Tag: wisdom

How to Reclaim Your Energy So You Can Follow Your Dreams

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~Dan Millman

I don’t care who you are or where you live, we all have one thing in common: We like to dream—to close our eyes and imagine that we’re living the life we were meant to lead. It’s a desire that’s imbedded in our DNA. To want more. Achieve more. Become more.

It’s why we start new businesses, write novels, learn to play the guitar, get our MBA, change careers, learn to cook, sew, or speak Swahili.

We’re all chasing a dream, everyday life dreams as well. Like simple happiness, good health, or financial independence; finding a place to call home, someone to love, or a path to inner peace. Perhaps it’s just a life with less pain, heartache, or loneliness.

Dreams are not only what make the world a better place, but you and I better human beings. We need to chase our dreams every chance we get. Fortunately, most of us do, and with all our hearts.

Unfortunately, many of us give up on those dreams almost before we even start, stuffing them in the back of our sock drawer until we forget they were ever there.

It’s easy to make excuses for our failed dreams, too. We don’t know where to begin, or we have no time, money, skills, or commitment. But the real enemy is deeper and more insidious.

We’re plain worn out. We have no energy to chase our dreams.

There’s always somewhere to go and something to do. Late meetings at work, carpool to drive, lunches to be made, trash to be taken out, homework to finish.

We catch a cold. Lose our job. Start a relationship. End a relationship. Birthdays. Holidays. Trips to the dentist. The list is endless and exhausting. It’s no wonder we have nothing left in the tank for a better life. It’s all we can do to maintain the life we have.

Money is not the great currency of our time. Energy is. Physical energy to get out of bed and positive energy to do something better with our lives. All the noblest dreams in the world mean nothing if we don’t have the energy to pursue them.

Several years ago I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear. Two months later, I was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma in the other ear, a benign tumor.

While neither is fatal, and there are certainly people with far worse conditions than I have, I found myself in the unusual position of being tired all the time.

I could live with the symptoms. Dizziness. Vertigo. Ringing in the ears. Hearing loss. But being worn out, tired, and deprived of my energy, well, that was the real enemy. I had no desire to chase the things that were once important to me.

At the same time, I was going through a career change that drained even more energy, coupled with poor eating habits that drained me even more.

That’s the thing about energy; it can drain out of us in so many different ways. Sure, bad health will do it, but so will a toxic relationship, or not being able to pay your mortgage, or finding out your son is being bullied in school. Worry. Fear. Regret. Anger. They’re all “pin in the balloon” energy busters.

Fortunately, there’s hope. Lots of hope. We just need to learn how to get our energy back. In fact, the fight to reclaim our energy is one of the most important battles we’ll ever fight. Triumph here and we gain the strength to fight an even greater battle—the fight for our dreams and the life we imagined.

Of course, reclaiming our energy doesn’t happen by accident, and it’s not always easy. But every day there are golden opportunities for us to get back our energy. Here are some random tips to get started.

Just point your finger at one and go for it. It doesn’t matter which one. Any one will do. Then try another. And another. Before you know it, you will find yourself with enough energy to reclaim the life you desire.

Energy Building Tips To Live The Life You Desire

Stay in the moment.

Want to see your energy soar? Catch yourself living in the past or the future as often as you can.

Notice regret as it pops up, or guilt, or longing. Recognize when you start thinking about what might or might not happen tomorrow. Catch all these “past and future” moments, and then bring yourself back to the moment you’re living in. The present moment is the only place where we will find both peace and power.

Engage in activities that keep you in the moment.

Deep breathing exercises work, as will meditation, yoga, gardening, reading, swimming, running; a walk in the woods, a bike ride at the beach. Nature helps, so does humor, volunteering, gratitude, compassion, and doing virtually anything that brings you joy.

Avoid the 24/7 always on lifestyle.

Turn off lights, music, news, equipment, and most importantly, the mind. And while you’re at it, stay away from conversations with people who only want to talk about how screwed up the world is. The more you obsess about something, the faster you’ll bring more of it into your life. And every time we do, we just suck away our energy.

Seek friends who uplift and support, make you smile and laugh.

Avoid friends who infringe on your space, covet your time, suck your energy, and give nothing in return. We all know who they are.

Avoid excessive food, drink, or anything that consumes more time and energy than it gives back.

In short, avoid anything that brings you imbalance, fatigue, and illness, no matter how pleasurable or intoxicating it may seem. This means poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, excessive alcohol, caffeine, and sugar.

Treat your body like a $200,000 Ferrari.

It’s not enough to just avoid putting negative influences into our body. We need to put the best gasoline into our bodies we can.

We can start by drinking more water and eating nutrient rich foods that give energy. That means colorful greens, fruits, good proteins, and fats. Experiment with a gluten-free or sugar free diet, or just try eating less packaged and processed food. Keep a journal and take note of how your energy levels rise and fall based on what you put into your body.

Live your own life.

Avoid saying, doing, and becoming something only because it’s what others want to see and hear. It takes too much energy to live your life for someone else.

Live an authentic and conscious life.

Avoid doing work you don’t want to do, places you don’t want to live, or situations that no longer serve your needs. Being conscious of what you do on a daily basis puts you on a path to finding your purpose in life, which will energize every other part of your life.

Treat yourself well.

That could mean anything. Chocolate. Massage. Mornings off. Exercise. Eight hours sleep. Flowers in the house. A glass of wine. A cup of tea. It also means letting go of self-judgment. When talking about yourself (or to yourself), use only positive, energizing, and life-affirming words.

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At the end of the day, all this adds up to a simple two-prong strategy. Avoid the things in life that take our energy away and then find the magic that brings our energy back.

But it takes conscious effort and a seeker mentality. We have to be vigilant, constantly looking within and without at all times, searching for those bits of insight and habit that will recharge our spirit.

It’s the only way we’ll ever be strong enough to chase our dreams and live the lives we were meant to live.

Go ahead and dream, but make your first dream the gift of energy.

Your future self will thank you for it.

March 2, 2016
How Your Expectations Can Hold You Back and Keep You Unhappy
“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportions to my expectations.” ~Anonymous

I used to be quite the model student. I thrived at university and seemed to be meeting all the expectations of our milestone-society.

Having chosen a Business Masters at a well-established university in the Netherlands, I was being schooled for a corporate career in a multinational firm, which I thought was what I wanted for myself.

I was led to believe that a shiny-bright future was waiting for me as soon as I acquired this magical piece of paper, and who doesn’t want that? I never even gave it a second thought and just pushed myself through my studies as best as I could.

Sure, being a financially challenged student and having to pay for my own education had its struggles, but it also had its charming moments. Besides, studying came easily to me. The achievement gave me a purpose and a great sense of self-worth.

I couldn’t wait to graduate and finally start ‘real life.’ I was eager to be able to make good money, and I imagined myself happy, together with my boyfriend, living that grown-up life with all the perks that come with it.

Little did I know what was waiting for me. There was this something called an economic crisis and, although I’d put my resume online, my phone wasn’t ringing off the hook with companies begging me to work for them. Quite the opposite, actually.

I was receiving rejection after rejection, unable to get a job that was suitable for my education, and I ended up working at a coffee store for minimum wage.

I’d get up every morning at 4am to serve cappuccinos to people who were on their way to university or their grown-up jobs. I had to face those strangers covered in milk foam, feeling like I had “underachiever” written on my forehead. I felt like an absolute failure.

When I got home from work, cranky and sleep-deprived, I searched for jobs I could apply for. I would catch myself, while I was desperately applying for the jobs I’d spent so much time studying for, feeling resentment toward those jobs at the same time.

They all seemed either boring or extremely stressful, didn’t sit with my moral practices, and, above all, seemed so meaningless to me. I started to realize that getting into this corporate treadmill would set me up for a life that would make me downright unhappy and empty.

So there I was, finally graduated, my income barely covering my rent, with a big fat student loan debt and absolutely no clue what I actually wanted to do in life. Shortly thereafter, I got physically sick and, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my relationship ended, leaving me on my own, devastated, clueless, and broke.

There it was: the ever-widening gap between my expectations and reality. To say that I was dissatisfied would be a massive understatement. It is safe to say that I was having a full-blown mental breakdown.

My entire self-worth was dependent on achievement and the love of someone else, yet now I had none of that left to cling to. I absolutely loathed myself and felt ashamed of where I was in life, convinced that there had to be something terribly wrong with me.

So how do you even begin to deal with that? I can tell you what definitely does not help (because I tried them all):
- Spending your days at home scrolling through Facebook and comparing yourself to everyone who seems to have his or her life together.
- Watching Netflix while binging on chocolate and pretending that the reality doesn’t exist.
- Indulging in alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes only to wake up feeling like absolute crap.
- Spending hours on end dwelling on the situation, overthinking and analyzing it over and over, wondering “Why me?’
- Being too hard on yourself for not being where you want to be, talking negatively to yourself, and feeling worthless because of it.
- Throwing yourself in the arms of the next man (or woman) who is clearly not the right partner for you, hoping he (or she) will fix you, or at least ease the pain. This leads down the path of even more drama and very ugly break ups.
These kinds of activities may lead you to think you are helping yourself, as it does bring momentary relief, but you only end up causing more damage.

I got stuck in a deep, dark depression and I had no clue how to get out of it. I spent hours lying on the floor crying my eyes out, praying for this to be over.

I decided that working on myself was the only potential course of action to get out of this mess. I started reading piles of books about personal development, I got back to my yoga practice, and I started to turn inward and practice mindfulness in my daily life.

I followed a mindfulness course and would sit down for at least thirty minutes in silence every day to practice my mindfulness meditation. It’s what turned my whole world around.

Not right away, but slowly and steadily, my mindset and perspective began to shift and, with that, my outside world changed too.

By practicing mindfulness I learned to accept what is instead of resenting and fighting it. I stopped judging both my situation and myself, which helped me to stop beating myself up over not being where I wanted to be.

It gave me the strength to let go of all my long-held expectations (many of which weren’t mine to begin with) and just be present with whatever there is now.

Before my mindfulness journey, the idea of accepting and not judging the situation sounded like defeat to me, like being passive . In university I was programmed to compete, to analyze, to strive… everything but accept.

Though it might seem like the easier way out, fully accepting the present can be quite a challenge. Yet it is the only way to move forward.

That’s the paradox, which can be sometimes hard to grasp. Only by accepting A are we able to move to B, and only by practicing this day by day did I start to experience and understand that.

That’s when you start to enjoy the journey and stop wishing you were at your end goal already. It doesn’t suddenly make the gap between what you have and what you want disappear, but it does allow you to regain your happiness.

It also creates space in your head. Space that’s no longer absorbed by negative emotions and hostile thoughts. When you learn to let go of your expectations, a big open road suddenly unfolds right in front of you. One full of new possibilities, ready and waiting for you to create your own path.

They say that every difficult experience holds a blessing within, which is so true when I look back at my situation now.

I can clearly see how this dark period in my life was a necessity for me to grow into the person that I really am. To start living the life I always wanted and pursue happiness instead of social status or material wealth.

I have now found my sweet spot and live a healthy and happy life driven by passion and love. When you trade expectations for acceptance miracles will truly happen.

Sad face image via Shutterstock
March 2, 2016
What a Healthy Relationship Will Never Require of You

Source: Live Life Happy

March 2, 2016
Let It Fuel You

Source: Princess Sassy Pants & Co

March 2, 2016
The Little Things You Hate About Yourself

March 2, 2016
How to Cultivate Hope When the World Feels Dark and Scary

“Everything you can imagine is real.” ~Pablo Picasso

The world is so broken. We are broken. We all need healing.

Recent events worldwide are terrifying and sad. This cold and dark time of year is a challenge for many.

Some of us feel every little thing. We feel everyone’s pain. We are empaths who care for every person, every animal, and the whole world.

Many of my loved ones and friends are like this. My partner’s father recalls that on a trip to a large city nearby (my partner was eight), they saw people living on the street and asking for change. The little eight-year-old wanted to give all of his tiny savings away. Obviously, it wasn’t much, and it wouldn’t make much impact on the poverty in the city.

It can feel hopeless. We feel like we will never have enough resources and time to give. We know we can’t solve everyone’s problems. But we want to. And if we don’t, we feel the pain of our perceived failures.

If you’re anything like me, you might struggle to balance the urge to do so much or to just give up altogether. How can we nurture our hopefulness in these uncertain days?

Remember that people act out when they are in pain.

It’s a common negative thinking trap to make things all-or-nothing. If someone does something that hurts us, we can tend to believe that they are all “bad.” We distance ourselves from them in our minds to prove we aren’t like that.

It’s tough to recognize someone’s humanity in these situations, but we need to if we are going to keep our hope alive. People often lash out, spread hate, or act selfishly when they are hurt. They are feeling a deep, broken part of themselves and trying to compensate by making others feel bad too.

I’m not saying that their behavior should be tolerated. They should absolutely be held accountable for their behavior. At the same time, they are human and are still valuable.

Remind yourself that they are people, too, and probably feeling deep pain. This goes for the more extreme cases, but also for the other parent at your child’s school or your boss or politicians.

I feel hope when I remember this. The world is not full of evil people but hurt people who need love. Recognizing the humanity of others is a beautiful challenge for us to work on. This is an ongoing, lifelong practice.

Respond with love when you can.

Everyone seems exhausted these days. The weight of the world is on all of our shoulders. Whether it’s due to collective or personal struggles, people may be a little more irritable or inpatient with you.

Try your best to respond with kindness. It’s not about you. Someone may be acting immaturely or being a little rude, but if you can, try to let it go.

Visualize their insults rolling off of you, like water off of a duck’s back. Or use a technique I learned from a book, Radical Acceptance: Recognize that they are trying to pass their bad mood to you, and kindly say “no, thank you.” Do not accept their gift.

I usually feel better if I have responded to something in a caring way. Of course, we don’t always react as our best selves. You might be the one who is acting a bit rude sometimes, so try to respond to yourself with love about that too.

Be a someone.

My grandmother used to say, “Don’t say someone should do that. Be a someone.” Action can help combat our lack of motivation and hope. If you find yourself thinking that someone should do something, try asking yourself: What can I do?

You can start small and very simply. One day a few months ago, I was in the midst of a personal crisis, and I sat crying on the curb of the road. A kind stranger approached me and gently asked if there was anything they could do.

I said an honest no. They responded by standing close by with their hand on my shoulder for a few minutes, then saying a few encouraging words and continuing on.

This small gesture made me feel much less alone in that moment. There are many small things we can do, depending on our ability. If you feel up to it, don’t just walk by; be the someone who stops.

Repeat after me: Magic is real.

I keep a quote by Picasso on my desk that reads, “Everything you can imagine is real.” When I am losing my hope, this reminds me that the world I want to live in, the one I can imagine, is real. It can be real because we create our world.

It’s empowering to recognize the magic we have within us that no one can take away. There is something inside you that no one can take away and you will always have. Remind yourself of your inherent value and hold on to your magic.

Everything you can imagine is real and possible. There are so many people working to build a kinder and more loving world. I recognize their magic and I affirm that magic in myself.

Hope image via Shutterstock

March 1, 2016
8 Simple Ways to Brighten Someone’s Day

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a tent with a mosquito.” ~African Proverb

I have a love-hate relationship with airports.

On the one hand, it’s the perfect place to people-watch. I mean, how can you not tear up when you see a kid running to give a returning parent a giant hug? Or two lovers reuniting and smiling from ear to ear when they lay eyes on each other? You are witness to perfect snippets of pure, genuine emotional connection.

On the other hand, airports can be a drag. Long line-ups, having to chug my water bottle because I usually forget to empty it beforehand, taking my shoes off and stepping on my tiptoes to avoid my bare feet touching the cold airport floor.

But on my latest visit to the airport, my negative attitude vanished all because of one airport security employee.

As I was standing in line doing a mental inventory of all the liquids I would need to empty out of my purse, she was directing people through the line up in the best possible way. She was yelling positive messages like, “Life is good!” and “It’s a great day!”

What a rare and beautiful thing to do.

It put a smile on my face and truly impacted my flight and rest of the day. Her joie de vivre was contagious.

I never would have expected this from an airport security employee.

Which got me thinking, how can I brighten someone’s day within my normal realm of work?

Here are eight ideas I’ve come up with. I’d love to know your ideas in the comments.

1. Leave inspirational notes in random places.

Books in the library, on people’s car window, under your lover’s pillow, wherever.

How awesome would it walk into a public restroom and find a sticky-note on the mirror that says something like, “Make it a great day”? I predict it will also be just as awesome and exhilarating to be the one to leave the note.

2. Thank someone.

Who in your life has positively impacted you? A teacher, your mom, your brother, an old neighbor, a coach? Send them an email and share a memory and your gratitude for the positive influence they’ve had in your life.

3. Be curious about someone.

Make eye contact and smile. Acknowledge their existence, and engage them in conversation. Learn something about them. A two-minute conversation can brighten the day for both of you.

4. Send a handwritten note.

Who doesn’t love getting mail? There’s a total thrill in seeing an envelope with your name on it. Surprise someone with a handwritten note just because. I can almost guarantee they will smile ear-to-ear when they receive it.

5. Do something for yourself.

Now this may seem a bit backward. How does doing something for yourself impact someone else?

Well, when you take care of your own needs, and give yourself some much-needed self-love, you fill up your own cup. And when your own cup is overflowing, that overflow is the love that flows to others. It’s a beautiful thing.

So take that bath, go to that dance class, go for a walk, and feel the goodness.

6. Make a playlist for someone.

Back in the day, I used to love making mix-tapes. I’d wait by my ghetto blaster, blank tape in the tape deck, and be on high alert to press the record button when my favorite songs came on.

These days, making music mixes are way less labor-intensive! You can make a playlist on YouTube in minutes. Make a specific playlist for someone in your life and send it to them. What an awesome surprise to both give and receive!

7. Take it to social media.

Instead of spending time lurking on Facebook and Twitter, choose three people to give a shout-out to! The guy you used to sit next to in science class, your cousin you haven’t seen in three years, the random person you connected with when you were traveling—post on their wall (or send a private message). Let them know you’re thinking of them.

8. Surprise with a gift.

Whether you send flowers to one of your friends at her workplace or buy a coffee for the person behind you in line, splurging and surprising someone else is a lot of fun.

Do you go to a coffee shop with a loyalty card? I collect all my stamps, and then once I accumulate my free coffee, I ask the barista to give it to the next person in line. It’s a thrill for me, the barista, and the person behind me who doesn’t suspect a thing!

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When you brighten someone’s day, you are simultaneously stirring up positive energy within yourself. And you’ll carry this energy with you throughout your day. It’s a great feeling.

So I challenge you to ask yourself, how can something I do today surprise and delight another individual? Let me know in the comments.

Be creative, use your gut, do what feels good.

Sunshine image via Shutterstock

March 1, 2016
What Happened Is Done

Source: NotSalmon.com

March 1, 2016
The Happiest People

March 1, 2016
Start Each Day with This Thought

Source: Project Happiness

March 1, 2016
What to Do When You Love Someone Who Hurts You

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chödrön

There is a person in my life who I love with all my heart, but in this relationship I struggle to keep a full cup myself. They are family, the situation is complicated and tender. But learning to have compassion for this other person begins with having compassion for myself.

A nasty divorce spanning most of my childhood set the stage for our current situation. My mother was deeply emotionally wounded by my father, and carried that pain into her parenting of my sister and me.

Contact with the ex (my dad) dropped to nil—maybe a week a year, far below what the court had decided.

Any efforts on our parts to connect with our absent parent, even recounting fond memories, were seen by our mother as attacks on her legitimacy and a discounting of her pain. And what emotional intimacy we shared was often exploited—it kept us locked into the family unit, not believing we could have our needs filled elsewhere, least of all with our absentee father.

A few short years prior, I felt part of a happy, perfect family. Suddenly one parent was effectively gone. My relationship with the other became a labyrinth of confusion—love down this path, hurt down the other, and at my young age I couldn’t find the rhyme or reason to it.

Childhood gifted me a number of unhealthy survival mechanisms, which still follow me around today: a deep fear of conflict (because conflict often meant someone would leave), constant apologies and guilt for things I’m not truly responsible for, and a voice in the back of my mind telling me no matter what I do, who I am, who I become, it will never be enough.

Growing up, I realize that those mindsets that helped me survive as a child, in the trenches of grief, inadequacy, and parental loss, no longer served me. Becoming a healthier person showed me how unhealthy this particular relationship really was.

Healing with my mom—communication about the past, forgiveness, and moving on together—has not taken place. Attempts to bring up my own hurt and pain are minimized and shut down. My words, invariably, have been met with responses like “I can’t do this right now, it’s a bad time,” “I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” or “It all came from a place of love.”

So, in interactions with my mother, I keep my guard up. I know she still hurts, and seems timelessly stuck in her own grief, but it would take a great degree of emotional wholeness on my part to absorb each new wound with simple forgiveness and empathy. I see where my path might point toward such healing in the future, but we’re not there yet.

Many of us have experienced relationships like this: someone we love acts toward us in ways that continually damage.

It’s one thing to forgive and move on from a wound we received in the past, and another animal entirely when we get hurt again and again, in the same place, a scab not quite healed over before it’s ripped off again.

We all have histories, wounds, scars. Most people carry deep tender spots that have never truly healed, and some use all their actions to self-protect. The fear of vulnerability leads them to cover those places, distract from those places.

Attempts to wear the heaviest of armor results in getting “bitter” rather than “better,” and those who are too thick-skinned start to lose their delicate abilities to empathize. They project their fear of getting hurt into decisions that may themselves, unintentionally or intentionally, cause others to suffer.

Here lies the difficulty: in a relationship with someone who continues to act in hurtful ways, how do we toe the line between loving them and interacting with compassion, and protecting our own heart?

We can save no one but ourselves.

Real shifts in our psyche, our inner being, do not come from outside pushes. Change will never stick unless the changer is ready. Our worldly circumstances will nudge us here and there, and we ultimately respond by either softening or embittering our vision, our paradigms.

If we’ve allowed experience to push us toward a scared, closed off, hardened heart, things can only be different when we are ready to make our own intentional choice to be different.

We cannot throw another person over our back, or carry them in our arms through the fire. That cannot be our job. Be there for them, be support, hold space in time of need, even be a guide when asked. But always, the true work will be theirs alone.

Being love does not mean being a doormat.

Compassion for others begins with compassion for ourselves. Loving someone should not mean getting hurt time and again. There will always be need for forgiveness, but not at the cost of healthy boundaries. Here, love might mean taking a step back.

I’ve realized that sometimes, forgiveness is not about absolving someone of their actions—it means we have given ourselves permission to move on with our lives, deciding “what you did no longer holds power over me.” It’s okay, necessary even, to set up firebreaks, to say, “Enough.”

We can’t resolve hurts from unstable ground.

If someone has hurt you, chances are they’re suffering themselves. When both parties feel pain that they believe the other caused, they will already be on the defensive. I believe the only place from which we can work through those old woundings is one of stability, of love and trust.

Yet closure in the sense of reconciliation, communication, and healing together may never happen. If someone doesn’t believe they have wronged you, arguing your point will only drive the relationship rift further apart.

If we can find common ground in our love and words, it’s possible to move forward together into resolution of hurts. But if one party isn’t ready to look at themselves truthfully and engage in painfully open communication, resolution must come a different way.

Putting things to rest can be one-sided.

Here’s the tough truth: closure won’t come from someone else. It happens when we are ready to let things go.

In her book Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes uses the concept of descansos, death-markers, the white crosses seen on the side of roads in the West and Southwest, as a metaphor for marking, blessing, and moving on from trauma, grief, little “deaths” in our lives.

By tenderly identifying our own descansos—things in our lives which haven’t gone as planned, dreams we’ve had to leave behind, expectations we’ve put aside in exchange for the truth—we give ourselves a unique means for closure.

“Be gentle with yourself and make the descansos, the resting places for the aspects of yourself that were on their way to somewhere, but never arrived…

Descansos mark the death sites, the dark times, but they are also love notes to your suffering. They are transformative. There is a lot to be said for pinning things to the earth so they don’t follow us around. There is a lot to be said for laying them to rest.” – Clarissa Pinkola-Estes

Surround yourself with people who love you.

This one is easily said but sometimes complicated to walk out. Family doesn’t always go hand in hand with blood: people we are related to may never truly be good for us, while the friends we’ve chosen might be more dear and positively impactful than any relatives.

A great relationship inspires and brings out the best in us, and the love shared there has few strings attached.

Great friendships should be sounding boards for the good and the bad in our lives. We need people to see our inner truths, hold our hands in the dark times, exhort us in times of abundance—and we must recognize those people as gifts.

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These are hard lessons for me. It is sad to let go of a fairy-tale ideal, what I expected this relationship to look like.

But after a process of grieving, it can be so much healthier and more fulfilling to live with reality, to send out love without expectation of what we “should” get in return, to have compassion for someone without a constant eye for what they “should” do for us.

We take back our power, creating graceful resolution for the future where it wasn’t available in the past.

May we all learn to love without contingency; in the meantime, may we learn to walk our path in self-compassion. Loving ourselves is our dawn into the light of truly loving others.

Fighting fingers image via Shutterstock

February 29, 2016
Why Silence Is Often the Best Response to a Verbal Attack

“Have the maturity to sometimes know that silence is more powerful than having the last word.” ~Thema Davis

It all started with the forks.

“You need to return my forks,” my roommate demanded one morning as I sat in the kitchen attempting to get some work done.

“I have already said that I don’t have them. We told you that the other roommate has been hiding them,” I replied.

She began raising her voice at me, “I can’t believe you would accuse her. You’re just a mean, nasty person!”

I slowly turned around and said calmly, “Today is my birthday, actually. So I don’t really want to have this conversation right now.”

She retorted, “I don’t care,” and then began to attack my character with a spiel of all the various other things I’ve ever done to upset her.

Perhaps she felt some kind of underlying hurt, but she would not share this with me. She was not telling me these problems so that we could work on them together to fix the hurt. Instead, she was insulting and attacking my very existence as a human so that I could feel hurt with her.

I could already foresee that nothing I could say was going to calm her down, so I chose to respond with silence. I suppose my silence pushed her over the edge, because she ended the conversation with “good luck with your miserable life treating people this way!” and stormed out of the room.

Well, that escalated quickly. All because of some missing forks. I continued on with my birthday as happily as I could.

Over the next few weeks, I waited for my roommate to come to me in a calm manner to resolve her issues with me, but she never did. Any chance she had, she continued to speak to me in a hateful manner, even though I didn’t engage her.

For some reason, my respectful silence made her angrier with me. I had held my tongue and kept my negative thoughts to myself, yet she still found a reason to hold on to her anger. This made it seem to me that she did not respect me or wish to resolve our issues.

One day she shoved me while coming in the front door at the same time as me. She went so far as to spread rumors that I was planning to break up with my boyfriend so that he would break up with me first. I remained silent and still as a tree.

Looking at things from her point of view, it seems that she was trapped in pain. A pain so severe she wanted someone else to feel it with her. She did not know another way to express her pain to me, so I will never know the true cause of it.

Luckily for me, she moved out shortly afterward. Though our relationship ended and our issues remained unsolved because of her lack of cooperation, I do not regret my silence for several reasons.

Silence shows that external factors cannot affect your self-esteem.

If you have hurt them, it is okay to acknowledge this and apologize. You are a human who makes mistakes. If they are unfoundedly attacking you, remember that they are speaking from a place of hurt that clouds their judgment.

In either situation, remind yourself that their negative view of you does not change your self-esteem and value as a person.

Oftentimes, flinging an insult is a reflection of their hidden insecurities and fears. True maturity comes from letting the hurtful words roll off your back without feeling the need to defend yourself, knowing that they are not a reflection of you.

Silence is not weakness.

Silence is harnessing your calm in a heated moment. Silence is a moment of Zen in which you can see the positive and negative coexisting together. Silence is the power to mindfully choose to stay out of the negative space, and not to say hurtful words back.

It takes true strength to hold your tongue and not succumb to negative energy. With time and practice, it will become easier and easier to ignore negative comments and continue on happily with your day.

Silence is not ignoring the problem.

Silence is the way to avoid saying things during a moment’s anger that you may later regret. Of course if the person has cooled off later on and wishes to speak to you calmly and respectfully regarding the matter, you should have a dialogue with them. Rational conversations are the only way to effective conflict resolution.

Silence is always in your toolbox.

When someone has an interpersonal problem that they genuinely wish to fix, they approach the other person from a place within their heart, a place of actual caring and love. If someone immediately attacks your integrity and character, they are not speaking out of love but out of hate. Hatred cannot solve problems, only love can.

When the other person is being intentionally hurtful, without regard for your feelings, you always have the choice to stay silent and walk away from the conversation. There is a point where no words will calm them down, and they simply want you to join in their anger. Reciprocating their anger and adding fuel to their fire will just make things worse.

Silence is always there for a moment of clarity.

February 29, 2016
The Best Way to Cheer Yourself Up

February 29, 2016
5 Side Effects of Kindness

February 29, 2016
You Survived

Source: Power of Positivity

February 29, 2016
How to Make Peace with the Past and Stop Being a Victim

“Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” ~Harvey Fienstein

Do you usually feel as if everything bad that can happen will happen, and it will happen to you?

You must be the unluckiest person on the face of the planet. Opportunities never work out. Doors that should open close in your face. Friends let you down. Bosses don’t see your value. There seems to be a universal conspiracy to keep you stuck right where you are now.

You feel like your life is always going to be like this.

You feel like a failure as a person.

You worry that you’re never going to be happy.

You stress that you have no control to change any of it.

And it’s all so unfair, right? Why does this bad stuff always happen to you? How come other people get all the breaks, and you never do?

If this sounds familiar, you’re probably still affected by past events that left you feeling helpless, scared, or inadequate—and you’re going to keep re-experiencing these feelings until you do something to change them.

My Experience with Self-Sabotage

Why do I get how this works? It’s no big mystery. I’ve been there myself. In fact, at one time, I was the queen of self-sabotage.

I went from being a straight-A student to dropping out of school a year before my finals. From being a loved and spoiled child to losing touch with my family. From being confident and self-assured to needy and codependent.

What happened? I stopped thinking of myself in a positive way in response to events outside of my control. I’d always taken pride in myself, and I felt someone had taken that pride away from me.

All of these dramatic changes came from something very small—a change in my home circumstances that stopped me feeling like part of the family. Because someone in my life constantly criticized me, I lost confidence in my ability. Because I lost my security, I became chronically insecure.

Instead of feeling that I was a person of worth, with good prospects, I started thinking of myself as rejected, unwanted, and somehow less-than.

As a teenager, I was in no way equipped to deal with that. So I rebelled. And from there, my life went very rapidly downhill.

I sabotaged my jobs; I couldn’t stick anything beyond a few months. I sabotaged my first degree by dropping out. And as for relationships, I attracted every narcissistic guy around, all with the agenda of keeping myself a victim.

So What Changed—and How Do You Change It?

I hit rock bottom. My last bad relationship had come to a nasty end, I’d dropped out of University, and I had absolutely nothing in my life to keep me going.

When you hit rock bottom, you have two choices: You give up, or you say, “enough is enough.” And you start changing the way you’re thinking about things and do something to radically improve your life.

I took the second option, and my life turned around. From nothing, I went to a happy marriage, motherhood, a lovely home, and a fantastic career. And I promise you, if I can do it, from where I was at that time, so can you.

The following are some of the things that helped me overcome my negative programming and self-confidence issues. If you feel you were born to be a victim, and to live a life filled with anger and frustration, these steps could work for you too.

Why “Just Let Go” Is Not the Best Advice

I hear this advice all the time. People come to me saying they’ve been told to put the past behind them and start over, but they have real problems doing that. If only everything in life were that simple.

This stuff happened, and it happened to you. You’d need to be some sort of superhuman, or a machine, to think that it’s had no effect on who you are. And letting go, like it never happened, is denying its influence.

People who try to deny the effect of past experiences use a strategy called repressive coping, and these things have a nasty habit of coming back to bite you when you least expect it.

Accept what happened, understand how it’s affected you, but make sure you place it where it belongs—in the past. The fact that it’s there doesn’t mean you have to keep playing the same situations over in your life. You can make different choices, think in different ways, and keep moving forward.

Being Peaceful or Being Strong?

Of course we’d all like to be peaceful and calm, but sometimes that’s just not possible, especially when you’ve been through traumatic events. Lacking a magic wand, we can’t just make it all vanish. So following on from acknowledging it, we then move to what it gave us—and although it may be hard to see sometimes, it gave us strength.

There are people in the world who’ve never had to deal with the stuff that you’ve been through. You’ve dealt with things they can’t even imagine. That gives you reason to be proud of yourself, and a whole different perspective on what “tough” really is.

Losing my family and my identity may have been the cause of my initial problems, but it also provided me with the strength to overcome challenges I encountered in my life, and played a great part in giving me the confidence and ability to achieve my management career goals.

Accept Who You Are—But Who Are You?

So following on from the point above, who are you now and how do you see yourself?

You may have been a victim in the past, but you’re still here, in spite of everything that the world’s thrown at you. In my opinion, that makes you a survivor. You may not feel it, but you’re strong.

You can take the strength and be proud of the person who survived the challenges. You can choose how you see yourself. Do you want to see yourself as a helpless victim of circumstance, or as someone who is still standing, still fighting, still growing, still on a journey to make your life better and not give in?

Sure, the insecure stepdaughter is still somewhere inside me. And she’s now also the person who has achieved a really good life and has the security and success she always wanted.

As We Forgive Those…

Another piece of common advice that people are given: forgive what was done to you. Unfortunately, some things are harder to forgive than others, so the brain will fight that.

If someone has maliciously caused you harm and you have to live with the consequences, forgiving what’s unacceptable may seem to keep you in victim mode—as if, once again, you’ve just had to take it.

Of course, the truth is, by staying angry and bitter, you’re still hurting yourself. It’s irrelevant that they may deserve your bitterness. They aren’t suffering from it; you are.

So, I don’t advise you to force forgiveness. Instead, accept what happened, acknowledge how you feel about it, then put it behind you. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future, and dwelling and brooding on these feelings will not help you move forward.

Count Your (Amended) Blessings

However positively you can spin the past, your life has still been negatively affected. You may have a worse life than you would have done if this thing had never happened, and it’s hard to feel gratitude for something awful! So how can you be grateful for what you do have now?

Be glad for the person who has come through this—the survivor, even though you may not feel like one.

Be glad for what you’ve managed to achieve, in spite of everything that’s been done to stop you. You may feel like you haven’t achieved much, but as a person who is reading this and trying to change your life, you’ve achieved the power to make decisions and refuse to give up, which some people never do.

Be glad for the extra lessons you learned: the ones that made you tough, make new problems minimal compared to past challenges, and put you in a position to be able to help others who’ve been through the same things.

—

These are the things that are going to empower you to go out and change your world.

Playing with the cards stacked against you is just plain unfair. It’s time for you to even the odds.

Your past is always going to be something that happened to you, but that doesn’t mean it needs to define you, restrict you, and dictate your future life.

How would your life change if you were only taking what was positive from the past? If you could see yourself as someone who overcame it, who chose to reject the negative self-concepts that were forced on you, who was a survivor, and not a victim?

You can do this. You, and only you, have the power. And that’s why you’re not a victim. The only person who can control this is you.

Work through all of the points above. Find out where your blocks are. Deal with them. Move on. You’ve been through enough already. It’s time for things to get better.

You’ve got this.

February 28, 2016
How to Get the Excitement of a Fresh Start Every Day
“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.” ~Nikos Kazantzakis

One minute I was a young warrior in a guild of travelers, the next, a middle-aged aristocrat in a strange Victorian world.

A pretty standard day. Oh, did I forget to mention where I was?

I was at a role-playing convention. That was over twenty years ago. Here’s how the fun worked.

Every three to four hours, I would play a different session. That means I would become a new character and go on new adventures in another world, with different people. It was a complete shift of personality and environment three times a day.

Only, the whole adventure would go on in my brain. It was all the fruit of the imagination of players around the table.

Since I was a child, I’ve always been a dreamer. Even today, I can spend hours lost in thoughts, in my mind.

I role-played for most of my younger years. From that period of my life, I’ve retained a fascination for the mind, imagination, and creativity.

The power of the brain as a simulator of fiction captivates me. After all, our perception of the world is the product of a simulation run inside our head by our brain.

Now, imagine you could get a role-playing convention experience in real life. If I told you that you could get the excitement of a fresh start every day, would you be interested in learning about it?

Exploring new lives and scenarios has been one of my ongoing quests, so I put together a five-step process you can follow to get the excitement of a fresh start every single day.

1. Adopt a child mindset.

Do you remember when you were five years old, how you looked at everything with big eyes? You were always curious, exploring and testing the world. You would invent stories, secret places, fairies, and monsters.

Jean Piaget, an important figure in developmental psychology, calls three-to five-year-old children “little scientists exploring and reflecting on these explorations to increase competence.” Children learn through experience, making mistakes, and solving problems.

If I ask my three-year-old daughter whether she wants to go and have a look at a tree, she will always say yes. In fact, whatever I ask her, she’s always up for it. There’s no limit to her curiosity, and she’s got no fear.

We, as parents, need to channel her energy and curiosity so she doesn’t hurt herself. As adults, we know when to stop so that we don’t hurt ourselves. Or do we?

Often, our fear will stop us from doing something that would be beneficial to us. Conversely, we might also sometimes go too far and hurt ourselves, when doing sports for example.

This challenges whether we’re good judges of what’s best for us. I argue that we often aren’t.

That’s why the first step is to suspend your judgment and open your mind to new possibilities. As T.S. Eliot said, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

So, mentally go back to your childhood for a moment. Picture the world around you.

You’re there? Good. Now, you need to reawaken your child mindset and cultivate it.

Be curious about everything. Ask questions. Challenge your assumptions about the world.

This is your starting point. Spend time every day cultivating this mindset. Make it a habit.

2. Develop a beginner’s mind.

The second step is to act on your child mindset.

Make it your mission to discover or learn something new every day. When you wake up every morning, ask yourself, “What am I going to learn today?”

On Reddit, there’s a subreddit called “Today I learned.” Make this a motto for your life.

To inspire you, think about Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo. Upon his death, Jigoro asked to be buried in his white belt instead of his advanced black belt. He wanted to stay open to learning and spend eternity with a beginner’s mind, symbolized by the white belt of the beginner.

Also, think about monks, who meditate and work toward attaining a state of a completely empty and open mind. They call it a “beginner’s mind”—fully open to embrace the new.

Embrace the beginner’s mind and learn something new every day.

3. Seek adventure.

To learn every day and get the excitement of new adventures, you need to go out and explore.

This might lead you to scary places. You will get ideas that might seem crazy to you some days. Don’t let your critical mind stop you.

Follow your instincts. Explore these ideas.

If the ideas scare you, it’s a good sign. That means you’re up for an adventure. And we like adventures, don’t we?

An adventure will give you excitement and new perspectives. And because of the unknown, you’ll be failing, like a child.

But then, failure will teach you important lessons to increase your learning. You will build new neural pathways in your brain instead of just re-enforcing your existing ones.

Recently, I was interviewed on a podcast. It was daunting at first. At the same time, I felt the thrill of an adventure.

Afterward, as I listened to the podcast, it gave me insights into myself. In short, it was an adventure that gave me both excitement and new perspectives.

What’s your next adventure going to be? Playing a new instrument, or maybe starting a martial art, like judo? A dance class, or a trip to Nepal?

4. One change a day keeps the boredom away.

Making small changes every day benefits you in two ways—it keeps things fresh and exciting, and it also changes your brain in a way that broadens your perception and brings more novelty into your life.

When you do the same things every day, and don’t expose yourself to new knowledge and experiences, your brain makes fewer connections between neurons. When you mix things up, however, you literally change your brain through the process of neuroplasticity.

As a result, you start to see the same things in different ways. For example, you could look at a quote you read some time ago and it could unlock a completely new meaning for you.

Your daily change doesn’t have to be big. Here are typical examples of changes I’m making in my life:
- Start reading a new book (and it’s even better when the book is on a topic I’m not familiar with)
- Listen to a new podcast
- Change my exercise routine
- Change my writing style
- Connect with new people
- Change my morning routine
- Cook a new recipe or change one I cook regularly
- Have tea instead of coffee and try various teas
- Start a new Coursera course
Constant change will keep you excited every morning—and keep your brain flexible.

5. Be a jack of all trades, master of some.

Be hungry for knowledge.

When you invest yourself in a new topic and explore it further, you become more and more excited about learning and growing your expertise.

So, as you read books, explore new topics, and take new courses, seek new subjects that captivate you. Once you’ve found one, immerse yourself and learn as much as you can, and follow your curiosity wherever it takes you. For example, learning about minimalism may introduce you to tiny houses, which then piques your interest in sustainable design.

In essence, you’ll always have a few topics that you’re focused on and many others that you’ll try out to fuel constant change.

It gets better: As your expertise grows in different areas, you’ll broaden your overall culture. That means you’ll never run out of topics of conversation, and you’ll be able to relate to lots of different people.

Bottom line: Invest yourself in new topics and you’ll live an exciting life.

Never Settle

You’re in control of your life. You can change it overnight if you decide to do so.

It’s a matter of mindset. How you decide to see the world and react to it dictates your day.

You can embrace each day as a new start, a new adventure. Whatever excites you, you can go out and explore it.

It’s up to you now. Are you prepared for a fresh start every day? Are you willing to build an exciting life for yourself?

Woman at window image via Shutterstock
February 28, 2016
Ego vs. Spirit

Source: Positive Outlooks

February 27, 2016
Life Is Full of Give and Take

Source: Gratitude Habitat

February 27, 2016
You Can’t Save People; You Can Only Love Them

February 26, 2016