Tag: wisdom
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3 Ways to Cultivate Gratitude and Boost Your Happiness
“Gratitude can turn common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” ~William Arthur Ward
Living in India for more than two years now has been an eye opening experience for me, as I’ve realized how I used to take so many things for granted. While growing up and living in my home country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in Europe, I was lacking gratitude for all the blessings that surrounded me.
While sitting in our penthouse apartment in the New Delhi suburbs, in an air-conditioned room, still feeling the need to chill with a cool water or a mango shake due to the intense heat (which can reach up to 118° in the summer), I could observe the construction ground across from our building.
Constructions workers would come in at 9am and work for twelve hours, with only a short lunch break, without proper safety equipment, chilled water, or any shaded cover to rest.
While they’d wipe sweat from their face, I’d imagine how hot they must be feeling, as I was sweating even in an air-conditioned room.
Some of them were working together with their wives, who would help them earn their daily wage (equal to $1).
These women would carry piles of cement and bricks on big pots on their head, from one side of the construction site to another, sometimes climbing many stairs as well. In my home country, I never saw women working on construction grounds or carrying such heavy loads on their heads.
Their children would play in front of the construction ground with sand and small rocks, as their parents could not afford to send them to school.
I thought about how, in my home country, children often complain that they “have to” go to school and people complain about how tough their jobs are. These people in New Delhi could not even dream of sending their children to school or having an eight-hour job in an air-conditioned office.
The wives who didn’t work on the construction ground would work in our building as maids. One of them cleaned our home. Every day she came in with a water bottle, which she’d cool in our refrigerator, as they did not have an electricity, not to mention a refrigerator, in the slum where she lived with her family.
After cleaning our home, she’d run back to hers with a chilled water bottle in her hands, almost losing her breath, as if she was afraid the heat might warm that water before she would return. Then she wouldn’t be able to cool her small children, who were waiting in the heat in a slum without a fan.
Since that day, I never look at the ice cubes in my drink the same way I once did. Ice cubes were just pieces of frozen water, until I saw that for some people, even chilled water is a luxury! Ice cubes are a symbol of wealth and abundance to me now.
I suddenly became grateful for all the things I am blessed with in my life, even the small things, like ice cubes, chilled water, nutritious food, a fan, an air-conditioner, mosquito repellent in the night, clean running water in my home, electricity—not to mention the “big” things, like an opportunity to get educated, to grow up in a beautiful home, which was warm in winters and cool in summers, my job, the power to choose my own husband.
I never thought I should be grateful for choosing my husband. Yet, in a place where arranged marriages are still tradition, I realized that it was a blessing that I was born and raised in an environment where I could fall in love with a man and choose to marry him.
Although arranged marriages do work here, and I see people fall in love after marriage, or at least create a relationship based on kindness, mutual respect, and care, I feel so grateful every day that I had a chance to choose the man I thought was the right for me, with my parents’ blessing and best wishes.
We often take the things we have for granted, yet in many other parts of the world, there are people who would feel blessed and happy if they could enjoy them on a daily basis.
If we just take a look around us we could find so many things to be grateful for.
Some of the practices that can help us to cultivate the feeling of gratitude in our life include:
1. Gratitude journaling.
Keeping a gratitude journal, where we note all the things (or at least three things) we feel grateful for every day, can be a powerful reminder of how blessed we are.
Noting down even simple things—like a delicious dinner we enjoyed, a warm home, a cup of tea or coffee, time spent with our beloved—can be a powerful practice to keep us grounded in a positive mindset on a daily basis.
2. Creating a list of possibilities and blessings.
It helps to write a list of all the things we are blessed with, things we usually see as givens, that in other parts of the world are not available to many people.
So many women around the world still do not have the right or the opportunity to get educated, and so many children cannot attend school or University due to lack of financial resources. According to WHO, 12.9% of the world’s population (over 1 billion people) is undernourished and will probably go to bed hungry tonight.
Millions of people around the world do not have an access to clean, running water and electricity, which in Western countries we usually take for granted.
Having a roof over our head, a warm room, a meal on our plate, a degree or opportunity to go to University, electricity lighting our home, and cool water in summers are all big reasons we can feel grateful every single day.
3. Shifting our perception.
Instead of feeling sad and frustrated about being single, we can look at this same circumstance from another perspective—as the freedom to be able to choose our partner and wait until we find the right one. This simple shift can help us move from a negative emotional state to a state of gratitude.
In the same way, we can shift our perception of looking at other things, like the job that we don’t like or our living conditions.
When we catch ourselves complaining about housework, we can see it as a blessing that we have our own home and, as a result, clean it with gratitude.
Instead of feeling annoyed that we have to cook dinner, we can feel grateful that we’re able to afford groceries. We can also consider it a blessing that, in this modern era, we do not need to manually wash our dishes or clothes.
When we catch ourselves complaining about the job we hate or feel bored with, we can feel grateful that we have a job and regular income that can pay our bills.
We can also be grateful for small things, like air conditioning in our office, having weekends off, or the fact that we don’t need to be exposed to harsh weather conditions or safety threats every day, like so many people in other corners in the world.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to achieve more and move ahead in life, but we can never be truly happy if we do not appreciate what we already have.
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How Complaining Rewires Your Brain for Negativity (And How to Stop)
“Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” ~Unknown
When I was about sixteen or so, one of my parent’s friends got into some trouble with the law. When we’d visit him he’d often shake his head from side to side and mumble, my life is in the toilet.
He said it many times, for many years, even when things seemed to have gotten better for him.
My life is in the toilet was his mantra.
At the time I thought it was funny, so I adopted it for myself, until one day I started to believe it. I’ve since dumped that charming phrase and gotten a new mantra.
Things haven’t magically become ideal for me since I did that. I mean, there’s this pinched nerve in my neck and those construction sounds across the street, and I could really use some more work, and…
Type of Drains
Everyone complains, at some point, at least a little, says Robin Kowalski, PhD, a professor of psychology at Clemson University.
There are different types of complainers, according to Kowalski, such as The Venter. The Venter is a “dissatisfied person who doesn’t want to hear solutions, however brilliant.”
Venting. We’re just letting off steam, right? Maybe not. I’ve personally found that the complain drain can be soul draining, not just for the complainer, but for all within earshot.
Other types you may have met along the way (or may be yourself) are the Sympathy Seekers, the I got it worse than you do, and the habitual everything sucks folks.
The Chronic Complainers, those living in a state of complaint, do something researchers call “ruminating.” This basically means thinking and complaining about a problem again and again. Instead of feeling a release after complaining, this sort of complaining can actually make things worse. It can cause even more worry and anxiety.
No one is suggesting you be a peachy-keen-Josephine and pretend all is swell when it isn’t. What I’ve learned in my mindfulness practice is to aim to do the opposite.
In mindfulness meditation, we try to experience fully the truth of the situation, in this exact moment, and allow it to just be. Easier said than done (but what isn’t?) Still, with practice, the need to express our dissatisfaction for things not being how we’d like them to be lessens.
Can’t We Just Call Roto-Rooter?
Running with this drain analogy…
Call Roto-Rooter, that’s the name and away go troubles down the drain!
When I was a kid I loved singing along to those Roto-Rooter commercials. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could “away go troubles down the drain?” Well, maybe we can.
Most of us may have been unintentionally reinforcing the nasty habit of complaining, by virtue of… complaining.
There’s something called “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” which is the continuing creation and grouping of neuron connections in our brains that take place as a result of our life experiences.
Neuroscience teaches us that neurons that fire together, wire together. Donald Hebb, a Canadian neuropsychologist, coined that phrase back in 1949. What this means is that whenever we think a thought or have a feeling or physical sensation, thousands of neurons are triggered and they all get together to form a neural network.
With repetitive thinking, the brain learns to trigger the same neurons each time.
So, if you keep your mind looping on self-criticism, worries, and how nothing is working out for you, your mind will more easily find that part of your brain and will quickly assist you in thinking those same thoughts again.
This shapes your mind into greater reactivity, making you more vulnerable to anxiety.
Imagine a truck driving down a muddy road. The wheels create a groove in the mud, and each time that truck drives down that exact spot, the groove gets deeper and deeper.
The truck might even, eventually, get stuck in that mud rut. But it doesn’t have to. Instead of repeating the same negative complaints, we can drive our thoughts on a different road so we don’t get stuck in that negative mud rut.
Throughout our lives we are wiring our brains, based on our repetitive thinking. We get good at what we practice.
If we worry, creating more unease and anxiety, we become stellar worriers since our brain is responding, making it easier for us to worry each time we do it, thus creating our default mode living.
Default mode living is our habitual way of going about our lives. It’s our reacting minds as opposed to our responding minds.
Our reacting minds are often knee-jerk reactions to something. We often say or do things that we’ve said and done in the past, as if we were in that default mode living, on automatic pilot. But our responding minds come into play when we give ourselves a pause before responding to a situation.
We ask ourselves what’s really going on and what the next best step is. It’s a clearer response in the moment that’s not linked to past responses. So, how do we respond instead of react?
4 D.I.Y. Tips – Stop The Drain!
You’re stuck in traffic and not only are you complaining out loud to the cars that are in your way, you’re imagining getting home and complaining to tell your significant other all about it. You’re practicing this conversation in your head while in the car. Your heart races, your forehead tenses up. It’s all so very annoying! What to do?
1. Catch yourself.
During meditation we soon find out that our minds will wander. The moment when we notice it wandering and we bring it back to our focus, our breath, that moment is what one of my teachers calls “that magic moment.”
The catching yourself is the practice. Also, the not judging or berating yourself for having a mind that thinks thoughts. All minds think thoughts. That’s their job.
So to stop the drain:
- Catch yourself in a complaint.
- Stop complaining.
- Congratulate yourself—you’re aware!
2. Be grateful.
I’ve tried it; I simply can’t seem to complain and be grateful at the same time!
I’m stuck in traffic, but I’m grateful to have a car. I’m grateful for the song that’s playing on the radio and the sunny day.
It doesn’t matter what you’re grateful for; it can be the smallest thing, just notice. Complaining could very well be the evil twin of gratitude. Favor gratitude.
3. Practice wise effort.
In Buddhism, wise effort is letting go of that which is not helpful and cultivating that which is skillful.
In the book Awakening the Buddha Within, Lama Surya Das breaks down wise effort into four aspects, the first one being, restraint: “the effort to prevent unskillful thoughts and actions.”
Make the effort to pay attention and catch your complaining, negative thoughts before they become words.
Try it out and see how it feels. You might be surprised as to where you habitually have been putting your energy. Everything takes a certain amount of energy.
Next time you find yourself caught in a complaining loop, pause and regroup. Make the choice to put your energy elsewhere. The more you do this, the easier it gets.
4. Make a new groove.
Just the way our thoughts created that groove to make negative thoughts easier to replicate, we can create a brand new groove for pleasant feelings.
The more often we allow our minds to remember the good stuff, the easier that kind of thinking becomes.
Do you want to be the person who’s never satisfied and can always find fault in others, yourself, and the world at large? Or would you rather be someone who sees things as they are and finds a way to make peace with it? Let’s pretend it’s up to you. Oh, wait, it is up to you.
So, what do you say? You don’t need Roto Rooter to flush your troubles down the drain. Just make a new groove.
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20 Life Lessons I Learned In My Twenties
Photo: Osha Key “The Universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.” ~Rumi
I remember when I was a kid, “thirty years old” sounded very old and mature. “Someone who is thirty clearly knows everything about life and has it all figured out.” That was my assumption.
Life taught me that not only thirty-year olds, but most people in general have no clue what they’re doing with their lives and why they’re here.
Although I’m far away from knowing all the answers to life’s biggest questions, I feel like my twenties have been such a learning curve.
I lived in eight different countries, changed careers, started my own business, transformed my body several times, met my soul mate, overcame major challenges, and it feels like I’ve become a completely different person.
I recently turned thirty and it made me reflect on the last decade. Although it often seems like life doesn’t change much and every day is the same as the last, when I look back at my life it feels like I’ve traveled to a parallel universe.
I’d love to share the life lessons I learned in my twenties.
1. How other people judge us is none of our business. We won’t please everyone anyway.
I spent my teen years and early twenties worrying about what other people thought and said about me. But later in life I realized that it could only affect me if I allowed it to.
What other people say or think of us is a reflection of them—their values, expectations, insecurities, and standards—and has nothing or very little to do with us.
People who are wise and/or know who we truly are will not judge us, as they see and know our essence. And those who don’t, we can’t control their thoughts and actions.
2. Admitting mistakes and apologizing is a sign of strength, not weakness.
I used to think that apologizing was a sign of weakness and used to play cool and ignore my mistakes. But now I think that the sign of weakness is being full of yourself, having a huge ego, and trying to pretend to be right, no matter what.
When I noticed how much I respect people who admit they are wrong and apologize, I embraced this behavior myself. It feels liberating.
3. No one is perfect; we’re all works in progress.
People might seem like they have their lives together and live perfectly, especially if you judge them by their Instagram pictures. However, when you get to know people more intimately and they open up, you see that even the most successful and seemingly perfect people have insecurities and problems. Some of them have even more than you could ever imagine.
My life, too, may seem perfect on the outside: I love what I do, travel a lot, live in the tropics, and have an amazing partner. But I still have plenty of challenges and ups and downs in my life—you just won’t find about them on my Instagram account.
4. Living according to our values and truth is the most satisfying thing in life.
Determining my main values in life (which are currently health, freedom, connection, and contribution) has put me on a journey to growth. It’s given me clarity and strength to make difficult decisions, like moving countries, ending relationships, and changing careers.
No matter what you do, if you let your values and truth guide your decisions, it will turn out well, even though at times making these decisions might feel scary and make you feel vulnerable.
5. Money is just a form of energy.
I went through periods when I put too much importance on money, as well as times when I criticized money as not being spiritual. It turns out money is just a tool that enables us to do certain things, and it can even help us grow spiritually if we face our patterns or limiting beliefs.
At the end of the day, money is just a form of energy. The more energy and value you give, the more it comes back (although there’s often a time gap between giving and getting).
6. We’re not stuck in our reality, our identity, or our story.
Our sense of self, or identity, is a conceptual fabrication. It’s nothing more than a summation of what everybody else—our parents, teachers, mentors, friends, and society—told us we were, and we accepted as truth.
We can change instantly if we choose to, although most people unconsciously choose not to. The only thing that keeps us stuck is our own mind. Investing time and effort in mind training, aka meditation, has been one of the most valuable things I’ve done in my life.
7. Outside circumstances are usually a reflection of our inside.
Negativity could never affect us unless there was negativity inside of us in the first place.
Anything that triggers us is a gift, as it points out the areas that we haven’t dealt with or things that are unhealed.
8. Health is more important than appearances.
I want to be in great shape because being healthy and fit improves the quality of my life, not because I need to look hot to impress others.
Although I tried to convince myself that I shouldn’t care about what other people think of me, I still cared a lot—until I learned how to love myself and realized that all I ever needed was a genuine acceptance and appreciation from myself, not others.
Once we know who we are and are confident about it, external approval becomes less and less important.
9. Forgiveness is the key to freedom.
We’re all going through life and doing the best we can with the resources and knowledge that we have at any given time. Let go of anger and grudges, and forgive others and yourself for being an imperfect human.
10. I’m biased (and so are you) and I know it (and so should you).
We’re all biased, and realizing that our perspective is neither better nor worse than someone else’s has been both scary and liberating. Letting go of the need to be right and understood has accelerated my growth and allowed me to see the world from many different perspectives.
11. Loving-kindness moves mountains.
Whenever I walk with loving-kindness, in my heart, the whole world smiles at me. I mean it literally, not just metaphorically.
If the world seems like a sad, scary, or unfair place, practice loving-kindness and compassion, and you’ll see from a different perspective.
12. Listening to our heart, even if it looks ridiculous from a logical perspective, will never fail us.
All my best decisions in life didn’t make sense. From the outside perspective, I looked like a mad person when I made some of my choices. But there was this inner voice saying, “Even if you don’t know how exactly it’s going to turn out, all is going to be okay.”
We all have this inner voice; we just need to remove the distractions that hinder us from hearing it, and most importantly, find the courage to listen to it and act on it.
13. Plans are for adjusting.
Nothing has ever turned out exactly how I planned. But I believe life always gives us what we ask for. It might not be in the exact form we ask for, though. If you ask for patience, you’ll get a queue in a bank. Life will give you people, opportunities, and circumstances to learn what you need to learn the most.
14. If we want our relationships to succeed, we have to leave our ego behind.
Relationships challenge us and facilitate growth. My romantic relationship taught me that trying to be right or holding your pride just doesn’t work if you want it to succeed.
You have to see a relationship as one ship. If you try to fight and argue and win the “battle,” you’re trying to sink the ship you’re on, so it’s best to see the common goal and common good. This was very challenging in my early twenties but probably the best lesson I’ve learned in life.
15. Connections are the key to happiness.
We’re social beings and we long for connection.
No matter how many cool and amazing things you have going on in your life, if you don’t have people to share it with, you won’t be as happy.
Surround yourself with people who make you feel your best and recognize who you truly are.
16. Comparing ourselves to others is the fastest way to feel anxious and unfulfilled.
It takes practice and self-love to be able to celebrate others’ success, especially when things are not going the way you want to in your own life. But understanding that we’re all on our own journeys has helped me stop comparing myself to others and instead be inspired by others’ journeys and success.
17. Learning and investing in our skills is the best strategy for future success.
Physical things, money, even people in our life come and go. The knowledge and skills we’ve acquired is what we carry with us.
18. Don’t take things personally.
We suffer when we identify with things, people, circumstances, situations, job titles, and relationship statuses. Embracing the attitude that nothing belongs to us and “all just is” has been very liberating and has brought ease and joy to my life.
19. Other people don’t always want our help.
We have to stop forcing our beliefs or trying to help if our help is not welcome.
I made this mistake way too many times in my early twenties. I was always passionate about helping people, but it took some time and bad experiences to realize that if someone’s not ready for your help, they will not accept it, and you might even do damage rather than service.
20. Building healthy habits will pay off one hundredfold.
When I was twenty, I used to smoke, drink alcohol, consume excess caffeine, and eat foods that were unhealthy for my body. And I was fine for a while. When you’re that young, your body can handle anything. But later your body starts tolerating these habits less and less, plus they add stress and your body starts to break down.
Becoming healthy and changing my lifestyle has been one of the best things I’ve done in life. It gives me so much energy and I feel amazing every single day, thanks to a healthy lifestyle I lead.
Chances are that on my fortieth birthday I’ll look at these lessons from my twenties and think that I had no clue about life whatsoever. That’s okay. The only constant is change, and humans are consistently inconsistent. I’m can’t wait to see what my thirties will teach me and what kind of person I’ll to become.
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5 Simple Words That Can Turn A Bad Day Around
“If your heart is beating, if your lungs are breathing, if you are still alive… then it is not too late to do something kind, creative, generous, satisfying, and courageous. Today.” ~Alexandra Franzen
It was one of those days.
You know the ones—when nothing really bad happens, but everything just seems to go wrong. When lots of little annoying things happen and the day seems to spiral from there.
This was one of those days.
I had woken up with a headache and decided to hit the snooze button on my alarm (twice) so I didn’t have to face the day yet, which meant I had to rush to get ready and make it to my first university class of the day.
I ended up getting to class late (and I’m one of those people who hate being late), and as the day went on, things got worse.
In another class, I found out that we had a test that I had completely forgotten about and hadn’t prepared for.
Then, later on, I was meant to be meeting up with a group of people to work on a group assignment, and no one came.
So, by the afternoon I was pretty over it.
“Could this day get any worse?” I dramatically thought.
And then it did.
When I was walking home, I got caught in a rainstorm and discovered that there must have been a hole somewhere in my shoes. I seriously felt like I was in a movie where someone was having a comically bad day.
As I stepped in the door, I decided that the day was ruined and there was no point in trying to do anything now, but I stopped myself in my tracks with one of my favorite mantras by Alexandra Franzen:
“Today is not over yet.”
This mantra shifted my thinking immediately, and I realized there was still time to make the day count.
After all, it was only late afternoon.
So, I had a shower and put on dry clothes. I waited for my boyfriend to get home and we headed into town, where we bought mint raw chocolate and kombucha. We walked around the town and through one of my favorite parks.
We ended up getting burgers for dinner, having a really meaningful conversation, and then going to see a movie.
When I arrived home that night, I realized how profound those five words had been and how they had helped me completely turn my day (and attitude) around.
Earlier in the day I could have chosen to give up on the day, but instead, I made a choice to find a way to make the rest of the day count—to do something that was meaningful for me—all because I reminded myself that the day wasn’t over yet.
My day went from being the worst day of the week to one of my favorite days of the week, even though it wasn’t all good.
This wasn’t just a one-off experience; I’ve used this mantra so many times, with amazing results.
There was the time where I felt like I had wasted an entire Sunday and this mantra inspired me to head outside and go for a walk, where I ended up witnessing one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen.
There was the time where I was having trouble getting some writing done, and this mantra convinced me not to retreat to the couch and binge-watch my latest Netflix obsession. As a result, I ended up getting more work done than I wanted to.
There was the time where I felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and I had been in an unhappy mood for days that I just couldn’t shake. This mantra inspired me to spend one hour writing down every single thing that I could think of that I was grateful for, which turned around my day (and mood) completely.
And this is just the beginning. Time and time again I’ve used these five words to turn my day around.
I love using “today is not over yet” as my mantra to turn a not-so-awesome day around because:
1. It is a powerful reminder to find a way to make the day count.
This mantra reminds me that there is still time to make something good happen, no matter what has happened so far in the day. It reminds me that I don’t need to wait for a new day, a new week (or month or year) to decide to turn things around.
2. It reminds me that I have a choice.
And when I’m not having a good day, I can choose what happens from that moment. I can choose to throw the day away, or I can make a different choice and try to find a way to make the day count.
3. It reminds me to do something (or many things) each day that are meaningful to me.
It can be easy to fall into the habit of living each day on autopilot, but this mantra makes me re-evaluate how I’ve been spending my “life-minutes” and reminds me to be intentional about making this day—and each day—count for me.
4. It reminds me to be grateful for each day, no matter what.
As Alice Morse Earle said, “Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.” And this mantra helps me to be intentional at finding and creating the good in each day.
So, no matter what has happened so far in your day, if you want to make the rest of your day count, you can!
To make this day count you might like to:
- Do something kind for yourself. This might look like doing something you love that you don’t usually make time for, giving yourself a five-minute break to breathe and have a cup of tea, or asking yourself, “What do I really need right now?”, then doing it.
- Do something thoughtful and generous for someone else. This might look like helping someone out with something, telling someone that you’re grateful for them and why, or writing someone a note and sending it to them in the mail.
- Do something productive. This might look like doing that thing you’ve been meaning to do for ages but haven’t gotten around to getting it done, making appointments that you’ve been putting off, or cleaning an area in your home.
- Do something you wouldn’t normally do. This might look like going to the movies in the middle of the week, or baking a cake even though it’s no one’s birthday, or going for a walk on a trail you’ve never been to.
- Do something—anything—that is meaningful for you. Something that makes you feel like you’ve made the rest of the day count.
So whatever time you’re reading this, whatever has happened today, know that there is always time to make the day count.
The day doesn’t have to be over yet.
It’s up to you what happens now.
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How to Raise Your Self-Esteem So You Can Thrive in Life
“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.” ~Iyanla Vanzant
Aren’t you tired of it?
You know, that sneaking suspicion you aren’t enough.
That inner commentary about where you fall short all the time. The mean internal remarks about your ability to handle life and how you just don’t measure up.
And aren’t you fed up with how it’s been holding you back from pursuing what you truly desire?
A better relationship or more meaningful work. That dream you’ve never told anyone because it just seems impossible when you think about going for it.
Listen, I’ve been there too.
My self-esteem was so low that I was eventually overcome by a terrible apathy, which turned into bouts of debilitating depression, which led to even lower self-esteem.
It was a vicious cycle that started when, as a young child, I somehow disengaged from my true self and my higher power. This disconnection led to many irresponsible choices.
The worst one was getting pregnant at sixteen and giving my baby up for adoption. It was the right thing to do given my situation, but I was consumed with grief and guilt for years.
Then there were the addictions I created to cigarettes, overspending, anxiety medication, and alcohol.
For years, I unconsciously went from one self-destructive behavior to another, rather than connect with and develop myself.
As you can imagine, all this didn’t exactly build my sense of self-worth.
Thankfully, I eventually found the courage to let go of the patterns that held me back, reclaim my true self, and recognize talents I never knew I had.
Step by step, I was able to heal, rebuild my self-respect, and become who I am today—someone who never doubts that she is worthy of love, belonging, and all of life’s riches.
How I Raised My Self-Esteem and How You Can Too
1. Take a risk.
We’re often afraid to show the messy, flawed, and vulnerable part of ourselves to others. But it’s a tremendous relief when you do and someone accepts you just as you are.
When I finally shared my teen pregnancy and adoption story with a friend, I was so surprised when she told me the same had happened to her, only she had decided on an abortion. In that moment, our connection deepened, and my emotional wounds healed a little bit more.
Shame vanishes when you receive support and understanding from others. We must stop trying to appear perfect by keeping our perceived flaws a secret and going it alone.
2. Don’t get stuck in regret.
Accept the reality that we all make mistakes, and choose not to get stuck in regret.
Mourn your slip-ups fully, learn from them, and make amends where possible. Then forgive yourself, and let go of the past so that you can move forward, knowing you’ve done your best.
Try to view difficult circumstances as opportunities to grow in awareness rather than as blows to knock you down. Accept the things you can’t change, change the things that are under your control, and keep heading in a positive direction. Strive to go forward and deeper within as well.
3. Refocus your attention.
Rather than focusing on your flaws, pay attention to everything that’s good about you and makes you unique.
Come up with an actual list, and refer to it often to remind yourself of your strengths. This might include your natural talents, your learned skills, your achievements, your dreams, and even your healthy relationships.
Cultivate extra self-confidence by choosing one item from your list and honing it further until it turns into something you can be even more proud of.
You can actively direct your attention to creating the kind of experiences you want in life and becoming the person you want to be.
4. Strive for integrity.
Live in accord with life-affirming values such as truth and kindness. You feel proud of yourself when you seek the truth and do the right thing—the thing that gives you a sense of integrity and wholeness.
Take time to identify what matters most to you. Then measure all your choices and actions against these core values, making sure you’re in alignment.
Living this way simplifies decision-making and leads to genuine integrity.
For example, loving-kindness is currently my highest core value. It’s important to me to treat myself, other people, Earth, and all living things with love and compassion. So when I have a choice to make or face a challenge, I often ask myself, “What would love do?”
5. Develop your self-trust.
Self-esteem rises when you know you can trust yourself, when you trust your own instincts and intuition over the ideas of others, and when you’ve proven to yourself that you can face disappointment and frustration without becoming destabilized.
The more you can handle stress by self-soothing and finding strength within rather than escaping into self-destructive behaviors, the more you will trust yourself.
And the more you honor your core values when facing life’s inevitable challenges, the better your outcomes will be, leading to more self-trust.
In this way, you can build a sense of security and self-contained confidence that is not based on the approval of others.
6. Be of service.
Look around for how you can connect with and help others in your everyday life. Even a smile or a kind word can make a difference to someone else and instantly increase your sense of self-worth.
Consider volunteering for a cause you care about that needs your particular skills. One of the best things I ever did was volunteer as a head coach in my local Girls On the Run after-school program.
Empowering young girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident lifted my spirits and boosted my self-confidence. There’s no better feeling than knowing you truly helped someone.
7. Never, ever give up.
You must not allow negative thoughts to overwhelm you. Stand up for yourself no matter what. When you choose to be positive, you know you’re doing your best and can feel good about yourself, despite unfavorable circumstances.
No matter what difficulties show up in your life—even if things seem hopeless—don’t ever give up on yourself. Always choose to channel your energy in a positive, productive direction.
“Most of the important things in the world,” said personal development teacher Dale Carnegie, “have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
You: Necessary, Valuable, and Worthy of Reverence
The truth is, healthy self-esteem requires ongoing vigilance and upkeep. It calls for self-understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness, plus large doses of self-compassion.
It’s a tall order, but it’s worth the effort.
We’ve all made excruciating mistakes, encountered harsh criticism, and experienced crushing disappointment. We’ve all taken a hit to our self-worth at one time or another.
But you are just as entitled to good relationships, fulfilling work, and having your dreams come true as anyone else.
After all, your being born a human here on Earth was, in itself, a miraculous event. It means that your uniqueness is necessary, valuable, and worthy of reverence.
So don’t cheat us of your gifts by getting stuck in low self-esteem. We need you out here in the world.
In the words of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”
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We Have a Right to Grieve Losses Big and Small
“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee
It felt like I was being crushed by the weight of the world.
“Impossible,” I thought.
It’s impossible that people actually suffer this kind of pain and survive to tell the tale.
When I thought about it, my stomach contracted as if I’d taken a blow to the gut. I’d gasp for breath and try to find some air through the tears and in between sobs.
So this is what grief felt like.
Now I understood why denial is the first stage of grief. How could you endure this kind of agony if you had to face the force of its full frontal attack?
I felt sick and exhausted. I lay down and, although I expected never to find enough peace to sleep again, I quickly drifted off into a place where there was no more pain.
When you think of grief, you think about a great loss.
A death of a loved one, news of your terminal illness, and the loss of your home from the violent winds of a tornado are all acceptable events to grieve about.
We can understand how any of the above can bring a person to their knees. We expect people to grieve over these losses.
What we refuse to understand is the grief we feel over the smaller losses. (more…)
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6 Empowering Lessons Death Taught Me About Life
“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss in life is what dies inside us while we live” ~Norman Cousins
I am not dead and I am not dying, so you may wonder why I write that death has taught me what I need to know about life.
I lost my mother when I was fifteen. Being a teenager, thoughts of anyone close to me dying had not entered my head. My mother had a brief illness and passed away unexpectedly at age forty-seven.
I remember that my schoolmates came to see me, and I kept thinking that they had their moms. More than being sad that I had lost my mom, I was angry that I had been placed in that position. I missed my mom a lot and just wanted her to come back and be with me.
I started developing a fear that my father would die soon too. When I was in my early thirties, my fears came true when my dad passed away suddenly after a heart attack. He was a skilled physician, a kind man, and more importantly, a wonderful father to me.
As if my dad’s passing away was not enough, my older sister died unexpectedly a year later. I always considered her a strong person, and I could not fathom how she could have died.
To add insult to injury, another sister of mine passed away soon after that.
By then, I had decided that the Universe was conspiring against me. I did not think anyone cared, and I put on an act, pretending to be happy. The truth was that I was buried under the rubble of my fearful thoughts, and constantly worried that something would go wrong.
The next couple of years passed by with various family mishaps till one day, I lost the prestigious job I had.
You may wonder why I classify a job loss in the same category as death, as a job is not irreplaceable. To me, at that point in my life, the job loss had the same feeling of injustice that the death of my parents and siblings so early in my life had for me.
One of my friends suggested that I read books about having positive thoughts. I googled “positive” and started to devour self-help books. I subscribed to Tiny Buddha and spent time meditating.
I reflected on what I read while drinking coffee in the quiet stillness of the early morning hours.
I meditated while on the treadmill, and I realized that the answers to my questions had always been within me. I had just let the unannounced and uninvited negative thoughts I had to overshadow the shackled positive thoughts within me, yearning for a release.
I realized that I was not singled out for anything bad, as I also had a lot of blessings to be thankful for. I had just chosen to not focus on the good in my life. I knew then that I am a survivor. I would like to share my lessons, which I hope will help you face loss of any kind that devastates you.
1. There is a survivor in each one of us.
If you have survived even one moment after a tragedy, you are a survivor.
Yes, there is a sense of utter hopelessness and despair at first, soon after a loss; but every passing moment shows that you can and you will live this life you have been given.
It proves that you are strong; it proves that you are not a quitter; and above all else, it proves that even if you never forget who or what you have lost, you will not run away from living life.
After all, life is not about living in defeat.
2. There is always something that is going right in a person’s life.
Even in the midst of a tornado of unforeseen circumstances, and all the despair it brings in its wake, there is always something to appreciate in life.
Even though I lost my parents and sisters, I still had wonderful friends in my life.
We need to focus on the good in our life and try to be happy. Being sad and focusing on what we do not have does not change the circumstances.
You can either make a list of what you have, or you can make a list of what you do not have. The first list will bring you peace and happiness, while the second list will bring you only sadness.
You may have a lot of things that make you unhappy, but if you have even one thing going well, you have to focus on that. I have found that the more I consider the good in my life, the more things seem to come together for me.
3. Do not take the people you love for granted.
If you are lucky enough to have loved ones in your life, call them often. Visit them often. Share your life with the people who love you.
What can be more important than the people you care about, who care about you?
No one is guaranteed to live a hundred years, and even a hundred years can pass all too fast.
4. Let go of expectations that events in life need to happen in a certain manner that you favor.
Life happens, and it may or may not turn out as you hoped it would. You just have to work with what you have. A lot of times, you may be surprised to find that you end up liking what you get.
Even if you are disappointed that you did not get what you expected, and even if you are upset that you do not have what you want, it is still possible to lead a good life if you can let go of your expectations and find reasons to be happy with what you have.
Life becomes a lot better when you learn to accept it.
5. It is not your fault that bad things beyond your control happen.
Blaming yourself will take you down a long and lonely road with no end in sight. Guilt is a hard taskmaster with no mercy.
Even the most meticulously thought out life will have unforeseen hardships disrupting the plans.
You could not have changed the circumstances surrounding the loss. You could not have prevented it in any way.
Sadly, death happens and life still goes on. When my mother died, it was the day before the Festival of Lights, and all my neighbors were enjoying firecrackers outside in their garden. Life went on. When my father died, life went on. When my sisters died, life carried on.
I used to wonder where God was till I realized that God is the strength and energy that pulled me through all of these circumstances.
6. Be open to miracles.
As long as you are living, something wonderful could happen at any moment. Life may have lows that you never expected and that you did not foresee, but it also will have highs that you never dreamed of that will bring you joy beyond your wildest imagination.
The Universe does not owe you anything, so be grateful for any blessings that you have. Do not let anything slip away.
No matter what happens, try to enjoy the life you have. No one else can enjoy it for you.
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Get Out of Your Head: The Life-Changing Power of Embodying Your Body
“The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the ‘action generation’ whose motto is ‘do more but feel less.’” ~Alexander Lowen
I’ve always been a little bit scared of my body. And when you’re scared of something, you tend to avoid it at all costs. So that’s what I did for most of my childhood and teenage years.
I avoided it in lots of different ways, and most dangerously, I avoided it unconsciously.
I was bought up doing a lot of physical activity—gymnastics, dance, basketball, and horseback riding. Although this wasn’t bad, the perspective I developed was. I grew up seeing my body as a challenge to overcome—something to will into performing better.
Moving into my awkward pre-teen and teen years, surrounded by an image-obsessed culture where our bodies are displayed in a hierarchy of perfect to undesirable, I started to rank myself.
It was inevitable that I’d become even more isolated from my body. I stopped playing sports as much, feeling too insecure to lose myself in something I enjoyed, and started feeling embarrassed about my body altogether.
I had an idea of what I should have looked like, but it seemed impossible to mirror that image without feeling miserable.
It was as if my body didn’t belong to me anymore. Other people’s preferences determined the way it moved and how it looked.
I neglected the conversation my body was trying to have with me.
We are a head culture, and increasingly so. We spend a scarily large portion of our lives inside our minds. Whether it’s on Facebook, talking on the phone, listening to music through headphones, or staring at screens, our physical interaction with the world is limited.
It’s rare for us to use our bodies physically in any activity. Even when we exercise, we often have the ultimate ego goal of looking good in our minds, not feeling good.
I realized that my mind had become so loud, and with university coming up and more responsibility looming, it was just going to get louder.
One day, by chance, I came across bioenergetics.
Bioenergetics is a form of therapy that seeks to understand personality through the expression of our bodies. Its most fundamental principle is that what goes on in the body affects the mind, and vice versa.
Essentially, the mind and the body are the same thing.
This was groundbreaking to me, because I had always thought of myself as two separate entities—the mind in control and the body along for the ride.
Exploring bioenergetics further, I started to practice calming my busy mind through paying attention to the physical sensations in my body.
I would stretch every morning, not using any particular routine, just allowing myself to move, and in turn, relinquishing any sense of control over my body.
I learned to let myself breathe in a way that made me feel good. Not with the shallow breaths I was used to taking from years of sucking in my stomach, but deep, indulgent belly breaths. The satisfaction and happiness I felt from simply breathing deeply was phenomenal.
I learned that being exhausted doesn’t indicate a “good workout,” but that my body was telling me I had done too much.
I would go on these intense runs and not even be aware of myself until I was home, sweating, and bright red in the face. Why do we force our bodies to run that extra mile if they’re screaming at us to stop?
In a society that values power and progress, our bodies can sometimes take the role of subordinate, working beneath our minds.
We want to achieve more, so we repress feelings of tiredness in the name of getting more done. We ignore tough emotions, like sadness, because we think we have to put on a happy face to the world around us.
When you listen to your body, you get a greater sense of your emotions flowing within you. Allowing your emotions and feelings to surface and be expressed, as opposed to repressing them, is a recipe for happiness.
It takes courage to give in to how you feel, but when I started doing this, I wasted less energy trying to hide my real feelings.
Instead of runs, I tried going for walks, moving slowly and sensually, with purpose, being completely aware and engaged with myself and everything around me. It has proven to be a much more enjoyable experience.
And why not enjoy our bodies?
Our heads are a seductive place to live because inside them, we feel we have complete control. But through having complete control, are we really enjoying life more? The gaping void between a mind that can’t be quiet and a body that is a dozen steps behind causes us nothing but stress.
Sometimes we need to let go of our heads and follow our hearts. To truly experience life is to allow the thinking in our head to mute and the feelings and sensations in our bodies to amplify.
Next time you’re going somewhere, pay attention to everything you feel in your body as you walk. Try not to plan what you’re going to do when you arrive; just stay very present with your body in the moment you are.
Think of children playing, and how much excitement and joy they get from just moving and being in their bodies. There is no reason we can’t be like this again. We just need to trust in our bodies—in ourselves.
I turned against my body and the intricacies of its needs, all in the name of progress—in order to look better, run faster, perform more accurately. I now know that our bodies are our gateways to the world; and unless we are fully living in them, our presence will be limited and the world will pass us by.
