Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • Why Letting Go of Your Tight Grip Actually Gives You More Control

    Why Letting Go of Your Tight Grip Actually Gives You More Control

    “Anything you can’t control in life is teaching you how to let go.” ~Unknown

    I was growing impatient. I wanted an answer about something and it just wasn’t coming, no matter how hard I tried to prod it into happening. I was growing frustrated. And I was growing frustrated with my frustrations about it.

    So I decided to take a walk. The act of breathing in fresh air and hearing birdsong is centering for me. Just putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession for an hour or two always helps to clear my head. I receive answers and guidance to my greatest questions when I’m walking. Call it a moving meditation.

    As I set out that morning, my eyes were drawn upward to three hawks flying overhead. While their aerial dance looked choreographed and elegant, I realized that the hawks weren’t instigating the choreography. They were simply letting go and floating with the currents. They circled and circled above me, wings outstretched, sailing and drifting.

    It dawned on me as I watched the hawks in flight that I’m rarely successful when I try to push or pull something in order to make it happen. Making an effort is noble and often necessary, but forcing something or worrying about it seldom yields the results you want.

    Sometimes, you just have to let go of your tight grip of how you think things should be or how quickly they should come together and simply let things run their own course. By releasing control and letting the currents carry you along, paradoxically, you gain more control—of your attitude and your response to what’s happening to you at the moment.

    Never was this truer in my life than when my mother was dying of cancer. My husband and I had decided that having Mom live with us would be the best solution. So, we rearranged our home, making one room her little oasis where she would be surrounded by her lovely things. Mom still wanted her independence, but it was no longer prudent.

    I worked well into the night getting everything ready for her arrival from the skilled care facility where she was rehabilitating after a hospitalization. No sooner was she discharged from the nursing home and settled in at our home than circumstances changed and she ended up right back in the hospital again and then back at the nursing home for more rehab.

    Later that same week, the unimaginable happened. I spontaneously and frighteningly became paralyzed from the chest down. My husband and I had been working hard to clean out Mom’s apartment. We’d been dealing as best as we could with her boomeranging back and forth to the hospital and nursing home. Then, all of a sudden, I needed medical care myself.

    At first, there were those medical professionals who thought I was simply exhausted and that my illness might even be psychosomatic. However, an MRI revealed a large benign tumor called a meningioma pressing so severely on my spinal cord that I suddenly became paralyzed.

    I was whisked by ambulance to the nearest large hospital an hour away, where a neurosurgeon who inherited my case soberly delivered the news that he was only cautiously optimistic I would ever walk again. I underwent the first of two surgeries to remove the tumor and release its pressure from my spinal cord.

    While in the hospital, unable to move, I realized that I had no other choice but to breathe, relax, and let go. I found it easier, then, to accept what was, even if I didn’t like it.

    All of my plans to care for my mother in our home were dashed. My mother’s care would have to be handed over to others at the skilled nursing facility. Mom would accept the situation. My work would have to just pile up. My employer would cope. My life was pretty much on hold as we waited to see how my spinal cord would recover from the surgery.

    I never once gave up faith or hope that I would get better. I visualized my return to my sacred evening walks. I saw myself strong and nimble and able to do what I could to support my mother on her final journey.

    But, I couldn’t plan at that point. I had to give in and let go. Like those hawks I saw overhead recently, I couldn’t allow myself to become impatient or to force the outcome. I had to ride on the wind and let the currents carry my wings.

    We all have those times in our lives when we want things to be the way we believe they should be—the way we planned them to be. Alas, sometimes life has another path for us.

    I believe that those things that are meant for us have a tendency to come our way and those doors that are never supposed to be open to us simply will not open.

    Some of our desires will take longer to manifest than we would want. There will be those things that will turn out differently than we anticipated—sometimes better than we could have imagined; at other times, not so much.

    Our difficulties and disappointments, however, have the ability to serve as blessings. Those blessings aren’t always clear at the moment, but with time, they often become visible.

    After months of physical therapy, I did indeed learn how to walk again. And now I walk every day because I can. I am blessed.

    For those of us who like to have a semblance of control over our lives, we will at some point learn that there are those times when we don’t have much say in what happens or how it ends. All we can do is be patient, filled with faith and buttressed by hope.

    Our letting go of the process or the outcome gives us more space to consider what’s happening at that very moment and to control our attitudes and reactions. By being mindful of our thoughts and attitudes, we can avoid getting stuck in draining emotions.

    It’s quite freeing to not have any preconceived notions, to be patient and to just let things flow. When I get out of the way and allow life to happen, the end result is often much better than I could have planned on my own.

    Surely, I want and need to have goals, plans and dreams. That’s what helped me recover from my paralysis and regain the ability to walk. But, I’ve learned that I can’t be shackled by my desires and plans. Instead, I’ve learned to stop the tendency to prod or push. I’ve found that I can ride the currents, allow them to sweep me along, and all will be well.

    When you let go and allow the currents to carry you, you’ll still move forward in life. Things might not turn out exactly as you planned, but the journey may give you more interesting scenery along the way. And in the end, you’ll have mastered control of what really mattered all along: What you thought and how you reacted to your circumstances.

  • Knowledge Is Knowing What to Say, Wisdom Is Knowing When to Say It

    Knowledge Is Knowing What to Say, Wisdom Is Knowing When to Say It

  • If You Are Always Worried About What People Think of You

    If You Are Always Worried About What People Think of You

  • How Our Smartphones Are Disconnecting Us and What to Do About It

    How Our Smartphones Are Disconnecting Us and What to Do About It

    “These days, whether you are online or not, it is easy for people to end up unsure if they are closer together or further apart.” ~Sherry Turkle, Alone Together

    There was rarely a time when my partner didn’t have her phone in her hand or, at the very least, in a place she could quickly grab it.

    We’d go out for a meal and it’d be there by her plate, positioned so she could dip in and out at any lull in the conversation.

    We’d take a walk and she’d have me in one hand and it in the other, ready to take a photo or catch the next Facebook notification.

    Even when we were in bed, if it wasn’t glued to her face, it’d be right by her side, lying between us like a small child who’d snuggled in for the night and ruined any chance of intimacy.

    It wasn’t good for our relationship, to say the least. Especially considering that, however unhealthy her relationship with her phone was, mine was worse.

    I didn’t realize it at the time. But in hindsight, I can see that most the time she retreated into her phone was when I’d long zoned out and been absorbed by mine: some random article or new app I’d downloaded, updates on the game, or a group chat with work colleagues.

    In that sense, we were perfect for each other. And looking around us, there didn’t seem anything too strange or excessive about our behavior. All our friends and the couples around us were also interacting with each other from beyond their screens, and they seemed perfectly happy—at least according to their Instagram posts.

    But something wasn’t right. Sure, we had our problems, I knew that. But it was something more than that: we were missing that deep feeling of connection. You know, that feeling you get when your partner understands you, without having to say a word. Or the fulfillment of being alone together and feeling like you’re the only two people in the world.

    Surely this fundamental pillar of how you feel about someone had nothing to do with our little glowing screens. So, none the wiser to what was going on, things gradually got worse and, eventually, we broke up.

    I wasn’t blind enough to see our phones had something to do with it, though. I mean, not being able to talk for two minutes without one of us phubbing the other was clearly an issue. And the non-stop messaging whenever we were apart couldn’t have been good for us.

    So when a similar thing started to happen with my current partner—both of us spending more time with our devices than each other and a feeling of disconnection growing between us—I knew there was something going on. And if one thing was for sure, whatever it was, I wasn’t prepared to let it ruin another relationship.

    I started to look more closely at our phone use and put it under the microscope: Why was it happening? Why did I prefer Candy Crush over spending time together? Why did we talk more via text than real life?

    What I found completely changed our relationship. Not only that, it changed my relationships with friends, family, and everyone I meet. And what’s best about it, I haven’t had to disconnect from social media or give up any of my beloved devices.

    I discovered the real issue wasn’t the physical presence of the phone, but rather how it had changed our idea of communication and influenced how we interact together.

    A prime example of this is phubbing—when your partner uses their phone while you’re talking.

    This was an everyday occurrence in my relationship. My partner would often ask me, “How was your day?” and start phubbing the hell out of me just moments into my response. I always thought she just wasn’t interested and was just being rude, but that wasn’t half the story.

    Because instant messaging was now our primary mode of communication, we’d trained ourselves to take words solely on face value—like you would a text or email.

    And so we would never stop to look beyond what was being laid out on the surface and consider all the other information-rich signals that make up the majority of communication—facial gestures, eye contact, tone, body language, and the emotions driving them all.

    Whenever we spoke, it was more like a means to an end. Something we did because we had to. Conversation was a chore that consisted of generic, predetermined questions and equally humdrum answers. All delivered in a way that was monotonous and unappreciative of the other’s attention and contributions.

    So it’ll be no surprise to hear our conversations were never stimulating and meaningful. And because of this, we robbing ourselves the chance to foster that deep sense of connection and understanding that’s so vital to a healthy relationship.

    Phubbing was only the tip of the iceberg. But it was enough to realize the fundamental effects phones were having on my relationships and wake me up to how they were undermining my ability to connect with people.

    Today, by simply being more aware of how we use our devices, me and my partner are closer than ever.

    What’s more, now we don’t use our phones as much as the average couple, but it’s not because we’re following orders from a couples therapist or because some rule from a relationship handbook told us to. We do it because we stay up all night talking and forget about them. Or because we go on a long walk and accidentally leave them at home.

    We do it because we’ve got back in touch with those deep, visceral feelings that nothing on Twitter or Facebook could ever come close to. And because there’s no way we’re going to let them fade away again.

  • Strong People Don’t Put Others Down

    Strong People Don’t Put Others Down

  • A Break from Your Routine

    A Break from Your Routine

  • Life Is Short—Don’t Wait to Do What You’ve Always Dreamed of Doing

    Life Is Short—Don’t Wait to Do What You’ve Always Dreamed of Doing

    “Life is short. Say what you’ve wanted to say. Do what you’ve wanted to do. Don’t wait until the only thing you can say is, I wish I’d had the courage to do it sooner.” ~Lori Deschene

    Lunch hour.

    Escaping the stale, re-circulated air of my office, I fled down Main Street in pursuit of freedom from the routine of the day.

    A rusty bell clanged against the door of a dusty used bookstore when I pushed it open.

    Scanning the horizon of bulging shelves and teetering stacks of magazines, my eyes suddenly met his and my heart began to race.

    They were the blazing orange eyes of an African lion on the dog-eared, sun-faded cover of a National Geographic magazine.

    I hadn’t seen those eyes in thirty years, but their impact on me hadn’t faded.

    As a kid I use to spend hours dreaming within the pages of these very magazines before cutting out pictures of unsuspecting lions and elephants to carry them around in a small wicker basket—a somewhat seventies version of a vision board.

    One Sunday night, I brought a three-page book I had written about these magical creatures, complete with pasted-in cut-outs, to the dining room table where everyone had gathered for dinner.

    Feeling proud with accomplishment, I handed it to my dad, a retired Naval officer, who held it up and began to read it aloud—only soon he couldn’t read anymore, for he was laughing so hard and so was everyone else.

    Of course they were just laughing because they thought it was cute, but I was only six years old. How could I possibly have known that?

    That day I stopped playing with magazine cut-outs of African animals and writing silly little stories to paste them into.

    That day I stopped dreaming about Africa.

    Have you ever had a dream that got away?

    Have you ever wanted to do something—paint sunsets, sing opera, run marathons, design skyscrapers—but stopped yourself before you even tried because it wasn’t realistic, practical or, in line with what your family/friends/co-workers expected of you?

    When we shelve our dreams, the human experience runs the risk of feeling more like a life sentence of obligations.

    When the lunch hour was up I returned to work with an African lion tucked under my arm.

    In the days that followed, I looked at that magazine often, dreaming of being under a blazing crimson African sky, only now that sky was clouded with regret.

    The opportunity of spending a ‘gap year’ volunteering in Africa or joining the Youth Corps had long since passed.

    Or had it? Yes, it’s true I couldn’t go to Africa for several months, but maybe I could volunteer in Africa for a few weeks.

    Over the next several weeks I gave myself permission to at least play with the idea. I began to research short-term volunteer opportunities in Africa with lions, elephants, and all the other magical animals I use to tote around in that little wicker basket.

    I began to budget, barter, and save, determined to make it happen.

    Even that old, worn-out lion on the magazine cover seemed to be perking up as the puzzle of a plan began to come together.

    Months later that lion, now freed from its magazine, was tucked into my passport folder as I boarded a plane for Cape Town, South Africa to volunteer on an African animal conservation project.

    Thrill and excitement deafened the echoes of friends and co-workers who thought I was going to Africa because I was ‘lost’ or approaching a mid-life crisis.

    No, I’m going to Africa because I want to stop saying, I wish I’d done it sooner.

    I arrived and met my boss, a khaki-clad, burly, young (ten years my junior) South African ranger named Gary.

    With big, strong hands on his hips, he eyed my tennis shoes and embellished denim clam diggers and said,

    “Let me guess, you’re here because you dreamed of Africa.”

    “Yes!” I beamed.

    He grunted and said, “Well it’s time to wake up, Canada. This is a working game reserve; these are wild animals.”

    “Okay.”

    “You’ll be sleeping alone over there in that tent. The electrical wire mostly keeps the animals out.”

    “Ooooo.K.”

    “And one last thing, Canada. Out here you’re going to have to learn to play with a lion’s testicles.”

    “What?! That wasn’t in the brochure! And even if it was, I won’t do that!”

    “Relax, Canada,” he said. “It’s a local expression. It means you’re going to have to get out of your comfort zone, take some risks. Have the courage of a lion.”

    The next morning when we began our patrol in an open-air jeep under a symphony of red, orange, lavender, and yellow hues playing above as the African sunrise came to life.

    Silhouettes of giant African elephants appeared in the morning mist.

    I was no longer dreaming in the pages of a National Geographic magazine, I was living them.

    Moments later Gary parked the jeep and handed me a rusty, heavy shovel and said, “Time to shovel sh*t.”

    Elephant dung. Mountains of it. It will be used as fertilizer in the reserve’s sustainable vegetable garden.

    Within fifteen minutes my back was aching, and my new work gloves were stretched out and so slippery with dung and sweat that they refused to stay on my hands.

    This wasn’t the dream of Africa I had. This was beginning to feel more like a nightmare.

    I began to question myself.

    You came all the way to Africa to shovel elephant dung?

    Maybe my dream of Africa was a silly childhood vision.

    Maybe I was lost and should have spent this money on therapy instead.

    What would my friends and co-workers say if they could see me now, knee-deep in dung, barely able to lift this antiquated shovel?

    They’d think I was a fool.

    Humiliation began to creep over me, engulf me even.

    But then I remembered Gary’s words; playing with a lion’s testicles was a huge step out of my comfort zone. I needed to have the courage of a lion. Lions don’t complain. They’re the king of the jungle because there’s nowhere they won’t go.

    And the lioness is the hunter, the conqueror, the fearless female who doesn’t back away from anything.

    And hey, I’m in Africa. I am in Africa.

    This elephant dung will help feed a village, and I get to contribute to something meaningful, something bigger than my mouthy little ego.

    Get out of your head and focus on that.

    I dug in deep. This was my dream, to come to Africa. As I became heavy with appreciation, the shovel lightened up.

    Days were spent rebuilding roads one stone at a time, by hand, darting a grumpy Rhinoceros who needed hormone therapy, tree planting within the lion’s camp as a pride of (satiated) lions looked on and moving more mountains of elephant dung.

    The elation, the satisfaction, the joy of being in this place was even greater than I had imagined and dreamed.

    It was the first time in my life I felt real and true meaning.

    It was the first time in my life I felt purpose.

    It was the first time in my life my soul was satisfied.

    And the irony was, it was the first time in my life I was paying to do a job instead of getting paid to do one.

    The more I gave of myself, the more I received.

    As my project came to a close, I removed the now almost unrecognizable lion cut-out from the pocket of my denim clam diggers and placed it with a young tree sapling in the lion’s camp.

    I no longer needed to tote him around for my dream of going to Africa had been realized.

    Sometimes we believe our dream has to be huge and world-changing, or at the very least net us millions of dollars so it has the stamp of society approval on it.

    Whether you’re moving mountains, or just moving mountains of elephant dung, a dream is still a dream, and it’s yours.

    The shadow of regret is only ever a decision away; we can keep it at bay by having the courage to play with our dreams.

    So how do we play?

    P – Give yourself permission to pursue possibilities and reshape your dreams to meet your current reality.

    L – Lay low. Don’t feel like you have to tell everyone what you’re going to do. Tell them what you did, that way you won’t be bogged down by other’s fears and doubts. Not everyone will be your cheerleader.

    A – Acknowledge your fears and doubts. When they appear, it means you’re doing something that’s meaningful to you, otherwise fear wouldn’t bother showing up.

    Y – Why not? You deserve to play, to discover and uncover those things and experiences that make your heart beat a little faster. You are worthy because you were gifted the gift of life.

    You don’t have to go to Africa to play with a lion’s testicles. You can play wherever you are.

  • If You Want to Feel Rich

    If You Want to Feel Rich

  • I’m Sensitive and I Will Not Change or Harden

    I’m Sensitive and I Will Not Change or Harden

  • How Our Egos Create Drama in Our Relationships (And How to Avoid It)

    How Our Egos Create Drama in Our Relationships (And How to Avoid It)

    “The ego is the false self-born out of fear and defensiveness.” ~John O’Donohue

    I started a new relationship in December 2015, then moved countries to be with my Swedish partner in August, 2016.

    The last year has been life changing in the best possible ways. I’ve learned so much about myself, things I didn’t have the courage to acknowledge before.

    But it hasn’t all been a bed of roses—some of the insights I’ve gleaned haven’t been that comfortable to see.

    We met on an intensive spiritual retreat in India. We’ve both spent many years working on ourselves and our issues, so it’s fair to say we’re both awake and aware. But this has not guaranteed an easy ride or a challenge-free relationship.

    We both still have to work hard on the problems that come up, affecting us both individually and as a couple.

    When our disagreements or arguments erupt, it is often over the smallest things, which seem so important at the time. A prime example is when my partner asks me to do something without saying “please” (something that’s common in Sweden.)

    Such a minor failing has the power to seriously irritate me, causing our argument to blow up out of all proportion—sending one or either of us into fits of temper tantrums that can end with one or both of us brooding and not speaking to the other.

    Although we’re both aware how childishly we’re behaving and can see our over-reactions, we are nevertheless at a loss to stop or change this process. Why? Because of our egos!

    For the first time in my life I am seeing, experiencing, and understanding the ego play that takes place in every conflict I have. These insights are allowing me to unravel the true nature of my ego and its workings.

    If I were to describe my ego, I would compare it to an irritable, barely containable caged monster on the one hand and an irate, screaming five-year-old on the other. And just like a child that doesn’t get her own way, she’s constantly throwing tantrums.

    These tantrums take the form of anger, hurt, fear, defensiveness, exaggeration, frustration, self-preservation, insecurity, self-pity, and tears—all mixed with large quantities of drama.

    In the heat of an argument, my five-year-old ego is very quick to feel hurt, so she reacts by jumping, stamping her feet, cursing, and defending herself. Then, just as quickly, the caged monster surfaces, rearing up like an angry giant, sword and shield in hand, ready to inflict hurt in return.

    I literally see my ego self rising up like a dark shadowy character, looming menacingly above my head.

    Of course I know this ego play doesn’t solve anything—it only serves to trigger my partner’s own ego defense games. Suddenly we’re both wounded five-year-olds, shouting and throwing ugly insults back and forth at each other.

    Then, invariably, we have to argue about who started it and which one of us is right.

    As you can imagine, these ego battles take up a lot of energy and are very stressful, not to mention emotionally draining.

    I notice that when I’m in this heightened state of drama, my ability for logical thinking goes out of the window. I lose all connection to my grown-up self and I feel the adult receding, regressing me back to an insecure child.

    I see myself adopting the same body language and survival strategies I used when I got into disputes with my mother during childhood.

    Looking back, it’s obvious to me that my current over-reactions have a lot to do with how I was brought up. My mother was a strict matriarch with black and white views—grey areas didn’t exist in her world. She was always right and everyone else wrong, and there was no room for argument.

    If I ever dared to argue, I would be quickly silenced with a barrage of cutting words or physical blows that would leave me hurt, feeling powerless and seething for hours. My voice was quashed, my will controlled, and I felt small and stifled.

    As a child, I didn’t have the awareness to recognize the surge of my ego during these altercations with my mother, when my very existence felt under threat. But of course, every part of me screamed silently in protest, including my ego.

    Now, as a so-called mature fifty-year-old adult, it’s quite disconcerting to visibly witness my conditioned responses popping to the surface during heated conflicts, especially when some part of me feels threatened.

    These responses haven’t altered or evolved at all since my childhood. Sometimes it feels like I’ve never really grown up.

    I still discover myself seething in the same helpless way to emotional triggers and feeling the same powerlessness when my will is challenged or when I feel controlled, as I often do during conflicts with my partner.

    My ego rears up in anger and defense in exactly the way it did when I was a child.

    And yet, even in the most extreme spells of ego drama, I’m sometimes able to take a step back from my hurt, stealing a momentary pause from the heat of my frustration.

    These short breaks allow my anger to calm, giving space for my ego to stand down. Then I’m able to recognize the reasons for my exaggerated reactions, understanding that a part of me was feeling threatened.

    I’ve observed that my biggest over-reactions occur when my partner threatens what I deem important; for example, the time and money I spend on my spiritual activities.

    In these brief moments of lucidity, the ego is fully exposed with technicolor clarity. In this instant, the cause of our argument, which seemed so important just a few minutes before, completely loses its power and dissolves, rendering the whole situation funny and somewhat ridiculous.

    My ego’s true nature is laid bare during these points of pure seeing.

    It’s utterly clear to me that my ego simply functions to protect the parts of myself I feel I must defend, secure, or guard, like my will, my way of expression, my beliefs and moral values.

    My ego jumps up in defense of these values because of the importance I’ve given them, effectively giving my ego permission to react whenever these values feel challenged.

    Amazingly, the truth is, these morals can only exert power over me if I allow them to. I can equally decide not to give them any power at all, which should gradually stop my ego’s need to defend them.

    I know it will take time to break this pattern of over-reactions to emotional triggers, since my conditioned responses are almost automatic now. However, in conflict situations, if in one time out of ten I don’t react, it will certainly make a difference to my life and relationships, won’t it?

    What a liberation that will be!

    For years I’ve unknowingly been trapped in the same ego cycle of trigger/reaction, trigger/reaction that developed when I was a child.

    Now, with the benefit of being able to witness my ego play in action, I no longer feel a prisoner of its games. For the first time in life, I am learning to choose whether or not to react.

    These other insights around my ego are helping to improve my partner relationship, as well as the relationships with family and friends.

    The ego wants to blame others.

    We have all become so accustomed to blaming other people and circumstances that we are often not even conscious that we’re doing it.

    On the surface, it’s much easier to blame others, because it removes the burden of accountability from us and places it firmly at the feet of the other. However, although blaming others appears to be a quick-fix solution, in all honesty, it isn’t.

    Believe it or not, blaming others takes away our control of the situation and passes it onto the other. It prevents us from seeing the whole truth of the issue and blocks us from fully understanding ourselves, which can keep us stuck in the same obstructive patterns of behavior.

    For years I blamed my mother for everything that was wrong in my life. I blamed her for not being there for me, for not supporting my dreams, and for not being the parent I expected her to be. Spending so much time and energy blaming her, I wasn’t able to see my own part in the situation.

    When I finally had the courage to stop blaming my mother, it came as quite a shock to me to realize that I was equally responsible for the things I was unhappy with.

    It’s clear to me that my ego’s fear of admitting culpability kept me in blame mode.

    I naturally progressed onto blaming my partner, because my ego makes it difficult for me to accept my part in a conflict that I am at least partly responsible for. So it’s no surprise our arguments escalate as they do.

    Ultimately, we must all strive to accept responsibility for every action we take, even the ones we’re ashamed of. The more we’re able to do this, the stronger we become and the weaker our egos will be, gradually loosening the grip they have on us.

    The ego covers up.

    Another thing I can say about the ego is that it will do anything to cover up its mistakes, especially when it sees it’s wrong. Its attempts to cover up increase when caught red-handed, behaving just like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

    I remember when I was a child, even when I was caught in the act, I would do everything I could to cover up my mistake, trying my best to deny the blatant truth.

    Maybe my actions as a child could be excused, but sadly, my behavior as an adult hasn’t improved—I still find myself fighting to deny the truth when I’m unexpectedly caught off guard. Like when my partner surprises me, by correctly guessing the trivial cause of my upset.

    My ego hates being so easily called out, so it must cover up and defend.

    One of the hardest things for any of us to do is to admit we are wrong, because when we own up to being wrong, it automatically makes the other right.

    And being wrong is something our egos cannot bear. As a result, we find it difficult to say sorry or to ask for forgiveness, which exacerbates our conflicts.

    I’m also recognizing that our inability to admit our wrongdoing keeps us stuck in our defensive positions, which allows our egos to fool us into fighting, justifying, and defending every point of view—a complete drain of our energy.

    I’ve noticed, however, that when I see the truth and can openly admit it to my partner, surprisingly, rather than separating us, the admission brings us closer together, healing some of the hurt we created during our conflict.

    So admitting that we are wrong need not be a negative experience, but can instead empower us, lessening some of the control our egos have on us.

    The ego wants to hurt back.

    For me, one of the worst things in the world is the pain of feeling hurt, as I imagine is true for most of us.

    Sometimes, the hurt we feel paralyzes us and we’re unable to fight back, but at other times, the only thing we can think of is how we can hurt the other person back.

    Our egos trick us into believing that hurting the other will alleviate the pain we’re feeling.

    I’ve realized that in all conflict situations, it is actually our egos that feel hurt. Again because some value or aspect of the image we have internally built up of ourselves is being challenged, threatened, or undermined in one way or another.

    I’m ashamed to say that on many occasions, both in my childhood and adulthood, my ego has wanted nothing more than to inflict as much pain on others as possible, as a way of lessening some of the hurt it was feeling.

    But retaliation is not the answer; it only adds more fuel to the fires of our egos.

    Maybe I can be forgiven for saying that in my childhood, hurting others was an unconscious reaction to my own feelings of hurt. And in the recent past when I was still unawake, hurting someone who hurt me was my natural course of action. But now, with my increasing awareness, knowingly hurting another is not something I can condone.

    In the heat of ego fights between me and my partner, when my ego rears up ready to defend itself, it’s hard, but I am becoming more and more able to check myself before I go over the line with insults I know will cause my partner pain. Even when I feel he has crossed the line with me, I can still consciously stop myself from going too far.

    I consider this a huge triumph over my ego, and something I’m proud of.

    Every time I can stop myself from blindly over-reacting to a perceived threat to my values and can become an observer of my ego and its games, I know I’m taking a step in the right direction.

    The more conscious we can all become of our ego play in action, the more freedom we will gain from our egos. Then, over time and with consistent effort, positive changes to our life journeys and relationships are inevitable.

    Artwork by artbymanjiri, CC 2.0

  • I Am Proud of You

    I Am Proud of You

  • Health Is Not Just About What You’re Eating

    Health Is Not Just About What You’re Eating

  • How to Dissolve Social Anxiety by Doing Nothing

    How to Dissolve Social Anxiety by Doing Nothing

    “Your thoughts have to understand one thing: that you are not interested in them. The moment you have made this point, you have attained a tremendous victory.” ~Osho

    “What do you do when you go out alone to the forest for the whole day?” my friend asked.

    “Nothing. I just sit there, enjoy the peace, and let my thoughts be,” I replied.

    “So you meditate,” she said.

    “No,” I objected. “I just sit there and do nothing.”

    “But that’s meditation,” she insisted.

    I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, if that’s what you want to call it.”

    At that time, most people and society were a big, mean, frightening monster I kept trying to get away from—if not physically, then at least mentally by blasting music through my headphones, escaping far away in my daydream world, or by drowning my invasive negative thoughts and feelings in drugs and alcohol.

    Yet, the real monster was inside of me and didn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

    I remember how my social anxiety got worse around some people, usually the ones who seemed to feel superior, arrogant, and judgmental toward others. At least that’s how I perceived them in my subjective reality as a socially anxious person. But this wasn’t the only determining element for the intensity of my fears.

    Authority figures were frightening, too, even the kind ones.

    The truth is, when you have social anxiety, you have such low self-esteem and an intense feeling of inferiority that you think pretty much everyone is superior to you.

    So as a general rule, my brain decided that everyone is better and cooler than me, and that pretty much everyone thinks I’m ugly, stupid, and worthless. Therefore, I better stay away from people if I want to avoid mocking, judgment, and rejection.

    Every time I didn’t respect my brain’s wish, an alarm in the form of severe anxiety would go off.

    Actually, that alarm went off even when just the thought of some people crossed my mind.

    But after hours of my special meditation, these thoughts lost their grip. I would think of people, and no unpleasant emotions would arise, or if they did arise, much less than before.

    I would feel at peace… until the chaos of the city and society would get the best of me again. It would usually take just a day or two before I’d feel pretty much as my old anxious self, which might seem too short to be even worth the time to get out of a big city. It might seem like my few-hours long trip was meaningless.

    Yet, every meditation made me a little bit stronger and a little bit more peaceful.

    Nothing is meaningless. That’s one of the precious lessons I’ve learned from nature.

    When everything seemed to lose its meaning, I would look at nature’s beauty surrounding me. I would look at plants and know they are not meaningless. Besides having their special roles in the ecosystem, they appease me. So if they are not meaningless, nothing is, because in nature, everything breathes and lives as one.

    There are many more lessons the natural world has taught me.

    You know what’s best about being surrounded by meadows, trees, birds, and butterflies?

    You feel the life around you, but you know there’s no judgment or rejection involved, not in the same sense as in human society. No thoughts. Nature just is.

    Especially plants. There’s something about them that is very calming.

    Wild landscapes inspire me to just be. And when you “just are,” without judgment of good and bad, you become incredibly peaceful.

    You have probably heard of Jim Rohn’s quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” While it might not always be true, I believe it generally is. That’s because we are influenced by our surroundings and social interaction.

    Spending time in nature is like becoming infected with that peaceful just be feeling.

    What does this have to do with social anxiety?

    At first glance, it doesn’t have much to do with the “social” part of anxiety, but read on.

    Social anxiety is born out of a feeling of unworthiness, of not feeling good enough, of judgmental thoughts defining you as “bad” and defining other people as “bad,” “good,” or “better.”

    When you just are, all the good and bad disappears and gives place to indescribable peace.

    You become stronger and untouchable.

    As I sit there on a meadow with the forest surrounding me, I just let my thoughts be.

    I don’t try to stop them, create them, or analyze them. I don’t even observe them.

    I probably can’t say I get lost in them either.

    It’s more like I get lost in the peaceful part of myself while I let all the thoughts do whatever they want. I let them be, and with that, I let them go.

    I am emptying myself.

    One of my friends once said, “Why do you say you are emptying yourself? You should say you are refilling, not emptying.”

    I say emptying because I don’t think that you have to fill yourself up to become the highest version of yourself.

    Your true self is blissful, happy, loving, and peaceful. Unhelpful thoughts cover up that peace and make you get lost in the labyrinth of heavy and unpleasant feelings like anxiety, low self-confidence, fear, anger, and sadness.

    When you let go of those thoughts, you automatically become everything you ever wanted to be.

    So in the end, I like the idea of calling “just sitting in nature, doing nothing” meditation. After all, it creates the effect meditation is supposed to create.

    If you haven’t already, I invite you to try this “meditation” yourself. Sit there for a few hours. Or at least for one hour. Needless to say, looking at your phone doesn’t count as “doing nothing,” so leave it at home or in your pocket.

    No need to analyze, observe, stop, redirect, or create your thoughts. Just be there. Don’t try to be present, and don’t try not to be. Don’t try to be without thoughts, either, because as soon as you try to do anything with your thoughts, you are creating new thoughts, more thoughts, and the “just be” state is gone.

    Just be. And let thoughts be too. It’s one of the best paths to yourself because when you lose all the unhelpful thoughts, you find yourself.

  • It’s Never Too Late for a New Beginning

    It’s Never Too Late for a New Beginning

  • Your Dream Doesn’t Have an Expiration Date

    Your Dream Doesn’t Have an Expiration Date

  • Our Words Have Power (So Speak Kindly To and About Yourself)

    Our Words Have Power (So Speak Kindly To and About Yourself)

    “I monitor my self-talk, making sure it is supportive and uplifting for myself and others.” ~ Louise Hay

    Three years ago, I ended up with no work in a foreign country. I was almost depressed, as I didn’t know what to say when people asked questions about my profession. The idea of making no income injected my mind with a wide repertoire of worries, fears, and concerns.

    I was lost and stuck, and the way I was labeling myself at the time felt quite painful: unemployed. Not only did it look like I had a serious problem to deal with, I was starting to feel like I was a problem, myself.

    We all perceive the reality of our experiences filtered through our own lenses, the expectations we set on ourselves and others, and our individual system of belief. To some people, being unemployed is a fact. Not good or bad, normal or abnormal, right or wrong. To me, it held a strong negative connotation. In a world that generally validates our self-worth through what we do for a living, being left with no work made me feel like a total failure.

    Thanks to Wayne Dyer, one of the spiritual teachers who helped me grow into who I am today, I managed to change my perspective and see things in a much different light. Here’s what I remember him saying in an interview on YouTube: “Your only problem is your belief that you have a problem. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

    His words spoke to me from the inside out. It came like thunder: a wake-up call that was going to shift my entire experience. The moment I decided to look at the situation from another angle, everything changed.

    I decided to eliminate the word “unemployed” from my vocabulary, and I went for more empowering words instead. I was “job hunting,” and “looking for better employment opportunities” while being “in transition to a new career.”

    Those feelings of frustration and sadness, which came with a deep sense of unworthiness and identity loss, got replaced by a much cleaner space of possibilities, hope, and curiosity for a fresh start.

    By changing my perspective and the language I was using to describe my experience, I stopped feeling like a victim. Things were not imposed on me any longer, and I had power.

    All of a sudden, I could see the bright side of the situation. When I was busy with work, always running somewhere, working overtime to reach goals and fulfill my duties, I so much wanted to get more time. When I was left with no job, I accused life of being unfair. It wasn’t.

    I realized I had all the time in the world—and what a precious gift that was, because time never comes back! I had enough savings to rely on and a supportive husband, as well. And I had a dream to pursue—to do soul work with people and make this world a much better place. One year later, I got certified as a coach.

    Today, I know that was a real blessing in disguise. “Unemployed” was not a weakness, but an opportunity for me to grow professionally and build a new career from scratch.

    I have also learned that failing with anything doesn’t make me a failure, because I am not what I do. Being left with no work was an experience, and it didn’t have to define me or lower my self-worth unless I allowed it to.

    One more time, Wayne Dyer was right: I am a “human being,” not a “human doing.”

    You see, the thoughts we think and the words we speak have tremendous power. Words are a form of energy, and their vibration has a high impact on the way we feel and think; they can either empower us or put us down.

    I invite you to try the following exercise: think of a situation in your life that looks like a problem. Stay for a moment with that and get mindful of how that feels in your body.

    Now, think of the same situation as if that was an issue or a topic for you to brainstorm, reflect, and deal with. Can you see the difference and how much lighter you feel?

    You’ve done nothing else but replacing the word “problem” (which feels like a burden, something heavy for you to carry) with “issue” (much lighter, something that you could find a solution to).

    When I was a child, my mother advised me always to pay attention to my words. “One can kill or save another with only one word,” she said. I didn’t get what she meant at that time, but now I do.

    Looking back on my life, I came to realize I spent many years punishing myself with disempowering words about who I was. Thinking I wasn’t good enough, perceiving myself as a failure when I was making mistakes, taking myself for granted, unable to acknowledge my achievements, as if “anyone could do that” or “it wasn’t anything big or special.”

    “Stupid me!” “I’m not good enough.” “I’ll never get this.” “This is too big for me.” “I am average.” That’s how the voices in my head used to sound.

    Years later, thanks to the beautiful work of Louise Hay, I have learned that being mindful of my self-talk is one of the best forms of self-care and self-respect.

    “You’ve been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.“ ~Louise Hay

    I knew I would have never told my best friend what an idiot she was for doing this or saying that. And if she were to consider herself ugly or stupid, I would have never encouraged such an idea. I would have supported her in the best way I could.

    It took me a while to understand how unfair I was to myself: talking to others kindly and showing them compassion while putting myself down every day. Just like everyone else, I was also a person, worthy of being seen and listened to, appreciated, understood, forgiven, respected, acknowledged, nurtured, and loved.

    The day I stopped making myself small with my self-talk, my life transformed, and here’s what I know to be true today:

    I am whatever I believe myself to be. If I think I am smart, beautiful, ugly, or stupid, that’s what my reality becomes. We all get to shape our own story by the way we feel, act, and think.

    Besides that, I don’t have any weaknesses; I only have areas for growth.

    While I am aware of the things I need to work on (do less and be more, become more patient and sometimes calmer, talk less and listen more and so on), the very fact that I have replaced the word “weakness” by “area for growth” is empowering. Like everyone else, I am on a journey called Life, and that’s all about learning.

    My husband and I moved to Mexico a few months ago. We can understand Spanish, but neither of us can speak it. I could see this as a weakness, but I choose not to. This is nothing but an area for growth: we are both going to acquire new skills, expand our knowledge, and grow as individuals. We’ve already started to take lessons.

    The words we use in our everyday life have power. They can either destroy or build relationships with ourselves and other people. Getting mindful of our self-talk is one of the best forms of self-love and self-compassion. Let us choose our words wisely.

    “Language shapes our behavior, and each word we use is imbued with multitudes of personal meaning. The right words spoken in the right way can bring us love, money, and respect, while the wrong words—or even the right words spoken in the wrong way—can lead to a country of war. We must carefully orchestrate our speech if we want to achieve our goals and bring our dreams to fruition.” – Dr. Andrew Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain

    And now, I would like to hear from you. If there were one single disempowering word for you to eliminate from your vocabulary, what would that be?

  • I’m Not Impressed by Money, Social Status, or Job Titles

    I’m Not Impressed by Money, Social Status, or Job Titles

  • Why I Drank, How It Destroyed Me, and How I’m Healing My Self-Hatred

    Why I Drank, How It Destroyed Me, and How I’m Healing My Self-Hatred

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual assault and self-harm and may be triggering to some people.

    Hi, I’m Adriana and I’m an alcoholic.

    When I look back at my life, I realize it was inevitable that I’d end up here.

    By the time I was nineteen, I’d already had a history of self-harm through cutting, a byproduct of my depression and anxiety. I was anorexic. I’d had a near cervical-cancer scare not once, but twice within a six-month period, leaving my gynecologist back in Sydney speechless. “I have never had a case like yours.”

    I’d survived an abusive relationship that, I believed, left me with no other choice but to end my life. If I were going to die, I’d rather die by my own accord, not his. So, I swallowed forty Panadol pills, two at a time, within thirty minutes. I felt my body slowly shut down as each minute passed by, and ironically, it was the first time in a long time that I felt alive.

    I’m not writing about the sugarcoated life many have engaged with on my social media feeds over the years. I am here to introduce you to my self-hatred, which you don’t see each time I post a filtered photo on my Instagram page.

    I fell in love with the wrong person when I was seventeen. The first six months together were filled with happiness. I was convinced he was the one I’d spend the rest of my life with, and at seventeen my hunt for a husband was over. Hashtag winning.

    I couldn’t have been more wrong.

    Over the course of the ten months that followed, he routinely beat me, and I covered up the evidence to protect him. He psychologically raped me, repeatedly telling me, “Who’s gonna love you when I’m done with you?” He even sodomized me.

    He threatened my life if I didn’t listen to him or if I dared to tell anyone the truth. I had two friends who begged me to walk away, but no matter how powerless I felt, their concerns meant nothing to me. So over time, they gave up trying.

    He told me when to speak—“Don’t be too funny, Adriana. I don’t want people liking you more than me.” He also told me what to wear, and I had to ask permission if I wanted to go out. Worst of all, he stripped me of my right to feel human, true to the nature of how insidious an abusive relationship can be. In this case, love really was blind.

    I internalized the trauma to such an extent that I carried the shame, guilt, and pain with me throughout my twenties. I forgave him long before I forgave myself, which led me to a path of unconscious self-destruction.

    It was my fault for holding onto those first six months and hoping the real him would return. It was my fault that I let him treat me the way that he did. It was my fault for not leaving, particularly after the first time he hit me. It was my fault because surely I was doing something wrong that would trigger him to hit me. It was my fault because by staying, I was asking for it.

    So I did what most young people do when they’re nineteen and single: I started my clubbing career and my relationship with Jack Daniels. A year before, alcohol repelled me; now it was my savior. This also led to the introduction to a string of dysfunctional people I’d come to call my friends.

    You know, you should never judge a party girl. Every party girl has a backstory, but in my case, no one cared enough to find out. They just bought me more drinks.

    People would say they envied my life—how I had zero Fs for the world around me—but what most people failed to see was that, in reality, I had zero Fs for myself.

    Then I entered the permanent hangover I now call my twenties.

    I started going to festivals and was introduced to ecstasy. I still remember the first time an e hit my bloodstream. Like most users, I tried to relive that feeling every time I popped a pill. Eventually, ecstasy became boring, and I started experimenting with pure MDMA. It was a little bit riskier and more dangerous, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t matter.

    I was then introduced to cocaine when I was twenty, and that became my favorite drug of them all. Cocaine meant that I could drink more. It also meant that I had something in common with people who I usually wouldn’t associate with.

    Cocaine turned me into a version of myself that was confident and unstoppable. When I was high, I used to think to myself, “Imagine you were this confident and unstoppable but didn’t need cocaine to get you there.” Just imagine!

    I often found it funny how the drug was commonly referred to as “the rich man’s drug,” yet it left me feeling emotionally bankrupt.

    At twenty-one, I was partying in Las Vegas with some friends when I got busted with an eight ball of cocaine—and got away with it. Fortunately, I was given a slap on the wrist and banned from entering half the hotels in Vegas for life. Personally, I was more devastated because that meant that I could never be a Playboy bunny.

    I remember the undercover policewoman taking me down to the public toilets, handing me over the bag of coke, and asking me to flush it down. I took this as an opportunity to bribe her into letting me keep the bag.

    You’d think that an incident like that would encourage me to hang up my party dress and clean up my ways. But it didn’t. I continued down this path, playing roulette with my life.

    Not all was tragic. I did find myself in a loving relationship a year later, and for three years lived a ‘normal’ life. He loved me, and I loved him as much as I could. But what is love when you don’t love yourself? This voice inside my head constantly whispered, “You’re not good enough for him.”

    Once that relationship ended, I was straight back to my self-destructive ways, drinking heavily on most nights.

    On one occasion, I decided it would be “cool” to bring a guy home and drink skull cafe patron out of the bottle. Mind you, I was already intoxicated. The next morning I woke up peacefully in my bed. A few hours later, I received a message that read, “I need you to take the morning-after pill ASAP.”

    I thought, hmm, it’s not my ideal situation; sh*t happens, I suppose. It’s $30 in Australia, and you can buy it over the counter, fortunately, but the problem was, I couldn’t remember having sex.

    To this moment, I don’t. I had blacked out.

    I felt so exposed, vulnerable, and disgusted with myself. Then the shame kicked in. Who the hell did I think I was? What was I becoming?

    I decided I needed to stop drinking, and I was successfully sober for three months. I survived parties, lonely nights, and even the ultimate test, a big fat Croatian wedding.

    I never considered that I had a problem with alcohol. I thought that alcoholism was a condition you could learn to control.

    In my late twenties, I decided to move myself from Sydney to London to “find myself.” We all know the saying that you must “lose yourself” in order to “find yourself,” and I did just that.

    London is a fascinating city to lose yourself in. There was always an occasion to drink. I wasn’t one of those wake-up-and-drink-right-away type people. I was more self-respecting than that; I waited till lunchtime and continued until I blacked out! But as a high-functioning alcoholic, I still made my work deadlines.

    I was always around people who didn’t just use drugs; they abused them. And no matter how much I knew the difference between right and wrong, I was perpetually on a quest to distract myself from myself.

    There was no one more delighted to meet another person who was more messed up than me. “Great,” I thought. “Let’s talk about your problems; I’m not ready to talk about mine.”

    I slept my way around, seeking someone who would understand and rescue me. I was bed hopping, using sex as a way to validate myself and feel worthy. It was nothing less than a cheap thrill.

    I attracted males who were misogynistic and dominant and resembled the character of my first love. Everyone had an agenda to take a piece of me. I was aware of this; I just didn’t care.

    I had one who would eventually tell me that maybe I shouldn’t be so upfront and honest about my past with the next guy because “it may turn him off.” But it was okay for him to turn me over in my sleep, get on top, and insert himself inside of me because he was in the mood. This was the many occasions that I was raped.

    Then there was the one who slapped my face as I told him to get out of me, but he kept going, smiling as he watched the tears roll down my face.

    Before I forget, there was another who was more than willing to buy me cocktails all night while telling me he couldn’t wait to take advantage of me later on, but made me call my own cab when I threw up all over his bedroom. Apparently we had sex too.

    We can sit here and go on about my clouded judgment when, in actual fact, this dialogue and connection was just my comfort zone.

    A year ago, completely fed up with myself and my chemically addictive ways, I decided it was time to kill myself. I was emotionally exhausted and starved. My body no longer felt pain, and I could longer taste alcohol. I was so deep in depression I could feel it in my blood.

    I planned my suicide, step by step, over several days and kept reminding myself that the world was better off without me helplessly roaming within it, without a purpose, doing more harm than good.

    I was a bad person because I was a broken person, as many boys had told me. I may not have intentionally hurt those around me, but I had a decade-long struggle during which I perpetually hurt the one person I never knew how to love, myself.

    I started writing my suicide letter and decided I needed some background noise. On the front page of YouTube was a video titled “How to overcome procrastination by leaping afraid,” by Lisa Nichols. This video would end up saving my life and distracting me from my open wounds that were so desperately trying to dry up.

    There is nothing that scares an addict more than sobriety and having nothing to turn to when that darkness from your past begins to appear and say, “Hey, remember me?” But I knew my problem with alcohol was fueling my depression and, therefore, contributing to my self-hatred. I had to break this cycle of hate.

    I sat in my silence and said, “Adriana, you have two choices right now: You can continue down this path, knowing you’re going to keep doing the same thing, getting the same results; and I’m pretty sure that’s what Einstein defined as insanity. Down this path your addictions will kill you or you may do it yourself—whatever comes first. Or, you can do something you haven’t done in the last ten years: give sobriety a chance and see if things are different on the other side.”

    I was twenty-nine when I said enough. My grandfather was sixty. Some people never have an age. Some people simply drown and instead of living to their full potential. They just exist.

    Every year on my birthday, I would blow out my candles and wish for love. Last year, my wish came true, and I started the tumultuous road to recovery, healing, and self-love. It may be a cliché, but it’s true: Who’s going to love you if you don’t love yourself first?

    I knew that the life I dreamed of was on the other side of my fears, and getting sober was a stepping stone. I just celebrated eight months of sobriety, and although this may not seem like long, it’s the longest I haven’t poisoned my blood in ten years.

    It hasn’t been easy. I have cried alone in my room. I had cried walking down the street. I have cried at parties and events. I’ve had breakdowns in several AA meetings. I have cried during a yoga class when the tears were triggered by the damage I had done to my body. I felt it all.

    I heard voices telling me I’d fail and I should just stick to my old ways, the ways I knew best. I almost relapsed twice in the first three months because I was tempted to show my new friends who my old friends knew me to be.

    But I am healing and getting stronger.

    I’ve learned that we find our greatest strengths in our darkest shadows, and there is no way you can know what happiness is until you figure out what it isn’t.

    The relationship we have with ourselves is the longest relationship we’ll ever have. Yet, we spend prolonged periods of time neglecting ourselves to suit the world around us.

    We chase happiness in momentary triumphs instead of simply choosing it by putting in the work to keep ourselves self-aware and on our own paths of personal enlightenment.

    We avoid taboo topics like addictions because they make people uncomfortable, but we are more than willing to engage in these addictions because they make us more comfortable with ourselves.

    We are united by owning our struggles and sharing our stories and divided by our quest for perfection and appearing perfect to the world around us. Perfection is an illusion, and God, did I learn this the hard way.

    I don’t deny my demons because instead of feeling ashamed of them, I’m now proud of how I’ve overcome them. And I know my greatest strengths have surfaced from my deepest struggles. Because of what I’ve been through, I’m more compassionate with others in similar situations, and I’ve also developed a strong sense of determination to do the inner self-work required to get past my trauma.

    How many of you can look yourself in the eye and say, “I love you” without knowing deep down that you just lied? I’m still learning, but courtesy of sobriety, I’m getting there.

  • Kindness Is the New Cool

    Kindness Is the New Cool

  • Children Become What They Are Told They Are

    Children Become What They Are Told They Are