Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • We Can’t Do Everything, But We Can Do More Than We Think

    We Can’t Do Everything, But We Can Do More Than We Think

    “There are plenty of obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.” ~Ralph Marston

    I was sitting in a self-improvement course listening to the facilitator’s instructions. “I want you to come up with a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal,” she announced. “This needs to be a stretch, something where you really put skin in the game. You have seven weeks to reach this goal.”

    The rest of her instructions trailed off as I thought about which area of my life I wanted to improve. I overheard a few of my classmates talking to each other about their lofty physical goals. My body contracted when I heard them talking. I shrunk into my shame.

    I couldn’t even run a 5k, I thought. I had lost my leg in a car accident thirty years previous and while there were many things I could do, running was not one of them. These days just walking was hard.

    During our break, I found a place to be alone and take counsel with myself. I felt myself resisting the obvious goal. I sat down and shut my eyes. Can I do it? Can I walk a mile?

    As I sat there, I thought about the first time I went backpacking after I lost my leg and how proud I was. I thought of the other physical adventures I’d had in my twenties: skiing, rock climbing, scuba diving, and skydiving.

    But those experiences were so long ago. Not only had two pregnancies and aging changed my body, but I had just spent the past two years getting a new prosthetic leg made. Since I wasn’t able to walk much during the two-year fitting process, I had lost a lot of muscle and stamina; walking had become painful and difficult. I had walked out of my prosthetist’s office on my new state-of the-art leg just a month ago. Yes, I thought, it is time to regain my walking feet.

    Back at the conference room, we each stood up in front of the group and pronounced our goal. They say, “When we compare we fall into despair” and that was certainly true for me when I heard other people declare their goals; I fell further and further into self-judgment.

    Listen to her, she’s going to run a half-marathon. You’re just going to walk a mile. Big deal. You’re such a loser.  

    But a wiser voice inside of me spoke up, Wait a second. She has two legs; you only have one. Just focus on where you are right now.

    When it was time for me to declare my goal, I went to the front of the room, took a deep breath, and said, “I am going to walk every day. I’ll start by walking down the street. Every day I’ll walk a little farther. My goal is to walk one mile.” I felt both excited and scared.

    The next day I took my first walk. I walked down the block and back again. A burning ache filled my stump, forcing me stop and rest halfway through. The next day I walked two blocks and back.

    Buoyed by my small success, I walked all the way around the block on the third day. The constrictive pain in my stump was intense and deep. With each consecutive walk, I learned how to deal with the pain, either by stopping to rest or by relaxing into it.

    By the end of the third week I had achieved my goal: I had walked one mile! I continued to walk a mile a day for the rest of the course. At the end of the sixth week, I took a hike in the woods—four miles round trip. I was overjoyed, not only to walk so far, but to be back in the woods on a dirt path amidst the evergreen trees and the dappled sun.

    After the course was finished, I wanted to keep walking but I knew I needed incentive and accountability. I also wanted my walking to mean something.

    I found an organization that helps amputees in developing countries have access to prosthetic legs. That was it. I pitched my idea—a walking campaign to walk 100 miles in 100 days for 100 legs—and they loved it! A few weeks later I started my walking campaign. I walked a mile a day for one hundred days and raised $14,000, almost half of my goal.

    After all these years of being an amputee, I still struggle with many of the same issues two-legged folks struggle with: motivation, attitude, gumption. When I remember to adopt these four attitudes and, believe me, I don’t always remember, then I find my life is much happier.

    First, I’m curious about my inner dialogue.

    Am I critical and judgmental, or am I my own best cheerleader? I’ve learned to chat with both my Inner Gremlin and my Inner Guide. They both have something to teach me. My Inner Gremlin talks first and then my Inner Guide chimes in. They sound something like this: 

    Inner Gremlin: It takes you twice as long as normal people to hike up this trail. You’re such a loser. You should just give up and go home. Who wants to hike with you when you’re so slow?  

    Inner Guide: Just because you’re slow doesn’t make you a loser. You are actually quite persistent and tenacious. Good for you!

    Until I met my Inner Guide I can say, unequivocally, that my negative self-talk, my Inner Gremlin, was a far bigger limitation for me than my amputation.

    Second, I focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t do.

    When I was in college I had a lot of friends who excelled at physical activities. I had one friend who canoed the Arctic every other summer, another who was a white water rafting guide. Other friends climbed local mountains just for fun on the weekends. When I looked to them as mirrors for what I could be they were both inspiring and I felt defeated before I began.

    No, I couldn’t heli-ski in fresh powder, but I did learn to ski on one leg. I couldn’t scale a mountain, but I discovered that I could backpack five miles.

    I had to determine what I wanted from these experiences and then find ways to get that. I had to discover what value I received from these activities and find new, altered, or accommodated ways to get that value. If I can’t climb a mountain, how can I find adventure in another way?

    Honoring my limitations taught me how to find the value in my activities.

    Third, I try to be honest with myself.

    When I was in my mid-twenties, I met a fifty-year-old amputee who had crutched to the top of Mt. Rainier. When I asked him how he did it, his recipe included a healthy dollop of weight lifting, a big cup of practice (which meant crutching around local parks with as many hills as possible), and a huge amount of grit.

    I tried crutching around my neighborhood for a week and discovered something. For as badly as I wanted to be at the top of Mt. Rainier, for as much as I wanted to say I had climbed Mt. Rainier, I didn’t want to train to climb Mt. Rainier. I had to stare that reality in the face for what it was.

    My limitation had nothing to do with my disability and everything to do with my mind. I didn’t want to put the time, energy and sweat into a training program that would get me to the top of the mountain. Once I saw this for what it was: a lack of desire for the whole package, I was okay with not climbing Mt. Rainier.

    That doesn’t make me a loser. It makes me a woman who doesn’t like to sweat.

    Fourth, I embrace the paradox.

    I can accept and accommodate my limitations and still have moments of anger or sadness about them. I can feel motivated and be frustrated that it takes me so much effort to walk. We deny ourselves true access to our hearts when we deny our feelings.

    It’s okay to feel frustrated, angry, or sad, but there’s always that extra step that leads us to the path of acceptance: choice. I have learned how to give my frustration, sadness, or anger a little time and then I move on.

    We all have limitations. Even a rocket scientist probably isn’t going to make the best kindergarten teacher. Someone who’s tone-deaf will never be an opera singer. Whether our limitations are inflicted upon us from the outside or come from within, they force us to discover and embrace our strengths.

  • You Can’t Force Them to Change

    You Can’t Force Them to Change

  • Freeing Yourself from Problems and Habits by Seeing That You’re Already Free

    Freeing Yourself from Problems and Habits by Seeing That You’re Already Free

    “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Imagine there is a river running through you.

    Your entire experience of life flows through you, down that river. Everything you think, feel, and do passes through, powered by the current of the river.

    Your emotions, your opinions, your sense of identity … your habits, diagnoses, and choices … they aren’t still or solid, sitting somewhere. They are brought to life, felt, and then they drift away. They are in constant motion, naturally replaced with a revolving stream of new experience.

    You aren’t responsible for what flows down the river.

    The particular thoughts and feelings that show up aren’t yours. You didn’t put them there and, in most cases, you didn’t choose them. They are simply part of the flow of life.

    Your thoughts and feelings don’t come from the world outside the river; they can’t. What flows down the river is born of the river. What that means, in human terms (since this is a metaphor for how human life works, after all) is that what you feel originates within you. Life out there—your relationships, job, body, health, or any circumstance at all—cannot create or dictate your experience. Your experience begins and ends within you.

    You (what you call me) are not the contents of the river. You are what remains when all has passed through. The contents of the river are in perpetual flux. You are what never changes.

    It’s an incredible design! Can you get a feel for who you are? For the fleeting and safe nature of your experience?

    You are awareness of life itself. The things you witness don’t stick. This means there is nothing to avoid, fear, change, or chase away. The current takes care of that for you, endlessly updating your experience in each and every moment.

    If this is an accurate metaphor for human life, why do we feel so stuck at times? Why does our experience look so repetitive, and why do our issues appear to linger and weigh us down?

    It’s simple: we misunderstand the design.

    No one told you life worked this way, so you identify with and latch onto what flows down the river. You say things like I had this thought. I don’t like this feeling. I should be different. I can’t believe I did/said/thought/felt that.

    It’s happening within you, after all.

    You, like all people, miss the fact that your experience isn’t you. It isn’t serious. It’s life taking temporary form, expressing itself through you. Then flowing downstream making way for new and different temporary expressions.

    Your well-being and your essential nature are ultimately unaffected by what washes over you. But when you don’t realize that, you innocently get in the way of the natural flow. We all do.

    When what’s flowing through you looks personal and stable, of course you try to fix or change it. You jump in the river that is flowing and recycling perfectly on its own. You stand in the flow with your bucket, scooping up water that was trying to flow downstream. You carry that bucket around, showing everyone proof of your problems.

    “See!” you say. “It’s right here in my bucket!” You replay what you did yesterday and fixate on fears and worries about what will happen tomorrow. When it looks like life out there can hurt us, or like what flows through us can hurt us, we’re filled with anxiety about what might show up next. Then we wonder why change feels so hard.

    “There must be a problem with me,” we conclude. We’re broken. There is a problem in our design. 

    But make no mistake—you and the design of life are perfect. The only problem is your innocent misunderstanding of the source of your experience. The innocent misunderstanding (shared with virtually everyone on earth) of how the river operates.

    Seeing through these misunderstandings changes everything. When people catch a glimpse of the resilient, health-affirming design of life, they uncover the wellbeing that has always been there.

    It no longer makes sense to say that you “have” a habit, trait, or issue. You experience thoughts, feelings, and behaviors but they don’t have to linger or leave a mark. They aren’t personal.

    When I was caught up in bulimia several years ago, binging and purging, I was furiously treading water in that river. ‘Furiously’ because that looked like the only way to survive.

    Everything looked important, personal, and meaningful. What I ate, when I ate, how life appeared within and around me.

    I was trying to keep from drowning in my own anxieties and destructive habits. Flailing about, trying to force change in my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors was all I knew to do.

    I didn’t realize that life as I knew it was being created within me, moment to moment. Life wasn’t happening to me. I wasn’t feeling the effects of my past or my weight or some mental flaw I possessed.

    I didn’t realize it was possible to watch the river from its banks. That my experience didn’t brand me with diagnoses and labels that meant something deep or stable about me.

    Labels and diagnoses describe some of the thoughts and behaviors we experience at a particular point in time, from particular states of mind. They describe the contents of any given bucket of water taken from the river.

    “This one is murky.” “This one is clear.” Those are labels that describe the water in a bucket in one given moment. They don’t describe water, or the river, as a whole. They are a snapshot.

    “Obsessed about food today,” “Felt peaceful and wise,” “Felt scared and hopeless.”  Those are natural, impersonal, human snapshots of experience that we innocently take way too seriously. We label ourselves with what’s moving through us, but if it’s moving through, how much sense do those labels really make?

    Fresh, new water is always coming. We simply need to look upstream rather than downstream to see that there is nothing to fix.

    As I explored this river and how human experience really works, I noticed one day that life felt lighter. I was no longer carrying buckets around.

    I became naturally less tangled in the flow of life. The past—whether it’s five years or five seconds ago—does not exist. It’s amazing how much easier life flows when you aren’t taking stock of the past or preparing for the future. When you aren’t trying to control or change what shows up.

    There is enormous hope for everyone—our incredible design ensures it. Anything that burdens you can wash away to reveal the health and well-being that is within you right now.

    **While many are able to heal solely through understanding their design, for others, this may only be part of the process, and they may benefit from other forms of professional help. All healing journeys are unique. What’s important is that you find and do what’s best for you.

  • No Drama, No Stress, No Work, No Worries

    No Drama, No Stress, No Work, No Worries

  • Cheers to All the Rebels

    Cheers to All the Rebels

  • You Aren’t the Things That Haunt You

    You Aren’t the Things That Haunt You

  • The Most Compassionate Words and How They Heal

    The Most Compassionate Words and How They Heal

    “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” ~Dalai Lama.

    It wasn’t until my mother died that I was able to feel her love and have that mother-daughter relationship that I’d been craving all my life. It was not until she died that I was able to learn, and truly feel, compassion—for her and for me.

    I’ve always known that compassion for others is a nice thing. We all know that. But it wasn’t until I truly felt it that I was able to create a deep sense of healing.

    My mum and I always had a strange relationship. Abused as a child and never able to reclaim her power, she was a tormented soul, and she was unable to be the mother she wanted to be. I was empathetic with this; I took it on and was unable to be the daughter I could be. It was like there was a wall between us, and we were unable to connect as a regular mother and daughter.

    I remembered all the times when her promises fell through. I remembered all the times when she yelled at me as a kid. I remembered all the times when she’d manipulate me in a big custody battle. I remembered some good times too, of course, but they were fleeting, and they passed all too quickly.

    I remembered when she told me she only had six months to live; she’d been struggling with self-inflicted cancers from having drank and smoked all her life in order to cope with the heavy weight on her shoulders.

    I remembered visiting her in palliative care and her seeming hopeful that she would be out of there soon, reunited with her dog.

    I remembered seeing her two weeks later, on her final night, and wondering what she was thinking, wondering what she was feeling with that final breath, knowing that relief was finally coming her way.

    The waves of grief hit me harder and harder, until, over a year later, I found myself crying for almost forty-eight hours straight.

    I felt for her never being able to live the life she could have lived. I felt for her trauma. There wasn’t much sadness of my own. I didn’t miss having a mother who was never present. All my feelings were for her.

    There were no words. The sadness I felt for her and what sadness I felt for myself had merged into a convoluted mess. My body was unable to process it all.

    One day, as I was remembering a difficult time, I decided to tune into myself as a child. All I really wanted was to be understood and acknowledged. So, addressing the child version of me, at that point in time, I said to her: I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    And oh, the relief I felt!

    I repeated that phrase to myself as a child over and over until I felt my body soften.

    I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    I felt okay. I was safe. I was seen. I was heard. I was understood. I could finally let go and breathe.

    But I realized, at that point in time, my mum also need to be seen, heard, and understood.

    So I gave to her what I gave to myself.

    I said to her: I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    I repeated it over and over and over again until I felt her soften, let go, and finally be able to breathe. We both felt lighter and freer than we’d ever felt before. The sadness, the heaviness, the darkness—it simply melted away.

    I knew I was onto a good thing here, so I revisited various points in time, including my mum’s childhood when she was scared and traumatized, and including during her final days when she knew she was dying. I said to myself, and I said to my mum, this chant of compassion, which I found myself extending to the following:

    I see you.
    I hear you.
    I feel you.
    I honor you.
    I love you.
    Thank you.

    As I said each phrase, I meant each word with every cell of my body. I truly felt it.

    It was important to me to give love and to thank her and myself in those various points in time for the opportunity to expand my capacity for love and compassion.

    I found that when I am in a state of ever-expanding love and compassion, I am able to truly feel free. And for that, I am truly thankful.

    Extending our capacity for love and compassion toward ourselves, and those who have hurt us, also expands our capacity for love and compassion toward everyone and everything. I truly believe that if everyone were to proactively expand their capacity for love and compassion, the world would not only be a better place, but it would be the perfect place.

    I have found uses for this beyond grief, beyond our own healing, and beyond healing for other people. I have even found using this chant of compassion helpful in dealing with guilt from anything and everything—for people suffering road rage, for the cruelly treated caged animals in this world, for the injustices of our governments, even for the murderers, rapists, and terrorists, for they too are suffering deep within.

    I am now of the belief that the purpose of all hurt is to teach us love and compassion. For if we cannot grow from this, then there was no purpose for it. And if we can all grow from it, then humanity as a whole grows from it.

    I know I am particularly fortunate in my white middle class upbringing, and I know it may seem very easy for me to say that compassion makes the world go round, but I’ve also known great mental torment and grief. I have felt it with every cell of my body. And I know that this one simple practice has helped me to soften, and to free myself from the dissonance between my heart and my mind.

    If you are feeling loss, grief, hurt, or heartache, I encourage you to try this chant of compassion for yourself. Mean every word of it. Feel every word as you say it. Repeat it over and over, as often as you need, until you feel your body soften:

    I see you.
    I hear you.
    I feel you.
    I honor you.
    I love you.
    Thank you.

    Say it to yourself as you are feeling now. Say it to yourself in the past. Say it to people who are hurting you. Say it to people who have hurt you in the past.

    Feel yourself soften. Feel them soften. Allow yourself to expand your capacity for love and compassion. Give yourself this gift to set yourself free.

  • I’m Still Moving Forward, Growing Stronger Every Day

    I’m Still Moving Forward, Growing Stronger Every Day

  • How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

    How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

    “There is still vitality under the snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.” ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

    For as long as I can recall, I have always been a fretful and anxious person. Mine was a low-key anxiety that’s always colored the background of my life, a constant companion of ambiguous dread and imminent doom (just around the corner!)

    The annoying part was that I never quite knew why the anxiety hung around. There weren’t any real situations in my life that evoked this constant, nagging fear.

    I have tried various techniques to manage my anxiety. I tried deep breathing. I tried to balance out the fearful thoughts that sometimes follow the feeling of fear with logical investigation of the facts.

    I tried self-hypnosis—imagining a safe place in the depths of my psyche protected by multiple layers of force fields. I tried going toward the fear instead of running from it by putting myself in fear-inducing situations, so I could learn to tolerate it better. I tried self-psycho-analysis.

    All these produced various small results, but always, always there was something missing. I somehow felt like I did not go all the way to the bottom of my anxiety. 

    Then I picked up mindfulness, in those days before it became so well known. I learned on my own and in various courses, to make space for my anxiety.

    Above all, I discovered that my anxiety wasn’t me. That was an important piece of the puzzle. And yet, there was still a lot of the puzzle missing. My gut feeling was telling me, there’s got to be more.

    And then I came upon a book on Focusing. This is a method discovered by the late psychologist-philosopher Eugene Gendlin. He discovered that people who engaged in a specific kind of internal exploration of their experiences often came away feeling that their emotional struggles have transformed, quite literally.

    They no longer felt the same way before they started the internal exploration process. Even though the situation that had caused them to feel that way remained unchanged, how they understood it and felt about it had become radically different.

    I was entranced, so I read everything I could about this method. I tried it out on myself…

    And fell flat on my face. It didn’t work and I was still anxious. Only now, I was even more anxious because it was tinged with a near panicky sense that what I needed was just within my reach but I could not grasp it! I pictured my anxiety flashing the victory sign in my mind.

    Then thankfully, I took a course with a Focusing teacher in the United Kingdom and I got it.

    My anxiety started to shift.

    How I Understand It: Vital Emotions and Blocks

    We are all born with naturally flowing emotions that guide us and give us information about our lives, our worlds, and our needs. I call these “vital emotions.” No matter what form they take (joy, anger, grief, gratitude, and so forth), the experience of them moving within and through us unfettered makes us feel alive.

    Just look at babies. They are always experiencing naturally flowing emotions and they are little bundles of vitality. When they are angry, they scream without concern. When happy, their mirth is disinhibited.

    However, as we grow up, we learn to cut off these emotions. For instance, some people become overly rational at the expense of feeling emotions, like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Alternatively, some of us fall into stuck emotional patterns that repeat over and over again without getting us anywhere but into trouble (my anxiety is one example).

    I call cutting off emotions or stuck emotions “blocks.” We tend to pick them up as we bump along in life. Focusing is a method to help us free up our blocks and get in touch with our vital emotions.

    What I Learned About My Emotions

    I learned in Focusing to take on a curious and self-compassionate approach to my emotions. I also learned to drop my awareness down into body to experience the sensations of my emotions in real time, and use these sensations to guide my discovery of the layers of information contained within my emotions.

    From there, I learned to decode what my emotions are telling me that I needed at that point in time. When I accessed this new understanding, I started to feel my anxiety transform.

    When I focused on my anxiety block in an open-minded and compassionate manner, I discovered that it felt like a kind of jittery electricity coursing through my body, and occasionally thickening into a lump in my chest.

    Fascinatingly, I also found that I had a tendency to hold back in my actions, my breathing, and even my voice (I had trouble projecting my voice). It was like I had put the brakes on inside myself.

    Through gentle and persistent questioning around these bodily responses, I discovered that I picked up my anxiety block because the adults in my life had subtly and not so subtly put me down when I tried to express my vital emotions.

    I remembered being shamed for showing my vital emotions like anger or even dizzy joy. Then I was told I was too sensitive when I was feeling vulnerable and upset. My anxiety was telling me that I could not let my guard down. I could not afford to be myself fully.

    At this point, my anxiety had started to shift physically and it was replaced by another emotion—sadness. Sadness that I wasn’t allowed to be myself.

    As I paid the same gentle attention to how my body held this sadness, it shifted once more and transformed into anger. I was angry that people could do this to me, no matter how well meaning their intentions. How dare they! How could they?

    With that line of thought, I knew that I wasn’t going to let people discount my emotions again! I felt physically stronger with this new determination. I had moved pass my anxious block and touched the procession of my vital emotions hiding by it. And then, I realized that my anxiety was trying to protect me from the devastating forces of shame and ridicule. I needed to feel safe in an unsafe environment.

    They only way I knew how was to block off my vital emotions least showing them got me into trouble. This realization gave rise to a warm feeling of self-compassion—I was doing the best I could to protect myself and my anxiety was my warning system.

    A Realistic Transformative Method

    Needless to say, I fell in love with focusing and undertook more training in it. I have found my method of transforming my life-long anxiety. Do I still struggle with it? Of course, but now it feels different. It no longer is a pervasive unknown fear. It has shrunk and only occasionally pops up. And when it does, I know how to engage with it to transform it.

    Try This Out

    The next time you feel emotionally stuck or have an inexplicable emotional reaction, take a moment to pause and focus on how it feels in your body as a sensation. Notice where in your body you feel it the strongest.

    A good place to start noticing is the space within your throat, chest, and belly. Simply spend a minute or two trying to describe the raw sensation of the emotional reaction, in real time—“Right now, how does it feel?” You might notice that the sensation changing. If it does, simple stay on top of it by describing the new sensation.

    Simply tuning in this way helps you create a unique and open-minded relationship to your emotions. It is also one of the crucial steps in focusing. See if you could make this into a daily habit. Remember, emotions transform when we try to understand them in an open-minded way.

  • Everything Can Change in the Blink of an Eye

    Everything Can Change in the Blink of an Eye

  • That Doesn’t Mean They’re Wrong

    That Doesn’t Mean They’re Wrong

  • Take Back Your Power: Let Go of Blame and Focus on the Lesson

    Take Back Your Power: Let Go of Blame and Focus on the Lesson

    “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Robert Anthony

    Blame is seductive because it makes us right and them wrong. For a moment, it feels good to say, “It was their fault,” but in the long run holding on to blame only hurts us and does absolutely nothing to help our evolution. In fact, it keeps us stuck.

    But, I get it. When we feel wronged, upset, and angry, that person is the only one to blame.

    I understand that some things are so egregious and so unforgivable that it seems impossible to not default to blame. It’s almost instinctual. We are hard wired to blame.

    But I have come to learn the hard way that when we blame others, we avoid seeing the truth about ourselves. When we focus on what someone else did wrong, we’re not able to see our part and learn about what we need to do differently going forward.

    A while ago, I was in a toxic relationship that brought out the worst in me.

    I felt like I was the most incompetent and unlovable human being on this planet. My self-esteem was nonexistent. I gave far too much of myself in the name of love, without ever checking in with my heart or my body to feel whether this journey was serving me.

    Ultimately, as I abandoned myself, the relationship abandoned me: She cheated on me. After giving endlessly to this relationship, that was my payback. And just to add a cherry on top, she stole from me.

    I didn’t recognize myself. I was stripped of many things. I lost my ability to trust myself and others. I lost the ideals I’d once had about love. I lost respect for myself. I ignored my intuition. I forgot to honor the sacredness and preciousness of my heart. I lost my confidence. I lost my innocence. For a minute, I thought I had lost my soul. I felt completely empty.

    I remember that the blame, the anger, and the frustration were blinding. Every word I spoke and every thought that crossed my mind had one theme: I was the victim and she was wrong. I would happily share my story endlessly, and I made myself right every single time—and boy did it feel good to badmouth her over and over again.

    But when the dust settled a bit and I was able to step back from my anger-filled stupor, I realized that I was tired of this story. I was done with it. I was ready to do some healing because the burden of carrying blame and anger was weighing me down. It was heavy.

    What had happened no longer mattered; my desire to heal was greater than my desire to hold on to this story.

    With my journal in hand, some lavender in the air, and tears streaming down my face, I took three deep breaths, summoned the energy of blame, and for the first time I asked myself: “How did I contribute to this? What do I need to learn from this?” I then said, “Universe, I am ready to release this story. Show me the way.”

    My mind was screaming, “What! How dare you ask this question?” But my heart was proud of this because it was a moment of deep truth.

    This was a teachable moment for me. I stayed with the feeling as I closed my eyes and allowed the anger to consume me. And in that tornado of anger inside of me, I finally received insight.

    Once the storm inside me passed, I realized that I had never once spoke my truth in that relationship. I ignored every single red flag from the beginning. I had this notion that I could save people from themselves. I was arrogant in thinking that my love would heal anyone. I wanted to fix the world. I wanted to fix her. I abandoned myself.

    Then I asked, “But how can life do this to me when I was so giving, so genuine, and so authentic with my love?” The insight that came from that question was, “That’s not love, that’s self-abuse. It is not your job to save anyone.”

    And the lessons kept pouring in: From a spiritual perspective, and on a soul level, I know that it is beautiful to love everyone, but in this physical plane, we must pay attention to how people are showing up for us.

    We can’t ignore mistreatment or unhealthy behaviors in the name of love. We can love from afar, we can love from the other end of the world, but that doesn’t mean that we need to stay in a relationship with anyone who is on a very different path or with someone who is clearly living a highly toxic life.

    This blame that I was carrying came back to me tenfold. I was really just angry with myself for allowing something outside of me to have so much power over me, and for allowing something outside of me to override my own intuition and feelings.

    These realizations laid a foundation for my healing. From that moment, I became more conscious in my interactions. My boundaries strengthened and my relationship with myself began to flourish.

    I still had, and will forever have, a lot of work to do, but the minute I was willing to release blame I recharged my energy and took back my power. I realized that I do not want to be the passive observer in my life. I want to be as conscious as possible.

    In this moment of truth, I also learned that self-love is realizing that our bodies and our health are sacred, and holding on to blame destroys us on a physical, spiritual, and emotional level.

    The biggest epiphany I had is that we all came here to learn lessons, and some of the lessons will seem unfair, and occasionally way worse than what I share here. But I learned to surrender to this belief—the belief that my soul came here to learn lessons and that, if I can become the happy and willing student, there is so much wisdom to be gained from these moments of darkness.

    After feeling anger and blame for a while, most of us, myself included, just want to find some way to escape the pain, but if we simply ignore our feelings, we also shut down the message.

    I understand that this is one of the hardest things we as humans can do, but I promise you that there are treasures inside of you waiting to be uncovered during each moment of darkness.

    I realize that every instance of hurt warrants a different degree of blame, and the anger will vary. Some lessons will undoubtedly be much harder than others. But in the end, if we’re willing to surrender to these lessons and love ourselves through the most painful abuse and injustice, we will rise as warriors.

    We will rise as light workers. We will rise as healers. We will be the light in someone’s dark world. We will gain insight. We will have a chance to do it over in a different way.

    It’s time to take your power back. Begin today, pick any moment of darkness in your world, and start with this question: What do I need to learn from this?

    Breathe and just listen. Your body knows the answers.

  • The Past Is In Your Head

    The Past Is In Your Head

  • Time Is More Valuable Than Money

    Time Is More Valuable Than Money

  • The Wounds of Rejection Heal With Self-Love and Self-Awareness

    The Wounds of Rejection Heal With Self-Love and Self-Awareness

    “There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn’t matter anymore.” ~Laurie Halse Anderson

    It began in elementary school. I was a chubby immigrant with a thick accent and hand-me-down clothes. I so badly wanted the other kids to like me, and I had no idea why everything I said and did seemed to push them away.

    My jokes and comments would trigger awkward silences or ridicule—especially in groups. Those moments were traumatizing, but they were also confusing. How could I make them like me?

    As I learned English, I found some company in the schoolyard, but I continued to be bullied for my weight, my clothes, my face that turned red so easily. It didn’t help when I started going through puberty at age nine, younger than every other girl in my class.

    In elementary school, I remember walking home one day when two boys followed me, calling out things like “Put on a few pounds this year, haven’t you?” I remember staring at my feet, putting one in front of the other, walking home as fast as I could.

    The wounds of being rejected, bullied, and ostracized buried deep. I never felt safe unless I was completely alone.

    In high school, I remember walking home once and realizing that a popular guy from a grade above was walking behind me. He didn’t say anything to me, but my heart started beating wildly, and I became hyperaware of my arms swinging back and forth. How awkward were these long appendages coming out of my body! How awkward was I!

    Even though I would walk home as fast as I could, I didn’t feel any safer around my family. In my parents’ house, emotional expression wasn’t encouraged or accepted. The only safe place was alone with myself.

    But as time went on, the anxiety I felt about other people’s opinions of me crept into my alone time too. I worried. I ruminated. I overanalyzed.

    It was difficult to live in fear all the time, so I developed all kinds of ineffective habits that helped me feel in control. I starved myself. I lied. I got addicted to anything I could get my hands on.

    I’ve been on a long journey of healing—not only the toxic ways I had learned to avoid feeling discomfort around other people but also the scars that caused that discomfort in the first place. The path has been long and hard. I’m still walking it.

    I’ve learned a few things that have been helpful. For example, I’ve learned to find the thoughts that trigger anxiety in social situations and question them. I’ve found the places in my body where I tense up when I think this way, and I’ve learned how to relax them.

    I’ve learned that the feeling of rejection won’t kill me (while running from it almost did). I’ve learned to sit with all kinds of uncomfortable emotions without running away.

    I’ve learned to reduce my overall anxiety levels with exercise, lower caffeine intake, journaling, mindfulness, and lots of alone time.

    I’ve learned that working out before social occasions lowers the chance of being triggered. I’ve learned that allowing some time afterward to replay social situations in my head actually helps—as long as I give myself a time limit and wrap up with some self-loving thoughts when the time is done.

    I’ve learned that, sometimes, I should actually take the advice of my self-judgment and change how I talk to people. I’m still learning about which advice to take and which to leave. I’ve learned to be gentle with myself while I figure it out.

    When I first went a few months without falling into a deep self-judgment hole, I thought I was cured. I thought I would feel free in social situations forevermore. But life had other plans.

    I have learned to think of social anxiety and fear of rejection as allergies. I’m allergic to thoughts like “Do they like me? What should I do to make them like me? What did I say wrong? What should I do so they don’t think I’m weird?” Most of the time, I can avoid falling into old patterns. I hear those thoughts and think, “Nope, I’m allergic to that. That’s not good for me.”

    But sometimes, I don’t catch the thoughts until it’s too late. Or I start having them when I’m tired or stressed out. Or I experience a series of rejections and don’t have enough time to process through them before my emotions and thoughts weave into a tight downward spiral.

    It happens. It happened last week. It lasted for four days. I’ve learned to forgive myself, be gentle, and know that I’m doing my best.

    I have friends with celiac disease who experience side effects for at least a few days when they eat gluten. At that point, the damage has already been done. The only thing they can do is not make it worse. So that’s what I try to do as well.

    I try not to judge myself for being stuck in self-judgment for a few days. That makes it easier to deal with. I try to think of it as my mind being swollen and sick. It needs time to heal. It needs love and patience. It doesn’t need more of the thing that made it sick in the first place.

    Each time my mind gets swollen with judgment, I have an opportunity to talk to myself with love, patience, and kindness. I also have an opportunity to learn more about myself. I try to extract some wisdom out of each period of suffering.

    I used to want to get rid of this for good, but lately, I’m realizing that maybe I never will be. Maybe it really is like an allergy. No matter how well I can learn to avoid the things that make me feel horrible, they will always be bad for me.

    Although these episodes are still unpleasant, I no longer feel helpless when they come. I’ve been practicing. I feel a sense of accomplishment each time I can navigate through periods of self-doubt with self-love and honesty.

    I can’t control what makes me sick, but I can be a kind, loving nurse to myself when I get that way. And that gives me some sense of control over the situation.

    I couldn’t control what happened in the past. And I’ve realized I can’t control my triggers in the present. But I can control how I respond to those triggers. And if I fail to respond differently, then I can control how I respond to that failure.

    However small, there is always room for a choice. And instead of focusing on what I can’t do, I’m trying to focus on what I can.

    It’s a hard road. If you’re in the middle of a similar journey, I hope you’ll cut yourself some slack and give yourself some credit for how far you’ve come. You’re doing the best you can, and that’s more than enough.

  • It’s Okay to Be Angry

    It’s Okay to Be Angry

  • Only the Love in Your Heart Will Last Forever

    Only the Love in Your Heart Will Last Forever

  • You Helped Me Become the Person I Am Today

    You Helped Me Become the Person I Am Today

  • Think You Should Be Happy? It’s Okay to Feel Bad

    Think You Should Be Happy? It’s Okay to Feel Bad

    “We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    From an early age, most of us get the message that we should be happy—from well-meaning parents, teachers, and even perfect strangers. “Smile!” we are told. “Why the long face?” we are asked. It’s no wonder we grow up with the idea that feeling anything less than sunny 24/7 is somehow wrong.

    We’re ashamed to admit, even to ourselves, that sometimes we feel down. It seems that somehow we’ve failed, or that life is cheating us of our due. Facebook and Instagram certainly don’t provide a more balanced view: Everyone else is seemingly on the constant high that has become our society’s norm.

    The trouble is, life’s not really like that, and when we expect it to be we only end up feeling worse. There’s almost a sense of panic when a less-than-euphoric period lasts too long (and I’m not talking about clinical depression here, just a garden-variety restlessness or boredom). We just don’t tolerate the lows very well anymore, craving a continuous fix of what the ego calls “happiness.”

    I’ve personally bought in to the continuous happiness myth many times, and still have to remind myself that it is just that—a myth.

    From true valley experiences like sickness or divorce, to the days when life feels just plain old “blah,” my first reaction is usually to try to “fix it.” Something must be wrong, right? I shouldn’t feel this way—I should be happy!

    Something that has helped me a great deal is to substitute another word for “happiness,” a term that’s broad enough to encompass a more normal range of emotion: well-being. 

    You can continue to have a sense of well-being even in the midst of a low period. Well-being simply recognizes that life is a series of peaks and valleys, both in the macro view and on a daily basis. It is artificial (and impossible) to insist on a constantly in-flowing tide.

    So how do we cultivate a sense of well-being? It starts with self-talk. Most of our emotional reactions to life come from the way we label our experience. The ego will jump to conclusions on very little evidence and then hit the panic button: “Oh, no! Depression alert! Not feeling good—this is a problem!!”

    Try this instead: “Hmmm. I’m feeling a little down lately. I wonder what’s up with that?” And then simply sit with the feeling, and allow it to run its course. The panicky ego wants you to do something to fix what it sees as a problem. It is not comfortable simply experiencing what it considers a “bad” feeling, and will urge you to either suppress it or run away from it.

    There are lots of ways to do this (and I’ve tried them all): shopping, having a glass or two of wine, watching TV, surfing the web, and so on. None of these activities is “wrong,” unless you use it to avoid or deny your true feelings. Our emotions, besides simply being a valid part of the human experience, hold important messages for us—messages that we can’t receive when we’re running away.

    So let’s say you are allowing yourself to have the experience of feeling a bit down. It might even last for a season, but you tell yourself: “It’s okay. I know that this will pass too. I can let myself have this feeling and still be perfectly fine.” That’s well-being.

    With well-being, you can continue to enjoy all that is good in your life and treat yourself tenderly while simply letting your experience evolve naturally. And it will evolve. The beauty of allowing yourself to feel your feelings rather than stuffing them is that they then can deliver their messages and pass on through.

    Maybe the message is: You need to slow down a bit. Maybe it’s: The work you’re doing doesn’t feel meaningful anymore. Or maybe you never “figure it out.” Your body or spirit might just need a little healing or integration time. With a sense of well-being, you can trust that life is giving you just what you need, even if it doesn’t make sense or make your ego happy.

    Well-being is very similar to the Buddhist concept of equanimity, which means serenity or imperturbability. Buddhism teaches that you don’t grasp at the “good” or flee from the “bad,” but accept each as it comes.

    The Western mind often mistakes this for passivity, but it is not the same. With both equanimity and well-being, appropriate action is taken—naturally and calmly. As a bonus, action removed from the drama of the ego is often much more effective!

    And there’s another benefit to accepting the so-called “negative” experiences of life: They actually allow you to experience and appreciate the good times far more.

    When we try to go from one peak to another, we keep raising the ante: What was once satisfying is now boring; what was once a huge win doesn’t seem so impressive anymore. There’s a kind of “happiness inflation” going on that devalues what you have and makes you constantly reach for bigger and better.

    It’s counter-intuitive, but the more you experience emotions like sadness or disappointment, the more you can truly feel joy and gratitude when it comes. The poet Kahlil Gibran wrote: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

    Hard times also temper us, making us stronger, more resilient, and more compassionate. Usually we see this only in retrospect, but we can also use self-talk to remind ourselves of it in the thick of those trying times: “This isn’t much fun, but I know I’m learning and growing from it.”

    Feeling “bad,” far from being something to flee, offers so much to those who are willing to embrace the experience. You’ll have to buck the messages of the ego and of society, but you will gain much more in richness of life when you welcome both phases of the tide, the ebb as well as the flow.

  • A Different Kind of More: The Beauty of Living with Less Stuff

    A Different Kind of More: The Beauty of Living with Less Stuff

    She was all that mattered. I was deeper in debt, legal fees, and uncertainty than ever before, but I held on tight to my vow to give her more.

    I would give her everything. I’d work harder, make more, buy her more, take her to see more, do more, and prove to her that everything would be okay. I had no idea that this new goal would be just as damaging, and just as hard on my heart.

    My desire to give my daughter more wasn’t wrong, just misguided. While I could never have articulated it then, I did want more for both of us, but not more stuff and money.

    What I wanted was more love, connection, laughter, and adventure, but that was too hard to measure. Instead, I made more money, worked more, spent more, and accumulated more. Living with less opened the door to a different kind of more: more space, more time, more light, more freedom, and yes . . . more love. It has always been about love.

    My mom showered me with love on our trips to Boston, and I went into debt loving my three-year-old with Christmas presents she could never appreciate. All of the more . . . it wasn’t just for Bailey. It was for me too because I didn’t just think more + more = more, I thought more + more = love.

    By letting go, I was able to see that love could stand alone. It didn’t have to come attached to presents, shopping trips, or big work bonuses or acknowledgments. I didn’t have to earn or prove love. When I got rid of the stuff, the debt, the busyness, and the distractions that were swallowing me, I was surrounded by love. It was everywhere.

    I had enough.
    I am enough.
    I don’t need more approval.
    I don’t need more money and stuff.
    I don’t need more anymore.

    When I discovered that I was enough without anything else, I saw that I was love. I am love. You are too. We’ve been the love we seek all along. It’s just been hiding beneath all of the layers of clutter, busyness, and show we use to protect ourselves from the pain.

    Diamonds Are Not This Girl’s Best Friend

    Diamonds are not my best friend but they used to be. It wasn’t just jewelry but all the things I bought to lift me up, prove my worth, and demonstrate my love. As I became more and more me and started experiencing the world from this new stuff-less place, I realized that diamonds are not this girl’s best friend.

    My best friend is a magical rooftop sunrise. My best friend is the ocean. My best friend is a hike in the mountains. My best friend is a peaceful afternoon. My best friend is a really good book. My best friend is laughter. My best friend is seeing the world. My best friend is time with people I love. Diamonds have nothing on my best friends.

    So yes, I want more, but not more stuff. I want more early mornings, more hiking and connecting with nature, more meaningful conversations and hand holding. More seeing the world. More creativity. More crazy ideas. More love. Always more love.

    With a soulful simplicity and living with less, my life has become more than I ever imagined. Instead of more money, more stuff, more busyness, and more stepping outside of myself to be who other people may need me to be, I’m enjoying a different kind of more.

    I am more myself and more connected to my heart. I am more available for people I love and projects I care about. I’m more present and focused. I have more space, time, and love in my life along with all of the other mores I craved for so long.

    I am always learning something new about how simplicity works on my heart, changes my relationships, and influences my work. At first my journey was focused on tasks like decluttering, paying off debt, and downsizing. The changes started on the outside while the real work was happening on the inside.

    With each thing, obligation, or assumption I let go of, I remembered who I was. I saw how far I had strayed and made it a priority to come back to myself. Forgetting who you are and living outside of your heart is painful. Do whatever it takes to come back and be more you. Give yourself all the space, time, and love you need to remember who you are.

    Excerpted from Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver with the permission of TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright© 2017 by Courtney Carver