prescription drug addiction.

    I was either going to OD or make my heart explode, but I wasn’t going to stick around. I must note that none of this was planned, intentional, or a suicide mission. In my mind at the time, I literally didn’t know what else to do, not even how to ask for help.

    So, someone asked for help for me. Rehab is a whole other blog.

    I’m thirty-nine now, well past my expiration date, and still learning how to live life today. In my drinking days, life revolved around morbid reflection. In early sobriety, life revolved around morbid projection. Today life revolves around just this day. This hour. This moment.

    When one of my coaches asks me to journal about how I want my life to look in five years or where I want my business to be long term, I still don’t know how to answer that.

    I don’t understand long term. And for the longest time, I always thought that to be a nightmarish curse. Until now. 

    My inability to see life long-term seems to be all the rage these days. There’s Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Deepak Chopra all preaching about being present, being here now, and being there with the spirit of love, and I’m over here wondering how long the two-week wait to hear if this gets published is going to feel or if I’ll be around to see it go live.

    When you think about it, we’re all terminal. No one gets out of here alive. Yet we all run around like we’re going to cheat death.

    We run out of joy staying married to jobs, people, and places we are no longer passionate about. We’ve forgotten how to be happy because we’ve made it so elusive.

    It only feels elusive because we’ve spent our time wrong. We’ve spent our time focusing on how we can create a living for ourselves instead of how to create a life for our hearts, and the only way to do that is to get to know yourself first.

    In designing my life by listening to my heart, I discovered a few things along the way.

    I learned that we habitually state we are human beings, but we spend too much time doing. We get stuck in the how and what next instead of being right where our feet are in that moment. I learned to create space and presence for life to happen organically instead of allowing my mind to race with perceived fears.

    Living in each moment used to mean living as recklessly as possible and constantly challenging the odds just to see if I would make it. Today, living in each moment means being driven by what my heart is calling me to do.

    I’ve learned to take the time to figure out what the voice of my heart sounds like instead of the blazing of doubt in my mind. This finally allowed me to see what felt light and right in my life and allowed everything that feels heavy to fall to the way side.

    Heart driven. Soul led.

    This journey was started by a seed that was planted three decades ago. The seed called “I can’t” grew into a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with destruction, heartbreak, sorrow, and the urge to run from everything.

    When I stopped running (drinking, using, blaming, complaining) and learned to be still with myself and all that had encompassed my life, an entirely new life was born.

    In designing my life and healing my soul, I have found that happiness can be found in big moments like reuniting with my soulmate, winning a competition, or leaping into a new career. It can also be found in the smaller moments like watching my child choose a book instead of watching television, receiving flowers just because, or just being grateful for the sunshine.

    But I have found I am the happiest and most content when I am meditating, creating a safe space for others, and playing. Playing like a child on a daily basis is where it’s at. Whether I’m writing, coaching, baking, or gluing rhinestones on anything I can get my hands on, that’s where I’m at complete peace.

    And that (happiness) seems to be the individual goal of most people I meet, but it doesn’t seem to translate into the collective thinking. That’s where I’ve found the hiccup. The getting tied up in what we see everyone else doing, where everyone else is succeeding, and then wondering why we don’t have that perfect slice of peace pie that everyone else seems to have.

    The hardest thing I’ve learned is there is no special sauce, no magical happiness-to-sadness ratio, and no one-size-fits-all solution. We each have to define happiness for ourselves.

    For me, this means doing the work. It looks like me getting brutally honest with my past, mending my mistakes, giving love to every person I meet, and telling those who are close to me what’s really going on every day.

    This connects me to you and you to me, and this is ultimately the biggest lesson I learned.

    We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want permission to be ourselves. I’ve experienced what that feels like, and now I’m living a life that I was told would never happen. I stopped believing other people’s opinions of me, my life, and where they think it should be when I realized those opinions and thoughts are about what’s missing from their life, not mine.

    There is no slice of peace pie waiting for you or for me. We each have our own pie to flavor, bake, and share. I guess that would be called Purpose Pie. I sit in gratitude every day I have found my pie and am able to share with all who are hungry.

    All of this because they told me I was going to die and the hospital chicken pot pie was nice.

  • It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    “Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    In late 2017 my husband and I were both getting ready for work one morning when I casually said, “Hey, I think I’m going to start teaching yoga in the jail.”

    Without missing a beat my husband said, “Well, that’s a terrible idea. Why would you do that?”

    He gave this comment as a statement, flat and decisive. I had suspected I would get this type of response, so I tried to play it cool, like it didn’t bother me. But it still stung a bit, since I had hoped for his support.

    As a long-time yoga teacher, I was excited about the opportunity to serve those who could potentially receive the practice’s mind-body benefits and who also might not have access to or have experienced yoga before.

    I knew I wasn’t going to fix them with a single yoga class, but I hoped by connecting with someone who saw them as whole and unbroken, they’d know they don’t have to be defined by their current situation.  

    My husband, on the other hand, saw it through the eyes of a police detective who specializes in crimes against children. He has seen the worst in human behavior on levels you and I can’t even begin to imagine. Additionally, he had worked in the very jail I was going to. He knew much better than I, with my dialed-up altruism, what could go wrong.

    He is an outstanding human being, as is almost every single police officer I’ve met. His misgivings were based in a reality I had never experienced but one he had the first-hand experience of.

    I understood his concerns, but my pride and ego were still hurt because he didn’t support the work I wanted to do.

    I went ahead and pursued teaching with the support of the Prison Yoga Project and ended up teaching the female inmates at the county jail.

    In the early weeks, my husband and I continued our unofficial cold war and didn’t talk much about what I did. But that didn’t affect my enthusiasm.

    I love my work at the jail. My students are as diverse as an exclusive studio’s clientele. I’ve had pregnant women, a mother-daughter duo, young, old, and a few who’ve gotten out only to come back a few weeks later.

    I never ask what they’re in for, but their tattoos tell more about their lives than I could read in their record—the deep grief for all they’ve lost engraved in black and smeared faded colors on their skin.

    The most common tattoos are in memory of people who’ve died. I wonder if there is something temporarily soothing to literally feel the pain of grief being etched into their skin and buried under the surface. I only have to look at the tattoo on my own wrist in memory of my son to know the answer.

    In the months that followed that initial conversation, my husband and both began to soften our stance. I found him to be a good resource for some questions I had about legal procedures or other things that came up, and he was curious about the women and their yoga experience.

    Then one day a few months back he came home and shared that a long, emotionally difficult case he’d been working on had wrapped up. The woman was sentenced to one year in the jail where I was working.

    He admitted he felt a moment anger that she would be able to take yoga classes after what she’d done. But then, he took a breath, sighed, and said that he would rather see her have the chance to come out better than to hurt any other children. We both softened.

    Within a week I too had a moment of questioning my decision to work with inmates. In an altercation with a man who was strung out on drugs and unhinged with violence, one of my husband’s co-workers was injured so badly he needed to be hospitalized. The perpetrator was arrested and taken to the jail where I teach.

    It was my turn to be angry and imagine that this man (or someone like him) could’ve hurt or killed my husband. Did I really want to support someone who could threaten one of the most valuable things in my life?

    I felt so deeply conflicted. Then I wondered if my husband felt betrayed by me because I was teaching at the jail. Did he feel I was either with him or against him? And did I expect him to be with me in my altruism or else he was against me?

    Either/Or and Both/And Mindsets

    Life is too often defined as either this or that. And, it seems, when we choose our side we must also choose all the things that are aligned with that side. For example, if I’m a woo-woo yoga teacher then I must be against the police. Our culture increasingly demands that we stake our claim, unwaveringly.

    When we fall into the trap of an either/or mindset we shut ourselves off from opportunities, connections, and relationships that could alleviate suffering for people on both sides of the issue.

    Either/or thinking is divisive at best. It places us firmly in our own silos, cloistering us in an imaginary us versus them utopia, whereas “both/and” thinking creates community and connection. It allows us to begin to build webs of supports that extend beyond our own ability to impact change.

    Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the either/or conflict when you discover that your favorite co-worker supports the opposite political party. You feel your stomach tighten and then extrapolate what else they must believe that you find offensive. These mental games likely result in feeling that you’re at war with this person, resulting in your work relationship suffering.

    A great place to start to transition to both/and thinking is to use the Zen Buddhist tenant of “not knowing.” When we open to the fact we don’t know everything about the situation it softens us.

    In the example of your coworker, perhaps they’ve been influenced by different life experiences that have shaped their beliefs and opinions about what’s best for our country and the people in it. And perhaps you even share similar values but hold different perspectives about the best approach to honoring them.

    When you consider that people who seem against you may also have good intentions, it’s easier to find common ground and work together instead of against each other.

    When my husband and I began to see our situation as both/and not either/or it was much easier to see how each of us could positively impact the individual systems we work in and, even in a small way, create healing for those involved.

    Recently in my Buddhist Chaplain studies, we looked at systems using Donella Meadows’ model. In her book, Thinking in Systems, she says, “You think that because you understand ‘one’ that you must, therefore, understand ‘two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.’”

    Seeing that my husband’s work is necessary and my work is necessary, even within the same situation, is a powerful force that creates change.

    It would be easy to put me in my woo-woo yogi silo and my husband in the cop silo. Instead, we agreed to focus on both our work and how the overlap can be an opportunity to dissolve the hard lines of either/or thinking and look for the places where “and” exists. Then we lean deeply into those places, because these are the tender places of real change.

    We need to learn to make our silos more permeable.

    One of the other things I’ve learned in my Buddhist Chaplain program is that when we consider the best way to positively impact how a system is functioning, we can start by focusing close in, then zooming out.

    If I am standing in the middle of a river I can feel the power of the flowing water, but when I stand on a mountaintop and look down at the same river it can look calm and peaceful. Both of those perceptions of the river are correct, but I’ve changed my vantage point.

    When we feel ourselves being asked to take an either/or position we can take a moment to zoom out and in to find balance in our perspective taking. We need to do both, get wet and get distance!

    Another negative outcome of the either/or mindset is that it forces us to find blame. When I assume the either/or mindset in a situation, then by default the person who is opposing me must be incorrect and therefore is also to blame when things go wrong. When we are looking for someone to blame it takes us out of accountability for our own actions and it removes us from being empathetic to another person.

    Without empathy, it is very hard to come from a place of compassion. And without compassion, we de-humanize the other person. The result of dehumanization is believing that the other person is less than us and therefore deserving of whatever bad things come their way.

    In the case of my husband and the woman he sent to jail, rather than dehumanize her with an either/or mindset, he saw her as both human and deserving of something good, while she took responsibility for her action.

    Each time we choose a both/and mindset over an either/or mindset we release ourselves from having to find someone to blame and we stay connected to our human experience without dehumanizing another person.

    A both/and mindset doesn’t mean we have to let go of being change-makers in the world. The world needs change-makers now more than ever. But there will never be peace and compassion in the world if we can’t do both—get in the river to feel the power and climb the mountain to see the calm. As one of my teachers at the Upaya Institute said, “A nudge of calm can shift a storm.” Be the nudge, not the storm.

  • May Your Coming Year Be Filled With…

    May Your Coming Year Be Filled With…

  • Ditch the Resolutions

    Ditch the Resolutions

  • I’m Proud of How I Handled This Year

    I’m Proud of How I Handled This Year

  • Tomorrow Is the First Blank Page of a 365 Page Book

    Tomorrow Is the First Blank Page of a 365 Page Book

  • Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Older
    Beautiful inside and out—
    Invisible

    I gave a little start when those words flashed onto the screen during a presentation by the poet Elizabeth Bradfield. Liz was in the process of describing six-word memoirs, modeled on Hemingway’s heartbreaking story For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.

    The photograph showed a wall from the 6 Words Minneapolis project, in which city residents were asked to briefly describe themselves. This entry spoke directly to an experience I’d been having of late but hadn’t quite been able to name.

    Consider: I smile at a young couple who are walking with their baby out of the grocery store as I enter. Their eyes flit briefly over my face and body without expression.

    Waiting in a loose group of people for service at a food truck—there doesn’t seem to be a line—the fellow taking orders looks straight at me and then asks the guy in back of me what he’d like.

    In a park a young couple finishes a photo shoot for their engagement pictures and walk toward me on a narrow gravel path. I smile and say, “Beautiful day.” They squint and pass by as if they’ve heard a noise but can’t place what it might be.

    Every time this happens, it shocks me. I’m not that old! A little wrinkled, yes, but not even close to elderly.

    True, I can’t know exactly what was going on in each of these instances. Maybe the couple with the baby were in the middle of an argument. Maybe the man behind me at the food truck had somehow gotten there first. The couple in the park—that one’s hard to explain away. I was right in front of them. But maybe they didn’t hear me.

    Still, this kind of thing happens to me a lot now, and I’ve got to think it’s because, as a somewhat older woman, people routinely overlook me.

    I guess I have no right to be surprised, because at a younger age I behaved exactly the same way. Working for newspapers in my twenties, I counted myself among the young reporters who were (we flattered ourselves) the only ones doing cutting-edge journalism.

    We paid scant attention to articles by our colleagues older than forty—who, I realize now, had a great deal they could have taught us. The same was true in my thirties and even forties when I was a freelance writer. Like many of my contemporaries, I wished the old fogeys would get out of the way and give us youngsters room to forge new ground.

    I should have seen this coming.

    Still, my new membership in society’s invisible masses comes as a shock. While I don’t have any studies to back this up, I suspect that older women are overlooked more frequently than older men. No surprise there. But am I overreacting?

    On a subway one day Jeff, my guy, nudges me and nods toward two gray-haired women who stand hanging onto a pole, deep in conversation. There’s something about them—their stances, their passion as they talk—that exudes strength.

    “Are they invisible?” he asks. He’s been skeptical of my complaints and insistent that lots of women older than me are anything but unseen. I have to admit: he’s got a point with these two. I can’t hear their conversation, but I’d bet they’re talking about something important, maybe a social issue that they feel passionately about. I wonder how I can get some of what they’ve got. Whatever it is, I want it.

    Or maybe I already have it. While aging has made me a little less sure of myself in some ways, I trust my instincts more, and I’m much more grounded in my beliefs. I’m more aware of what’s going on around me. I wouldn’t make the same dumb mistakes I might have made at the height of my sex appeal—say, walking into a dark alley with a man I didn’t know well because I was too polite to object.

    I can take solace in the fact that older women have a more vibrant role in society than ever before. Look at the number of women in Congress who are over seventy. Many writers, artists, and actresses continue to work into their seventies and eighties, even their nineties. I don’t have to quietly fade away unless I choose to. And something tells me I won’t.

    I wish I could meet the woman who penned that six-word story. There’s a lot more to it than the word “invisible,” and I find myself nodding my head each time I reread it.

    Yes, I’m beautiful now inside and out, in a way I’ve never been before. I’m calmer and more forgiving of those around me, and of myself. I’m better at not getting dragged into the drama of others’ lives. I often say I wouldn’t trade this body for my twenty-year-old self unless I could retain all the lessons life has taught me. Beauty without wisdom holds no appeal.

    In recent years I’ve tried to move a bit more humbly through the world, letting others go before me. Watching and loving, rather than taking control.

    I think back to the times in junior high and high school when I did everything possible to blend in, mostly from an insecurity I no longer feel. There’s a freedom to being unremarkable, I suppose. It just never occurred to me that as I aged, this role would be handed to me, rather than chosen by me.

    Even if society’s default mode is to relegate me to the background, I still have plenty of options. I can find ways to push myself forward—like I did last week at a seminar, when a well-known horticulturist dismissed me after I’d said hello to him. He smiled at me and turned to greet the older man beside me.

    “I have a question,” I announced firmly, which brought the horticulturist up short and his attention graciously back to me.

    Or, depending on my mood, I can settle for the contentment that I’ve earned. I’ve fought on the front lines in plenty of battles. I’ll probably insert myself into a few more before my days here are through.

    To my surprise, though, most of the time now I find that I’m happy for someone else to steer this starship. This goes hand-in-glove with one of the lessons that keeps getting thrown at me: Acceptance of what life presents me with—and forgiveness of those who overlook me—is a lot easier than fighting things I have no chance of changing.

    Back here I can quietly take stock of each new situation. I more readily notice people like me and other overlooked folks. What can they teach me? Calmer, quieter, and no longer constantly seeking the spotlight, I find I have nothing to prove. I can simply be. Isn’t this peacefulness what I longed for in my earlier years? How can I use it now to do the kinds of things I couldn’t accomplish with energy and verve in my younger life?

    This is my heart’s new work—part of it, anyway. The rest is encompassed in my own six-word story:

    Forgiveness begets peace. Infuriating, but true.