Tag: wisdom
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You Never Know How Much Time You Have, So Forgive While You Can
“Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” ~Corrie ten Boom
I sat next to my stepmother Elaine in her hospital room. I was thirteen. We’d met six years prior as she took a stepmother’s role and had a strained relationship and didn’t speak to each other for parts of it.
Elaine was facing terminal brain cancer. So far she had kept herself together and composed, remaining strong on the outside. I was trying my hardest to do the same for her.
It had all started back when I was seven and my dad took me to a carnival. My parents were still together at the time. It was there I first met Elaine and her son, four years my junior.
Her son and I played a many carnival games together and we bonded quickly. Even as we grew more competitive, I found myself continually distracted by Elaine’s close presence and her friendliness with my dad. All I saw was that she was taking my dad away.
A year later, my father sat me down and told me he was leaving for a little while. This immediately caused an internal alarm to sound. A little while?
They didn’t really expect me to believe that, did they? He must’ve thought I wouldn’t understand. But deep down I knew this was only going to mean one thing: divorce.
I even told my best friend about it. “My parents are fighting a lot. I think they’re getting a divorce.”
“My parents fight too. It’s fine,” she said. But I thought to myself that it wasn’t the same, that everything wasn’t fine.
Elaine was a strong, independent businesswoman who thrived in her sales occupation and went for runs religiously every morning at five o’clock. She placed a lot of importance on eating right and an overall healthy lifestyle. The mere fact she would be the one of all people to end up with terminal cancer shocked everyone.
The cancer started in her stomach but soon afterward it rapidly began to metastasize and spread to her brain. It became brain cancer, something she strived to fight against. She still wound up staying in the hospital, defying her strong will and intent to get better.
Although I visited her in the hospital many times, we never grew as close as I felt we should have. It’s one of my greatest regrets.
I resented the fact that Elaine took my dad away from my mom. Or at least, that was my perception of what happened. As the resentment grew within me, so did the void between me and Elaine.
During the course of Elaine’s relationship with my father, I fell under the impression that she was trying to buy my affection with material things. She took me to the mall more than once to buy clothes, jewelry, and other items for me—but why? On the inside, I refused to allow myself be bought.
Then one Christmas, she wrote a poem about our relationship and how it really wasn’t where she hoped it would be. Upon reading this, I kept my head down and didn’t respond. She also presented me with a number of certificates one day each month to go places and do things.
Such gifts included the spa, Barnes and Noble, the mall, various other stores, and more. These acts of generosity were overwhelming me, and not in a good way. I was beginning to feel like being bought was entirely unforgivable.
One day, in a blaze of frustration, I asked Elaine if she knew my mother cried at night because of her. Elaine burst into tears. With my words, I’d stopped her in tracks in the middle of the many acts of generosity, but I felt it had to be said.
These events had fractured our relationship even further.
From that point on things didn’t improve much, until one day when I’d been running around outside of our lake house in the woods and became lost. I wandered for hours, growing more hopeless by the moment, until I heard something in the distance. It was a bell, and by some miracle it seemed to be ringing for me!
Immediately, I began sprinting in the direction of the sound. To my amazement it was Elaine. She’d rung the bell in an effort to guide me back.
I ran into her outstretched arms and collapsed into them while crying. “Everything’s okay now,” she said, holding me tighter than ever before.
In this moment, something drastic happened. All of the previous animosity I had been holding onto began to melt away. She finally had me; she’d won.
At first I felt defeated at the fact that I’d finally given in and accepted Elaine’s genuineness of her care for me. But these feelings would soon turn to regret when she first spoke to us of the cancer. As the word spread, people from all corners of life gave her gifts in wake of her diagnosis.
I was amazed at the outpouring of generosity for Elaine. I gained more respect for her. She didn’t hesitate to pass many of the gifts on to myself and her son.
One day, toward the end, I’d been reading one of Elaine’s books. It was about Corrie Ten Boom, a former holocaust survivor of World War II who forgave a former and repented Nazi concentration camp guard who approached her after listening to her speak. I was moved by her astounding compassion and I closed the book, in tears.
I knew that I had to try and find that same forgiveness in myself.
At the hospital, Elaine was deteriorating. As she’d become greatly overheated, I suggested that we pat her down with a wet washcloth. Without hesitation, she said, “I want Sarah to do it.”
Something happened when I ran the washcloth across her forehead and body. I forgave her. In doing this, I’d become her servant and given her all the attention I had to give.
During this experience, I learned that forgiving someone is easiest when they are in their humblest, most vulnerable state of being. When someone is on their deathbed, it doesn’t so much matter anymore what they’ve done or didn’t do during their lifetime. Their sins seem to dissipate or almost wash clean away.
Soon after Elaine was moved to a hospice for care and I was set to attend a formal dance at my school. She was very excited and couldn’t wait to see me in my dress, which surprised me pleasantly. I entered her room in grand fashion, twirling from side to side in my blue gown with a matching blue rose in my hair.
Before I departed for the dance, she gave me a long hug. Thinking the embrace had ended, I tried to pull back out of it, but she wasn’t letting go. She lingered and stared at me, which caught me off guard.
At the time I had no real idea what was happening and what it all meant, but this was goodbye. She must’ve been sure of this on the inside but refused to let on to that. And in that moment she protected us from that knowledge and in a reassuring way said, “I think I’m getting better.”
We left shortly afterward. Not long after that, Elaine passed.
Later, I thought back to the conversation I had with Elaine in the hospital, when we were stuck in an awkward silence and both looking in opposite directions.
I told her that I had been going through a hard time and I was feeling depressed. She said that she had struggled with multiple bouts of depression in her own life.
This surprised me more than anything. “But you’re such a strong businesswoman and mom!” I said. She smiled and didn’t respond.
She always held it together, staying strong in the face of adversity, and I was surprised to learn that even she struggled. In learning this, we had the chance to both share our stories and gain some common ground, giving us compassion for one another.
In Elaine’s absence, I remembered what Corrie Ten Boom taught me about forgiveness: you can do it without feeling it. The faith in forgiveness comes first. Act in goodness and the feeling will come.
“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” Corrie Ten Boom’s famous words have never left me.
Even when I didn’t know which visit to Elaine’s hospice would be the last, when I couldn’t change my circumstances, I changed myself. In forgiving her, I forgave myself. And although I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye the way I wanted to, I felt there was peace and understanding between us.
Forgiving myself was a harder, longer journey than forgiving Elaine. After she passed, I still regretted how much I resisted her. Her gifts now meant so much more.
She had been seeking appreciation, and I had been withholding it from her. Life found a way to pull it from me through grief and time.
She had been in my life for so long, yet I was only just beginning to realize the worth she sometimes lacked, the struggle she had with our strained relationship, and the persona she put on to make sure everyone knew she was okay.
She wasn’t always okay. I never saw her vulnerability until the end, just a hardened exterior that only fate could unravel and reveal.
She wasn’t my mother; she could never take that role. She wasn’t my stepmom really because she didn’t marry my dad. But she never gave up on me.
Now when I think back to the poem that she read to me, I reflect on the lines
“I was writing my list to bring Christmas joy…
And I couldn’t think of anything to buy you but a boy;
Since that was not practical and not really right;
I thought I’d be more creative and shed some light;
Like on our relationship that’s not quite there;
But my heart still tells me I care.”I know now to live in the moment, appreciate the time I have with people, and in my heart try to forgive even when it’s hard. People still alive need me here and now, even though I want to turn back time. I can’t live in the past.
Self-forgiveness is hard. It’s harder than forgiving those that hurt you. Imagine if they were on their last days, though. What would you say to them?
Say that to them now. Learn from the mistakes of the past, don’t live in them. I had no idea there was a time limit to knowing Elaine, but there is a time limit on us all.
We don’t feel this limit. We don’t realize how quickly time passes us by. Any day could be an unwarranted goodbye.
We can’t control the outcome. I couldn’t stop the cancer, but I could stand up to it. I could make a difference in her life however limited in time we were.
I wish now that I had let her in. I would have had a best friend. I should have shown her my feelings and given myself the chance to be reconciled with her.
Even though I will never have that chance again, I served her at the end of her life. I believe we should all be serving each other.
I was lucky.
I didn’t learn this lesson too late even though I was running out of time.
It is never too late to love someone, to forgive, to mend—until you run out of time. Even if it’s not reciprocated, you can respect another’s choice by leading in love yourself. Elaine never gave up on me.
So I’m not giving up on you. You too can do this. You can live again once you forgive.
It doesn’t mean everything will change, but the most important thing will be: You will be set right, set apart, and make a difference in someone’s life. Maybe even more than in your own.
The world is a broken one, but there is beauty in the brokenness. It takes bravery to see it, to act on it, to respect it. Things aren’t perfect, but through forgiveness you can make the world just a little bit better.
You need only allow yourself to.
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What to Do When Someone You Love Is Sick and Struggling
“Love is not what you say. Love is what you do.” ~Unknown
As a graduate student in public health, I spent my days talking about illness and death. Normal lunchtime conversations among students covered topics like: how to define a case of multiple sclerosis, the most effective strategy to stop HIV transmission among injection drug users, and the probability you’d be alive in five years after a breast cancer diagnosis.
None of this talk about illness remotely prepared me for the experience of illness. I was blissfully naive when I started dating a man named Evan with a cough that wouldn’t go away.
Over the course of a year, Evan got progressively worse in a series of fits and starts. He was in and out of the hospital and died toward the end of 2012. I was heartbroken and devastated. But within a few years, I healed and was back to participating in normal life.
Then, I started getting dizzy spells and severe face pain. A few months later, a very large yet benign tumor was removed from one of my sinuses. I spent months confined to my apartment waiting for my sinuses to heal and the pain to subside.
Through these experiences, I’ve seen how a lot of our well-intentioned responses to illness don’t have the intended impact. Here are the top eight lessons I’ve learned a lot about how to be a terrific support as a family member or friend.
1. Do what is needed, not what you think you should do.
At the lowest points in Evan’s illness, I had a hard time eating. I barely slept. I was always bracing for what would happen next.
Evan spent twenty-one nights in the hospital over the course of eleven months. I didn’t spend any.
Not because I didn’t want to. Because he asked me to leave. Because he wanted me to get enough rest so that he could count on me coming back.
So that I’d be safe to drive and bring him outside food. So that he could trust me to research the doctor’s recommendations and help him communicate his choices.
Because he could tell how scared I was, and my fear was making him feel anxious.
Many of us have dreams of being the valiant caregiver who selflessly never leaves the hospital bedside for a moment. If that’s how you think it will go down, I want to tell you something: that may not be what your loved one needs from you.
Leaving their side can feel awful. You may feel crushing guilt from not being able to do enough. Friends or family may question your commitment. And when things are really bad, there’s the gnawing fear that you’ll miss out on the moments when you were truly needed.
But if going home to sleep, taking a walk, or spending an hour crying on your friend’s shoulder is going to make the difference between you being a guilt-laden, anxious wreck and your best self, that is what your loved one needs from you. Serious illness is a marathon. Don’t mistake it for a sprint.
2. If your loved one wants to talk to you about death, listen.
For most of the time that Evan was ill, we thought that he had a lung disease that was treatable. It was only in the last two weeks of his life, the day after they sedated him and put him on a ventilator, that we found out that he was terminal. A rare form of lung cancer.
A month before his death, when he was still at home, Evan had talked to me about what he wanted me to do if he didn’t make it. I cut him off after one sentence.
Of course I would do what he asked, but I told him that this wasn’t something we needed to talk about. He was going to get healthy!
This conversation is my biggest regret.
Evan didn’t think I deserved a boyfriend who was sick. He tried to break up with me twice so I could go find a “normal” boyfriend. I wasn’t having it.
On that night, I wish I had acknowledged how scary things were for him. I wish I had let him know that whatever happened, I had no regrets about the time we spent together. Because I never got another chance.
Don’t miss an opportunity to hear what your loved one wishes for you, because you think you’ll be able to do it later. Later, may never come.
3. Every so often, check in on the support person.
After Evan died I met up with my friends Derek and Tatiana who had been on their own journey through illness. They were engaged, and Tatiana had been in treatment for breast cancer during the same time that my boyfriend was ill. Derek had been taking care of her. When we met up we laughed about all the well-meaning people who emailed us “cures.”
Derek and I agreed that one difficulty was how friends and family were so focused on how the patients were progressing that us caregivers often felt invisible and unappreciated. Everyone wanted to know how the patient was doing, what treatment we were trying, and if it was working. But few asked me and Derek how we were doing.
It’s natural for people to be curious about what’s happening with the illness and the patient. But illness impacts all the people close to the patient, too. Caretakers shift our work schedules so we can be there at the important doctor appointments. We file the bureaucratic hospital paperwork. We learn the ins and outs of insurance companies.
Being a support person is stressful and scary, yet caregivers often feel conflicted about asking for help themselves. They don’t want to draw attention or resources away from the patient. As a friend, regularly checking in on what you can do to help the support person can help them be a more reliable support.
4. Don’t hide the fact that you’re unhappy for months.
When your loved one is sick, you may decide that you want to put off a difficult conversation with them. I know, because I’ve been both the support person who has put off the conversation and the sick person who wasn’t told something.
When I was sick, I wasn’t able to be the kind of friend that I was when I was healthy. I was grumpy. I wasn’t as quick to pick up on nonverbal cues. My thinking was muddled and foggy.
During this time, I had a close friend who got tired of sick Lori. When I reached out to her, she would delay our get together, chalking things up to a busy work schedule. Eventually she would agree to meet up and then not enjoy the time we spent together.
Months later, when I was feeling better I asked her if something was wrong. To her credit, she fessed up that she hadn’t been feeling satisfied by our friendship for months. She hadn’t said anything because she was worried I wouldn’t be able to take it. We are no longer friends.
If you’re feeling unhappy about a relationship with a person who is sick, don’t bottle it up and hope it will go away. If you’re just showing up out of a sense of duty, you won’t have much staying power. And that day when you disappear with no chance of returning is more than a disappointment for your sick loved one. It’s a crisis.
5. Understand that “cheering up” a sick person may backfire.
The surgeon who took it out my tumor warned me that it would be months before I was pain-free and back to normal life. I shared this information with my family.
Nevertheless, about two weeks after the surgery my mom started asking me if I was pain-free every time she texted me. Three weeks after surgery, she sent me pictures of her trip to Disneyworld with the rest of my family. We’re at the Magic Kingdom!!! There’s a new Under the Sea ride!!! Hopefully, you are out of pain by now!!!
I’m sure that my mom’s intention was to try and cheer me up. To remind me that there were fun things to look forward to in life.
Instead, those texts and photos broke my heart. They showed me that my mom was not ready to accept the seriousness of my situation.
I was at the beginning of six weeks of excruciating pain and no effective medication to counter it. I spent a few hours each day screaming into a pillow and questioning whether life was worth this much pain. After those texts, I stopped asking my mom for emotional support, because I no longer believed she could give it.
If your loved one is really sick, be sensitive. Acknowledge how tough things are before you gush about your magical vacation, your budding romance, or the wild dance party you went to last night. And if your loved one tells you they’re not in the mood for happy stories right now, honor their wishes.
6. Realize that your chicken soup may not be wanted or helpful.
Healing often means special diets. After my surgery I was on a paleo diet with a Chinese medicine twist. Every few weeks the Chinese medicine recommendations would shift as my body’s needs shifted.
It was exhausting to keep track of what I was supposed to eat and what I wasn’t. But I couldn’t deny that the diet was helping. I was feeling better.
So every time someone offered to make food for me I felt anxious. My dietary rules were complex and varying, and for a while I was in so much pain that I was communicating with a whiteboard, which made it hard to communicate the myriad ways you could mess up.
There is nothing worse than receiving food that a kind person has made for you that you can’t eat. Even though you tried to tell them how they had to read the ingredients list on everything. Even rotisserie chicken. Because that “seasoning” contains gluten that you’re not supposed to eat.
If you do make food for someone on a restricted diet, know that you are not just making food. You are making medicine. And your care and attention to detail needs to be the same as if you were preparing to give someone medicine.
7. Be prepared for plans to change.
Every year, my friend Charlotte invites a group of us out to dinner for her birthday. When she invited me in 2015, I told her it would be a long shot for me to go, but I wanted to try. Her birthday came two months after my surgery.
I was in bad shape. I was having pain episodes that had me crying into a pillow a few times a day. I was also on a restricted diet and trying to limit my physical activity so I wouldn’t spark new pain episodes.
Charlotte is one of my closest friends, and she did everything she could to make it work. She chose a restaurant that had food I could eat. She called ahead and asked about stairs and elevators. She figured out which of the options had the shortest possible distance between where she could drop me off and the front door.
And I still couldn’t go. The pain was too bad and I was too tired. I didn’t want her birthday to be spent watching someone cry in pain at her table. Thankfully, Charlotte was understanding.
If your loved one is sick, the fact that they need to change plans in no way reflects how much they care about you. They are not in control of what happens. Trust that they are doing their best. Don’t take it personally.
8. Take all of these guidelines with a grain of salt.
The one certain rule is that there are no certain rules. Depending on the circumstances and the people involved, all of these things could change. Some people may want you to distract them from the circumstances or the pain by pretending that everything is like it used to be. Or they may appreciate you holding your tongue.
If you aren’t sure that what you are doing is feeling good to the sick person, ask them. Let them know that it’s okay to tell you the truth. You want to care for them and if there’s anything that you can do differently to take better care of them, you want to know what it is.
Have you been ill? What did you find most supportive? Least supportive?
Have you been a caregiver? What are you most proud of? What do you wish you had done differently?
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How to Tame Your Inner Critic: A Simple Habit to Rewire Your Brain
“I acknowledge my own worth. My confidence is growing.” ~Unknown
Sometimes I feel like a spider whose web is repeatedly torn down. I plan something and start taking action. Then life happens, and setbacks threaten to sap my energy and enthusiasm.
Whenever I take on too much, I can feel as if I’m juggling a million balls. And doing it badly.
You’ve probably seen T-shirts saying, “Things are a bit crazy around here.” That could easily describe me when I allow myself to become overloaded.
It’s easy to feel stressed and to slip into harsh self-criticism. Especially when I hold myself to unrealistic perfectionism or get swept away by impatience. Or when I start comparing myself to others who seem to be in a better space.
But all’s not lost. I love to keep learning. That keeps me hopeful about finding solutions, no matter what the problem.
I keep identifying and adopting simple science-based actions that yield big payoffs for well-being. The simpler the practice, the more easily it fits into my busy life.
So, what can be done when life gets too stressful and setbacks lead to harsh self-criticism?
The Tug of War in Your Brain
Until relatively recently, scientists believed that the brain could not develop beyond a certain age. The adult brain could not change, it was thought, apart from gradually shrinking from your late twenties onward. So, if your brain habitually criticized and demotivated you, then that was how you’d remain.
That view is simply mistaken, as science has discovered. Your brain can develop, even during adulthood.
There’s hope for us all, provided we start respecting ourselves enough to practice self-care.
How would you like to start rewiring your harshly self-critical brain using a simple five-second habit? I’ll share a transformational habit I’ve adopted, but first let’s understand this a bit more. Once you understand why a practice works, it’s easier to make it part of your life.
Stress and negativity do remarkable things to your brain. When stress overwhelms you enough to keep your mood constantly low, your brain starts to gradually change. The core component of your brain, the grey matter, grows less dense in some helpful parts of your brain. But it grows denser in some self-critical parts.
It’s almost as if there’s a tug of war between these two parts. An overdose of stress weakens the helpful parts, allowing the self-critical parts to dominate.
That’s the bad news. Fortunately, there’s good news.
Your brain can keep developing, and the unhelpful changes can be reversed. You have “stem cells,” so named because they can develop into various types of new brain cells. Also, new connections can develop between the cells in your brain.
You can encourage such helpful developments by the actions and thoughts you embrace. In effect, you can assist your brain to keep developing in a helpful way.
Before I describe the simple but powerful five-second practice, there’s a story I want to share. It will help illustrate how the practice works.
My Story
I had once accumulated a lot of weight, was on statin treatment for high cholesterol levels, and couldn’t shed the excess weight despite regularly exercising. I attributed this to being over forty. I knew I was on a conveyor belt headed for a coronary bypass operation or heart attack and was keen to escape.
Then a noticeably trim classmate from my medical school visited us and ate surprisingly small portions of some things but surprisingly large portions of others. They too were over forty years old. What did they know that I didn’t?
Health and well-being are, to me, priceless treasures. People often destroy their well-being in desperate pursuit of material things. They can end up ill, sometimes forfeiting even the material things they craved.
I didn’t want to be yet another person sleepwalking toward a heart attack. I decided to investigate the secrets of staying trim despite middle age. I was strongly motivated, and in a helpful way.
There were many challenges. I needed to grapple with the scientific literature, to untangle the conflicting information about how to eat well.
My other big challenge was that I love delicious food, especially when eating in company. I was wary of solutions that took all the enjoyment out of food, or tended to isolate me from friends and family.
Eventually I found an approach that transformed my health for good, but the details are for another time. The point here is that I had many setbacks and failures along the way. Despite the setbacks, I succeeded in permanently reducing my waist circumference by several inches and no longer need the statin treatment.
There’s one practice that helped me, more than anything else, to recover after setbacks. It’s so stupidly simple that its power easily can be underestimated.
But it works, as long as it’s practiced consistently.
I call it REBS. You’ll discover why.
REBS Tames Your Harsh Inner Critic
When I was a young child, I was fascinated by orderly lines of ants. I spent ages observing them and perversely enjoyed drawing a stick or finger across the line. That would confuse the ants, and chaos would ensue.
However, in a little while, the line would form once again. The ants recovered and resumed doing what was important in their lives.
Let’s say you decide that something is important in your life and you plan how to act accordingly. Perhaps, like me, you’re keen on avoiding a heart attack and you decide to start eating better. Let’s say you’re armed with the relevant knowledge and know exactly what to do.
You start out enthusiastically, until a setback happens. Perhaps someone presents you with a box of your favorite chocolates.
Before you know it the chocolates are somehow all out of the box and inside you. Within half an hour! Many people might consider that a triumph, but let’s say that you consider it a setback.
This is a crucial moment. What do you do? Start criticizing yourself?
What if, instead, you treat this setback as a temporary blip? You focus on resuming your journey of eating well. When you sit down for your next nourishing meal, you accept your stumble but congratulate yourself for getting back on track.
Even when you don’t stumble and fall, you keep congratulating yourself for each small advance. Each nourishing meal, in this context, becomes a small triumph and an occasion for self-congratulation. Each half-hour without grazing on snacks becomes another small triumph and another occasion for self-congratulation.
Imagine rewarding yourself for every small advance, with a quick self-congratulatory phrase. Especially when you get back on track after a setback.
You can, in this way, create a steady stream of self-congratulation that is based on real advances. You don’t settle for empty words. Instead, you acknowledge and celebrate doing each small step, which carries you in your chosen direction.
When your mind is busy with this reality-based self-congratulation, there’s less room for harsh self-criticism, or brutal perfectionism, or comparing yourself to others. You start to transform your self-image and self-confidence.
I call this practice REBS, short for reality-based self-congratulation. It’s a rebellion against your harsh inner critic, who can otherwise be a demotivating tyrant. It helps the self-respecting part of you to prevail over the harshly self-critical part of you.
You start to unleash the self-repairing power of your brain, even as you transform your self-image.
Setbacks become an opportunity for you to recover and practice REBS. The more you do this, the harder it becomes for setbacks and stress to keep you down.
Which self-congratulatory phrase could you use? The simplest is probably “I’m doing this, I’m okay.” Your “it” can be the smallest meaningful step imaginable, such as sitting down for a healthy meal.
Keep this practice firmly based in reality, anchored to your small helpful steps. Then you’ll be able to do it meaningfully and with conviction. But do it at every opportunity, no matter how small your triumph.
In summary: Take a meaningful small step, then treat yourself to a quick dose of REBS (reality-based self-congratulation). Repeat, and keep going.
Suffered a setback? Pick yourself up, resume your journey with the next small step, and treat yourself to a quick dose of REBS.
Is This Relevant to Other Situations?
I used my experience with eating well as an example. But we could apply this to a wide variety of situations.
If you feel worn out from taking care of others and have forgotten how to take care of yourself, then your small step can be as simple as listing your own needs.
If you’re a recovering workaholic, then your small step can be as simple as taking a short walk, or meditating for a few minutes, or freeing up an evening for playful relaxation with your partner.
If you’re a sales manager who’s just lost a big deal, then your small step can be as simple as identifying the next good prospect.
If you’re a doctor or health care professional overwhelmed by the demands on your time, or complaints from patients, then your small step can be as simple as taking a short break to regain perspective and consider your options.
If you’re a business owner trying to cope with unhelpful staff or business partners, then your small step can be as simple as choosing the most important points you want to communicate to them.
If you’re scurrying around at work like a headless chicken, then your small step can be as simple as putting other tasks aside and focusing on just one important task in your long list.
If you’re confused about some decision, then your small step can be as simple as listing your options, in order to consider the pros and cons before choosing.
If you applied for a better job but didn’t get it, then your small step can be as simple as listing other opportunities.
If you have a disabling illness, then your small step can be very small indeed. It might be as simple as getting out of bed, or walking a few paces without a stick, or contacting a friend.
If you’ve had a bitter argument with your partner or child, then your small step can be as simple as reaching out with a gesture of reconciliation. And so on.
You decide what actions are good, helpful and important in your life at this time.
This practice can be applied in all areas of your life: personal, family and home life, community life, work life etc.
The Payoff
We all make unwise choices and experience setbacks. Your harsh inner critic can sometimes make you feel worthless and unlovable. REBS (reality-based self-congratulation) allows you to rebel against the tyranny of that inner critic.
It reminds you that you’re always worthy of respect, love, and forgiveness. Even when you stumble—and especially when you stumble.
Is this simple five-second practice the answer to all life’s problems and challenges? Of course not. Does your brain get rewired immediately? Of course not, it takes consistent practice. REBS needs to become a habit.
Do you still have to decide what really matters to you, make plans, and solve problems? Of course you do.
But REBS is a very useful companion on your journey. That’s because it takes almost no time, yet works powerfully to help you grow out of overly harsh self-criticism. You start to respect and take care of yourself.
Instead of brooding over setbacks, you begin treating each setback as a springboard for small helpful steps, accompanied by self-congratulation.
You become less easily discouraged. In a subtle way, you become almost unstoppable in pursuit of whatever you value deeply. Your perseverance starts to resemble that of determined ants who re-form a broken line, or of a spider who resumes spinning a destroyed web.
Success is no longer confined to the distant future. Instead, it starts to inhabit each meaningful small step that you take in your chosen direction.
You start to rewire your brain. Your inner critic starts to transform into a helpful cheerleader. Instead of a constant stream of negative self-talk, you start to enjoy a steady flow of self-congratulation.
Your confidence grows, and your life starts to become more meaningful, fulfilling and joyful.
This practice of reality-based self-congratulation (REBS) costs virtually nothing. It requires only consistency, so that the helpful new neurons and connections in your brain become well established.
A surprising benefit is that REBS pulls me into the present moment. Instead of brooding over past failures or fearing future uncertainties, I focus increasingly on a small step that carries me in my chosen direction.
REBS has helped transform my life. I have a clearer head and feel more at peace, others often remark that I’m now much more fun to be with, and I’m better off in almost every way. Despite all my flaws and the frequent, inevitable setbacks of life, I’m constantly reminded that I’m okay.
Simple science-based practices with outsize benefits appeal to me because I’m so busy. REBS is one of my favorites among the life-enriching practices I’ve tried and adopted. I love how the practice can be started straight away, and become a treasured, self-empowering part of life.
Conclusion
Whatever the setbacks or failures you’ve experienced, whatever unhelpful choices you’ve made, you’re still okay, you’re always worthy of respect and love.
We all need a bit of understanding and mercy. REBS turns you into a more forgiving and encouraging friend to yourself. It lets the seeds of success be planted in the soil of defeat.
It helps reduce the chaos of a challenging life to a helpful small step, accompanied by self-congratulation.
You might want to start this five-second practice and make it a habit. You could start right away and experience the difference.
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5 Things I Wish I Did When Dating an Addict
“Don’t let people pull you into their storm. Pull them into your peace.” ~Kimberly Jones
I was finally in a solid place when I met my now-ex-boyfriend earlier this year. I had created some healthy habits for myself and was fully recovered from the eating disorder that had ruled my life for eight years prior.
Things had turned around completely for me, as now I was getting my first novel published and had a flourishing greeting card line.
When I first met my ex, who I’ll call Alex, it was love at first sight. I was completely infatuated with this talented individual from Seattle who made beautiful paintings and music. The art he made truly resonated with my soul, and he could say the same thing about my writing.
Needless to say, it felt like a match made in heaven. So after our courtship, I was more than willing to move up to Seattle from Los Angeles and live with him.
I was heartbroken when four months into living together, he revealed he was addicted to meth. He admitted that he’d been addicted the past two and half years and had been using every day up to five times.
I was blindsided, stunned, and overwhelmed with a twister of emotions. How could I have not known? I scolded myself. He was always hyper and created much more art in such a short time frame than I’d ever seen any other human do.
Well, they say hindsight is 20/20. I didn’t know he was on meth because I didn’t know what signs to look for, and I’d personally never tried meth myself.
When Alex admitted this to me, I cried in fear, certain that our lives would change for the worst. I knew this betrayal of trust would be difficult for me to recover from, as I became vigilant at his capacity for dishonesty.
I also worried that he wouldn’t love me the same after he quit meth and that the only reason that he’d fallen in love with me so easily was because he was high! But I had already invested so much in this relationship, moving states and all. I wasn’t ready to just throw what we had away.
It was ironic because I remembered feeling so happy that I had met him when I was in a “good place” in my life, but all of that seemed so distant now. We can all morph into the worst versions of ourselves when we become clenched in fear.
When Alex was in the process of attempting to quit, it became difficult to detach myself from the turmoil he’d ooze every evening.
Like clockwork, every night around nine, he’d get this vacant look in his eyes and begin to pace around. It was like a dark cloud had come over him and I wasn’t even there anymore. I began to feel that I wasn’t enough for him.
The love I had for him and the idea of us kept me in that relationship for several months after the revelation about his addiction, and I eventually realized why Alex had admitted his meth use to me. He thought he could rely on me to be the “strong one” in the relationship, since I was sober, but in actuality, I was just as fragile as he was.
And I felt too awkward setting boundaries for this recovering addict, afraid he’d feel infantilized or patronized every time I questioned him about his drug use or nagged him to stop. I felt like I lost myself again, when just months before I was so certain about my identity.
Alex continued to relapse for the next six months, never staying sober for more than a few weeks at a time, and I began to feel extremely helpless.
Those fits of restlessness and angst that overwhelmed him every night felt too close to home, and just like him, I had yet to master how to tolerate those uncomfortable feelings.
Some evenings I found strength in myself and was able to tolerate the uncomfortable emotions he was experiencing without reacting. Other nights, we’d get into fights when he’d want to go on a “drive” (buy meth).
This lovely relationship we once had devolved to one of raw, dark emotions that neither of us really knew how to get a grip on. And worst, we both relied on the other person to get it together!
Eventually, despite the fact that I loved this man with all my heart, I knew I had to set myself free from this relationship. I had enough insight to know that even though I’d recovered from my eating disorder, I still wasn’t strong enough to resist getting pulled into his troubled psyche. I needed to pull back to create my own peace again, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to get it from this guy.
It’s been about a couple of months since we’ve been officially broken up and I’ve moved back to Los Angeles to live with my family.
Many days I have guilt and regrets for leaving and not being able to help him out of his addiction. It was like all of the meaningful talks we had, trips to the psychiatrist, and meditative walks in nature were for nothing. In all honesty, I felt pretty useless to his recovery.
In retrospect, I know I would have done things differently if I knew the things I know now. Here’s what I wish I would have done as soon as I found out I was dating an addict:
1. Encourage him to get help
When he first revealed he was addicted to meth, I could have been honest and told him I had no clue what to do and somehow convey the depths of helplessness I felt. Then I would have pointed him to professional support sooner and wouldn’t have taken his relapses so personally, as if I was at fault because I was solely responsible for helping him.
2. Get support for myself
I should have attended Al-Anon meetings and attempted to have my own support group in Seattle instead of letting anxiety take such a strong hold over me and then isolating myself from meeting new people. Supporting an addict can be draining, and no one should have to carry that alone.
3. Take good care of myself
I should have made time every day to reconnect with myself in some way, whether it be meditation, exercise, or prayer. I should have taken time every day to reflect on my own journey and the progress I’d made instead of becoming so fixated on helping him with his.
Relationships often become unbalanced when one person is an addict, but both people need time and space to focus on themselves and their needs.
4. Set clear boundaries
I wish I had clearer boundaries for myself going in so that I didn’t stay as long as I did and watch the love we had sour. For instance, it would have been more helpful if I told myself that if I saw him using while we were together, I would have distanced myself from him.
I could have communicated this to him, as well, by saying something like “I’m all for your recovery and supporting you through your journey. But using drugs while being together is unacceptable to me, and if I find out you are using, I will have to distance myself from you for my sake.”
Setting boundaries earlier on may have prevented my unintentional enabling, which created behaviors in him that I later resented.
5. Prioritize my own happiness
I shouldn’t have let guilt keep me in a relationship that was making me unhappy. Like many others, I felt pretty paralyzed by fear of hurting the other person. I wished I had more strength to leave this person I was in love with because he was self destructing and refusing to really help himself.
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As one can surmise, these are all lessons and wisdom you gain after an experience like this, not before, but perhaps they will be helpful to someone who’s right now standing where I once stood.
Now I am taking time to find peace in myself every day so that I am better equipped to handle another person’s baggage (because we all have it) the next time I attempt to date.
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5 Life-Changing Realizations About Fear and Anxiety
“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” – Isabel Allende
I was lying on the sofa in my tiny flat in Vienna.
My feet were elevated on a cushion and the room was spinning in a brisk waltz around me. My stomach was cramping and cold sweat was trickling down my spine. I gasped for air whenever choking fear forced my racing heart to skip a couple of beats.
The situation was all too familiar.
Back then I suffered from generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety. I was also plagued by severe toilet anxiety, which is a fear of needing the toilet when none is available. As a consequence, I had panic attacks several times a week.
So, I knew exactly how to stop the agony. I fumbled for the phone and dialled my friend Eva’s number.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I must have caught some kind of bug; I’m quite unwell. I will have to cancel for this evening…I know! It is a shame. I was so looking forward to seeing you again and meeting your friends…Yes, next week would be lovely! I’ll be in touch!”
As I hung up, a welcome wave of relief washed through my body as the panic slowly subsided.
I would have loved to see the conclusion of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on the big screen.
But what if no aisle seat would have been available? What if I would have had to sit in the middle of a row and needed the bathroom? What would the other people have thought if I squeezed past them, profoundly apologizing, while ruining their movie experience?
Furthermore, I had never visited that particular cinema before. I would have to take the underground at night. What if I was mugged? And I had never met the two friends Eva planned to bring along. What if they thought I was a bore or a jerk for needing the loo every ten minutes?
I was convinced I had made the right decision. I would just stay on my sofa, watch comforting repeats of Friends and be safe.
No fear, no anxiety, no panic. All was well again.
Until it hit me.
I was a hostage of my fear! It dictated what I could and couldn’t do. It confined me to my comfort zone and denied me dreams and aspirations.
I was never free to pursue fun adventures or meet new people. I was handcuffed to my sofa, my familiar daily routine and the nearest toilet facility.
And when I attempted to escape, I was hit with a merciless panic attack that left me stunned and shivering back where I was safe. On my sofa, in my little flat. Right where I sat in the dark on a December evening in 2003 and wept.
For being a victim, for being a prisoner, for being weak and scared. For not having a life.
And it was right there on that little sofa that I decided I had enough. I would take control over my life, I would claim the right to choose. I would finally live.
It was a long journey. A lot has changed since then.
And I want to share what I have learned in the past thirteen years.
Because for me, overcoming or defeating my fear was impossible. It always fought back with a vengeance. I had to find a different solution.
Realization #1: Fear is not the enemy.
After that life-changing December evening, I started to research. I read countless books, took courses, and attended seminars. I needed to know what caused the constant fear and how to stop it.
I had always perceived fear as a menacing, painful, and crippling hostile force. A life-sucking alien parasite. An uncontrollable beast.
But I soon discovered that fear can be both healthy and pathological.
Healthy fear is a vital physiological reaction that has guaranteed survival of animal species for aeons.
When confronted with a dangerous situation, adrenaline and other hormones accelerate breathing and heart rates. Blood pressure increases, muscles tense up, and blood is redirected to the arms, legs, and brain. The body prepares for fight or flight, to either combat the threat or flee from it.
A healthy fear response lasts as long as the dangerous situation that provoked it persists. It then subsides until the next trigger restarts it.
However, when fear is triggered by generally harmless events like a trip to the theater, meeting new people, or a car journey, it becomes pathological. The fear designed to save your life is now destroying it.
But why was I terrified of so many innocent situations that other people wouldn’t waste a thought on? What had gone wrong?
Realization #2: My pathological fear was linked to low self-worth.
I soon realized that my anxiety and panic attacks were a direct result of my lack of self-worth.
You see, when you suffer from low self-worth, the world becomes a menacing place.
Subconsciously, you believe that you don’t deserve happiness, so you constantly expect a catastrophe. You are terrified of the future because devastating tragedies happened to you in the past and you were too powerless to prevent them.
You feel under constant pressure to outperform, impress, and achieve perfection because you don’t feel worthy of other people’s love and respect. Yet, you mistrust your abilities and always feel that you are lagging behind or winging it. And you are horrified people might uncover your darkest secret, that you are a fraud.
Hence, you incessantly agonize about making mistakes and worry that other people might disapprove of you and your actions. You don’t believe in yourself and your ability to cope with life. So, you doubt your decisions and fear the potential consequences. And you are paralyzed by the thought of any change.
You feel overwhelmed, stressed, cornered. You perceive your whole life as a threat. Fear and anxiety have become permanent features.
Because you believe that you aren’t good enough in other people’s eyes. Because you don’t know that you actually are worth personified. Inherently, infinitely, and unconditionally so.
You are worth, even if you aren’t a fun socialite who makes friends easily. You are worth, even if life overwhelms you sometimes. And you are still worth even if you pee yourself in public, because as embarrassing as it may seem, it doesn’t change anything about your true worth!
I must have repeated the affirmation “I am worth” several hundred times a day for months. I now knew that, if I wanted to beat my fear of life, I first had to believe in myself. Only then would I feel confident enough to deal with everything that came my way.
Realization #3: I feared fear itself.
Once I started healing my low self-worth and gaining trust in myself and my abilities, it became clear that I wasn’t actually terrified of the movies, strangers, or my overactive bladder alone. I was also horrified of fear itself and all its unpleasant consequences.
Have you ever had a panic attack? It sucks!
And it is terrifying in its own right. The heart palpitations, the shortness of breath, the tight chest. You feel like your death is imminent and you are powerless to prevent it.
So, you avoid the panic triggers. The problem is that when your main trigger is life itself, you cease to live.
You minimize social interactions, you stop making bold plans for the future, you stick to your daily routine that keeps you safe. Your thoughts revolve around your fears and how to keep them subdued. You cohabitate with a fearsome beast, tiptoeing around it so it doesn’t awaken and swallow you whole.
This was my life, constantly and unrelentingly. Until one day I decided to slay the beast.
Realization #4: Fighting the fear made it worse.
Every time I felt fear arising, I cursed it, screamed at it, and commanded it to leave now and never come back. But my beast didn’t take these insults lightly. It defended itself and the panic attacks escalated in frequency and intensity.
I felt like a pathetic failure. I wrecked my mind for new ways to overcome the fear. I tried what felt like hundreds of techniques and tactics to battle the fear. But they never worked and the fear increased at an alarming rate.
I know now that the fear multiplied because I focused on it. My attention was zoomed into my fear and how to defeat it, and so, subconsciously, I produced more and more of it.
The beast grew and I was about to surrender myself to be its prisoner for the rest of my life.
Until my mum rescued me.
Realization #5: Making friends with fear disarms it.
“Why don’t you name it?” she said.
I was stunned.
“You have tried to fight it,” she continued. “Maybe it’s time to befriend it. Talk to it. Tell it that everything will be okay. Let it know you are there for it. And listen to its concerns.”
I thought the idea was ridiculous. But I was willing to try anything. I was desperate.
So, I named my pathological fear Klaus. It was the first name that popped into my head.
For a while I just observed what he had to say. He was a deeply troubled individual. So insecure, so worried, utterly paranoid.
Then, one day, I started to reason with him.
If he said, “I don’t think we should try a new restaurant. We might hate the food. And it is change. Change is bad for us,” I replied. “Change is good, it makes life fun. And if we don’t like the food, we just order something else next time.”
Of course I felt bonkers for talking to my fear like it was a small child. After all, I was talking to myself (not out loud, mind you)!
But it worked! Klaus understood. He was open to the suggestion that life as a whole wasn’t dangerous and began to embrace the new paradigm.
All he had ever wanted was to help me and keep me safe. He was a true friend. Even if he had been slightly misguided in his efforts to help, I found he was open to change.
Almost ten years later, while I studied Eckhart Tolle’s teachings, I understood that by naming my fear I had stopped identifying with it. I felt the emotion, but I no longer was the fear. The fear didn’t define me and I could finally start to free myself from it.
A Life Without (Pathological) Fear
Klaus and I spent several years together. He would warn me, raise doubts, and advise caution whenever I stepped out of my comfort zone.
But I was determined. I kept reminding myself that I was worth, that I was able to cope, that I was strong.
I started to do one scary thing a day. Small things at first. A different route to work, going for a walk without immediate toilet access, or asking a complete stranger for the time.
Klaus wasn’t happy. But I continued to explain that we were okay. That change was a positive part of life, that the world was a safe place and that we deserved to be happy.
After a while, his objections became less frequent and he remained quiet for longer periods of time.
And finally, in June 2008, as I boarded a plane to Barcelona to present at an international conference in front of hundreds of strangers, I realized he was gone. Without notice, he had left and I wasn’t scared of life’s experiences any longer. The pathological fear of life itself had dissolved.
I still sometimes fondly remember my friend Klaus. But I never heard from him again. I hope he is well.
As for me, I moved to the UK by myself and met new friends (who didn’t think I was a jerk). I am married and have a lovely little daughter. I travel, work with clients, and lecture students without worrying or overthinking.
The cold sweats, anxiety, and racing heart of a panic attack are now a distant memory. And I can enjoy a family day out without obsessing over the location of the nearest toilet.
I finally live, liberated, on my terms. I am free.
And I sincerely hope that my story will help you claim your own life. Because you deserve happiness too.
Stop beating yourself up, befriend your fear, and believe in yourself! I know you can do it!
You are worth!
