Tag: wisdom
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Sensitivity Is a Gift: How to Thrive with a Bleeding Heart
“You are not a mess. You are a feeling person in a messy world.” ~Glennon Doyle Melton
I can recall crying myself to sleep at night when I was a little girl. Not a loud bawl, more of a soft weep.
My mom would tuck me in goodnight and as soon as she turned the lights on her way out, I would be left with a feeling of fear and sadness. Not because I was afraid of the dark, but because I was afraid of my dark.
The thoughts that entered my mind that kept me from falling into a peaceful slumber as an elementary school kid were rife with pain and suffering.
Mom would say, “Think good thoughts, honey.” But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too affected by all the suffering I saw.
I cried for all the injustice in the world.
I cried for all the pain I couldn’t necessarily see but could sense in others.
I cried for the kids getting bullied at my school.
I cried for myself getting teased at school.
I cried because people died and I didn’t get why they had to.
Somewhere along the way I received the message that it wasn’t okay to cry, or feel anything other than fine. That it was somehow bad to feel emotion. That to be a good little girl, I had to conceal and go along.
The only problem was, I had a lot of feelings. All the time I had them, intensely strong ones.
The world is not set up to honor sensitive people. When we see someone crying, we also usually see someone rush to their side and say “Oh, don’t cry.”
My question is, why?
Why can’t we cry? What is so bad about crying?
I want to scream from the rooftops:
I reserve the right to be sad if I’m sad.
I reserve the right to be mad if I’m mad.
And I reserve the right to cry if I feel like crying. It’s my life and I’ll cry if I want to.
Crying is a sign of life, by the way. It means you are alive. It’s the first thing we want to hear when a new baby is born—their cry. It is one of the most natural human reflexes we have.
But growing up as sensitive or empathetic, we learn that we are oversensitive, too much, too emotional, cry babies, wimps, too fragile, over-reactors. So what is given to us as a gift—our sensitive nature—is often squashed, repressed, and stifled.
And when we don’t know how to use our superpower sensitivities for good, the weight of the world’s suffering will most definitely crush us. My sensitivity felt like a wicked curse for a long time, before I learned how to treasure it like the blessing it is.
Some things I have learned:
Honor your sensitive nature.
Do this by affirming yourself and realizing that this is how you were made. Make the best of it and turn it from a commonly perceived negative trait to your biggest asset.
Maximize the strength of being highly sensitive by making sure you have a creative outlet. It is essential to have a place for it all to go. Whatever it is for you, go there as much as you can to release the myriad of emotions from any given day. Find it, do it, love it, and let it rejuvenate you.
Find your fellow heart-bleeders.
It can be alienating to feel like you’re the only one feeling so deeply. But there are so many of us out there, I assure you. There’s even a book called If You Feel Too Much.
Kindle up friendships with these people and create your tribe. There is such strength and power in connecting with like minds. You will know who they are by the way you feel around them—they see and accept and love your depth of feeling, they do not shame you for it or tell you to change your nature.
Reserve the right to cry.
Crying is a release and a ritual of mine. I love when a good, hard cry sneaks up on me in yoga. It’s just so healing. My emotions can overwhelm me, from unbearable grief to overstimulating joy. I cry to help release that energy overflow; otherwise, my heart might explode. I am moved to tears on a regular basis and let them come and go as they please, even welcome them now.
You do not have to be the suffering-holder and pain-keeper.
Just because you are acutely aware of the pain and emotional nuances of those around you doesn’t mean you need to take it on and make it your own. In fact, you really can’t. It’ll bring you down with them.
There is a beautiful word in the English language known as boundaries. Compassion is also a beautiful word. Boundaries and compassion can, in fact, co-exist. The way to be compassionate and have boundaries at the same time is to show your love and caring for others without taking responsibility for their pain and problems by trying to fix them.
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Being born extra-sensitive is a gift, so long as we choose to see it that way. It was my fatal flaw until I learned what to do with it. When we can learn to work with it, rather than against it, we can undoubtedly make it our greatest strength and the source of all the magic and richness in this life.
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What Anxiety Can Do to Your Body & How to Calm Your Mind
“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen.” ~Shakti Gawain
I woke up screaming—not just any scream, but a blood-curdling sound that could have woken the dead.
My throat was searing with pain, and my pajamas were stuck to me from being so damp. After a minute or two, my heartbeat slowed and I lay back down, still shaking. It wasn’t a nightmare; I couldn’t even remember what I had dreamt.
This behavior sounds weird, but it was not an infrequent episode in our house. The week prior I’d woken up in the bathtub.
My mum would often say, “Do you remember what you did last night?” I would have no recollection whatsoever—unnerving and also frustrating.
I was experiencing what doctors refer to as “night terrors.” As a child it was just the norm—sleep walking and waking up screaming in the middle of the night. It’s only looking back now that I can provide a logical explanation for it.
You see, I had a fairly average upbringing, nothing traumatic about it, except I was always a worrier.
I felt different from other children and liked to keep myself to myself. There I would be in the playground reading a book, while others played. I was a bit of a loner and I got singled out for it. I was also quite plump as well.
The Beginning of My Anxiety
I went through many changes with my parents getting divorced, moving a few times, and both my mother and father remarrying again very quickly, all within a short space of time.
I took it all in my stride and never consciously felt any real stress or tension—or so I thought.
In hindsight, I am well aware that my brain was in constant overdrive and found a way of dealing with the anxiety that I had managed to suppress. This all came bubbling to the surface subconsciously during times of deep sleep.
Although from time to time I still wake up screaming, the sleepwalking has stopped and the night terrors have subsided. What helped? I’ve learned how to calm my mind, and now I no longer have heart palpitations and panic attacks during the night.
The brain is so powerful, and the one major organ in the body that cannot be fully explained. Through my own personal experiences, have discovered ways to work with my brain so I have more control over my thoughts and behavior.
I will elaborate on this, but first I would like to tell you another story to prove just how powerful our minds are.
The Mind/Body Connection
Last year, one of my closest friends began to feel tingling all over her body. It would come and go in waves but was mainly focused on her hands, feet, and back.
I’d known my friend for years, and she always struck me as confident, strong, and ‘together.’
For months she suffered these symptoms and saw several doctors, consultants, and neurologists. She had numerous blood tests and scans, just to be told there was nothing wrong with her.
My friend was at her wits end, constantly on Google and convinced she had a severe neurological condition such as MS. Nobody believed her and everyone (including myself) assumed she was being a hypochondriac.
My friend did not give up. She continued in her pursuit, getting a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth opinion—as many as it would take until someone could give her an accurate diagnosis and actually help her.
Eventually, she found a specialist and neurological consultant in London, who explained that she did have a neurological condition, but it was more of a disorder than a disease.
My friend had an unstable childhood and always felt unloved and unwanted. Having carried around many insecurities for years, and having excessively worried about everything, she had developed a disorder whereby her nervous system was in a constant state of shock, known as the “fight or flight mode.”
She was diagnosed with a psychosomatic illness and then referred to a counsellor.
In laymen’s terms, there had been a severe psychiatric disturbance in my friend’s brain, which had built up over years primarily due to stress and anxiety. With no means to channel or express these feelings, her nerves had become highly sensitized, mimicking symptoms similar to those of MS and Parkinson’s disease.
Also known as Neurological Anxiety Disorder, this disease affects many who are not even aware they have it.
For example, you could be suffering from severe headaches. You go to work every day to do a job that you detest. Eventually, you leave this job and find another one. Simultaneously, your headaches stop. It wouldn’t occur to many individuals to connect the dots.
There are countless of examples just like this, which affect thousands all over the world, every day—all because of built up stress.
I’m sharing my friend’s experience and mine because I believe it is important for such conditions to be openly discussed and understood.
Although liberal in most parts, we still live in a society that thinks a mental condition defines the individual as being mad and unhinged—it’s a taboo subject. Unfortunately, this compels victims to suffer in silence due to the fear of being judged.
Calm Your Mind
We all have our emotional issues to bear. During the whirlwind of daily life, it is paramount that we learn to relax more frequently. Relaxation and peace are qualities that are neither expensive nor difficult to obtain, if we prioritize and make time for them.
The best time to relax, I find, is in the evening, a few hours before I go to sleep. I have a routine that has helped me to have more of a restful sleep, enabling me to feel refreshed when I awake in the mornings. Very straightforward, it can be applied by anyone.
Three Tips to Relax Before Bed
1. Unplug.
At least two hours before sleep, stop watching TV, using your phone, or engaging with any technology. Get into the habit of winding down by reading, listening to relaxing music, or having a hot bath. Any creative hobby is good, as long as it’s relaxing.
2. Keep a journal.
Reflecting on your day and writing about your problems, worries, and irritants can help unload your mind so you can go to sleep with a clearer head.
This process can also help you find solutions. Try writing all your problems in order of priority and deciding how you will tackle them, one by one. This will give you a sense of control, help you seeing what is really important, and enable you to put the smaller worries into perspective.
3. Meditate lying in bed.
Here’s a simple technique I use: Imagine being in your favorite place. Travel to the most idyllic location or scenario you can picture in your mind’s eye. Visualize all your worries and concerns becoming more distant, a world away from you and your blissful, special place.
These steps are simple but extremely effective.
So often we go to sleep emotionally charged, with our brains still buzzing. Finding time daily to unwind prevents long-term anxiety, stress, tension, and, yes, illnesses.
A restful sleep has a big influence over our brain activity and determines how focused and energized we are physically, mentally, and emotionally the following day.
Incorporating Serenity into Your Day
1. Practice deep breathing.
Our breathing and physical state have a huge influence over our mental state. During the day, when you are feeling overwhelmed, get into the habit of stopping and focusing on your breath.
Take five minutes and do nothing—be still, try to quiet your thoughts, and focus only on your breathing; in through your nose, out through your mouth. Do this a dozen times and you will feel better and more composed.
2. Tap your way to peace.
Tapping several times on pressure points such as your wrists, the inside of your finger tips, neck, and chest can also help relax you. While tapping, imagine you are sending tranquil energy directly into your body. It only takes a few minutes, and you can do it anywhere and as frequently as you like.
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If you believe that you suffer from an abnormal level of anxiety or have experienced symptoms like my friend’s or mine, is important that you seek help.
We all need to de-stress and focus on becoming more balanced. If we don’t get into the habit of fostering inner peace, we could experience severe consequences that take a lot of time to rectify in the long run.
We need to nourish our minds by providing the tranquility it needs to function efficiently and proactively.
Meditation silhouette via Shutterstock
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There’s No Expiration Date on Grief (So Don’t Rush Your Pain)
“They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite.” ~Cassandra Clare
I lost my father to a heart attack when I was sixteen. I went to school on the morning of April 14, 2008 having a dad and went home that night not having one. I soon found myself dealing with an unfamiliar cocktail of emotions, pain so overwhelming that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Every time I thought I was pulling myself together, I’d notice his belt buckle sitting on the dresser, or a pair of his socks on the floor, and suddenly the haphazard stitches I’d been sewing myself up with would tear open with heart-wrenching sobs.
I lost the ability to make simple decisions like what takeout restaurant to order from or what to watch on TV. Nothing made sense that week.
Dad had been my best friend, though not in the sense that he tried to act my age or allowed me to get away with things. On the contrary, my father was quite strict, always pushing me to be a better person.
He was my best friend in that I could go to him with any worry and receive honest, unbiased advice. He forced me to see the good in myself instead of dwelling on the negative. I could cry in front of him knowing that he didn’t feel awkward or want to avoid me like dad characters on TV sitcoms.
On the day of his death I had to accept that I could rely on no one but myself. That in and of itself seemed challenging, but now I had the added burden of everyone else depending on me. I was the shoulder that my mother and younger sister cried on.
As the oldest child I became second in command under Mom. She relied on me for help with planning funeral details and making sure papers were in order. I didn’t mind the new role because it was empowering, as though by helping Mom I was giving back to Dad for everything he’d done for me.
My greatest character flaw has always been focusing on the future instead of remaining grounded in the present. Not surprisingly, my father’s death and my long-term response to grief were no different.
I cried for the entire week after he died. I cried along with everyone else at the funeral. Surely that’s all that grieving was supposed to be, right?
When the funeral was over and the house was devoid of mourners, I picked my life up from where I was before his death.
I avoided living in the “now” because the present was too painful, yet simultaneously tried to convince the rest of the world that I was a strong woman dealing with her pain. I stayed focused on getting into college and doing all of the things I knew my father would have wanted for me.
This worked well until my senior year of college. I was on the Dean’s List, I had just gotten accepted into graduate school, and graduation was right around the corner.
Then my boyfriend proposed.
Except, I never expected that he would propose with my mother’s engagement ring, the same ring my father bought and proposed with. There was now a reminder of my father glimmering on my finger every day that I couldn’t ignore.
Despite it being one of the happiest moments of my life, my engagement caused all of the sadness I’d buried to start bubbling up to the surface with such vigor that it felt like the day of his death all over again. I couldn’t run home and tell Dad the happy news. He wasn’t going to be able to walk me down the aisle.
I realized how much I had been lying to myself. I hadn’t finished grieving because I hadn’t started grieving in the first place. I had been so focused on taking on the role of adult of the house that I didn’t give myself the chance to feel angry, resentful, or depressed, or to find the acceptance I really needed in order to move on.
During the funeral people approached me to say that things would become easier in time. In truth, I don’t think this is ever the case. I have decided that grief never ends; we just find different ways of working with it in our lives.
At twenty-four, I pretend to be a stoic and emotionless professional woman, but discussing my father with people still melts me like butter. I think about him and write about him more now than I did seven years ago, and that’s okay. There are no time limits for grief other than the ones we force on ourselves.
If I could talk to my sixteen-year-old self, I’d tell her she shouldn’t feel guilty for her sadness. She’s entitled to grieve however she wants, for however long she wants. More importantly, I’d tell her that it’s important to take the time to sort out those feelings instead of hiding from them or putting other people first.
I admit that certain memories of Dad still trigger a twinge of heartache. I will always feel emptiness in my life without him here. But I am aware of how much of him still lives with me—in my smile, my hobbies, and in the shared memories of people in my life who had the honor of knowing him.
The key to grieving is not to try to stop it as quickly as possible. Grief cannot be shut off at will, despite how long I spent trying to convince myself otherwise. What matters is that we acknowledge that we are in pain and try to find the goodness in our life despite it.
I used to look down at my engagement ring and feel numbed by sadness, both for the past and for the things that can never be. But with a new mindfulness I can look at my ring, this gift from my father, and know for certain that I’m allowed to move on and find the same happiness that my parents had.
My father’s never going to disappear from my life; he’s just talking in ways that require careful listening.
Woman sitting alone image via Shutterstock
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How to Recover and Find Strength after Losing a Parent
“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.” ~Dalai Lama
There was a period in life I called “the golden era.” Not in hindsight but at the actual time.
I named it such because I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Everyone I loved was alive and well. I had a good job, a home, and a loving companion. All the things everyone longs for.
Little did I know, this “golden era” would end too soon.
One day, out of the blue, Mum asked if I had noticed a change in Dad’s behavior. She described how he could no longer write his signature and would often become distant.
After some tests, we discovered that my father had a brain tumor.
That instantly spelled the end of the golden era and the beginning of a rather painful period.
Watching someone who was strong become weak and bedridden, suffer seizures, and eventually drift away eats away at you.
It’s difficult to describe the tumultuous wave of feelings that come and overwhelm you. There’s the fear of coping with loss and feeling powerless because you can’t cure the illness and avoid the inevitable.
Losing a parent can feel like losing part of yourself. If they’ve always been there, helping and supporting you, it’s hard to imagine coping without them.
Getting through such a bleak period, however, proved one thing:
We are stronger than we think.
Somewhere inside us is a resilience we never thought possible.
Use the following steps to uncover your inner strength, overcome grief, and learn to smile again.
1. Forgive yourself.
When a parent dies, guilt can become a burden because of past arguments you now regret or maybe because you think you didn’t do enough to help them.
You should realize no parent-child relationship is ever perfect. Disputes, mistakes, and shortcomings occur on both sides and are all in the past. You were still loved even if you were seldom told.
By recognizing the past as something that is finished and unchangeable, you can begin to free yourself from guilt and reflect on the good times instead. The good times are what they would want you to remember.
2. Face your feelings.
Feelings of loss or anger can grow stronger if left unchecked, especially if you’ve never known death so close.
Exploring ways to cope with these feelings myself led to meditation. Mindfulness meditation is one way to help understand the flow of these feelings.
Imagine sitting on a river bank and watching the boats sail by. Similarly, by watching your thoughts, you’ll see how your grief has influenced your emotions. This “watching” of thoughts creates an awareness of their impact on how you feel that, in turn, reduces the pendulum effect of emotions. By anticipating emotions, you begin to reduce their power.
3. Keep talking.
The sudden reality of not being able to chat to your Mum or Dad again can be hard to accept.
For a time after losing Dad, I still chatted to him. I asked what he thought of something, but of course I didn’t expect an answer. It was a way of getting the words out that were already in me to say.
Don’t hide from the fact that your parent is gone. Visit the grave, and chat to them in thoughts. Whatever makes you feel comfortable. Not only does it keep their memory alive, but it’s also a release for your feelings.
4. Look after you.
Grief can take its toll in many ways. Loss of sleep, reduced appetite, and damaged immune system are not uncommon. The remedy is to protect your health and fitness.
Like the pre-flight safety instructions to put on your oxygen mask before helping others, protect your health first to ensure you can heal and help others do the same.
You only need to take small steps. Get walking with a friend, eat natural, unprocessed food, and stay hydrated. When your body feels strong, it will lift your mood and help you cope.
5. Take time out.
During the immediate aftermath, you’ll have an overwhelming to-do list. From making funeral arrangements to addressing legal matters. All physically and mentally exhausting.
It’s vital for your physical and mental health to rest. If you take a vacation to recuperate when things have settled, you’ll be able to return refreshed to help your family over the longer term. Never feel guilty for taking time off.
6. Avoid comparisons.
During grief, we can become self-conscious of how we’re perceived by others. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, so don’t judge your reaction to loss. You don’t need to look or behave a certain way.
A colleague returned to work recently the day after their father’s funeral, which attracted comment, whereas I took several weeks off.
Don’t worry about how it looks to others or what they might think. This is your personal journey and yours alone, so never fear judgment. Do what’s right for you.
7. Be patient.
Missing a parent is natural, and if you were very close, you’ll need time to adjust.
Time heals the acuteness of pain, but you may continue to miss your parent. After five years, I still miss Dad very much. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t think of him, but it used to be hardly a day.
Don’t wish time away in the hope you can speed up the healing process. Recovery will happen at its own natural pace.
8. Support your family.
The passing of a parent can send a shockwave across the whole family. We might become withdrawn in our own grief and not realize others are sharing in the loss.
So offer your hand in support to other family members. You will avoid feeling isolated if you focus on the needs of others and help other loved ones to cope.
As a loving team, you will be able to count on each other at different times to get through the toughest periods together.
9. Enjoy precious memories.
There was a time I couldn’t think of Dad without a tear. When I returned to work, I had to make a determined effort not to swell up when colleagues offered condolences.
But I discovered that I could still enjoy my Dad’s “company” by recalling the good times we shared. The laughs, the trips, and the DIY jobs that seemed to take forever.
Don’t avoid reliving your precious moments in your mind’s eye. A time will come when you smile or laugh to yourself just as you did at the time. So let your parent live on in your thoughts, and enjoy seeing them there any time you wish.
10. Accept the new you.
As we get older, our opinions and outlook on life can change. The passing of a parent is one of those experiences that will change you. I became more tolerant because life’s trivia was put in context.
Worry about missing deadlines, being late for an event, or having a new gadget malfunction. Events that annoy us day to day pale into insignificance.
This change is not for the better or worse; it’s simply a change. Grief increases awareness that all things change, so prioritize what’s really important.
Value and enjoy every waking moment, and let the new you grab each precious day with passion.
Unlock a New Chapter
Society often writes off the death of a parent as the natural order of events, but those who’ve experienced it know how life-changing it is.
You feel hurt and loss because you have a heart but that heart is stronger than you ever imagined.
With the steps above, the same heart can grow in confidence, beat with new hope, and become healthier than ever before. You can still enjoy life, and you should.
Life is there to be cherished.
It’s what your parent would have wanted. Live your life in the knowledge they’d be happy for you.
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You Don’t Need to Fix the Past in Order to Have a New Future
Note: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen! They are:
- Dianna
- Michael Maher
- Kathleen B
- Yusuf Stoptagginmeanyhow Sulei
- Aparna
“The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” ~Pema Chodron
My family recently drove from Michigan to North Carolina—twenty hours roundtrip. To entertain themselves, my five-year-old daughter Willow taught my three-year-old son Miller to play rock-paper-scissors in the backseat.
Miller learned the hand signals and got the overall concept pretty quickly, but he had a hard time with the fast speed of the game. Willow narrated, “Rock-paper-scissors…go! Okay, next round!” But Miller wanted to linger.
When he chose paper and Willow chose scissors, he’d see her scissors and quickly try to change to rock so that he could win the round.
Or if he chose rock and she chose scissors, he’d want to stop and hang out in his win for a while. He’d celebrate, gloat, and become frustrated when she was already on to the next round.
My husband and I tried to explain to Miller that it was a quick game with no time to hold on to what was already done. There’s also no need to hold on—each round brings a brand new chance to win or lose.
While we tried to teach him that it made more sense to leave the past behind and look toward the next round, his let-it-go-and-move-on wasn’t up to par compared to his older sister’s.
Miller turned rock-paper-scissors into a slow, thought-heavy emotional roller coaster, where every move felt important and meaningful. What could have been a fun and easy game was not very fun for him.
It was clear to see how Miller was getting in his own way. And then it hit me that I—and most people I know—do the same thing in our adult lives. We innocently get in our own way as we focus on what we don’t like and try to make it better when it would be far easier to leave the past behind and look toward the “next round.”
Life is always moving through us—nothing is permanent. New thought and emotion flow through us constantly, creating our rotating and fluid experience of life.
Sometimes we stay out of the way and let our experience flow. Willow was staying out of the way as she played rock-paper-scissors (and she was having a great time, I might add). And sometimes we’re more like Miller, innocently blocking the easy flow of life with our opinions, judgments, and disapproval. We don’t pick up and move on as much as we focus on righting what is already over.
In hindsight, I can see how I’ve dammed up my own flow of experience at times in my life, especially when I was struggling with things I wanted to change.
When I was facing a confusing and uncontrollable binge eating habit, for example, I thought what I was supposed to do was to examine it, analyze it, talk about it, and focus on it with a whole lot of emotion and energy until I made it go away.
But more often than not, that created more suffering. It left me even more convinced that my habit was a serious problem that I needed to solve, and it left me feeling hopeless because I didn’t know how to solve it.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for understanding ourselves and our experiences in a new way and taking action where action is needed. Those are absolutely necessary. But keeping our “problem” under a constant microscope, trying to use our intellect to solve it as if it’s a crossword puzzle, is not the way to freedom.
If new thought, emotion, and insight are always flowing through us like a river, doesn’t it make sense to look upstream at what’s coming next, especially when we’re experiencing something we don’t like? It’s just like we told Miller in rock-paper-scissors: if you don’t like what happened in this round, let it go and look toward the next round.
But we forget this when it comes to the big things in life, don’t we? It seems responsible, necessary, or adult-like to hold the problem tightly until we fix it.
If our moment-to-moment experience of life is like a river rushing through us, our “fix-it” attempts are the equivalent of standing in the middle of the river, filling a bucket with the water that has already flowed past and carrying that bucket with us everywhere we go.
We obstruct the momentum of the river and analyze that old, familiar “problem” water to death, not realizing that if we only turned and looked upstream we’d have an excellent chance of seeing something new and different.
Looking upstream we might see with fresh eyes—looking downstream, we’re just looking at more of what we already know.
With regard to my binge eating habit, I realized that my best chance for change would come from letting go of everything I thought I knew and being open to fresh, new insights and ideas. Not carrying around the past or analyzing the problem; instead, being open and unencumbered.
As I began to see my habit-related thoughts and behaviors as things flowing by me that I didn’t need to grab ahold of, they passed by more easily. Each and every day I found myself less in the way, realizing that I was very separate from those unwanted thoughts and urges.
When my habit-related experience looked more like leaves floating on the surface of the river than like gigantic boulders, life took on a new feeling of ease. I saw that I could gently dodge some of what was coming down the river rather than stop and fight with or fix it. The healthy “me” was more visible than ever.
Not staring at your problems is not ignoring or denying the issue any more than Willow was ignoring or denying the previous rock-paper-scissors round when she easily moved on. Take note of how your experience feels. When life—which really is very game-like—feels like a difficult, not fun, emotional rollercoaster, you’re holding on to something, innocently getting in your own way.
Maybe even the bigger issues in life really aren’t so different than rock-paper-scissors—you get what you get, but you don’t have to stay there and try to change the last round. Let life flow and as you do, the healthy, clear, peaceful version of yourself will be more visible than ever too.
NOTE: Amy has generously offered to give five copies of her new book, The Little Book of Big Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit. Leave a comment on the post for a chance to win! You can enter until midnight, PST, on Friday, February 5th.
Past in the sand image via Shutterstock
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Hate Your Job? Change May Be Hard But It’s Worth It
“It’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events—how we interpret them—that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow.” ~Tony Robbins
How long are we going to put up with lifestyles that kill us before we decide to do something about it?
It’s no surprise to me that between 70-80% of American workers (depending on the source) dislike their jobs. I was part of that statistic until the disappointment got the better of me and I had no choice but to leave it all behind.
Things were off to a great start; at least, they were for two months after my wedding. The week after Thanksgiving my boss came in after my shift and gave me the news that I was being laid-off without severance, effective immediately.
This was shocking, and given the nature of the situation, I was angry, disappointed, stressed, sad, and anxious. Considering that my boss was a close family friend, I also felt betrayed.
I didn’t want to go home and give the news to my family, so I did the only thing I could think of—I sat in an empty parking lot and cried for two hours.
All of my problems were directly related to the stress of not having an income. So many thoughts ran through my head during those two hours, like the vision of being in a homeless rut and never getting out of it.
I was in a state of panic, and sitting alone for two hours was not a good decision for my mental health.
After a long discussion with my wife, we were able to calmly rationalize the situation and create a plan. It turns out everything was going to work out just fine. It had to—there was no other option.
After three months of rigorous job-hunting, I got an offer for a new job for a major security corporation. This time it was in IT (tech support), so I could put my degree to good. My pay doubled and I had access to benefits, which I did not have at my previous job. It turns out that getting laid off actually worked to my benefit.
My job started to lose its appeal around six months. I was beginning to notice the flaws within the company, the lack of good management and training, the politics that come with corporate jobs, and all of the drama between different levels of management.
I was quick to find that tech support was not for me. However, like my last job, I could not leave because I was a slave to the money.
Two years went by. My job had its “up moments” but for the most part it was a routine grind, Monday through Friday.
Corporate masters diminished my genuine passion for helping people by telling me exactly how I should be helping people, despite the actual problem being that our product was terrible and we had no control over that.
I survived three layoffs during those two years but the fear was there. My team was constantly told that we need to prove ourselves if we wanted to survive cuts.
After two years I could say I officially hated my job. After three years it started to affect my health, physically and mentally.
My depression and anxiety medications were increased three times since starting at the job. I had reached the maximum dosage available and was still experiencing severe depression and anxiety on a daily basis.
A lot of workers have the mindset that “Mondays suck” and that it’s perfectly normal to suffer through a week-long grind, because the weekend is where all of our troubles go away and we get to have fun. At this point in my job I didn’t even look forward to the weekends.
I spent the entire weekend stressing about having to go back to the office on Monday and resume the routine battle with my suicidal thoughts.
I woke up one day with a migraine and cold sweats. “Just a bug,” I thought to myself, so I went to work that day only to give up after one hour. My boss expressed his concerns and told me that my job was in jeopardy. We discussed the option of going on an unpaid medical leave due to my health issues. I agreed to look into it.
I took the rest of that day off and my wife came to pick me up. We sat in the parking lot of a local grocery store talking about my symptoms.
My migraine was still intense and my body soaked with sweat. We called the doctor and I described my symptoms, or rather a lack of other symptoms. The nurse listed off all of the usual symptoms from WebMD, trying to diagnose what physical ailment I was experiencing, only to come up empty handed.
Then the nurse told me to go to the emergency room. We were already $10,000 in medical debt (even with the best health insurance available), and we all know that the hospital will just give you some $100 Tylenol and send you home, so my wife and I agreed not to go; instead, we talked about my job.
We talked about how medical leave was temporary and I would still have to go back to my job in a few weeks. The stress at this point was overwhelming, but she was extremely supportive and also concerned for my health.
I finally built up the courage and said, “I don’t want to go back to that office.” She not only supported my statement but also agreed with me.
We had both talked about finances for several months leading up to that point. We talked about what we’d do if one of us lost our job, and we agreed we would be okay for a while, so our planning helped this decision. It was at this point I decided that I wasn’t going back to that job.
An interesting thing happened: Less than one hour after making this decision my headache went away and my cold sweats completely diminished. Not only was I feeling better, but I also felt alive.
The stress of losing medical benefits and having a lower income was infinitesimal compared to the amazing freedom and positivity that I felt at this point. Once we got home I decided to go for a walk in the sun. This was the first time I had gone for a walk in over three years.
The entire time walking, I reflected on my life, my potential, and my future. After that I started to re-invest my time into studying personal development and lifestyle design. As the weeks went on, I wasn’t just motivated and driven; I was alive.
In that time I did a lot of writing and personal development. I worked on myself, discovering my passion and my core values, and committed to massive lifestyle change. I woke up with a drive to be productive.
When I see people struggle with their lives, jobs, or relationships, it brings me back to those stressful times of feeling like there’s nothing more to life and it makes me want to help others realize how important it is to take charge and make a change.
Whether you’re unhappy with your job, health, relationships, or life in general, you can’t wait for it to change on its own. You need to take action and change it yourself.
You shouldn’t necessarily make sudden decisions without a plan, but you need to get something moving. Make the change happen before it’s too late and you end up severely ill, or worse. Nobody deserves to hate their lives, and if that’s you then you need to open yourself up to some major changes.
Not all of us have the ability to just get up and leave our jobs. I am fortunate enough to have a loving and hard working wife, but not everyone has the financial or emotional support to suddenly change their lives. So what do you do?
The most important thing you can do right now is start planning. Think of what you need in order to make that big change in your life. Write a list or draw a picture, just get that vision down and start planning. When you have a goal set, that is when you can start taking the steps needed to achieve it.
You might have to take baby steps like saving a few dollars every paycheck, working another part time job, or studying to gain a new skill for that better job. Whatever it is, write it down and think about the different steps you can start taking to bring you a little bit closer to making that big change.
Will it be hard? Possibly. But what would be harder—trying to create something different, or living the rest of your life feeling trapped and miserable?
It might take a year, two years or more to see significant change in your life, but don’t let that stop you from starting. A year or two will go by whether you make a change or not—you’ll be far happier down the road if you make the effort in the present to work toward a different future.
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Overcoming Shame When You Took a Risk and It Didn’t Work Out
“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” ~Jack Kerouac
There was no denying it. I had reached a dead-end. A year and a half spent living in a southern town that was simply too small for me; it was time to go. I needed a city, preferably a large one filled with numerous opportunities for a budding young writer.
Ironically, the very day it dawned on me that it was time to move to a metropolitan area, love summoned me. It shouted to me from thousands of miles away, beckoning me to change the course of my travels.
My long distance/Californian boyfriend, the one I designated the great love of my life, declared that he wanted to move in with me—to the very place I had deemed to be a dead-end. He was sick of his hometown. He wanted to come to mine so we could finally be together.
I knew I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. I had to make a choice. A city would wait for me; I wasn’t so sure love would.
It took only two months of us living together in Deadendsville for him to suggest that we move. I was hoping he would maybe say Chicago or Boston or New York. Instead, he shocked me by saying he wanted to return to his suburban hometown in Northern California.
I knew he wouldn’t go with me to a big city. He had made up his mind. He wanted me to follow him so he could teach me to surf, so we could camp at Big Sur, so we could have our tanned bodies tangled together every night.
A more sensible person might have ignored such a romantic request, favoring sanity and security over things like sunshine, pheromones, and fun. But I, in my reckless abandonment of all that could potentially shield me from making a poor decision, refused to be sensible. I wanted (more than anything) to be true to my wild heart, which in that moment meant chasing after him.
Like magic, the dead end disappeared and I found myself hurtling at 80 mph across the country toward California. I had no plan. No job lined up. No friends. Heck, I had never even been to the state of California, but there I was, road tripping on some lonely desert highway, pledging my allegiance to the west.
At twenty-eight years old, I knew what was expected of me. I was supposed to be at the very least veering toward adulthood, making responsible decisions, preparing for my future.
All of my peers were getting engaged, making down payments on houses, building their careers. Meanwhile, I was on a mad adventure, whizzing past cacti and mountains, feasting on chips and guacamole, in awe of my own defiant behavior.
Sadly, my fiery romance burned out faster than a campfire in a hurricane, which ultimately spelled out all kinds of trouble for me. I had blown through my savings. I had no vehicle for transportation. No clue where the hell I was going. I also had a hole in my heart the size of Texas. I was beyond lost.
Worst of all, shame swarmed all around me. Loved ones reminding me it was my fault for having such a flimsy plan. My own inner voice reminding me that I should have known better.
I felt too old to be this naive, this bad at protecting myself. I could barely get out of bed, and yet I still had the energy to shame myself over and over again for the foolish choice I had made.
Thankfully, my great aunt (whom I barely knew) invited me to stay on her ranch while I licked my wounds in Southern California.
She too had moved to California in her youth for a love that did not last very long. Apparently, many broken-hearted women in my lineage had sought out comfort in her abode. It’s practically a rite of passage.
Never once did my aunt say anything about my poor planning or taste in men. All she said was, “So what if you didn’t have a plan and you ran off with some jerk? You had an adventure. You come from a line of very strong women. You will get through this.”
There it was. Lo and behold, the tiniest taste of the healing elixir my soul was so desperately thirsting for. I vowed to get well again, to build up my strength, to never again let shame bully me into forsaking my heart.
On the long and winding road to recovering my sense of self-worth, this is what I learned…
Sometimes, we do stupid stuff. We leap before we look. We make unsafe bets. We throw caution to the wind. We let lust lead the way.
It is almost guaranteed that when we take those daring leaps, we become students of humility. We learn why skydivers carry parachutes and trapeze artists have safety nets. We come to understand why for better or worse it is smart to set up certain variables that will help cushion our fall.
And yet, in this great hour of learning, if we forget about the love or the excitement that led us to leap from such great heights, we run the risk of inviting shame into our experience.
When we do that, we make ourselves vulnerable to all sorts of nasty pathogens that seek to attack our inspiration, our courage, our joy.
In case you weren’t aware of it, shame is one of fear’s favorite minions. Fear is very impressed by shame’s innate ability to make even the most gifted human being feel like they have nothing to offer.
Fear and shame have been working together since ancient times, and sadly it does not look like they are going to break contract anytime soon. Together, they create much of the propaganda that has folks like you and me believing that we are the world’s shining examples of failure.
The minute we allow shame to start broadcasting in our brains, there is no telling what other forces will join fear’s army of oppression. Regret. Guilt. Hatred. Disgust. All of them are sadistic opportunists who have no other way of gaining power than feeding off of yours. Still, it is tempting, isn’t it, to invite these ambassadors of fear to keep us company when we are feeling down and out?
You must trust that there is nothing pleasant about having your heart raked over the coals. Nor is there anything so wondrous about sitting with your head hung low sputtering out the words “I’m sorry” or “I shouldn’t have” over and over again. It is actually quite dull. Shame, of course, will try to glamorize the whole act of penance.
Try not to be dismayed by the fact that your thrilling moment of flight was followed by an equally epic fall. So what if the drastic descent blew your self-esteem to bits or fractured the very bones of your dearest relationship? It is not personal. It is not your fault. It is just gravity.
Give the situation some time to heal. If you get lonely, call upon humor, but leave shame out of the picture. I can assure you, shame has no desire to see you put yourself back together.
And what about that choir of onlookers that keeps singing the same four words over and over again: We told you so? Tell them it was one hell of a ride. Tell them you would do it all again—broken bones and all.
Whatever mistake you think you made, whatever wrong turn you might have taken, if it was prompted by the desire to expand your capacity to live fully or love and be loved, then you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You need not repent for a thing. So quit condemning your heart. It is likely that it has suffered enough.
Here is the secret that lovers and fools and risk takers and geniuses have been whispering into one another’s ears for centuries: Never listen to the sober ones who refuse to drink from the cup that is inspiration.
But you, who has gulped your way through life, unafraid to pair the sweet with the sour, you know why you answered the call, though it left you a bit bruised and battered. You know why you chose to move in a direction that was both surprising and intended.
Hold onto that knowing. Protect it at all costs. Defend it with your sole existence. It is the medicine you must take to remember that embracing a path full of possibility and adventure is nothing to be ashamed of.
