Tag: wisdom
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6 Toxic Thoughts That Keep You Battling with Food
“Eating is not a crime. It’s not a moral issue. It’s normal. It’s enjoyable. It just is.” ~Carrie Arnold
Like many women, I was introduced to diet “tricks” and “hacks” at a young age. In my case, that was around twelve to thirteen years old.
I consumed magazines and movies that constantly reminded me about the importance of dieting, losing weight, and looking skinny.
As a self-conscious teenager, I began to compare myself to the women in music videos with flat bellies, the slim actresses in movies, and models in magazines with their perfect “beach bodies.”
This self-consciousness only grew louder as I witnessed girls in my classroom getting teased for being “too fat” and “ugly.”
Thinking there was only one type of “perfect body” made me feel I didn’t measure up.
How I Broke My Relationship with Food
The feeling of not being good enough made me pay attention to the diet tricks I was promised on magazine covers.
This is when my relationship with food changed.
Food stopped being an experience to enjoy, and it became a way to create the body I thought I wanted.
To be completely honest, my experience wasn’t as traumatic as what other women have suffered. I never vomited. I never stopped eating for days. Although I was happy whenever I came down with a stomach virus because my stomach looked completely flat afterward.
I started experimenting with green juices—the wrong way. I would drink a spinach and cucumber juice (hating the taste) and immediately give myself permission to binge on pizza and other foods because I had “endured” the juicing.
I began counting calories on a blackboard, like if I was doing math at school.
For a period of time, I decided to eat only liquid and very soft foods, in tiny portions.
After several months of my “experiments,” my father started commenting that the bones in my wrists became more noticeable, and my mom insisted I looked too thin, but there was not such thing at “too thin” in the mind of my teenage self.
One time that I came down with another stomach virus, the doctor told me I was underweight, and she gave me a prescription for a supplement to gain weight.
I was horrified at the idea of putting on weight. I refused, much to my mother’s concern.
The irony was that even though I was restricting my food on a daily basis, I had no problem with binging on cake and ice cream while watching TV in my room. I thought if I ate very little most of the time, these foods were my prizes.
Eating turned into a bittersweet experience. When I was in “diet mode,” I ate too little, with worry, and calculated the effect of everything I ate on my weight. When I was on “binge mode,” I ate without restrictions, with guilt in the back of my mind, feeling upset that I would have to go back to “diet” soon.
When My Body Said “Enough”
Because of my inconsistent and emaciating eating habits, I had digestive problems most of my teenage years.
My turning point happened when I developed serious digestive issues during holiday.
For almost two weeks I couldn’t digest my food properly, I was bloated, and I had constant stomach pain.
Because we were away on holiday in my grandparents’ house in the countryside in Costa Rica, there were no clinics or doctors around.
My grandfather made me tea with ginger and digestive herbs from his garden to alleviate my pain.
To my surprise, that same day my stomach problems diminished, and after two days I felt in perfect shape.
I was baffled that drinking tea helped me get better when medications that I’d taken for years couldn’t fix my stomach problems.
This is the moment when I realized food could heal my body.
I began researching and learning about what food could do for me from the inside out. Quickly, I realized the damage I had been doing to my body by eating the way I was.
I decided to start eating whole foods, mostly plant-based meals, almost right away.
I wanted to heal my body and in the process I healed my relationship with food.
In my mind, food became what it should have been all along: nourishment and pleasure.
Fast forward to today, I’ve learned how to eat intuitively, how to eat with mindfulness and joy, and how to approach my body from a place of acceptance and love.
Our Thoughts About Food Matter
Looking back, I realize how damaging my thoughts about food were.
Seeing food as my enemy made me eat in a way that damaged my body—too little, too much, and never with absolute pleasure. This happens to so many people in our diet-crazed society.
In this post, I want to help you identify and transform thoughts that are harming your relationship with food and holding you back from eating with joy.
The way you eat is a reflection of your thoughts and perceptions.
If you have been struggling with dieting, obsessing over calories, and restricting your meals, I want to help you take a step back and shift your mindset so you can heal your relationship with food.
Letting go of these six toxic thoughts about food will help you eat mindfully, and with pleasure.
1. Thinking of food as a reward.
Rewarding a healthy diet with unhealthy food, like during cheat days, defeats the purpose of eating with joy.
Having cheat days can make your daily meals seem less enjoyable in comparison, which diminishes your pleasure.
Also, cheat days often turn into binge eating episodes that leave you feeling physically and mentally upset. This doesn’t contribute to your health or happiness.
A more mindful approach is to allow yourself to indulge on not-so-healthy foods occasionally in moderate portions, instead of reserving certain moments or days to pig out on junk food. Don’t see these indulgences as “rewards” or “prizes” reserved for certain occasions.
At the same time, eat healthy food that makes you happy on a daily basis. Don’t limit your meals to bland or boring food. Expand your daily menu so you’re always eating healthy meals you like.
2. Using food as a punishment.
Using food to punish yourself is just as damaging as using it to reward yourself.
Eating less or not eating to “punish” yourself for overeating is only going to reinforce the feeling you have been “bad,” and this will make you more anxious and paranoid around food.
For example, forcing yourself to eat only certain foods—green juices, “detox” teas, salads—that you dislike to compensate for binging episodes or because you feel “fat” will deprive your body of the nutrients you need and make you miserable.
You don’t need to deprive your body; torturing yourself is not the answer.
The best thing you can do to stop this cycle is to practice self-love. Love yourself, love your body, and know you don’t need to punish it.
A healthy diet that keeps you fit is abundant in whole, nourishing foods. If you want to start over, don’t stop eating. Eat more healthy foods: berries, nuts, beans, lentils, quinoa, all the veggies you can imagine, plenty of water, whole grains, soups, and more.
3. Thinking of food as comfort.
Emotional eating happens when we see food as a form of consolation.
I ate cake many times a week because I thought it made me “happy.” I was a lonely teenager, and cake made me feel life was a little sweeter for a moment.
Using food to cope when we feel sad, angry, lonely, or hurt can be addictive. We start to associate “happiness” with food, and the longer we do it, the harder it is to break the habit.
Relying on food to feel better shuts down the opportunity to work on your problems in a meaningful way.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to actively seek healthier ways to cope when things seem bad—and there are plenty of them.
Exercising, meditating, listening to music, reading, taking a walk, playing with a kitten or a dog, brainstorming solutions to your problems, learning a new skill, taking a nap, and talking to friends are more effective and healthier ways to lift up your mood.
4. Seeing food as something “prohibited.”
Having a strict and inflexible diet will stress you and it may not even help you eat less, according to studies.
Food restrictions often result in constant thoughts and cravings about the food you are “forbidding”—donuts, brownies, ice cream, or sugar—and this keeps you from fully enjoying the meals in your plate.
Studies show that restricted eaters have more thoughts about food that non-restricted eaters.
Obviously, this won’t let you feel at peace or happy with your food.
I’m not saying you should eat without limits and binge on whatever you want, I’m suggestion to focus your efforts elsewhere: Instead of frantically forbidding foods, focus on adding healthier foods to your diet.
Forbidding unhealthy food makes you stressed and is ineffective, but if you simply focus on eating more whole foods, your mind will be at peace and you will eat healthier without even noticing.
5. Seeing food as entertainment.
When you go to the movies, do you eat popcorn because you’re truly hungry or just because that’s how it’s done?
It’s probably the latter, right? In this context, popcorn is part of the entertaining experience.
However, if you start turning to food to keep you entertained every time you’re bored, you will overeat and won’t savor your meals.
Eating mindfully means being aware of your food and enjoying the experience.
Using food as a distraction won’t let you enjoy your meals the same way.
Instead of using food as entertainment, find constructive ways to occupy your mind.
Activities that engage you, like playing a game, reading a novel, drawing, organizing or exercising are better for your mind and body.
6. Measuring your self-worth based on how much you eat.
Finally, don’t give food the power to measure your self-worth.
You’re more than what or how much you eat.
Beating yourself up over what you eat is exactly what harms your relationship with food and steals your happiness.
If you feel you haven’t been eating healthy, don’t get angry with yourself. You can always make a change for the better and improve your diet whenever you decide.
It’s important you see food as your ally, not as the enemy.
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Food is not meant to make you feel guilty, worried, or restrict you in any way.
It is there to nourish, support you, and make you feel your best.
If you want to heal your relationship with food, begin by transforming the harmful thoughts that keep you from fully enjoying your eating experience.
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5 Simple but Powerful Practices for a Happier, More Present Life
“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that?” ~Ernest Hemingway
It was a Wednesday afternoon, just like any other. I’d spent the last three hours bent over my laptop at a coffee shop, trying to nail down the revisions to a research report that was already three days late.
I’d been distracted all afternoon, checking my e-mail every five minutes for news about a proposal I’d submitted a few weeks earlier. When I’d found nothing to satisfy me in my inbox, I’d stumble over to Facebook, paging through memes about the world’s impending doom that seemed custom designed to me to make me feel as gloomy as possible.
Finally I called it quits and drove home in a funk. I walked into the kitchen, where my wife Lisa was cutting vegetables for dinner. She looked up when I walked in. “How are you doing?” she asked, reading my face.
I thought about that for a moment. I knew I had a happy life. There were a million things to be thankful for: a supportive relationship, fantastic kids, good health, and the fortune to live in a beautiful corner of a free country.
But I didn’t feel any of that just now. I felt just a vague cloud of irritation and impatience and stress.
“I’m feeling sort of blue,” I confessed. “I’m trying to make my company work and I don’t know if I’m going to get this project and the world is stressing me out.”
I looked up at Lisa, expecting her to offer me a word of encouragement or a reassuring smile. But her face did not show sympathy. It showed irritation.
“I’m tired of hearing about all the things in your life you aren’t satisfied with,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I’m just feeling kind of blue. I’ll feel better when I get some more work and finish my book and maybe get to travel more, that’s all. Those are all normal, human frustrations. Then I’ll be perfectly happy.”
She raised her eyebrows skeptically. “You haven’t been happy since I met you.”
“I have too!” I listed a bunch of happy moments from our ten years together: our wedding day, our honeymoon trip to Spain, my fortieth birthday party. Of course I’d been happy. And I had every reason to feel blue right now. Lisa obviously didn’t know a thing about me.
“Fine,” she said. “If you say so.” We pretty much left it at that, and went on to our evening routine, eating dinner and washing dishes and reading bedtime stories.
But as I tucked the girls into bed that night, something about the conversation stuck with me. I knew she was by my side. I knew she supported me in whatever I did. And I knew, too, that she knew me pretty well. So why was she so wrong about me this time?
Two weeks later we flew with our two girls up to northern Idaho for our annual trip to visit Lisa’s family. We would spend the first two nights camping in a pine grove behind her dad’s log house, within view of Lake Coeur d’Alene. We set up our tent in the dappled afternoon sun, ready to spend a week as far as we could get from phones and computers and commuter traffic.
The next morning we walked down to the lake, arms full of beach towels and sunscreen. I held the girls’ hands as we walked over the slick rocks to a small stretch of sand beyond, and they darted into the lake, laughing and splashing.
The scene seemed picture-perfect. But I still felt that strange cloud, that feeling of not-quite-rightness. I was removed from the day-to-day stresses of work, but something was still off.
Maybe Lisa was right. If I wasn’t happy at work, and I wasn’t happy here, then where was I happy?
And then, in a flash of recognition, I saw what was in my way.
I was afraid.
I was afraid of being present in this moment, and only this moment.
When I was working, I was afraid to just be there, focusing on the task at hand, satisfied with wherever I was in the long process of building a career.
And now that I was on vacation, I was afraid to be here. I was afraid to stop worrying about work for a moment. If I truly allowed myself to acknowledge that all there was to life was to be found right here, right now, then what if that moment did not stand up to the hype? What if all I found here was emptiness, meaninglessness?
But when I looked right into that monster of fear, something surprising happened. It disappeared.
When I allowed myself to truly be in the moment, I saw that it wasn’t empty, but full. Full of the smell of sunscreen and seaweed and pine trees. Full of the sound of gulls squawking in the sky overhead, the rumble of a dump truck on the dirt road in the distance, the shrieks of kids’ laughter floating above it all like a melody line in a symphony.
It seemed too simple. It was a cliché I’d read a million times in mindfulness magazines and self-help books. Be Here Now. It made sense, but somehow had always remained at an intellectual level.
The “future,” I saw, will never really arrive. I will always be waiting for something, for some answer, some sign that what I’m doing is good enough and that I’m good enough. Ten years from now, I may be on the New York Times bestseller list and enjoying my vacations to Maui with Oprah, but I’ll still be waiting for the future.
In truth, I’d been dissociating from the present my whole life. It was a bad habit that probably began as a way of trying to avoid the trials of an often difficult childhood, and was only reinforced when I tried to evade the darkness of the depression I felt in my early twenties. Those hard times were far in the past, but I was still holding on to the patterns they helped create.
Lisa had been right after all. She knew me more than I gave her credit for. I had a happy life, I realized, but I needed to own it, to reach out and grab it by simply being here.
I stood for a moment watching the scene as the brisk lake water lapped at my toes. Then I held my breath and dove under, straight into the present.
Tips For Being Present
Changing a lifetime’s mental habits is an ongoing process, not a one-time quick fix. Our brains are built to reinforce behavior that feels safe and comfortable, even when that behavior hurts us more than helps us. Here are some tips that I’ve found helpful in the ongoing quest to live in the moment.
1. Look inward for reinforcement, not outward.
When you feel stress or anxiety, resist the urge to look for external reinforcement. External reinforcement is the sugar high of emotions; it comes in a quick blast and then fades, and then you need another hit. All those seemingly harmless behaviors—checking e-mail, reading news blurbs—are ways of leaving the present. They are ways of trying to get external reinforcement that this moment is okay.
The present lives in us, not outside of us. We do not have control over the outside world, but we do have control over what is inside of us. When you feel the need for reassurance, remind yourself that all the resources you need to be present and at peace are inside you. Remember that they have always been there, and they will always be there.
2. Control your information stream.
Put your news consumption on a diet. Put your phone away. Regulate your use of external information for emotional support, especially from social media. Facebook, Twitter and the rest can be wonderful ways to connect with friends. But overuse them and they begin to make you feel disconnected instead.
3. Write down your goals—and then throw them away.
Goal setting is a great way to prioritize what’s important to you. Just remember that goals are about the future. Once you’ve identified them, let them float away into the future, where they belong. The real rewards are not in attaining your final goals, but in working towards them. And that only happens in the present.
4. Embrace gratitude.
At regular intervals take a few moments out of your day and list five things you feel grateful for. Gratitude is an amazing weapon against anxiety, and it is a powerful way of reminding ourselves of the power and value of the present.
A great way to immerse yourself in gratitude is to perform acts that help other people. Volunteering and acts of kindness help us focus on others, rather than ourselves, and are an amazingly effective tool for living presently.
5. Practice mindfulness.
Develop a simple, repeatable mindfulness habit. If meditation is your thing, spend fifteen minutes each morning in quiet contemplation, simply being present. The core of my contemplative process is running. It’s my way of burning out the noise and anxiety of the future and the past (which do not exist) and bringing my awareness back to the present. Experiment and figure out what works best for you, and then make it a habit.
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We sometimes get so detached from the present moment that it seems like foreign territory, and lowering our defenses to allow it in can seem scary. When we let go of the future and allow ourselves to be in the now, we are actually committing an act of bravery. Diving in may be hard, but it’s the only way to find the true richness of life.
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How I Changed My Life by Remembering Who I Was Before the Pain
“If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.” ~Unknown
For a skinny, curly haired five-year-old girl, life was magical.
Buried in books and living in my imagination, I was constantly scribbling stories and dreaming of far away places. My inquisitive mind and persistent curiosity led me further than I ever thought possible. I was a little girl with big dreams, in a world where nothing seemed impossible, where life was bliss.
Then school started.
It wasn’t easy. In fact, at times it was horrifying. And not academically, no, I enjoyed it very much. But being different and not trying to fit in made me an easy target for bullying.
Despite my efforts to look less noticeable, my peers constantly teased me for wearing glasses and for being a bookworm and a nerd.
I was once pushed in the classroom during an art project and suffered a concussion. Kids planted firecrackers in my jacket pockets and hood, and regularly threw them at me.
My math teacher, who called me “stupid” on several occasions and told me that brains and beauty don’t go together, regularly humiliated me in front of the whole class.
I had shivers before every exam, and as a result, I developed hatred toward math and a belief that I wasn’t smart enough. Only when I started high school did I realize how amazing math was and that I wasn’t bad at it at all.
This all had a great impact on how I treated others and myself. I became an irreparable people pleaser, never knowing how to say no or put myself first. In my mind I carried an image of a girl who was strong on the outside, but constantly on guard, defending herself.
As I grew older and became more aware of my looks, I started hating my skinny legs and big curly hair, finding fault in everything. The belief that I was unworthy of love made me fall for guys who were good at putting me down, feeding off of my pain and insecurities. I never had the courage to leave no matter how toxic the relationship was.
So I gave into sugar because I didn’t have the courage to face my troubles, and the pleasure of eating made me feel good for a few moments. It was the only time when I felt satisfied, not having to think of anything else. But soon afterward I’d feel incredible pain and overwhelming guilt that made me hate myself even more.
I completely ignored my feelings and neglected what my body and mind were trying to tell me. I started doubting my abilities and lost confidence in my purpose, my dreams, and myself. I stopped smiling.
I often felt angry and anxious, which caused me to frequently cut my hair, indulge in sweets to the point of disgust, and overwork myself without taking a day off in weeks, so that I would go to bed tired and not have to think of my struggles.
But I was sick and tired of putting myself down, living a lie, and delaying my life because I didn’t know where I was going or what I wanted.
Deep down, I knew I needed to cure myself. I was determined to make a change.
Then one sunny winter day in Japan, while I was running by the river, I faced a moment of truth. I saw people around me going places, rushing to reach their destinations. But even though they seemed busy, they all looked as if they knew exactly where they were going.
That’s when I stopped and asked myself, “What do you really want in life?” It was a revelation hard to explain in words, an incredible energy and force that helped me wake up. In this tiny moment I found the strength to make a decision to take my life into my own hands and start living the life I deserved.
So I sat down and wrote everything I had ever wanted in life. I wrote all of my dreams, goals, and plans that I was going to reach “someday when I have more time.”
I changed my perspective and finally listened to my heart. I did what was good for me.
I decluttered my mind. My soul. My whole life.
After years of being an impulse shopper, I made a decision not to buy anything that doesn’t serve a purpose and add value to my life.
I distanced myself from everyone who was draining the energy out of me.
I stopped eating processed sugar and turned to clean eating.
I now start every morning with a powerful routine that helps me begin each day happy, energized, and fulfilled. By waking up at 4AM I add two extra hours to my day to do the things that I enjoy, that are necessary for my wellbeing and happiness—meditating, reading, and exercising.
I now exercise out of love and enjoyment, not because I have to burn the excess sugar and fat that I uncontrollably stuffed myself with.
I made a decision to live in the moment. This was the hardest but most rewarding part of the process. After “living for tomorrow” since elementary school, and putting my life off until someday when things fall into place, I finally learned to say yes to life and enjoy it freely.
I make plans for the future, but I enjoy every step along the way without pausing my life until “that day” comes.
And I no longer wait for things to happen; I make an effort to make them happen.
I plan my days and weeks carefully and find that this helps me focus and prioritize better. And no matter how busy I am, I always find the time to do the things that matter to me.
My life transformation didn’t come about overnight. It’s an ongoing process, and I’m enjoying every second of it.
Most importantly, this journey helped me learn to love myself again.
I learned that I have always been capable of being alone and have never needed anyone to show me that I am worthy of love.
I became aware of my sensitivity. I used to take things personally and react defensively to others, which caused me to feel even more critical of myself. Once I became aware of what triggered such behavior, I learned how to respond to such situations in a calm and understanding manner, without putting myself down.
I learned to love my body, and cherish and nourish it in every way I can.
When I realized who I truly was—that little girl who always knew the way, who was happy, ambitious, and kind, the one I shut down for so many years, hiding her, telling her she was ugly and unworthy—I completely changed the way I saw myself.
A whole new world opened up in front of me. A world of opportunities. A world of love. A world I only knew as a little girl. The little girl that freed me.
The woman I wanted to become has always been within me, and I found a way to let her out to be free, uninhibited, and extraordinary. Through my faith in who I wanted to become, I grew into the woman I am today.
Do you ever ask yourself what your life would be like if you had the courage to make a change and start living your dreams?
Life does change when you set goals, commit to your vision, and make an effort to bring it to life. Every time you challenge yourself you emerge as a stronger, more empowered, more capable person. Stop pausing your life until the right time comes or when things fall into place, when you get a better job, lose those last few pounds, or find someone to love.
You are in charge of your life, and you can change it at any time.
If you have a hard time believing in yourself, remember who you were before the world taught you to doubt yourself. Don’t see yourself through the eyes of those who didn’t see value in you. Know your worth even if they didn’t. All you need is already within you. You just have to dig deep and find it.
You are beautiful and worthy, and you are one decision away from creating the life you’ve always dreamed of living.
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Awaken Your Creative Side: Interview with Melissa Dinwiddie and Book Giveaway
UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway are Alba and Nette Jordan.
Like most of us, I spent much of my childhood creating, making everything from finger paintings and friendship bracelets to leaf collages and Lego castles.
I also spent weeks rehearsing for community theater performances and hours writing poems and stories, with no thought of whether I could make money off any of it.
I created because it was fun and fulfilling, and that alone was enough.
Then, like many of us, I got caught up adulting and began spending far more time working and worrying than imagining and playing.
I wanted to make things with my hands and my heart, as I formerly did, but I feared nothing I made would be good enough, that nothing would come of it, and that I would essentially be wasting my time.
Since I’ve been reconnecting with my creative side over these past couple of years, I was thrilled when Tiny Buddha contributor Melissa Dinwiddie introduced me to her new book, The Creative Sandbox Way: Your Path to a Full Color Life.
Part creativity coach, part journal, and part coloring book, The Creative Sandbox Way will help you overcome your internal blocks so you can reclaim the joy of creative expression.
Through the book, you’ll learn:
- Melissa’s ten foolproof guideposts that have helped thousands get joyfully creating
- Five reasons why creative play is good for you, and for the world
- How to turn creative blocks into friends
A self-proclaimed happiness catalyst and creativity instigator, Melissa believes that we are all creative, and we can all boost our happiness by living a full-color life.
Whether you’re just discovering your creative side or nudging it awake after many years dormant, The Creative Sandbox Way may be just what you need to ditch your fear and return to joy.
The GiveawayTo enter to win one of two free copies of The Creative Sandbox Way:
- Leave a comment below. You don’t have to share anything specific; “count me in” is enough. But if you feel inclined, share your favorite creative activity.
- For an extra entry, share this interview on one of your social media pages and include the link in a second comment.
You can enter until midnight PST on Sunday, January 29th.
The Interview
1. Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to create this book.
My goal in life is to get people creating, and my ultimate mission is to change the entire conversation around creative expression and play.
We tend to think of creative play as something frivolous and self-indulgent, but not only is creative play not self-indulgent, it’s essential to humans. It’s how you change your life for the better, and, in fact, it’s how you change the world!
The reason I’m such an evangelist for creative play is because for too many years I was convinced that I was not creative. And that belief caused so much needless suffering.
Because the truth is, all humans are creative.
Saying “I’m not creative” is like saying “I don’t know how to be hungry.”
But creativity gets cut off for so many us, and that unexpressed creativity does untold damage. It turns inward, as ennui, sadness, depression, and it manifests as external behaviors like overspending, overeating, addiction, and meanness.
Nothing good or productive comes from unexpressed creativity.
On the other hand, what I’ve experienced in my own life, and in the lives of my readers, students, and clients, is that small daily acts of creative play start a positive cascade in our lives.
I wrote The Creative Sandbox Way as a love letter to my younger self. It is the book that I wish I’d had at age 43, 36, 27, 19, 13, back when my tender creative spirit was getting beaten down, when I could have benefited from an older, wiser mentor to guide me past the pitfalls.
2. Who is the book for, and what do you hope they get from it?
The Creative Sandbox Way is for three types of people:
- People who believe they aren’t creative, but secretly (or not so secretly) wish they were. The Creative Sandbox Way will show you that you are!
- Stuck creatives, who desperately want to be doing their writing, painting, music, or whatever their chosen creative expression is, but just can’t seem to get themselves to do it. The Creative Sandbox Way will get you past the stuck and into flow again.
- Burned-out creative pros, who spend all their time creating for others, so art has become “just a job.” The Creative Sandbox Way will help you rekindle and reclaim the joy that got you into a creative profession in the first place.
I’ve been all three people, so I know the problems of all three intimately.
3. Can you talk a little about how perfectionism can hinder our creativity?
Perfectionism is a curse. Nothing good comes from it, because it leads to paralysis.
Creativity requires action. Movement.
In my pre-Creative Sandbox days, I would see a call for entries for an art show, and part of me would want desperately to create a piece to enter, but the Perfectionist Gremlin would take over and convince me that nothing I could create would ever be good enough.
So guess what I did?
Nothing.
That is perfectionist paralysis.
For too many years I labored under the belief that if I let go of my perfectionism, it would mean letting go of striving for excellence, too.
What I’ve learned along the Creative Sandbox Way is that you can still pursue excellence, still aim for continual improvement, while allowing yourself to create what you’re capable of creating right now—which may very well be crap! We get to allow ourselves to be human in our pursuit of excellence, rather than beating ourselves up for our failure to be superhuman.
It’s a fine distinction, and one that took me well into my forties to come to terms with. I only wish I’d gotten here sooner!
One thing that made a huge difference for me was to remember that, although nobody wants to make crap, we need the crap to fertilize the good stuff.
Also, just because you allow yourself to create crap doesn’t mean you will, but it does mean you’ll create!
4. On page 46 you wrote, “In art the only real rule is ‘Whatever works is right.’” Can you elaborate a little on that?
In every art form, you can find people espousing rules that, if you follow them with precision, will lead to a known outcome. Early on we learn from our teachers and our friends that horses aren’t blue, and which end of the paintbrush is the right one to hold, and what part of the guitar to touch, and how to get the proper sound out of it.
I don’t have a problem with knowing any of these rules, but the question I want people to ask—and it’s a question that too often gets overlooked—is, what’s the outcome you want to achieve?
Once you know where you’re trying to go, whatever route you choose to get there is up to you.
There may be ten or fifty or a zillion different paths to achieve the same outcome. Someone else may choose a different route, may even label your route “wrong.”
But this is art, not brain surgery! If it gets you where you want to go, and nobody was killed or maimed in the process, then that’s all that matters.
5. What is it about childhood that nurtures creativity, and why do we lose our connection to creativity as adults?
We are born zestful, curious, inherently creative creatures, with wildly active imaginations. Unfortunately, we live in a culture that gives us very mixed messages about creativity and creative expression.
Very young children are typically given a lot of freedom when it comes to creativity, but as we get older, we’re expected to rein it in. Creative expression, we learn, is “frivolous,” “self-indulgent,” and “unimportant.”
Confusingly, at the same time, the arts are treated as something special, reserved for the elite few—the “special, talented ones,” not everyone else.
And while we laud our top creators—artists, actors, filmmakers, musicians, dancers—the culture is also rife with negative myths about creatives.
Films, television shows, and books are filled with images of starving artists, mentally unstable painters, suicidal writers, flaky creatives.
These are just a few examples of a very long list of negative associations. Although they don’t actually have anything to do with reality (artists are not all starving, painters are not all mentally unstable, nor do they have to be!), the images are so “sticky” and prevalent that people believe them. If this is what it means to be creative, it’s no wonder we lose our connection to our creativity!
6. You wrote, “creativity often happens in uncertainty,” outside of our comfort zone. What did you mean by this?
Actually, true creativity always happens in uncertainty.
Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty, pointed this out to me. He puts it something like this: If it’s not uncertain, that means it’s been done before, and if it’s been done before, that means it’s not truly creative.
Now, this is not to say that reproducing what’s been done before can’t be valuable, but in order to push into our most fully creative realms, we are, by definition, required to step outside of our comfort zone.
My Creative Sandbox Way Guideposts are designed to help make it easier to do just that.
7. How do comparisons kill creativity, and how can we avoid this trap?
First, it’s important to acknowledge that we are creatures of comparison. Part of being human is our exquisite propensity to notice, to recognize patterns and differences. We’re not trying to change this!
Comparison itself is not the problem. The problem comes when we allow judgment to seep in and dictate what comes next.
In fourth grade, I remember getting a print from the Scholastic Book Club of a painting of a rabbit that was so realistic it was like a photograph. You could see every hair in its fur.
The adults in my life told me I was a “good artist,” but when I looked at this print, I knew I could never paint like that. I felt a deep sense of despair.
Of course, there were all sorts of assumptions going on:
I assumed that being a good artist meant painting in a photographically realistic style, and that this was the only way to be an artist.
I assumed that because I didn’t already know how to paint as skillfully as the artist who’d painted that rabbit, that there was no hope for me.
In fact, of course, there are an infinite variety of ways in which to be an artist. In fact, of course, painting in a photographically realistic style (or any style) is a skill that can be learned.
As for avoiding the Comparison Trap, I find it comes down more to learning how to spring the trap, rather than avoiding it altogether.
Personally, I step in the Comparison Trap at least six times a day. But the simple act of noticing when the Comparison Trap Gremlin has taken over allows me to then make a mindful choice about what comes next.
More on this in the next question!
8. You wrote that everything that goes well in your life boils down to two elements. Can you talk a little about those elements?
Yes! I refer to these two elements together as my Golden Formula.
Melissa’s Golden Formula: Self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good.
Self-awareness means noticing what’s working and not working in your life. Noticing your likes and dislikes. Noticing your reactions to situations.
It means being a scientist and a detective in your own life, getting curious, and putting yourself under the scientist’s microscope and the detective’s magnifying glass.
Self-compassion means responding to whatever you discover with love and kindness. It means not holding superhuman expectations of perfection, but acknowledging that you are just like the other seven billion people on the planet, and that’s okay.
Self-compassion means forgiving yourself for being human.
As a dyed-in-the-wool perfectionist, it took me well into my forties to loosen perfectionism’s grip on me, but when I final started living my life according to my Golden Formula, holding self-awareness and self-compassion as the key to everything good, life became a lot kinder and gentler. I now call myself an intentional imperfectionist, and highly recommend imperfectionism as a practice.
(Hint: in practice, imperfectionism is really the same thing as self-compassion, and we get to practice imperfectionism in our practice of imperfectionism, because we are going to be imperfect at it! For a deeper dive into the benefits of and research behind self-compassion, I highly recommend Dr. Kristin Neff’s book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
9. In Part Two of the book, you talk a little about the link between creativity and our emotional state. How does creativity affect our mood?
Here’s an excerpt from The Creative Sandbox Way:
First off, when you do your art (or if you’re still uncomfortable calling it art, call it your creative thing), it nourishes you. It fills you up, feeds you, makes you happy, and gives you joy. This alone is a radical, world-changing thing! I’m not saying you’ll achieve world peace, but you are part of the world, after all, and if you change your emotional state from negative to positive, you have, therefore, changed the world.
Now it’s true that doing creative stuff may also frustrate you at times, maybe even a lot of the time, but something about it feeds you or you wouldn’t crave it, right? Think about it: If you’re unhappy, hungry, cranky, and resentful from never giving yourself what you need, you bring this negative energy to everything you do and everyone you interact with. You spread negativity, or victim energy, or plain old crankiness everywhere you go.
On the other hand, when you’re happy and your soul is fed, you bring happy, well-nourished energy to everything you do and everyone you interact with. You bring more positivity and joy everywhere you go. Instead of a little rain cloud, spreading darkness and dreariness, you’re like a little sunbeam, spreading warmth and light, and that, on its own, changes the world for the better.
This is not just fluff, either; science has proven that not only is happiness contagious, but people who live near a happy friend have a 25% higher chance of becoming happier themselves, and that increases to 34% if you simply live next door to a happy person.* Even more surprising, this “happiness effect” actually extends beyond the people we come in direct contact with. When you become happy, it reaches not just to your friends, but up to three degrees out, to friends of friends of friends.
You may have been taught that doing your creative thing is selfish, but in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Doing your art spreads ripples of joy, and this enables you to offer up your best self to the world in everything you do.
Doing your art is an act of generosity of spirit to others, not just to yourself.
Even if you impact just one other person, even if all you do is make them smile, guess what? You have changed the world for the better.
* See this Harvard Medicine article and this NPR article.
10. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Only this: small daily acts build creative confidence and joy.
Don’t wait until you have big chunks of time, or you will likely be waiting forever. Start now, start small, and start anywhere.
And thank you so much for the opportunity to share with the Tiny Buddha community!
Go get creating!
You can learn more about The Creative Sandbox Way on Amazon here.
FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site.
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Surviving Loss: You Always Have Choice
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” ~Stephen Covey
One ordinary night after an ordinary day of work and family, I went to bed a mother, wife, teacher, writer-person.
I remember falling asleep between sentences exchanged with my husband after an evening spent with just the two of us on our patio, something we rarely seemed to find the time to do in our busy lives. We promised each other that we’d make a concerted effort to have more of these “dates.”
The next morning, on what was supposed to be another ordinary day, I got out of bed and found my husband collapsed on the living room floor.
Our three young children slept in the nearby bedrooms as the 911 operator guided me through chest compressions.
Our babies, ages six, three, and one, slept as the firemen wheeled their father out of our home. They were sleeping when my parents rushed over so I could follow the ambulance to the hospital. I imagine they were still asleep when I was told by a doctor that there was “nothing they could do.”
The moment I officially became a thirty-four-year-old widow.
Widow.
It’s a word that sticks to your tongue, something you want to knock on wood to prevent. It makes people avoid eye contact with you. It undermines your entire identity, forcing you into a new existence filled with the brutal realities of a life you didn’t sign up for and would never want.
Yesterday I was me. Today I am somebody else. I felt like a child protesting sleep before nap time. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna.
Maybe it wasn’t real. If I didn’t look at it, it might go away.
Except it wouldn’t.
I never contemplated this scenario as an option and I wasn’t prepared for the devastation. I don’t know if advanced warning would have helped, but something about the unexpectedness felt like even more of an injustice.
In a moment, my life was ripped in half and I felt a total loss of control of body and mind. I didn’t recognize myself. My brain felt like it was floating away and I couldn’t remember details.
I couldn’t sleep or eat.
But the pain I will never forget: a deep, searing kind that transcended anything physical.
There are practical matters to consider when one becomes a widow. Decisions nobody wants to think about, particularly when you are numb with grief. I found myself immediately bombarded with choices.
Mortuary choices. Funeral service choices. Financial choices. Parenting choices. Even stupid, little choices, like where to buy gas after having a husband who took care of that chore for the last ten years.
Humans generally dislike hard choices. Inconvenient choices. Sad choices. Uncomfortable choices. Confrontational choices. Too-many-choices.
When you are used to making decisions with another person, you might feel nervous and unsteady venturing out into the world alone. I remembered that once upon a time I lived alone and made decisions by myself, but now I felt out of practice.
I questioned my skills and capability. The grief made me forgetful, emotional, angry, sad, empty, and scared.
I frequently questioned my reality. I wondered if everything was always just a mirage in my head. Perhaps I was never married. It had to be a dream, or maybe a cruel trick, and now the rug was pulled out from beneath my feet.
In the days after my husband passed away, my six year old was moping around the house. I knew in my gut what choice I had to make. For him. For me. For all of us.
On a whim I grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled this down:
We have two choices: 1) Lay down and crumble, or 2) Get up, do great things, and make Daddy proud.
I circled the second choice. My son listened as I explained. He hung on to my every word and facial expression.
I knew I had to channel everything inside of me to convey to him that we would be okay, even if I wasn’t convinced of it myself. I knew I had to lead.
We didn’t choose this path.
But this was our life now and we still have a lot of good years left to live.
Nobody prepares us for the sludge in life, but this is exactly what being human is about: the good, the bad, the painful, the happy, the sad, the everything-in-between.
We can choose to sit down and surrender to our current circumstances, or we can get up, dust ourselves off, hold our heads up high and move forward.
It will hurt.
We’ll feel wobbly at first.
But we can do it. We are capable. We are strong. We still have a lot of love inside of our hearts to do great things.
The only other option was not an option for us.
People often say that good things can happen out of the bad. I’m here to tell you that it is true.
In the horror of it all, buried in the pain and the raw emotion, there was something magical and enlightening about loss. It exposed a side of life that I never previously experienced. It’s a strange, curious feeling that shocks you to the core and simultaneously makes you realize that there is still so much more to learn and discover about life. It can’t be over yet.
Your perspective will change. Everything about your thinking will forever change.
This is good and bad.
You will mourn the loss of your innocence and the days of naivety, but in return you will discover that you have newfound empathy, an ability to feel other people’s pain deep in your bones. You become sensitive to everyone else’s losses: the person going through a divorce, the couple who lost a baby, the child in a dysfunctional home, the person struggling to fight cancer.
You know what suffering feels like. You’ve walked through hell and your calloused feet are stronger because of it.
Nobody escapes this life without suffering, and now it is your turn. Tomorrow it might be someone else’s. But the universe doesn’t keep score, so you shouldn’t either. Acknowledging that you can’t control everything is part of your liberation process. It isn’t personal. It just is.
When life doesn’t go as planned, we must hold on to the knowledge and hope that we still have choices, and that we are strong enough to make them.
There is always Plan B. Plan C. Plan D.
I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but this is what I’ve learned about making choices and how to navigate through difficult times.
Invest in Your Health
The temptation is out there to drown your sorrows in unhealthy habits that temporarily make you feel good. A quick fix always sounds great, but you’re in this for the long haul. There are no quick fixes to help you rebuild the rest of your life.
Sleep may feel impossible. Or maybe you’re sleeping too much. Exercise may not be a priority. You might eat horribly.
Choosing healthier habits—working out, getting enough sleep, eating well, and staying away from substance abuse—will promote good health. If your body isn’t well, it will permeate all aspects of your life in a negative and destructive way.
Strive for balance, reflect regularly, and readjust when it seems you are going astray. Staying healthy will help make the mental agony of loss a little easier to overcome.
Avoid Isolation
It is vital to maintain connections with the people who love you. Even when you don’t feel like seeing anyone, it’s important not to isolate yourself. Your friends and family will form a chain of love around you in the early days of loss and help you get through the rough patches.
Sometimes they won’t know what to say. Actually, most of the time they won’t know what to say. Forgive them. Know that they have good intentions.
Everyone is bumbling their way through this experience. Most people want to help, they just might not know where to start. Don’t build walls around yourself. Let them in. You won’t regret it.
This doesn’t mean you become a doormat. It is important for your mental health to establish boundaries with people, particularly with family who can have a tendency to become too comfortable with us and inadvertently cause us pain. You must enforce these boundaries, even when it feels uncomfortable.
Express your feelings and don’t apologize for them. Most people in your life will not understand firsthand what you are going through. They won’t even know when they have crossed the line. They may even blame you for getting upset.
People are not perfect, so don’t hold on to their mistakes and don’t hold it against them. It will only drive you crazy. Forgive soon and often. Also, you will learn who your closest allies are, who you can trust with your innermost feelings, and who you can lean on. These people will play a tremendous part in your healing process.
Figure Out What You Love
Our passion is what keeps us afloat day in and day out. Doing what you love will help your sanity during the most tumultuous times. It is imperative that you remember or discover what makes you happy.
For me, it’s writing fiction. Creating characters and getting lost in story worlds is my escape. It’s what nourishes my soul on my most painful of days. I also enjoy traveling, music, exercise, reading, and staying busy in my community.
You must determine your own personal interests. Make a list. Go out and do them. Do not let the loss define you. You are so much more than that. You get to define yourself. You make those choices.
Make Time for Yourself
I’m now an only parent of three young children. Time is a rare commodity, but it’s not extinct. I have to actively pursue it and I’ve become skilled at scheduling and time management. I share with others that if I can have a full-time job, remain active in my community, parent my children without a spouse, and still find time to write and do the things that I love, then they can too. We all can.
I don’t have any superpowers. I figured out how to make time. I used my choices to prioritize. I make mistakes and I adjust. I make more mistakes and I adjust again.
Banish “I can’t” from your thoughts and vocabulary. Eliminate “I don’t have time.”
Choose to make time for yourself. Even a little bit of time will help. Sometimes I have to get creative about making it happen, but I am committed to loving myself.
Stay Busy
Don’t stay home and allow yourself drown in sorrow. One of the worst things to do in the midst of surviving loss is to have time to twiddle your thumbs and wallow in self-pity. There will be a time and a place for the wallowing, but you don’t want it to consume your life. You don’t want to get stuck there.
Acknowledge the feeling, make space for it, feel it, and then move on.
Being a young widow with small children is both a curse and a stroke of luck. Children don’t have time for wallowing. They still need to eat, be changed, entertained, and cared for every single day. There is no such thing as taking a break from those responsibilities. It is what kept me going during my toughest times.
If you don’t have this in your life, then you’ll need to create the “busy-ness.” An object in motion stays in motion. Keeping your mind occupied is healthy and important.
Forgive Yourself Soon and Often
You’re going to have good days and bad days. I have great weeks when I feel like I’m on top of the world and doing an amazing job. The next week I might feel like a hysterical mess. The waves come and go. That’s what they do. Ebb and flow. It’s normal.
Allow yourself time to cope with the bad days. Recognize the negative feelings and understand that they are only visitors in your mind. Temporary visitors. They will go away.
When the bad thoughts visit, take a bubble bath. Splurge on nice sheets and comfy slippers or whatever little comforts you want to indulge in. Read something fun instead of tackling work. Give yourself permission to relax.
Ride out the bad wave and wake up the next morning with a fresh start.
Forgive yourself. This is the most important advice I can give you. On some days you may feel your loss morph into a three-headed monster in your head. You’ll hate yourself. You’ll hate the universe. You’ll hate the person you lost and you’ll start feeling hate backing you into a corner. That’s when you have to push it back. Acknowledge it in the room, compartmentalize, and then choose to not let it consume you. It will be a struggle.
I often ask myself at the end of a day: Did I do my best? Did I do everything I could’ve done?
If the answer is yes, then that’s it. Nothing else I could’ve done.
If the answer is no, then I make a concerted effort to do a little bit better tomorrow.
But in that moment, it’s okay to pause. Reset. Take a break to do something happy. There are many more chapters left in your story.
At the end of the day, everyone has to go through their experience of surviving loss in their own way. Life doesn’t always go as planned, but that doesn’t mean your life is over. You get to choose what is next. That is your power. Remember, you are not alone.
