Tag: wisdom

A Small Good Thing: A Documentary on Simple Sources of Happiness

We live in a world that encourages the pursuit of happiness, which it seems we’ve collectively defined as “more.” We chase more money, more recognition, more stuff, more connections (and often, more followers and “likes”). If it’s quantifiable, and sometimes even when it isn’t, there’s no such thing as enough.

Given that you’re here, visiting a website that promotes simplicity and appreciation for the little things, it’s possible you haven’t fallen into this trap. Or perhaps, like me, you have, and that’s why you now recognize that less is often more.

Given my own experience chasing things that inevitably led to emptiness and disappointment, I was intrigued to learn about Pamela Tanner Boll’s new documentary A Small Good Thing.

A Small Good Thing follows six people who’ve “recast their lives so they can find a sense of meaning.” If you’re disillusioned by the American Dream and fascinated by people who’ve found their own unique path to happiness, I highly recommend you check it out.

I’ve never shared a documentary here before, but as you may remember, I’ve spent the better part of this year working on my first short film (which I’m excited to share here soon!) And I’m also planning to work on my first documentary, on a similar topic, next year.

Given the synchronicity, I was thrilled to speak to Pamela about the motivation behind A Small Good Thing and what she learned in the process of making it.

The Interview

How did you choose the cast for A Small Good Thing? What’s the common thread?

We were looking for individuals who were living in this new century in a better way. We wanted to find people who had made positive changes in their lives through mindful practices, through a closer connection to the natural world, and through a stronger connection to the greater good.

Stephen Cope from Kripalu’s Institute for Extraordinary Living in Lenox, Massachusetts introduced us to Tim Durrin, who was working at Kripalu at the time, and through mindful practices (yoga, meditation, cycling) had been able to deal with his struggles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and addiction.

I met Yoga and Breathing Instructor Mark Gerow at Canyon Ranch in Lenox and was very impressed with his story of how he used his yoga practice to overcome the personal struggles in his life and to learn how to share his story with others.

We were introduced to Jen and Pete Salinetti from Woven Roots Farm and were fascinated with the fact that they were able to harvest twelve months out of the year in Western Massachusetts, as well as with the amount of food they were producing on a one and a half acre farm.

Also, we learned about Sean Stanton who worked on both his family farm, North Plain Farm, as well as managed Blue Hill Farm for the Barber family. He was also giving back to his community as the Chair of the Selectman Board for the Town of Great Barrington.

Finally, I heard about a woman in Pittsfield MA who was doing amazing community work with young adults who performed all over the state with the Youth Alive Step Team. I met Shirley Edgerton for coffee and found out that she was really guiding young people to a life of purpose.

Why did you choose the Berkshires for the location of this film?

The Berkshires has long been a place that attracted artists, visionaries, and change-seekers who value their creative expression and want to live closer to nature. It’s also one of those communities in the world that supports and encourages people who want to live in a different way. There seems to be less importance put on “keeping up with the Joneses” and more importance on “checking in with the Joneses.”

While we focus on the Berkshires in the film, people who are practicing mindfulness, connecting to the natural world, and engaging in their communities can be found all around the world. Yoga studios, farmers markets, and community gardens and centers can be found all over New York and other urban settings.

We also filmed in the Berkshires because it was closer to home for us. Our production company is located in Winchester, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston.

How long did it take to make this film? And how did making this film influence the happiness in your life?

We begin in 2011 researching the film for over a year focusing on the recent happiness studies and the science behind yoga and meditation. We also did a lot of research on how living in closer connection to the natural world also positively impacted our well-being.

We began shooting in the Berkshires in 2012, and continued for over a year. The first edit, which took another year, was flat and disjointed. In December 2013, I made a decision to close down the production. I did not feel that the edit expressed my original vision.

After four months, I found a new energy to complete the film in a new location with a new editor, T.C. Johnstone.

In the making of this film, we all learned that living an authentic life is not easy. It’s hard to be vulnerable and to make mistakes. But this is the path to living a life that is meaningful and full of purpose. Like Shirley says in the film, “…the true success in life is you finding your purpose and your passion and you living it out.”

How does watching these small stories about individuals transforming their lives help us to transform the world?

Our culture is more invested in comfort than in truth. Our planet is suffering from our consumer-driven way of life. Although we have more connections through the Internet and social networking, we as a society have become more isolated and lonely. We have more material wealth, but we are not happy.

These stories show individuals who are making small changes in their lives that have a big impact in the world. Jen and Pete Salinetti use only environmentally sustainable practices at Woven Roots Farm. Also, Sean Stanton feeds his livestock a natural diet; his cows are grass fed and his pigs and chickens are raised on pasture and eat all certified organic grain.

Farms that use these types of regenerative agricultural practices can turn back the carbon clock, reducing atmospheric CO2 while also boosting soil productivity and increasing resilience to floods and drought. Also, the agronomists tell us now that you can produce more calories per acre on a small farm than a big one.

Studies show that mindful practices such as yoga and meditation relieve our stress: blood pressure goes down, heart rates drop, negative emotions decrease, and positive ones increase. Tim Durrin and Mark Gerow have overcome the struggles in their lives by applying these mindful practices every day. And in doing so, have learned that by exposing their struggles to their community, they feel less isolated and more blessed.

And finally, Shirley Edgerton is guiding her young adults to live a life of purpose. She is teaching them at a young age, “that if you leave yourself open that you move with the universe [and] that’s where you blessings coming in.” This is how we can live in a more engaged way, a way that helps us to develop empathy and compassion.

Why did you make this film? What resources influenced your research?

A few years back, everyone I talked to had the same complaints: People were running so hard to keep up with the pressures of life that they felt overwhelmed, isolated, exhausted, and unhappy. Even though our country had more material wealth, people were depressed.

Given the additional worries about the growing income disparities, climate change, and the vanishing natural world, the question of what makes a good life became important to me. So, I did what I usually do—I read lots of books. These are just some of the books that informed the film:

Earth and Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner

The Empathic Civilization and The Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin

The Wisdom of Yoga and Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope

Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff

The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

Being Happy by Tal Ben-Shahar

Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzburg

Flow and Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Wisdom of Tuscany by Ferenc Mate

You can learn more about A Small Good Thing here.

October 27, 2016
Go Easy on Yourself

October 27, 2016
How Strong You Are

October 27, 2016
How We Can Stop Judging Others and Ourselves
“There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

We live in a world of ticker headlines, 24/7 news, and constantly updating Instagram and Facebook feeds. We are constantly making snap-decision judgment calls, categorizing what we see into “good,” “bad,” or “unimportant.”

In a second, we can see an image and believe we have all we need to form a fully realized opinion.

It’s in our biological wiring to judge everything we see—it’s how we have survived for generations upon generations. We are in a constant state of scanning our environment for threats and attempting to efficiently neutralize them when we do come across them.

And yet, ironically, we seem to have gotten to a point in our evolution where our judgments are doing us more harm than good, keeping us more unsafe than safe, and keeping us more in fear than in love.

When we get down to it, fear and love are the only two emotions we really have. They are our roots, the seeds of our souls, our most base and primal instincts.

All others are just off-shoots and iterations of the same.

We fear what we judge as bad; we love what we judge as good.

When we are in a state of fear, our bodies and minds do whatever they need to keep us safe. That may mean avoiding it, destroying it, or simply making it as different from us in our minds as possible. This is where the roots of racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other fear-based rationalizations are planted and nurtured.

I, like all other humans, have lived much of my life in this place of fear.

Only I didn’t call it fear.

I felt that I judged people fairly, that I saw in them things I would never be or do or feel in myself.

Though I have done deep work within myself to live in a place of love, forgiveness, and unconditional acceptance, I, like all people, still struggle with it from time to time.

It happened as recently as this morning.

I took my daughters to the grocery store for our weekly shopping trip and plunked them in a shopping cart shaped like a car. My eighteen month old daughter immediately ripped my list in half causing me to have to hold the two parts together every time I needed to check it.

I pushed the behemoth cart up and down the isles, cramming things in until I felt overwhelmed by both decision and physical fatigue.

My daughters were generally well-behaved but still did their part to act like kids: fighting over who got to hold the cereal, then both refusing to hold the cereal and throwing it on the floor in an attempt to throw it in the cart, pushing each other for more elbow room, asking to buy flowers and cookies and ice pops and a stuffed animal and tacos and pistachios and Finding Dora shaped Pirate’s Booty.

By the time I got to the register, I was ready for the trip to be done. It was still early in the morning, so only a few lines were open. I chose what appeared to be the shortest line and began unloading my stuff onto the belt.

That’s when I noticed that although I had chosen the shortest line, I had also chosen the one with the slowest cashier.

She and the woman in front of me were chatting and making small talk as if they were out on a coffee date, not in an increasingly crowded supermarket line with cranky kids and customers that were waiting to pay for their food and get on with their lives.

I did my best to surrender to the moment and keep it together. I reminded myself that I was waiting to pay for a cart full of healthy, nutritious food for my family—a position many women would do anything to be in. I smiled at my daughters and thought about how lucky I am to have them.

But still…

The clerk was really getting to me.

Finally, she started scanning my food and putting it into bags. And making small talk. And as she talked, she slowed down. Then she stopped and got out a roll of paper towels from under the register and started wiping down the belt where the frozen food had left a puddle of condensation.

I couldn’t help it: I rolled my eyes. I didn’t respond to her chatter. I refused to make eye contact.

Who the hell was this woman? She had a job to do and she was stubbornly refusing to do it in the efficient manner I know she had been trained to do it in.

I judged her. Harshly. And then I judged myself even more harshly for judging her.

As always, my judgments of her came from a place of fear:
- That I was going to lose control of my kids who were getting bored and cranky.
- That I might actually lose control of myself and say something I would later regret.
- That I never have enough time.
- That the situation could get worse and then it would feel even harder.
And then my frustration with her turned into frustration with myself and fear about myself:
- I’m not patient enough.
- I’m not kind enough.
- I’m too much of an introvert.
- I don’t appreciate what I have.
People who are in a state of fear can be vicious.

So what is the answer?

Love.

Love means unconditional acceptance of the light and the dark that we all have as humans and understanding that one cannot exist without the other.

Sure, it’s fair to say that the clerk should have been fully present and doing her job in a way that was efficient and respectful of the customers’ time. But I was making her responsible for my fear-based reaction.

The clerk was chatty and slow, just like I’ve been many times. Therefore, I really couldn’t condemn her without automatically condemning the same qualities in myself. This was probably why I was judging myself even more harshly than her!

In reality, there is nothing positive or negative that exists in someone else that doesn’t also exist in us because we are all human.

Perhaps instead of giving the clerk dagger eyes, I needed to see the experience she was giving me with gratitude. Maybe she was there to remind me that when we allow others to hurt us, we hurt ourselves. This was clearly illustrated by the fact that I quickly turned my anger toward her into anger toward myself.

Luckily because of my mindset work, I was able to move from seeing the clerk as an opponent and source of frustration to seeing her as a teacher for me and myself as a teacher for her, and also for my daughters who were a captive audience in the car cart.

Teaching is done mainly by example, and what we teach others we are also re-learning ourselves. What we share is strengthened in us, and so I had the choice to allow peace and love to happen in a moment that felt very un-peaceful by being peace and love.

Love is the remembering of who we all are at our core. Looking at a situation with love reminds us that our “flaws” are universal and therefore irrelevant.

Peace in that moment meant recognizing that I was having a vulnerable, overwhelmed moment, which put me squarely in the category of being human just like everyone else.

I took the lesson of having compassion for myself and for others that the clerk was teaching me and began to see things differently.

I gave myself a lot of grace and told myself that a moment of being annoyed and an exasperated eye roll didn’t make me a bad or ungrateful person. I reminded myself that both the clerk and I can do things imperfectly still be worthy of love anyway.

When you find yourself in a judgment/shame spiral, determine that you are willing to see things differently: with love.

Do this, and you will be guided by the most powerful force there is.
October 26, 2016
Be Kind

October 26, 2016
What Will Set You Free

October 26, 2016
How to Rock Your Scars (Because They Mean You’re Strong)

“Never be ashamed of a scar. It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” ~Unknown

“It’s such an ugly scar, I really don’t want anyone to see it.” This is what I told my daughter about a scar on my leg from an accident I’d experienced a year earlier.

I can remember the day so clearly when I slipped and fell, while skating, breaking my ankle and tearing a ligament. It was a painful experience with a long recovery. But I also felt embarrassed because I got injured during such a simple and fun activity.

I often wondered why this happened to me. One minute I was out enjoying quality time with my daughter and after the next minute I couldn’t walk for twelve weeks. I wanted to be present for her. I wanted to be active. I wanted to be involved. I wanted to be a good mother. I wondered if maybe I was overcompensating for the time I was busy keeping up with my work.

I became so entangled in my thoughts, wondering where I went wrong and why this was happening now.

After all was healed, I had a long scar from two surgeries. While I was happy to be up and on the move again, I was self-conscious about the five-inch mark on my ankle and leg area, along with the indentations in my skin from where the medal plate and screws were underneath.

I thought this scar was unattractive, and it was an awful reminder of my journey to healing. I knew with the warmer weather quickly approaching that I’d want to hide it.

I had it all planned out: I’d wear super long dresses, skirts, and pants. No one would need to stare my scar or ask me what happened. I wouldn’t have to wonder if anyone was looking at it, because I’d already taken care of that with my clothing.

One day my eleven-year-old daughter and I were discussing summer fashion and girl talk in general. I shared my well mapped out plan to hide my scar with my clothes. Before I could finish, she quickly replied, “Why don’t you want to wear your dresses, Mommy? Why are you hiding your scar?”

I pondered for a moment, then offered a simple response that I just didn’t like the way it looked. What she said next caught me off guard and made me teary eyed.

She said, with conviction, “Mommy, your scar shows that you made it! It shows that you are no longer in that same place as you were before, that you overcame it. You should be proud to show that scar, Mommy, because you bounced back! That’s your ‘I made it scar.’ ”

I was so blown away by her response and her unknowing insight into resilience.

As parents we share much of what we know with our children to help guide them through their everyday experiences. But there are those unscripted moments when our children’s perspectives provide us with insight into how to move forward.

Here are the lessons of self-acceptance and resilience my daughter taught me that can help you:

Don’t Hide Your Scars

We’ve all been through challenging situations, setbacks, disappointments, or heartbreak, and these experiences can leave a painful residue based on how we allow ourselves to heal.

Once you make it through the healing process, sharing the lessons with others will provide a sense of empowerment for you and to those you share it with. Your “scars” or challenging experiences have a unique story of resilience, and to tell it sends a continuous chain of healing to all you interact with.

Keeping it hidden reinforces a stigma of non-acceptance of all parts of your journey in life. If you reject these experiences, you’ll feel compelled to bottle these emotions within. That’s what I did after I left a job that, at the time, caused a great amount of stress and wasn’t beneficial for me as a parent.

At first, I felt embarrassed to share with others, because I always saw myself as competent, fitting in anywhere and always able to get the job done. I felt defeated because I was unable to meet the demands of my role. I felt bad that I somehow couldn’t “cut it” and didn’t measure up.

It was hurtful since I’d given everything I had, even at times pushing aside my priorities as a parent, and it still didn’t work out. So, I wanted to keep this “failure” quiet and move right along.

However, when I began sharing my experience of trying to balance the unrealistic expectations of a big corporate organization and being a present parent, I heard stories from other women who could relate.

This was when I realized the power of sharing my story. In talking about it I felt less ashamed, and that’s when the healing began, along with gaining a sense of empowerment.

Try to put a spin on those tough challenges so they don’t hinder your growth and progress. Share your feelings and story with a close friend, and if you’re comfortable enough, with others as well.

If you’re uncomfortable speaking about it, then write it down in a journal. Getting your feelings out will help purge your mind of overwhelming thoughts and cleanse your heart of the pain.

Your Challenges Can Propel You Forward

This challenging experience may have been rough, but it can also be the thing you need to get you moving outside of your comfort zone and into a new direction. Sometimes those unexpected setbacks build up the “muscles” that were once hidden within us due to fear or complacency. Now you’ve experienced your fears and you see that you’ve made it.

For example, maybe one of your worst fears is to lose your job and not being financially secure. If you’ve been laid off or fired, while this is hurtful to your self-esteem and brings about uncertainty, it may be an opportunity in disguise.

Perhaps this is your chance to go full throttle in starting the business you’ve always wanted, or maybe this is the push you need to get you to go back to school, or into the true field you desire to work in. It might even be a much-needed opportunity to take it easy and take better care of yourself.

Take time to process the lessons you’ve learned from this situation. Use them to help you regroup, refocus, and move ahead. What you were once afraid of is now a thing of the past.

Use your setback as a stepping stone to a new transformation in your life.

Be Gentle and Less Critical of Yourself and Your Journey

You may have gone through or are currently going through a tough time and you’re having thoughts about feeling “dumb,” feeling less than or not being able to cut it. While these thoughts are normal, spending time dwelling on them will never help you feel better and learn the lessons.

Stop beating yourself up. Offer yourself and your past forgiveness in order to set yourself free from the pain.

Giving so much life and emphasis to what those things mean about you is taking away from living out this one life of yours. Recognize the lessons and be kind to yourself so you can begin the next chapter of your life.

Surround Yourself with Resilient People

We spend so much time in our own heads pondering questions like “Why did this happened to me?” “What did I do wrong?” Indulging the “what if” questions will cause intense overwhelm and keep you stuck in your thoughts.

Surround yourself with resilient people who will listen to you, offer you encouragement, and help you find that spark you need to move forward. My daughter was a calming peace to my anxiety around my scars. While she shared a dose of encouragement, she unknowingly provided me with enough space to think about what she said, which gave me the ability to identify my next step for moving ahead.

A gentle spirit with words of wisdom was the catalyst for me to think differently about my situation.

—

Life is not meant to be lived hidden. The entire fabric of who you are is what makes your story unique and rich with wisdom. I once was afraid and ashamed to share those lessons of setbacks and hurt, fearing judgment and rejection. But I’ve found even more strength and humanness in sharing those stories, as they are part of who I am and it’s not necessary to hide that anymore.

October 25, 2016
A Daily Self-Care Ritual for Anyone Who Feels Lost in Life
“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” ~Jean Shinoda Bolen

We all get lost sometimes.

So lost that we lose track of who we are, where we’re going, what we want, and how to give ourselves what we need to feel nourished and healthy.

I’ve been there many times, enough times to realize that it’s an inevitable part of life, to realize that it’s okay to get lost.

The triggers? They’re never predictable.

Some are subtle and prolonged; some are brief but so huge they knock me off my feet and leave me reeling from shock: the pain of not fitting in at school as a teenager, the sudden death of my father when I was away at university, my first serious breakup, the time I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship but couldn’t work up the courage to leave, a betrayal by a friend that made me question if everything that we shared was even real.

At times like these, when I find myself down on my knees, the first thing to go out the window is my motivation to take care of myself.

I either eat too much or stop eating. I stay in bed all day. I don’t drink enough water. I drink too much alcohol. I become unkind to myself. I lose patience with myself and others.

It just feels easier to not care.

It was only in recent years, when I hit my mid-thirties, that I became aware of how repeating this cycle of behaviors wasn’t serving me in any way. In fact, they were keeping me stuck in a negative place and holding me back from healing and moving forward.

It’s been during this time that I decided to break that cycle and give my intuition the voice and attention it deserved by making the following self-care steps a part of my life.

I give myself permission to not feel motivated all the time.

I always thought that motivation was this bright, powerful flame of desire that would drive me to do what was good for me, no matter what.

After all, if something was important enough, I should want to do it all the time, right?

Not really.

As time passed and I gained more experience in life, I came to realize that there will be highs and there will be lows where I’ll feel like jumping off the moving train because it feels like too much work to stay on it.

It’s important that you recognize this and allow yourself to be in this place without feeling guilty about it. Give yourself the space you need to breathe and be still, then gradually start easing yourself into taking the steps you need to get to where you want to be.

I set an intention for the day the minute I wake up.

When life has knocked you off your feet and you aren’t sure where to go, the thoughts that go through your head in the first few minutes of your day can mean the difference between getting closer to the path of healing or drifting further away from it.

Instead of allowing negative thoughts to take center stage in my mind the way they used to, I now guide my thoughts to these two steps the minute I wake up:
- I think of three things that I’m grateful for, and then…
- I set an intention for the day ahead. This can be something as simple as keeping my spirits up throughout the day, or something more challenging, such as coming up with ten actionable solutions for a difficult situation that I may be facing.
Your intention doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. It just has to be meaningful to you.

I prioritize getting enough restful sleep.

Over the past few years, I experienced several violent break-ins into my home, and at the same time was struggling to deal with an emotionally abusive relationship.

As a result, anxiety became a constant companion, making it difficult for me to fall and stay asleep.

Now as I heal, doing my best to make sure that I get enough sleep each night has become a priority for me, and this means having a pre-sleep ritual in place:
- I make sure my computer is turned off by 8 p.m. and that I head to bed at the same time every night.
- I don’t drink coffee, but I love tea, so I stick to caffeine-free teas after 4 p.m..
- I spend an hour before I plan to go to bed doing something that helps me let go of the stresses, excitement, and chaos of the day, and this typically means spending time with my dog and family, reading, talking to a friend, or going through a soothing yoga sequence. Within this hour, I also spend five to ten minutes questioning any stressful thoughts that I might have, with the help of Byron Katie’s “The Work” so that they have less power over me and are less likely to keep me up during the night.
If you’re finding it difficult to sleep restfully for at least seven hours a night, I encourage you to start putting together a pre-sleep routine that will help calm your mind and body down to make falling and staying asleep feel easier.

I focus on building mindfulness.

Having been an emotional eater since my teens, it can be easy for me to fall back into my old pattern of turning to food for comfort when stress and anxiety get the better of me.

This is why nurturing mindfulness is an important part of my daily routine, especially when things get rough.

Rather than numb myself with food, alcohol, compulsive shopping, or some other habit that helps me avoid facing the difficult emotions I’m experiencing, I acknowledge their presence, the discomfort that they’re stirring up in me, and what the old me used to do when they came up.

I then consciously make the decision to not give in to those old habits—habits that I know will ultimately drag me down and hold me back from getting back on my feet.

If you’re struggling to give up a habit that you know isn’t good for you, here’s my challenge to you: Every time you’re tempted to say yes to that box of donuts, bottle of wine, or pity party, ask yourself, “Is this going to make me stronger?” If your answer is no, move away from it.

I make gentle movement a part of my day.

I know I can’t be happy and capable if my body isn’t healthy and strong, so I make time three to five times a week to exercise.

If I’m not in a good place and am running low on energy, I can’t make it through an intense workout that involves heavy equipment, so I shift gears and go slow with my own body weight instead.

Fitness isn’t always about going hard and fast all the time or getting flat abs—it also means being able to listen to your body and spirit so that you can add purposeful movement into your day that helps you build the resilience you need to deal with the anxieties of everyday life.

I learn something new that will strengthen me from the inside out every day.

Whenever I feel stuck in a rut or painful place, I often have my gut telling me that it’s because I may not yet have the necessary skills, insights, or right mindset to heal and break free from it.

This is why I set a goal to learn one new thing every single day by reading a book, blog post, listening to a podcast, or even connecting with someone who has more experience than I do so I can approach life or a particular situation that I’m in from a fresh perspective.

The internal shifts that happen don’t have to be huge, but they do add up in a way that makes a significant difference to my life: I gradually become stronger, gain more clarity, and start feeling more confident about taking that first step in a new, healthier direction.

No matter how low or lost you feel right now, I want you to know this: There’s always a way out and up, and it will always start from within you.
October 24, 2016
You’re Doing the Best You Can

October 24, 2016
Be Proud of Who You Are

October 24, 2016
Never Apologize for Being Sensitive or Emotional

October 24, 2016
How Letting Go of Your Goals Can Make You a Happier Person

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” ~Alan Watts

When I started kicking chairs at work, I knew things had gone too far.

I didn’t kick things when other people were around, and I thought it was the perfect way to release my anger. I could lash out with as much fury as I wanted, but I didn’t hurt anyone.

Why did I start kicking chairs? I’ll explain in a minute. But the truth was, I was hiding a bigger problem: I’ve spent much of my life hating myself.

When I was eight or nine years old, my mom asked if I was okay. She had heard me sobbing in the shower.

I told her I was furious at myself because I hadn’t been writing in my journal. I had skipped a few days, and a few days had turned into a few weeks, and now I was too far behind to catch up.

I was miserable. At nine years old, my life held no purpose because I hadn’t written in my journal for a month.

My mom comforted me, but I repeated the mistake countless times.

In my teens, I crafted a set of rules to lead me to perfection.

My plan was a sixteen-page document with eighty-four rules for the New Year. It included everything from a plan to improve my handwriting to why I would never use sarcasm or ask for seconds at dinner.

Focusing on specific rules would have made a few goals more manageable, but by January 3rd, I realized I couldn’t keep up with all eighty-four. So I blamed myself. I felt like a worthless human being who couldn’t do anything.

It only grew worse after someone broke my heart.

I spent years wondering where I had gone wrong. The person I wanted in my life refused to be with me, and I couldn’t figure out how I had messed up.

The answer, it always seemed, was that I wasn’t perfect enough. To appease the gnawing pain, I’d create a new list of goals.

I decided to build a body that would win me love. I spent ten hours a week lifting weights. I ate 4,000 calories a day for months to build muscle and then starved myself on 500 calories a day when I decided I didn’t look lean enough.

I spent $500 on new clothes in one shopping trip, only to find I was the same person inside, just in different fabric.

I earned a perfect 4.0 GPA in college and a well-paying job afterward. I immediately started working towards a new career, hoping the allure of accomplishment would make myself more appealing.

None of the changes made a difference.

When my extreme measures backfired, I bullied myself even more.

I was a failure at relationships because I was a failure at becoming perfect because I was a failure at everything.

It shouldn’t surprise you that a few years later, I realized I was unhappy. I wanted to become a happy person. I wanted to be cheerful.

So naturally, I created a goal of becoming happier. I measured my happiness each day and tracked my progress.

But when looming anger crippled that happiness, I became ruthless with myself again. I wasn’t happy because I could never be happy. I was a loser at even the most basic of human emotions.

And so I started kicking chairs.

My life had become a cycle. A cycle of feeling like a failure, setting unreachable goals, missing those goals, and feeling like an even greater failure.

But the solution had been with me the whole time.

The solution was to let go.

That wasn’t one of the solutions. Letting go was the only solution. It just took me years to realize it.

The few times I chose to let go, I accepted my faults and felt whole again.

Now I live like that all the time. I allow myself not to meet my goals or even to break them.

To clarify, I still work to achieve things. But instead of dozens of lofty goals, I have two or three I’m confident I can meet. They are simple, and if they don’t happen, I will be okay. They don’t define my life.

By letting go of my goals, I am growing more. I am becoming a better person and goals are guiding me—not controlling me.

If I start to feel overwhelmed, I know I need to let go a bit more.

I’ve found these three strategies the most helpful when letting go of your goals.

1. Let go of your goals all the way.

You must first write every goal. Every single one.

All the silly, absurd, unrealistic, and idealistic goals you’ve ever imagined. Then consciously let go of them all.

Imagine what your life would be like without those goals. If you never accomplished any of them. Come to peace with that idea.

Only then should you add back in the few most important.

Too many people delete goals, only to think of them for months to come. They decide they don’t have time to read more. But they spend hours wondering about the books they are interested in, how it would feel to read them, and what they would tell friends about them.

Pondering half-hearted goals will cause as much strife as overcommitting yourself.

If I choose to let go of a goal, it receives 0% of my mental energy. If I focus on a goal, I give it 100% of my mental energy. That simple.

2. Let go of your impatience.

A slow accomplishment is still an accomplishment.

I tend to overcommit. If I want to become better at something, I’ll decide I need to spend an hour or two on it each day.

The problem is I can’t maintain that schedule and I give up, disappointed and discouraged.

I’ve found I work best when I ask myself the likelihood of taking that action step every day for the next month. If I’m less than 90% sure I can do it, it won’t happen.

Instead, I take a small action step each day, something I’m 90% sure I can do.

Yes, I want to work out six times a week. But I’ll meet the same goals working out three times a week. It will just take longer.

Yes, I want to practice guitar an hour every day, but I also know that’s too much time. If I try to practice for 5 minutes, though, I’m 99% sure I’ll be able to do it. If I practice more that day, I’ll feel good, instead of beating myself up when I play for 50 minutes instead of 60.

3. Let go during your morning routine.

At the beginning of each day, I review what I accomplished the day before.

My criterion used to be how much I did. Did I succeed with each goal? I usually found myself lacking.

Now my criterion is different. Was the day fulfilling? Did I do things that added to my life, even if none of them involved a goal? If so, then the day was a success.

Whereas most days began with me berating myself for failing at my goals, now I spend my mornings being grateful for the enchanting things I did yesterday.

When you change the way you measure your life, your life changes.

In my morning routine, I also spend some time planning what I want to do that day and making sure I am doing the right things. Any task that isn’t important, I let go. It just isn’t necessary.

The day is better that way, and I’m more productive, too.

—

Since coming to terms with my goals and letting many of them go, I am a much happier and fulfilled person.

Instead of hating who I am, I’ve come to accept myself and my accomplishments. I’ve let go of the goals that held me back and now let the important things push me forward.

I don’t need a measurement to know I’m happier this way.

October 23, 2016
Appreciate the View

October 22, 2016
Breathe In, Slowly, Gently, Deeply, Breathe Out

October 22, 2016
Happy Are Those Who…

October 21, 2016
I Have Endured

October 21, 2016
7 Lessons to Remember When Life Seems to Suck
“I’m grateful for past betrayals, heartaches, and challenges… I thought they were breaking me; but they were sculpting me.” ~Steve Maraboli

I winced in pain as I climbed off the elliptical. This was one of the few times that I had ever set foot into a gym. And it was out of necessity rather than choice.

That necessity came from chronic lower back and leg pain, which I had been living with for the better part of six months. At the time, I didn’t know it would end up being just chronic, idiopathic pain.

All I knew was that it hurt, and I was limping with every step I took.

The pain had a definite impact on my quality of life.

For those first two years I could rarely sit for more than five minutes at a time, as a burning sensation would soon envelop my hip and thigh area, making it uncomfortable. The only way to alleviate the sensation was to stand. This was difficult for me, as I am an engineer who makes his living in front of the computer.

In my quest to get better I saw enough specialists to count on both hands. Because I lived in a small town, they were often two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours by car, one way! Imagine the challenges of trying to sit in a car for that long a period of time when the very act of sitting was uncomfortable for me.

Each time, the doctor would say that he didn’t know what was wrong with me. The good news, at least, was that I was not in danger of dying anytime soon.

Little did I know at the time that I would find myself on a journey of self-improvement, borne out of a spiritual necessity. As a result, I would make drastic changes to my life.

I would eventually learn to stop using pain as an excuse not to exercise. I discovered what it meant to make a decision—to decide, really decide.

I would also discover that I am my own worst enemy, what with the constant barrage of negative thoughts that consumed every waking moment as I sought answers from one doctor to the next.

Through it all, I would discover the power of meditation to help me deal with life’s stresses (people or situations).

Four years later, this chronic pain is but a distant memory. From time to time it returns as nothing more than a mild muscle soreness or tension.

These are the lessons I wish to share with you today.

You Are What You Think

Among many of the things I started changing were my thoughts.

Because I have a history of cancer in my family, when I first started the doctor visits, I constantly assumed the worst.

Several relatives had already passed away from this disease. My father had two bouts with cancer. Both times, he was fortunate enough to walk away.

Unfortunately, after each time he still believed the disease was in his body, despite the doctor declaring a clean bill of health some ten years after his first bout.

Sound familiar?

Because I had the best training in the world, I saw doctor after doctor, trying to find something wrong with me. I refused to accept the second, third, or fourth opinion that I was really fine. That there was nothing wrong with me.

Be in the Habit of Questioning Your Beliefs

It starts with a subtle shift of consciously being aware of your thoughts and questioning them. I’m not saying that you should be constantly monitoring your thoughts. That would be tiring.

So long as you are able to step back every now and then to ask yourself these questions, you are in good shape.
- Why did I just think what I thought?
- From where did I get these beliefs?
- Are they correct? Is it possible that my beliefs are wrong?
- What other perspectives are also correct?
- How are these beliefs helping me?
Question your thoughts, for they lead to emotions. Watch your emotions, which lead to actions. Examine your actions (or lack thereof), which ultimately lead to results.

Another way to look at things is this: If you don’t like where you are, begin by looking at your results. Then look at the actions you took to achieve those results. Look yet another step backward to the emotions associated with those actions. Going further back, look at the thinking that created those emotions in the first place.

Now, can you see why what we think is so important?

Sometimes Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

Those words were from my chiropractor, and they would keep echoing through my head as I fought back the waves of pain running down the lower right side of my body.

I almost laughed when he first said them to me, thinking they were terribly cliché. Yet, this doctor was doing something none of the other specialists could do: alleviate my pain. Within the first hour of seeing him, my discomfort had almost halved.

Not only was he helping me with my pain, his simple words motivated me to start an exercise program for the first time in my life, despite the pain.

Keep in mind that two other doctors had also suggested this, but I dismissed their advice, thinking it was crazy to suggest exercise to a patient in pain, since I assumed it would exacerbate his condition. In other words, I thought I knew best.

As for what led up to those waves of pain, I was on the elliptical, trying this strange machine for the first time in my life. And I was hurting.

It had only been ten minutes, but they were grueling. The guy next to me made it look easy, clocking in at thirty minutes and still going. I was hurting too much and had to jump off the machine.

As I stood there wondering what was going on with my health, I had a do-or-die moment: I could give up, go home, piss and moan about how much everything was hurting and what a dumb idea it was for the doctors to suggest that I start an exercise program, and never come back.

Yet, the words of my chiropractor kept playing back in my head. It shifted my perception: Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

At this moment in my journey, my back was to the wall. I had no other direction but forward. I would decide then and there that I would give it another month to see if my condition would improve better.

Many more times on the elliptical, something amazing gradually happened: My chronic pain was starting to go away!

The Bad Times Are a Gift

And so it is with things you are attempting for the first time. It may seem to really suck, when you’ve failed for the 100^th time, with success seemingly a long ways off.

It’s in these bad times that we choose to shift our perceptions and decide that failure is just a feedback mechanism. We learn both from our mistakes and our missed takes in life, about both the situations and ourselves.

And when we finally achieve success, we can truly appreciate what had at the time seemed like terrible moments in our lives. It’s these moments that brought forth the hidden potential within us. In other words, we discover truly powerful and resilient parts of ourselves that would have lain dormant had these “bad” times not been gifted to us.

Stop Finding Excuses for Why You Can’t

Instead, look for reasons why you can.

Over time, I added weights to my repertoire in order to strengthen my core. Initially, I was concerned about lifting because of my scoliosis. I soon attracted a Crossfit crowd into my life. This would be a source of valuable workout information for me.

In particular, I met a power lifter (this guy can lift 700+ pounds!) and asked what he thought about scoliosis and lifting. He told me about Lamar Grant, a power lifter who stands at just 5’2” and has scoliosis.

What was amazing about Grant was that he could deadlift 661 pounds at a bodyweight of 132 pounds. Grant holds world records for deadlifts in his weight class.

What this friend was telling me was in essence this: Stop looking for excuses for why you can’t do something. Instead, go do it in spite of the situation.

In my case, I should be lifting to strengthen my core because I do have scoliosis. I should be lifting because Lamar Grant is a prime example of someone who persevered in spite of his circumstances. It was because of his circumstances that he went on to set world records.

Successful People Are Thankful for Their Circumstances

Lamar Grant would not have been the Lamar Grant if he never started lifting because of his scoliosis.

If not for his deafness, Beethoven would have fallen into obscurity as just another live concert performer. In spite of his growing and near complete deafness, Beethoven went on to compose some of the world’s most moving and beautiful symphonic pieces. Almost 200 years after it was written, his music is still listened and enjoyed today.

These people rose above their circumstances. They asked themselves, “What is it that I am to learn from this particular set of circumstances at this time? How does the Universe want me to grow?”

In other words, they stopped blaming whatever hand they had been dealt and learned to play it as best they could.

In my case, I learned the discipline of working out three times a week on top of working through my pain. This discipline would transfer to other areas of my life.

No matter how tired I am after work or how little I feel like going to the gym, I still do it. I know that as soon as I develop the habit of not going to the gym, then it’s over. Likewise, I simply developed the habit of going to the gym.

It’s the same with other things I dislike doing. I do them anyway, as they are necessary to the path of success.

You Can Calm Your Mind Through Meditation

When I first learned how to meditate, it was one of the most difficult things to do. I would often fall asleep. Or, my mind would wander in totally different directions. I even gave up for some time.

As I was still studying self-improvement, the concept of meditation kept coming up, especially among highly successful individuals. They often credited meditation as one of the pillars to achieving lasting success.

So, I decided to give it another shot (or ten!) Over time, I was getting better at dismissing thoughts as they entered my mind, without any judgment or emotions.

When you learn to mediate, you start to live in your own world, in your own terms. People who would have normally pushed your buttons no longer have the effect they used to have.

I frequently get comments from my coworkers, who wonder how I can be so patient with so-and-so. They even thank me for being a buffer, or tell me they might have lost it already. I tell them that the “secret” to my inner peace and calmness is meditation.

The “old me” would have been fuming for days after the offending event. The “new me” responds much differently.

I have discovered another benefit of meditation. When I was first going through my chronic pain issue, one night I was able to “disconnect” my brain from my body. In other words, for that moment I felt pain-free!

I now meditate every day for about fifteen to twenty minutes when I first wake up. This is the best time to meditate as your brain is still closest to emitting theta waves. Theta waves are generated during sleep and are the closest to accessing your subconscious you can get.

By meditating during this time, you tap into the true self within you. As an example of why you would want to tap into your true self, consider this: You might have at one point in your life woke up, hit Snooze on your alarm, turned back to sleep, and said, “I hate my job. I don’t want to go to work today.”

By meditating right after waking up, you will get closer to finding what truly gets your juices flowing. You discover what your real values and passions are so that you can start living authentically.

Those intuitive thoughts or random ah-ha moments that you’re trying to tap into during meditation do not necessarily come during meditation. For me, 99% of the time they come when I’m taking a five-minute break, sipping some tea, working out, taking a walk, washing dishes, or doing something as mundane as sitting in the dentist’s chair.

In other words, the payoff is outside of meditation. Through meditation, you learn to first let go of random thoughts so that you stop obsessing over the ones that hurt you. Instead, you want to focus on the ones that resonate with you.

Most of All: Decide!

You have to decide, really decide, what it is that you want. We have all made half-baked decisions in our lives. We put in the effort for a little while before giving up. That’s not really deciding.

You already know what it is. When you have really decided, you feel it in your gut. You know that no matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is, you will see it through to the end.

For me, it was that do-or-die moment when I was in pain from being on the elliptical. My back was to the wall, and I truly had no place to go but forward.

Even to this day, when I am about to make a big decision, I think back to this defining moment and the emotions it wrought. I know I have really decided when I feel those same emotions.

So grab hold of that feeling. Or, look for it when you make a decision. That’s how you know if you truly meant it when you decided.

The Lessons at a Glance

To sum up the lessons learned, here they are.
- You are what you think. So, choose carefully!
- Question your beliefs.
- Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.
- Stop finding excuses for why you can’t. This is called blaming. Instead, find reasons why you can. This is called taking the initiative.
- Be thankful for both the good and the bad in your life for both are gifts.
- Meditate
- Really decide.
I used to wonder if, given the chance to be spared those three years of pain, infirmity, and uncertainty, would I take it.

I have come to realize that at any given moment, life brings with it challenges. With each challenge is the amazing the opportunity to grow, so long as we see it this way. Others may rail against it.

It’s made me the person I am today. I would have missed all those important lessons and tremendous opportunities for self-growth. More importantly, I would have missed sharing those lessons here today.
October 20, 2016
When Things Are Falling Apart

October 20, 2016
Dealing with Rejection: It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Good Enough

“The best way out is always through” ~Robert Frost

I was trembling as I hung up the phone. He’d dumped me.

It was as if, while I was watching a murder mystery at the edge of my seat, the electricity had gone out. Poof! I wasn’t going to get to see the end of the movie, and I had no control over when the lights would come back on.

I felt the fangs of rejection sink into my heart like a merciless tarantula. My mind, which is normally going 500 miles an hour, came to a halt. Suddenly I felt nothing. Frozen. I had no thoughts. Total shock. The poison of the rejection spider slowly oozed into my bloodstream, paralyzing me in my seat.

“Get up! Get up now!” I heard the voice in my mind say. For some reason, it seemed as if moving could unfreeze my emotions.

I did get up, but stood there as if I was listening to the strange noises coming from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Waiting for someone to tell me that I was “punked” and that he was going to call me back to tell me that it was just a silly joke. Then we were going to make up and live happily ever after. That did not happen.

“We create what we defend against.” ~Marianne Williamson

We had a few close breakup calls before, and I always felt like I dodged a bullet when we ended up in a smooth place. Apparently, we had used up all the close calls reserved for us.

It was official: I was just not good enough. I was too broken to be loved. No one was going to love me forever. Um, can I get that in writing as well? I did. An email followed his phone call. It was as official as an IRS letter arriving on a Friday afternoon.

The words I had dreaded, protected myself against at all costs from the man who had professed his undying love for me: “Banu, you are too this and that. So I am out.” He said he was sorry.

Clingy is not sexy, nor is desperate. I had become both. All because I had not done the work to correct a limiting belief that runs in almost every human being on the planet: I am not good enough.

In the following days and weeks, as my emotions defrosted in the scorching heat of heartache, I felt a strange sense of relief. Finally, it had happened. I was still alive. Still breathing. Still able to work, bathe, and feed myself.

There was no news coverage on CNN about how my heart was broken, nor did the ending of my relationship break the Internet. Life went on for everyone as usual, except for me. It was the beginning of my freedom and I didn’t know it.

I had feared being broken up with all my life because, deep inside, I believed that I wasn’t good enough. That belief was so deeply ingrained in me that I had finally created it.

I was always the one to end a relationship because the fear of the other shoe falling would tap out my nervous system sooner than later. The guy could barely recognize the confident woman he fell in love with, who now was an emotional wreck, clinging to him for dear life.

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” ~Jean de La Fontaine

I am convinced of one thing: People come into our lives as mirrors of who we are.

If we don’t recognize our worth, causing us to seek validation and approval from others, the world mirrors that, and we meet people who don’t see our worth either.

Rejection seemed like death to me. It was. It was the death of my old self and the birth of a new era of new choices, thoughts, and beliefs about my own self-worth.

It was unfair to tie my sense of self to the approval of one man. Unfair to both parties, in fact. What if he had died in a car crash? Was I going to become worthless then?

The gift of getting dumped was that I saw that I could still stand on my two feet and manage not to turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. I allowed myself to feel, journaled to process what was coming up, and paid attention to the self-negating stories I was telling myself.

You would think that it would be devastating when you are rejected for the very things that you perceive are your biggest flaws. It wasn’t.

The blessing is that, once we get through the disappointment, anger, and pain, if we are willing to look at the truth of the situation, we will find the door that has been left unlocked, leading us to freedom and our self-worth.

And it is not the “He was a jerk anyway; it’s his loss” kind of freedom. It’s the “I am worthy of love, and I’ll be darned if I leave my sense of worth in someone else’s hands again” kind.

It’s about making a commitment to value ourselves, and living as if we do. This affects our choices, from what we eat, what we wear, and how we behave to how fast we get up after we fall.

“The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself.” ~Neville Goddard

Looking back, I could see that I had set myself up for rejection so that I could learn that my own self-rejection hurts more than someone else’s.

I had been unknowingly rejecting myself for the things he recited as he said his final words. He was a perfect mirror.

And the healing wasn’t going to come from someone telling me how wonderful I am fifty times a day. It was going to come from me believing it and living it. The importance of self-love and self-appreciation was the lesson.

Through this experience, I got some insights into rejection by a love interest, which you might find helpful:

1. Everyone experiences rejection.

Even the hottest, most intelligent, most successful people on the planet get cheated on or broken up with. If you think that your size 10 body, your negative bank balance, or your dead end job are the reasons why you might be rejected, think again.

If physical perfection or success could guarantee that we never get broken up with or experience heartache, no fashion model or mogul would know what rejection feels like. That’s not the case, is it? It’s a common human experience, and though it can be painful, what hurts more is the belief that rejection says something about our worth.

2. Trying to be something we’re not just to please someone else is essentially rejecting ourselves.

Because then we don’t get to discover who we are and be that person. We get stuck in the role we know they want us to be. We cheat ourselves of an authentic existence.

What people like or need is strictly personal to them and dependent on where they are in their lives. If someone rejects you because they want something else, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It just means they’re not the right match for you.

3. Once you experience rejection and work through it, the fear loses its sting.

If someone chooses to not be with you anymore, and you use the experience as an opportunity not to reject yourself, you are getting to a place where you will know that you will be okay no matter what.

You get to a place where you think, “Too bad it didn’t work out. I can see what I need to heal and change more clearly now. It hurts, but I am okay.” You can only go up from there. Unfortunately, we can’t get there without going through it.

“The best way out is always through.” ~Robert Frost

Rejection is a part of life. If you have experienced it, consider yourself lucky. You now know that you can survive it. If you have not, believe me when I say this: You will be okay. And perhaps, as it did for me, rejection can lead you to a deeper sense of self-love and self-acceptance.

October 19, 2016
The Happiest People

October 19, 2016