Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • Things Change When You Do (and Small Changes Add Up)

    Things Change When You Do (and Small Changes Add Up)

    Man breathing deeply

    “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ~Victor Hugo

    A year-and-a-half ago, I was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Every day, I felt like I was travelling through an endless tunnel. The only way I could fall asleep was by pretending that I was dying.

    My life felt pointless. I felt like I was on the wrong path. The combination of my two mental illnesses made me feel like I was a prisoner in my own body, like I could not control my brain.

    Since this point in time, a lot has changed. My surroundings have changed, my friends have changed, and, most importantly, I have changed.

    It is important for me to mention that these things did not change because someone else forced my life in a different direction. These things did not change because I read a self-help book that inspired me to turn everything around.

    These things changed because, every day, for the past year-and-a-half, I have gotten out of bed with the intention to make small changes in my life.

    These small changes, like microscopic pieces of dirt, added up. They became a mountain of positivity. I would like to share the changes that I have made, with the hope that they will inspire you to be your own hero or heroine, to make your own destiny.

    Take care of yourself first.

    Take a moment to think about how much technology influences your life. How often do you reach for your phone? Are you ever woken up by your phone’s pings and vibrations? Is your computer always on?

    For a long time, I would wake up and reach for my phone or computer. I would anxiously check my messages before I had even washed my face or brushed my teeth.

    Technology prevents us from living in the moment, in the here and now. It prevents us from taking care of ourselves first, especially if you are programmed to instantly respond to the sound of a phone call or text message (like I was).

    Before I go to bed, I turn my laptop off and put my phone on airplane mode. If I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep, I avoid all electronic devices. Instead, I grab a book or meditate.

    In the morning, I wake up. I make myself a cup of tea, eat a healthy breakfast, wash my face, brush my teeth, and do whatever else I need to do to feel ready to face the day.

    Yes, it is hard at first and, yes, avoiding my phone does make me anxious sometimes. But, practice makes perfect. The more we focus on taking care of ourselves, the better able we are to handle the ups and downs of everyday life.

    Start going outside.

    This morning I sat on my front porch with a cup of tea and my dog by my side. I sat there and admired my surroundings, watching cars go by. I even wrote some poetry and doodled away on index cards.

    Spending more time outside reminded me that there is so much to be grateful for. It reminded me that I am a part of something bigger, that I matter.

    The combination of fresh air and sunlight on your skin can work wonders. Feeling the fragrant grass beneath you makes you feel present. Allowing the wind to blow your hair in all directions reminds you that there is something magical about the world that we live in.

    When I am outside, I can let go and let nature take control. I can become a part of the world. In other words, I can let go of my anxiety and just be.

    Pave your own path.

    Growing up, people would always tell me, “Anna, sometimes you have to do things that you don’t want to do.” The problem with this saying is that I had interpreted it all wrong. I had interpreted it as, “Anna, sometimes you have to be unhappy.”

    Yes, there are days when we have to go out of our way to set things in motion. There are days when we have to pay bills, clean our car, and walk our dog even though we are tired.

    But it is important to remember that we should never live our lives in a manner that makes us continually unhappy. We should never work in an office that makes us miserable. We should never do what other people tell us to do because it will “make us money” or “be the right thing.”

    If painting makes you happy, paint. If writing makes you happy, write. If getting up on a stage and dancing makes you happy, do that.

    So what if everyone else is doing something different? So what if people say that you will never make it? At least you will be happy.

    Once you start writing your own story, you will realize that what everyone else is doing does not matter. You will realize that, yes, some days are hard, but, overall, you would not have it any other way.

    Laugh it off.

    For a long time, I cared a lot about what others thought. I dressed a certain way, acted a certain way, and did certain things because I wanted others to think that I was perfect.

    The funny thing is, I succeeded. People thought that I was perfect. That is when I learned that “perfect” does not mean “happy.”

    Slowly, but surely, I adjusted my idea of perfection. Instead of thinking of perfection as this robotic, unflawed form of living, I started to think of perfection as simply living my life: making mistakes, laughing, acting weird, and being myself.

    As someone that used to rely on other people’s opinions, this was hard for me. Over time, I had to learn a hard lesson: not everyone is going to like you and that is okay.

    Replacing my feelings of insecurity with feelings of humor helped a lot. Every time I felt insecure and needy, I laughed. I laughed at the fact that I am weird, goofy, and a little bit crazy. I laughed at the fact that life can be a bumpy ride.

    They say that “laughter is medicine,” and they are right. Laughter can heal even the deepest wounds of insecurity.

    If all else fails, ask for help.

    Going to therapy was scary. Telling a stranger about my problems was difficult. Describing the way that I felt was exhausting.

    But, you want to know something? It all worked out in the end. Therapy made me feel better, it made me feel refreshed and as if I had released all of the negativity from my being.

    Asking for help does not make you weak. As someone who used to be afraid to leave the house, I can say that asking for help took a lot of strength. It can be just as hard as getting up in the morning to face the day.

    The thing about asking for help is that it is a way of saying, “I am not giving up on myself.” To me, that is one the bravest statement of them all.

    I would like to leave you with my favorite quote:

    “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ~Winston Churchill

    Man breathing deeply image via Shutterstock

  • How Stressed You Are

    How Stressed You Are

    How Stressed You Are

    Source: Andy Dooley

  • 4 Things to Keep You Going When You’re Stressed at Work

    4 Things to Keep You Going When You’re Stressed at Work

    Man Meditating at Work

    “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll

    I remember working at a job where I absolutely could not do anything right.

    This was one of those jobs where it was extremely fast paced and you received 100 tons of work that must be completed by an unrealistic deadline. And here’s the kicker: your time at work was spent in meetings, all day. I’m talking about four to seven hours of your day. You get the picture.

    So you may ask when I had time to do the work. Unfortunately, after work hours, in the evenings at home or on the weekends, when I was supposed to be spending time with my family.

    Now don’t get me wrong, at times I was able to steal a half hour to an hour on the job to work on tasks that needed to be completed; however, I found it tough to consistently focus and devote my undivided attention when I was shifting gears all day, every day.

    It almost seemed impossible to win against an environment of nonstop “busyness” with no real progression in sight. I was losing fast.

    I did not perform well during my time there and did not have the impact I thought I would and wanted to have in my work, and within the organization. I failed (or so it seemed to me).

    One day, I finally decided it was time for me to leave. While I initially had mixed emotions about leaving, I knew I wasn’t helping myself by staying at the organization; I was totally out of balance!

    I needed to breathe, I was drowning at work, too busy doing the work at home, not fully paying attention to my daughter, and I became a stressed out monster, having emotional meltdowns far too often.

    Upon leaving, I received a card from my department staff and some people shared their reflections with me, which revealed that I had done so much more than what I knew. How could I have shared my light with others after falling short in my role?

    What I learned is, people are always watching how you respond and react in tough situations. Your character is revealed when going through darkness.

    I was able to reach out to others and bring out the best in them through in-depth conversations during supervision or in morning talks with colleagues. Even though I was dying inside, I always came to work with positive attitude, a smile, and people picked up on that energy.

    I provided guidance to some with their career goals, assisted with developing their voice and professionalism in the work environment. I had somehow helped others become acclimated to the job and feel like they were productive and contributed.

    When I reflected on what kept me going, I remembered the four things listed below were key:

    1. Shift gears with your thoughts.

    We can control our thoughts by monitoring them, and when we find ourselves having negative thoughts, change it to something positive. With self-talk we can be proactive and plant the thoughts we want.

    For example, there were times I would feel sick before heading into the office and I told myself how much I hated being there. But changing my thought from “I don’t want to be here” to “What can I do to help someone today?” allowed me to open myself up to the possibilities for each day.

    2. Meditation is key.

    Spend at least ten minutes in the morning quiet and doing nothing before starting your work; prepare your mind for the day. A prepared mind will help you to sustain the stresses that life will place on you. You will feel the pressure, but when you are mentally prepared it will be much easier to cope with them.

    3. Get pumped up.

    Before heading into the office listen to a song that motivates you, makes you feel good, and will push you. This can be your song of the day to play at your desk to keep you going. Two of my songs were “Happy” by Pharrell and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves.

    4. It is what it is.

    When challenges are out of your control at work, don’t beat yourself up. Accept what it is. By accepting the things that you have no control over, you will have the energy to concentrate on the things that you can control. You will end up maintaining your happiness, and perhaps even your sanity.

    When you find yourself in a situation where there’s too much that you simply cannot accept, or that is unhealthy to accept, it is time to take responsibility for making a change. Instead of staying in a situation that will build bitterness and resentment, start looking for something new that will contribute more positively to your life.

    —

    In the end, through my unhappiness, I had somehow been encouraging, supportive, and motivating to others. I shared my sense of humor and brought out the humor in others. In what I deemed as a professional failing nightmare, I unknowingly had brought positive energy and a boost to others.

    How you respond in tough situations may unknowingly help others, as well.

    Man meditating at work image via Shutterstock

  • Fear Is Inevitable but It Doesn’t Have to Paralyze Us

    Fear Is Inevitable but It Doesn’t Have to Paralyze Us

    Man on Edge of Cliff

    “Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” ~Isabel Allende

    I woke up with a knot at the pit of my stomach, yet again. For as long as I could remember, I carried this intangible lump inside me. It went with me everywhere.

    I am fairly certain it woke up with me, and there was a small span of time when I was in the deepest of sleep when it took a break.

    Terrified—that’s how I felt all the time. Muscles taut and butterflies in my stomach. I was a wreck, ready for a meltdown anytime. It was many years later that I could put a name to it. It was fear.

    Through my teens and twenties, I tried to cope with fear of different kinds—fear of public speaking, fear of authority in school and at work, fear of displeasing someone, fear of saying “no,” fear of not being loved or appreciated, fear of my own shortcomings and their implications on my life…

    The list was very long and I couldn’t articulate it then, which made life much harder.

    Recognition of a problem is always the first step, and it was eluding me. Fear confused me because I could never point it out as that.

    We are not taught how to recognize and deal with fear in schools. (I really wish we were.) It was merely a “physically uncomfortable feeling.” “One day I will figure out what the hell this is.” That’s all I could muster at that time.

    Fear defined me. Omnipresent and overpowering, it was constantly present.

    I never thought I could reach out for help. Approach my parents with a “Mom, Dad, I suffer from great fear—fear of everything”? Nah! And coming out to friends would make me look weak or not good enough. Not happening!

    I often wondered if other people faced anything similar, or was it just me. It isolated me to a corner.

    Then one day, I stood up from the corner. Fear had consumed far too much of my time and I was tired of running from it. And frankly, I didn’t know what else to do.

    I started reading books on fear, watched any video I could find online on the topic, and journaling about my feelings. Devouring every piece of information I could find, I was ready to defeat it. Surprisingly, I started the process of understanding fear instead.

    And then came the AHA moment—the realization that I don’t need to protect myself from fear; I just need to accept it and then let go.

    It comforted me to know that it’s a universal phenomenon and that everybody, including the most successful people in the world, suffer from fear. I was not the only one after all. When fear came in, I knew it was normal to feel it, and the question then was: What am I going to do with it?

    Fear hasn’t left me yet. It drops by every chance it gets. But it’s no longer an enemy. It’s now a sticky friend who needs to be skillfully managed.

    Fear will never not be there, just like different experiences will always bring about the same gamut of emotions in us.

    Fear is largely based on the truths we have told ourselves. It’s a direct outcome of historic data in our minds, making millions of permutations and combinations of stories that may have nothing to do with our lives.

    One step that really helped in my journey was to question the underlying truth every time I experienced fear. A hundred percent of the time, I realized I completely made it up. I made up my “truths.”

    Slowly and steadily, I started changing the building blocks in my mind. For example, if I don’t say my “yes” to my boss for one more piece of work, he will not shoot me!

    Or, if I say “no” to my friend’s invitation, she will not hate me forever. (And even if she does, what’s the underlying truth there?)

    These things are just not factual or realistic; they’re at best hypothetical. The trick is to be honest about the underlying data we harbor. Once that cat is out of the bag, fear is vulnerable.

    What can we do?

    Separate yourself from your fear.

    The first big win is to recognize fear as a separate entity than us. This helps us with objectivity, which is precious in these situations.

    Accept fear.

    Know that fear will always try to sneak in. That’s just what it does. How we respond to it is in our hands.

    Study your fear.

    Really study it. What are you feeling? What is fear threatening you with this time? Is it really true that this can happen? If it does happen, what will it really do to you? Can you deal with what will happen?

    Connect with your soul.

    As long as we are centered and grounded, our soul will guide us. All fear finds its genesis in the risk of losing our lives. When we are really connected to our soul, we realize how formless and indestructible our true selves are. And that sets us free.

    How do we connect with our soul? Silence, prayer, and meditation are three tools that I bring into my days as much as I can. They help me ground and bring alignment into my life

    Last but not the least, be amused.

    Be amused by the heaviness it brings to our lives out of events that may be insignificant in the bigger scheme of things. Being late to a meeting, an uncomfortable conversation, failure of all kinds, they are never really as catastrophic as we make them out to be.

    A more balanced perspective will guide us through those trying times when fear gets the better of us. Let’s understand fear better instead of letting it control us. Life is too short and too beautiful to give in.

    Man on the edge of a cliff image via Shutterstock

  • A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)

    A Reason to Forgive Your Parents (And How to Soften Your Anger)

    “If you cannot forgive and forget, pick one.” ~Robert Brault

    I used to hate my parents.

    I despised them. I blamed them for most of my issues.

    I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in life because they would disapprove of it. I couldn’t be a cop or firefighter because those professions didn’t make enough money. I could only study a major that would be beneficial in getting me a job and not one that they thought was pointless, such as psychology or sociology.

    I hated my dad for never being there when I was a child. I hated him for always getting angry with me and yelling at me and making me go to my room to cry by myself.

    I hated my mom for not sticking up for me. I hated her for not sticking up for herself when my dad would yell at her. I loathed her for her laziness and blamed her for my own because she didn’t teach me to work hard on a task and to persevere through the tough times.

    For a few years I felt this intense dislike of them and never told them. My anger kept building and building, and you know who had to live with it and deal with it? I did.

    I smiled happily toward them and the outside world, but inside I was dying a slow death.

    Dwelling in anger and hate is like drinking a poison that slowly destroys your insides and kills you. There’s a reason why the Jedis in Star Wars say that anger and hate lead you to the dark side.

    The reason is because it will eventually cause you to lash out and cause damage to the people around you.

    And that’s what happened to me. My façade of happiness crashed down upon me after a few rough weeks during my junior year of college. I had a meltdown and attempted suicide.

    Most people will not act as extremely as I did, but that doesn’t mean their pain is any less than mine. I see others who carry lifelong anger and hatred toward their parents because of their childhoods.

    It’s a burden they carry with them, and they cope with it different ways, whether it’s through addiction, working too much, or something else that slowly erodes their insides because they fail to address the anger and hatred there.

    I struggled immensely after my suicide attempt. That first year, though, was when I started to realize something that would change my life for the better.

    Anger and hatred mainly affect the person holding them because they are the one who destroys their life and relationship because of it. You don’t forgive for others’ sake; you forgive for your own.

    When I realized this, I started on the long journey that is forgiveness.

    I wish I could say it is like the movies, but it isn’t, at least not in my experience.

    I have found that forgiveness takes a continual effort over weeks, sometimes months. It’s something you have to consciously do every time your anger arises.

    Your anger and hatred fade away over time as you consciously reframe your thoughts and feelings to ones of forgiveness.

    I started by first writing in my journal about what my parents didn’t give me when I was a child. I don’t mean things; I mean love, affection, and guidance.

    I then started to give myself those things.

    And then I learned how to see things from my parents’ angle and have compassion toward them.

    I realized that their parents didn’t give them all that they needed. I saw that they were just trying their best and they were human like me, which meant that they had flaws and made mistakes.

    I saw that they were every bit as lost as most of us are at times, because life has no guidebook.

    I saw the little child within them.

    As I started to forgive them, I became warmer toward them and appreciated them more. I started to say “I love you” to them, and surprisingly my dad started to say it back. He had never really said it to me before.

    I eventually had a semi-movie moment with my father after months of working on myself. I told him that I hated him for the longest time, that I know he was just trying his best, and that I forgave him for his mistakes. I told him I understood that I was an adult now and was responsible for my future and myself.

    My relationship with him changed dramatically after that moment.

    It isn’t super intimate but it’s better than it ever was. My father has said “I love you” to me without me saying it first. We smile at each other and have made each other laugh.

    I have become close with my mother after forgiving her. I trust her and confide in her about the struggles I go through. I am so grateful to have her in my life.

    I love them both very deeply and none of this would have happened if I didn’t learn to forgive.

    Learn to forgive others if not for their sake, for yours.

    I have learned that as I change for the better, so do all of the relationships in my life.

  • 6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart

    6 Mindful Ways to Calm Your Mind and Heal Your Heart

    “We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present.” –Marianne Williamson

    As the last moments of my thirties are fading away, I’m preparing for the dawn of a new age, the age at which life is said to begin.

    I’m like a butterfly preparing to break free from her chrysalis into the light, ready to spread her wings and feel what it is to be free—a freedom that has been born from six long months of deep introspection.

    The catalyst for this journey of introspection was the breaking of my heart. Such a wonderful thing to experience at this stage in life, as without breaking it completely, it would never have opened.

    It was hardened from many old wounds, scars from a turbulent past. It was shattered with such astounding glory that it felt as though I would remain forever broken. Forever disconnected from myself and the wonder that lives inside each and every one of us.

    As I watched the pieces of my hardened heart crumble to dust, I found something buried deep within. A consciousness that I had never before felt or experienced, and yet felt very familiar. I stood in this new found consciousness and witnessed the feelings, the pain, the fear.

    I witnessed them with great clarity as though I had been awakened for the first time. Thirty-nine years had passed since my birth and yet I stood in the wake of my heartache feeling like I had been awoken from the deepest life-long sleep.

    Within a few days of this awakening, I found myself walking through the doors of a yoga studio that I had not visited before. Something about the ambiance made me feel like I had come home.

    I paid for the next available class—Energize Yoga. This was a Kundalini yoga class, a style I had never tried before. The class involved a lot of breathing with rhythmic movement.

    We all lay on our backs with legs and arms raised in the air. We were instructed to shake our legs and arms from side to side to the beat of some loud dance music which was getting faster and faster. All the while we had to breathe out forcefully; this was difficult and made no sense to me.

    After five minutes of this nonsense, the music stopped. We were instructed to put our legs and arms down and to laugh as hard as we could. It was easy to laugh, as what we had been doing seemed a little crazy; however, I was not prepared for the laughter and what it would bring.

    The energy that spilled out of my body as my laugh got deeper was like the pulse of electricity straight from a socket, almost causing my core muscles to spasm. I laughed a loud bubbly laugh which came all the way from the very core of my being.

    I left the studio with a monthly pass and a renewed enthusiasm for life. My heart was still broken, my senses still in shock, but the clarity of vision in my newly awakened state made it feel like I was watching the chaos as an observer rather than being consumed by it.

    I could still feel panicked waves of desperation pulse through my body. Depressed at what had passed and anxious at what was yet to come, I could see clearly that there was fear deeply rooted in my soul.

    The pain, the fear, the anxiety, it made me want to climb out of my own skin. To seek refuge in some external place as though my body were just an avatar. As I witnessed all these feelings and emotions wash over me in waves, I felt something was profoundly different.

    I’d dealt with previous heartbreaks by suppressing the painful feelings or distracting myself with work, parties, and avoidance of time alone. This time was different. Instead of suppressing the feelings or distracting myself, I allowed myself to just be.

    I still felt afraid. Afraid of living, afraid of dying, afraid of my pain, afraid of my emotions. On a cold morning in February, I decided to symbolically challenge my fears. I had a fear of height and of open water.

    I traveled back to Ireland, and with the guidance and encouragement of two dear friends, I jumped from a pier into the icy cold waters of Carlingford bay. As I emerged from the icy cold waters, I again felt very alive.

    I proved to myself that no fear is greater than the strength within. I knew then that I would be okay, maybe even better than okay. My life would never be the same again.

    When my heart broke, I woke up and found myself. In losing a love that meant everything to me, I found that everything I need is within me and always has been.

    I stopped looking outwardly for approval. I dove into myself. I dug up all that I had buried, every skeleton in my closet. I looked face-on at the parts of myself that I didn’t like. I opened every wound I had ever allowed myself to carry.

    I walked myself through every negative memory and imagined I were back there in that day/time when the memory was my reality. For each and every situation I observed through my new found consciousness, I could clearly see my part.

    I accepted responsibility for my part in all of these situations. I sat with every emotion that came my way, not judging or criticizing, just observing and allowing it to just be.

    I cried when I needed to cry, laughed when I felt like laughing and felt more peaceful with each passing day.

    I began meditation in April and found that it brought a calmness and sense of peace that was new to my experience. Epiphany after epiphany came to me as I learned about myself and my layers.

    I continued to do yoga and meditation while working through the rainbow of emotions that made up my day. The flip-flopping between my past and my future slowed as I found myself becoming more present and living in the moment.

    The more at peace I have become, the more I want to share what I have learned, as I believe everyone deserves to feel this peace.

    1. Start with your breath.

    A great way to become conscious when your mind starts to wander is to focus on your breath.

    You can practice yogic pranayama exercises with the guidance of a good teacher but more basic than that, just stop and breathe! Deep calming breaths are proven to calm an anxious mind and have a positive impact on depression.

    2. Observe your thoughts.

    The mind is constantly full of thoughts. Attaching to negative thoughts creates suffering. Remember that just because you think something doesn’t mean that it’s true. Byron Katie’s four questions can be a helpful tool when dealing with negative thoughts.

    3. Remember that you are not your emotions.

    Regardless if how high or low you feel, the roller-coaster of emotions you feel is not you. You are much more than that.

    Try to stop when you feel overwhelmed by emotion. Observe how your body feels. Are your shoulders tense? Is your breathing shallow? Come back to your breath. Breathe into the parts of the body where you feel the physical expression of the emotion.

    4. Stay in your present reality.

    The more present and mindful you can be, the less you will suffer. A good practice for mindfulness is to do regular things differently. Hold your toothbrush in the alternate hand. Drive a different route to work. Switch your knife with your fork. You get the idea!

    When you stress over the past or worry about the future, stop! Breathe and come back to the present. Remember always that this too shall pass.

    5. Validate yourself.

    Don’t look to others for validation. Everything you need is inside you. Forgive yourself for your wrongdoings. Give yourself all the love you need. If you have difficulty with this, treat yourself as you would your dearest friend.

    I was my own worst critic and harshest judge until I began to practice self-validation and self-love.

    6. Be patient and persistent.

    Healing your heart won’t happen overnight. We are creatures of habit; negative habits take time to break. Rewriting of neural pathways takes time. Your body and mind need time to adjust when you make changes.

    When you feel like you have taken a step backwards, just breathe and reconnect with yourself. The duality that exists between the heart and the mind can be bridged once you remain conscious and aware. Persistence will keep you on the right track.

    As I write this, I feel excited for the life ahead—ready for the highs and the lows, and willing to greet each situation from a conscious state in the present moment.

    I am opening my heart to the world, a heart that has come back together from the dust, void of past scars. Ready to live, ready to love, ready to breathe!

  • Life is a Gift: How to Enjoy It and Find Happiness After a Tragic Loss

    Life is a Gift: How to Enjoy It and Find Happiness After a Tragic Loss

    Man Enjoying the Moment

    “If we could see that everything, even tragedy, is a gift in disguise, we would then find the best way to nourish the soul.” ~Elizabeth Kubler Ross

    Sometimes a tragedy can give new energy to life and bring awareness we have been living on autopilot.

    I still remember the night like it was yesterday. It was late and my husband and I had just turned off the light when my phone rang. It was my aunt saying my dad pushed his life alert and was transported to the hospital.

    I fumbled to find my clothes and hurried to the car. The drive to the hospital was a blur. I found my dad in the emergency room smiling. He proudly told me the “people” wouldn’t leave his house, so he pushed the button on his necklace for help.

    My dad suffered from Lewy Bodies Dementia. It is a fast acting dementia that includes hallucinations, sleeping disorders, and mental decline.

    When my dad pushed his life alert button on my advice, it was the precursor to his tragic death. I felt like it was my fault.

    I told him to push his button whenever he needed help and we weren’t around. On this night, the hallucinations were bad enough for him to push the button just like I asked him to do.

    Once transported to the hospital, he was admitted for observation and regulation of his medicine. The wrong medication was prescribed and my father never recovered. He eventually slipped into a coma and passed away.

    When tragic events happen, they are not our fault. It is human nature to blame ourselves when in reality there is nothing we could have done differently to change the outcome.

    Still, at the time my mind was tormented. If I had only been there, if I had taken him to the doctor sooner, if I had known they were going to change his medicine. The what if’s were the hardest part.

    Stages of grief will come and go. Allow yourself to embrace the stages as you move through them. They are part of the healing process that eventually brings a sense of happiness.

    After my Dad’s death I went through the many stages of grief. Not in any order. I bounced from stage to stage and back again.

    The death of a loved one is a personal journey. No two people go through it the same way.

    Some people internalize emotions and try to work through them alone. Others go through the stages of grief for all to see. Some ignore the emotions and never find closure. Ignoring pain deprives your soul of the nourishment a loss can bring.

    Regardless of how you navigate the stages of grief, it is the right way.

    For me, it was a combination. I worked through most of it privately, but sometimes I needed to talk. I reflected a lot. I remembered happy times and times I wished I could take back.

    I went through his belongings reflectively and learned much about him. He kept beanies, pictures of classmates, and perfect attendance pins from grade school. I found them, along with every card I had ever given him. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, just because cards. All placed together in a drawer like they were great treasures.

    I felt overwhelmingly loved. It was at that time I was hit with an epiphany.

    It would make him sad to know that I blamed myself. He wanted me to be happy.

    When a tragic event happens, it is not our fault. The best thing we can do is honor the person we lost by living our lives to the fullest. After all, wouldn’t that be our wish for them?

    A peace came over me. It was clear. I understood that I was supposed to honor him by living my life to the fullest, appreciating every waking moment and all of the people around me that make my life special.

    Life is a gift. We never know when or how it will end. To honor ourselves, and those that love us, it is important to be true to ourselves and do the things that bring us happiness.

    I started doing the things that I had always wanted to do. I finished college, began writing, signed up for Jon Morrow’s course on guest blogging to help polish my skills, traveled more, and tried new things.

    I also learned that stopping to appreciate the small things around me. I saw them before but on autopilot. I never really stopped to appreciate their beauty.

    Through this tragedy I have found the keys to happiness: love yourself, appreciate the little things, forgive yourself for things that have already happened, and show love all those around as if it were your last day.

    Although this was a time of great sadness, it was also an unexpected time of personal growth, which resulted in a more meaningful life.

    As a result of this tragedy, I learned how to appreciate life and the people who love me, but most of all, I learned how to love myself and grant myself forgiveness.

    I think my Dad would be proud of me. I see him every time I look in the mirror. When I smile, it is him smiling back at me.

    Man enjoying the moment image via Shutterstock

  • Keep Hope Alive: How To Help Someone Who’s Struggling

    Keep Hope Alive: How To Help Someone Who’s Struggling

    “He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything.” ~Proverb

    I write this today seemingly healthy.

    My doctors say I’m healthy. I feel healthy. I look healthy. But over the last six months this was not the case.

    In April of this year I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma. I am thirty-five years old. I am a wife and a mother to a four-year-old and six-year-old. I have my own business. I am busy. I did not have time for cancer.

    But cancer had time for me.

    I’ll never forget the day that I got the call letting me know that not only did I have this “Melanoma,” but it had spread to my lymph nodes as well. More surgery and an immunotherapy called “interferon” would be necessary, and the rate of return even after treatment? Thirty percent.

    The first response inside of me was acceptance. I skipped past all the other emotions because, well, quite frankly, I had so long neglected the mole on my neck that I knew when the whole process started that cancer (and an advanced one at that) was likely.

    But I’m not here to talk about cancer today. I’m here to talk about hope. A hope that springs eternal in the name of community. A rallying around me of family, friends, and even strangers upon this diagnosis. A support system that boldly lifted me and my mindset through every step of the way.

    Dinners, childcare, cards, surprises on my doorstep, texts, calls, long-term visits—this community that I’m so very blessed with rallied in a big way, in a way I never, ever thought possible.

    Even in my darkest and sickest of hours there was always something to be hopeful for because the love that came at me was indescribable.

    It was made of sterner stuff.

    It gave me hope because every time I even remotely started feeling bad, the community would take hold and lift me up in ways that were exactly what I needed right in the moment that I needed it.

    My phone would buzz: “Thinking of you today. Hoping you’re okay. Sending love your way.”

    My email would ding: “You’re amazing through this. Truly.”

    Visitors would stop by: “Let yourself be loved. Let yourself be cared for.”

    This whole cancer thing has taught me, once again, in the beauty of humanity. It has shown me that, even in our darkest hours, others can (and will) lift our spirits. When we are faced with our hardest struggles, it is then that we see the beauty in all that surrounds us.

    Cancer is a bringer of all emotions. It is an un-hinger of all truths and perceptions. Things that once were important are no longer relevant. There is suddenly more beauty in the everyday.

    This I learned not only because I was sick, but because my family, my friends, and perfect strangers showed me how to someday support someone in the same way they supported me.

    So I offer you this: a list of ways to show your support when someone is having a hard time or is going through an illness.

    Make a meal even when they say they don’t need it.

    This was lifesaving for me! Drop it on the doorstep and tell them to freeze it.

    Send texts.

    Little joy buzzes, I like to now call them, sweet messages offering support, jokes, and updates from the outside world.

    Leave a message.

    Hearing the voices of my friends and family as I drifted in and out of consciousness (the treatment I had to endure was five days a week for four weeks, and it was tough) was the most uplifting.

    Drop off trinkets.

    There were times when I was well enough to go outside and sit for a bit in the summer sun. Often, I would find little gifts at my doorstep. I see these now in my office, in my home, in my bedroom, and they make me smile thinking of those who dropped them by.

    Don’t give up quickly.

    Whatever support you would like to offer, know that there may be some “Oh, we couldn’t possibly” or “That’s okay—we’re okay.” People often say this when they could really use the support, so it helps to offer more than once and be clear that you really want to be there for them.

    Help delegate tasks.

    Create a rotating schedule for bringing meals, giving rides, and offering help.

    Admit that it stinks—empathize and then uplift.

    Something from the emotional perspective that I learned during my cancer diagnosis and treatment was that when I told someone about it, they often didn’t know what to say. There was always a silence and then a pause. A loss for words.

    We naturally want to make things “better” and keep it upbeat, which can go a long way in lifting someone’s spirit. That being said, the very first thing I loved hearing from family and friends before the upbeat was “Wow. This sucks.”

    Those words allowed me to connect emotionally with my supporters. Even if they had never had cancer or had never gone through something like this before, the fact that the words were out there anchored me into a place where I could then build up with hope.

    The best response I heard from a friend was this: “This sucks. I don’t like it. It’s going to be hard, but we will get through it and you’re not alone.” So, when in doubt empathize and then offer support.

    Stay long-term if you can.

    If you are able, try and be with your loved ones during the most difficult times. Stay for two days, a week, whatever works. This reprieve is huge.

    Ask yourself: What would I want?

    And then do that very thing.

    Community support can provide a lot of hope, and as the quote says: “He who has hope has everything.”

    As I ride the wave of newfound health, I know deep down that I have a net of support that. If the cancer returns, I’ll still have a battalion of loved ones behind me and they’ll help me keep hope alive.

  • We Don’t Need to Change to Please Other People

    We Don’t Need to Change to Please Other People

    “One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t have to like everyone, everyone doesn’t have to like us, and it’s perfectly OK.” ~Unknown

    I am thankful from the bottom of my heart to that relative who dislikes me.

    As Mother Teresa famously said, “Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.”

    She came in my life as a lesson. The more she dislikes me, the more I love myself and appreciate those who love me.

    This carefree attitude didn’t come overnight. I had to go through a tough phase first. Each day I felt bad about myself, cried a lot, and blamed myself for this messy relationship, and for failing to save it.

    “There are hundreds of people who like me for who I am, so why doesn’t she like me?” I asked myself several times.

    I practiced being who I thought she wanted me to be. Still, despite giving my best to that relationship she always criticized me, and I never received a single word of appreciation. I allowed myself to take it because I thought that one day she’d realize her mistake and start liking me. “One day” never came.

    The day she used disrespectful words while talking to me, I decided not to let her drain my energy anymore.

    During this phase of my life, I lost connections with all my friends and relatives because I was so unhappy with myself that I didn’t feel like engaging with anyone.

    Thankfully, some relationships are beyond formalities. Even if you don’t make the effort to connect with them, they are always there for you to love you, support you in your tough times, and bring you back on track. I call them soul-to-soul connections, and I am lucky to have those people in my life.

    Sometimes it becomes important to see yourself through the eyes of people who truly like you and accept you wholeheartedly.

    I shifted my attention to them and started analyzing why they like me. I even made a list of things people like about me.

    I desperately wanted to be that person again who was known for her smile, warmth, and jovial nature. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling upset and bad about myself.

    Being a psychology graduate, it’s my hobby to study and analyze others’ behavior. I couldn’t resist doing that with the person who dislikes me. I noticed that she has a habit of complaining about everything in her life. And everything has to be her way.

    Everyone in her family conformed to her way of doing things because they wanted to please her. Since I never did that, I couldn’t fit in her idea of a perfect relationship.

    It reminds me of something my boss once said: “Don’t make your problem my problem.”

    I realized that it wasn’t me; it was her insecurities.

    She wanted to maintain her authoritative style of leading the family. She thought that if I did not follow her, she would lose her importance. That’s why she wanted me to change my lifestyle.

    She expected everyone to follow her ideologies and prioritize things she wanted. She compared me with those who always followed her and never questioned her way of doing things. And she started disliking me just because my lifestyle, priorities and ideologies were different from hers.

    It was wrong on my part to expect that everyone should like me. It’s human nature to want people to like us, but it’s not healthy to dwell if they don’t.

    I learned from this bitter experience that you cannot force anyone to like you, but you can like yourself for who you are. How others will perceive you is none of your business. As long as you are happy and satisfied with yourself, you are good to go.

    Change yourself if you have a good reason, but not to please anyone else.

    Another important lesson I learned that if someone is not happy with herself and her life, no one can make her happy. As Marcus Aurelius correctly said, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

    I learned my lesson and decided to move on. My life started rocking again. I started connecting with my old friends, family, and made new friends.

    The moment I changed my actions and started doing things that make me happy I noticed a ripple effect. I became the same old person, laughing, giggling, and enjoying life to the fullest. The same can happen for you if you stop focusing on others and start focusing on yourself.

  • 4 Ways to Have More Affectionate, Loving Relationships

    4 Ways to Have More Affectionate, Loving Relationships

    Couple Hugging

    “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

    This morning I was busy French pressing coffee for my husband and me. Everything was going great; I was happily humming along, looking forward to starting my day. My lovely husband came up behind me and bear hugged me gently.

    Now, I’ll admit that I don’t usually take this well when I’m in the middle of something. If I’m cooking (which I’m particularly serious about), I’ve been known to push him away and say something along the lines of “I’m cooking! Back!”

    This is not sensitive or caring. It’s more of a “get-off-me-I’m-working” reaction that I’ve been working on.

    To my husband’s credit, he usually responds fine and continues about his business seemingly undeterred from future affection. I apologize later, and he doesn’t seem to take offense.

    After an interaction like this, I feel embarrassed and ashamed of how I’ve responded to his attempts at closeness. I worry that if I keep pushing him away, eventually he’ll just stay away for good. The very idea itself makes me feel sad and repentant.

    Today, however, when he came over and hugged me from behind, I had enough good sense not to push him away.

    I took the opportunity for some bonding time with him, which made my morning. I actually had to have the conscious thought that I should stop the urge to push him away and instead be receptive.

    Instead of getting caught up in what I was doing, I stopped myself and let him foster closeness between us.

    Today, I was receptive.

    Today, I let myself get swept up in the moment instead of worrying about the coffee getting cold, or burning dinner, or the myriad of other little nagging things that seem more important in the sweet little moments like this.

    My priorities are woefully out of whack if I think that preventing my coffee from getting cold is more important than connecting with someone who isn’t afraid to come over to me for the 4,345 time when I’m in the middle of something, even though he knows he’s likely to get the cold shoulder.

    What if one day he gives up? I’ll admit, I probably would have given up already if I were him. It’s embarrassing to admit that my skin isn’t nearly as thick as his has been when it comes to affection.

    In fact, so often, haven’t I shown through my actions that a deeper connection was not my priority?

    That admission stings. If I’m really honest, in the past, a lack of mindfulness about how I handle affection has led me to prioritize tons of things above my relationships. I have allowed things of little importance to often take priority over connecting with the people who I love most.

    How often do we push our partners away and refuse to connect without quite seeing it that way? How often do we reject their advances, when if we thought about it, we actually desire more closeness? How long do we have before we push the other person away forever, only to wonder later what went wrong?

    Of course, I never consciously intend to make my partner feel rejected, but how often do I reject him anyway, bumbling through our life together? How often could I be nicer, or less stressed, or more receptive?

    How often do the people in our lives who are most important to us suffer because we are too busy, or too clueless to notice?

    No matter what the reason is, what if we’re sacrificing the everyday events that have lasting potential to bring us closer?

    I can do big things that are meant to connect with my partner. For example, I can suggest and plan out a weekly date nights, but if I’m downright cold and repellant in the tender, everyday moments that are his idea, pretty soon, I will drive away the very connection that I truly long for.

    It won’t matter if we try to formally “plan” times to be affectionate or if I make sure to approach him often on my own terms.

    What if we’re doing this not just with our intimate partners, but also with the rest of the important people in our lives? What if we’re providing negative reinforcement when, if we were more conscious of it, we would actually want to allow more closeness?

    It’s so common to take the closest relationships in our lives for granted. That’s why it’s so vitally important to take the time to nurture the little connections that we have with each other, every day. In this way, love is a practice, just like connection takes practice.

    It’s the small things, once again, that truly matter with someone we love. It’s taking the time to listen to them when we’re tired and would rather do something else. It’s not shutting them down when they show us little acts of affection. It’s receptivity and openness to connection, as well as getting our priorities straight.

    Since I’ve been struggling to change this reluctance to connect on someone else’s terms, here are four things that I’ve learned help to bring someone closer in the moment.

    1. Awareness.

    Notice the ways, both small and large, in which others try to create connections with you. If we wait for them to approach us perfectly or in the exact moments we’re thinking about it, we miss so much.

    2. Receptivity.

    Being aware is important, but so is being receptive to a connection. If we acknowledge and then open ourselves to connecting with others, it’s clearly going to foster more connection than if we are aware but not receptive (like my cooking example above).

    Being receptive involves staying aware of the greater good in our most important relationships, namely saying “yes” to more love, more connection, and more closeness from others. It’s not turning down the hug or pushing someone away in the moment. It’s apologizing if we fail at these things.

    3. Appreciation.

    Appreciation is key to positively reinforcing someone’s attempts to get closer to us. If I allow myself to be selfish or distracted and fail to positively acknowledge my partner’s attempts to connect with me, I’m not only pushing him away in that moment, but I’m effectively blocking future connection.

    If I don’t nurture the connections that matter the most to me, I won’t have connections with the people I love. That is the inevitable, preventable, awful consequence of failing to provide positive reinforcement.

    This is about recognizing the little things, with heartfelt thank you’s and big hugs. It’s having an eye toward acknowledging people’s efforts, and providing them with a positive experience when they interact with me.

    4. Reciprocity.

    Rather than saving up our affection and positive attention for when we’re really feeling it (or say, date night), maybe it’s better to make a practice of reciprocating our partner’s affections even when we’re tired, distracted, or not quite interested.

    Giving them the gift of our attention is such a strong tool for nurturing them and the relationship that it shouldn’t be saved for the exact, right moment when we feel like sharing our affections. Maybe it’s more effective to resolve to share and connect with the people we care about whenever they reach out to us.

    And… try not to push your spouse away when they’re happily giving you a bear hug.

    Couple hugging image via Shutterstock

  • Make the Most of Today

    Make the Most of Today

    Make the Most of Today

    Source: Power of Positivity

  • Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

    Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

    Happy Woman on Grass

    “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    We have this strange need or conditioning to not take responsibility for our own happiness. We expect it to come from an outside source.

    It can happen, but it’s fleeting. True happiness has to come from within.

    True happiness comes from a connection to our true being.

    Years ago my family and I took our dog to obedience school, and the trainer told us, if we have more than one dog, to never let them share a crate. Yes, they would become best friends, even inseparable. Then one of them would die and the other would be completely heartbroken.

    Imagine putting all your happiness on another person. This could be a friend or a soul mate. You share your dreams, relying on each other for companionship and future plans. Then tragedy happens, a split of some kind.

    It’s natural to be heartbroken when you lose someone you love—but how could you survive this if all your happiness was contained in this one person?

    This same thing can happen with the material world. We easily put our happiness on getting that prized possession, the big house, the new car, or a job that we think we want.

    I spent most of my life up until now in the shadow of fleeting happiness. It followed me everywhere.

    It started when I was young. I searched for acceptance. I did ridiculous things to my hair, and I lost my virginity way too young. I thought these things would bring me a sense of happiness, but I never felt truly happy.

    Then my young adult self emerged still on the search for “when.” When I get to do this… when I go here… when I do that… then I will finally be happy.

    I spent my days waiting for various things to happen, to in turn bring me the happiness I longed for.

    I married young. I moved to a city that wasn’t conducive to my nature. I got the corporate job that would make me feel established, following society’s definition of success.

    With two young kids I moved to a way too expensive house that fit the mold of a successful, acceptable young adult. And—gasp—I bought a minivan. I was a mom, after all. Wasn’t this my road to happiness?

    With all these misguided beliefs of happiness under my belt, the waves of discontent still threatened to drown me. I kept treading water with no movement.

    I realized in time the truth behind my happiness, and it didn’t lie in things or people or society’s definitions. I had always had the ability to feel happy; I just hadn’t realized it.

    I realized it when I was able to accept myself, fully, in who I was.

    I realized I didn’t need to edit who I was. I was able to look in the mirror and see the perfectness in all my imperfections. I was able to go to a social event and be okay with myself sitting quietly in the corner. I learned to just be without worry or concern about what others thought. I was okay just being me.

    I would often find myself sitting quietly, taking it all in. These were the mindful moments that allowed me to acknowledge all that was around me. And you know what? It was full.

    The world was full of the richness of life—nature, people, laughter, smiles, wind, noise, and breath. I started to notice my breath and breathe a little deeper in gratitude for all the experiences of my life. The realization came with a flood of tears, joy, and intense connection…with myself.

    We believe in a happiness that really doesn’t exist. We search for it in many ways, rarely finding it in the form we are seeking.

    Happiness can sometimes comes from things. “When I get this car, or these shoes, or this job, man, will I be happy.” And you do, you get the position and you drive to your new job in your new car with your shiny new shoes on.

    The world is oh so perfect. It couldn’t get any better. Then the company you work for goes bankrupt, you can no longer afford your car, and now you have no place to wear your shoes.

    Are you happy anymore? Not if you banked all your happiness in those fleeting things.

    But let’s say you already discovered true happiness from deep within your soul and felt happy with yourself. Then you got your dream job. Would you be happier?

    You might feel more fulfilled but not happier, because your inner happiness was already infinite. If you lost your job, would some of your happiness diminish? No. You might feel disappointed but you wouldn’t lose your happiness because it was already infinite.

    Your happiness cannot come from the outside world. It must come from within you.

    When you are able to acknowledge that happiness already resides in you, a pressure will release because you’ll no longer feel ruled by your ego’s need for more.

    Still, it is important to know that true happiness may not always feel great. Realizing true happiness doesn’t mean you will be skipping through a field of daisies without a care in the world.

    You will have bad days. You will feel overwhelmed with normal life at times. You may even look beyond the horizon to see what lies ahead. This is all okay.

    Happiness doesn’t have to look like a storybook. Happiness is simply the realization that life is just fine as it is.

    You’ll experience true happiness when you allow yourself to be content in your true self, recognize the innate greatness of the world that surrounds you, and know that the people and things in your life hold no power over you. You are the master of your happiness.

    You are already complete. When you realize this, there will be happiness in everything you do.

    Smiling woman on grass image via Shutterstock

  • Why Joy Trumps Happiness (And 3 Ways to Coax It Into Your Life)

    Why Joy Trumps Happiness (And 3 Ways to Coax It Into Your Life)

    Man and Pink Sky

    “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” ~Henri Nouwen

    Once upon a time I was on a relentless hunt for happiness. I’d root around for it in romantic relationships, search for it in visits to exotic locales, and scour self-help sections of bookstores, hoping to run across a volume that, once and for all, would reveal its thorny secrets.

    The books I read said happiness couldn’t be found outside of me, but I was always skeptical of that advice. I longed to believe that if I got what I wanted in life I’d be like a winner on “The Price is Right”—jumping up and hugging perfect strangers.

    When I turned forty, I had the chance to test that theory: Through a series of incredible circumstances, I got almost everything I’d ever wished for. I met and married an amazing man, came into inheritance, and achieved my lifelong goal of publishing a novel.

    I was surprised to discover that my happiness still depended on outside events in my life.

    Great book review? Crack open the bubbly! Bad day at the stock market? Sequester myself in the bathroom with a package of Fudge-Covered Oreos. But, to be honest, my life was so fast-paced and drama-filled that I didn’t have the time or the inclination to think about the matter too deeply.

    Fast forward five years and my winning streak came to an end. I found myself without a new book contract, my grown son sank into a deep depression, and my dearest and oldest friend and I grew apart.

    My slew of bad luck forced me to slow down and become a seeker again. I continued to investigate the happiness conundrum and eventually came across this quote from Danielle LaPorte, “Happiness is like rising bubbles—delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen—ever present.”

    Bingo! All my life I’d been stalking the wrong thing. Instead of chasing after happiness, I needed to find ways to allow more joy into my life.

    1. Living in the present moment.

    Over the next few months I devoured at least a dozen metaphysical books, and I undertook a variety of spiritual practices: visualization, affirmations, gratitude journals, vision boards, and a few other things a little too woo-woo to mention.

    While I found value in many of those activities, I didn’t experience drastic change until I practiced mindfulness. Now I meditate fifteen minutes daily and make a point to be mindful throughout the day.

    Chores I used to dislike are now exercises in staying in the present moment. Instead of my usual kvetching about laundry (who goes through ten towels in three days?) I slow down and pay attention to the task and the accompanying sensory details, i.e., the lemony smell of the detergent, the comforting warmth of the clothes out of the drier, the swishing rhythm of the agitator.

    When grumbles arise, I note their existence but try not to get caught up in them.

    Zen masters clang gongs to remind students to be mindful; I use a timer on the computer. I set it every twenty-five minutes, and when it buzzes, I check in on myself.

    This is great habit to start. When the timer goes off, ask yourself, am I present? Or am I embroiled in regrets about the past or schemes about the future? The more time we spend in the present moment, the more joyful we feel.

    2. Avoiding the dramas of the ego.

    It used to be that when something went haywire in my life, I’d fly to the phone or Facebook, eager to broadcast my wounds. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with venting. Wasn’t that healthier than letting my injuries fester?

    Not necessarily. Through my mindfulness practice I’ve learned that it’s best not to get caught up in the ego’s drama.

    When something goes wrong in my life (that guy cut me off in traffic!), my ego loves to rush to the scene, causing a commotion. Now I keep a journal of my ego’s triggers so I know when I’m most likely to be yanked into its mischief-making.

    Three centering techniques have worked for me: First, pay attention to your breathing, noting inhales and exhales.

    Next, get in touch with your body, connecting with the energy within and staying alert to any automatic responses. Is your throat constricted? Are your shoulders tense? Is there smoke coming out of your ears?

    Finally, listen. Can you hear the refrigerator running or the traffic outside?

    These three practices slow us down so we can avoid getting entangled in ego-based thoughts.

    Additionally we might want also want to refrain from complaining or gossiping, even about piddling things. It may seem harmless to say to a friend “Could this grocery line get any longer? And what’s with the woman buying ten cartons of Ben and Jerry’s?”

    Unfortunately, such behavior strengthens the ego. The limited rewards we get from gossiping and griping are outweighed by the joy we’ll find when we eliminate them from our lives. 

    3. Deep listening.

    When I quit complaining and prattling on about other people, I thought, “What’s left to talk about?” Recently I found the answer: Whenever I’m in the company of others, I practice deep listening.

    Deep listening requires total attention to what the other person is saying, and it’s so focused it involves the entire body. Our own thoughts will constantly arise, eager to butt in, but try using one of the previously mentioned centering techniques to shush them.

    If we practice deep listening our interactions with other people will become much more authentic and yes, far more joyful. 

    The Rewards of a Joyful Life

    I’ve been inviting joy in my life now for almost two years. Does that mean I shun happiness? Of course not. Happiness is always welcome.

    It’s penny candy raining from a piñata. It’s the burst of light from a sparkler. It’s the magician’s bouquet of flowers, blossoming into a dove. But I now understand happiness’s limitations and am no longer expecting more from it than it can give.

    I’ve also come to discover that joy, unlike happiness, is not elusive or subject to the whims of fate. Joy is what kindles within us once we give up our resistance to the present moment and our demands that life do our bidding.

    Ironically, when we quit expecting life to be a certain way, life seemed to naturally align itself with our preferences.

    In fact, in recent months, my son’s psychological problems receded, two books contracts materialized, and my relationship with my best friend healed. However, even if nothing had changed or if my fortunes had soured, it wouldn’t be a disaster.

    If we allow joy into your lives, we’ll no longer be buffeted about by life’s circumstances. As Eckhart Tolle says, “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

    Joy is our natural state; we all have access to it, no matter what craziness happens in our lives.

    Man and pink sky image via Shutterstock

  • Your Ability to Heal

    Your Ability to Heal

    Your Ability to Heal

  • Taking the Shame and Fear Out of Mistakes

    Taking the Shame and Fear Out of Mistakes

    Ashamed

    “The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

    There have been times in my life when I knew I was stuck, but instead of dealing with it I chose to backpedal to the “safest bet” for me at the time, whether it was the steady paycheck from a soul-crushing job or an abusive relationship.

    Then, one day, I suddenly realized that I had spent precious years just going through the motions.

    One reason I had gotten so stuck was because I had been trained from early childhood to avoid making any sort of mistake at all.

    In the first grade, I cut my ankle playing on a swing set. It quickly became so infected that I had to be hospitalized for many weeks.

    I have blocked most of this from my memory, but my family tells me that I became very sick with osteomyelitis, which is an infection that reaches the bone. The doctors weren’t sure if my leg would need to be amputated or not.

    My parents admit to me now that they had been very afraid that I was going to die.

    Luckily, I recovered after an operation designed to help remove the infection instead of an amputation. Even so, they continued to operate from a place of fear and vigilantly protected me from the possibility of getting hurt.

    My five-year-old self misinterpreted their wishes to keep me safe to mean that I was supposed to be perfect.

    So, instead of moving forward, learning, and possibly harmlessly tripping up somewhere along the way, I learned to look for the sure thing, the safe harbor. The perfect choice became inaction.

    We often won’t change until the situation becomes intolerable.

    It’s like the urban legend of the frog in a pan of water under a Bunsen burner in a laboratory somewhere. The temperature of the water is gradually increased until the frog slowly boils to death, unconsciously, or at least until the frog suddenly becomes conscious enough to realize that it is too late to jump.

    The frog legend illustrates that if something were immediately intolerable, we would effortlessly change.

    But when the change happens so very gradually, we often aren’t aware that the situation has morphed into something completely intolerable.

    I was never allowed to skip and fall when I was a child. Although my parents loved me, after my hospital stay they were filled with fear that something would harm me again.

    If something went wrong, then one of them would have to rescue me. Worse than that, I was lectured so much about the dangers of failing at something that I often didn’t even try to begin. It was so much easier that way.

    Since I never learned how to handle mistakes and failing, I kept doing the things I considered safe, easy, and predictable.

    By protecting myself from falling, failing, or feeling uncomfortable, I became stuck in the place of not trying. I inadvertently had set up my life so there were no surprises and no chances of making a mistake.

    By doing that, I was limiting my learning and my evolution. Life became predictable and stagnant. I had essentially become my own boiling frog. Only recently have I jumped.

    I’ve learned that I need to make mistakes and face failure if I’m going to make any changes in my life. Here is what I have learned about failure and mistakes:

    1. View mistakes as learning experiences and stepping-stones to get where you want to go.

    “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~Thomas Edison

    We all make mistakes when we are learning. It’s the forward motion that’s important, no matter how small.

    2. Stop comparing yourself to others.

    “Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

    We often have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and compare ourselves to those with much greater expertise when we are just beginning. Even the experts made mistakes when they were learning.

    3. Mistakes are seldom fatal.

    “Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” ~Al Franken

    You will live. It’s important to learn to admit that we are human, we make mistakes, and we learn from them. Mistakes are about learning, not about shame.

    4. It takes guts to get up wherever you may fall, brush yourself off, and to try again.

    “The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.” ~Brené Brown

    If the direction you are going is true to your heart, you simply need to keep honing your skills.

    5. If you are truly not learning and you keep making the same mistakes, it may be the truth coming out.

    “The most confused you will get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something your mind knows is a lie.” ~Shannon L. Adler

    Almost always, it doesn’t work because it isn’t beneficial for you. Move on in a completely different direction. At the time, we may consider what happened to be a failure, but it is almost always a blessing in disguise.

    The only way we can become unstuck is through movement. And, when we move in any direction, we will invariably make mistakes and experience failure along the way. But is it really a “mistake” or a “failure” if we learn something and move forward?

    Ashamed man image via Shutterstock

  • When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    Give Yourself a Break

    “Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

    Often these days, I would like nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely start heading in that direction. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going through a break-up, the most major break-up of my life so far.

    Again, I’m often disappointed that if I were to check a box to describe my “relationship status” it would most likely be “It’s complicated.”

    Truthfully, it’s not as complicated as I make it; however, at times it has me spun around to the point that I don’t know my direction. Pain and confusion are part of daily life.

    Recently, after a tearful conversation with my ever-supportive sister, I was looking forward to sitting down on my cushion and experiencing the sadness and pain I was feeling.

    I had spent a day intently focused at work, and, when my mind wandered, holding back tears. I was looking forward to letting those tears flow. I was ready to let these emotions live and to acknowledge and accept them, to live with them.

    I thanked my sister for everything, hung up the phone, walked to my cushion, and sat. I set the timer. I pulled my head up high. I collapsed, crying. I pulled myself up again. I collapsed again, bawling.

    Merely the thought of pulling my chest up again was exhausting. All day I had looked forward to a moment when I could let these emotions be, and now I felt too weak to experience them in the manner I thought I should.

    Experiencing the discomfort, however, did not seem to be my current problem.

    These emotions had something to teach me, and I wanted to learn. If I could just sit in meditation with the pain I was experiencing, I could begin to understand the lessons—or so I thought. I thought the lessons would tell me what to do and how to move forward.

    I wanted to be strong and stable. I wanted to sit with my head high and feel the pain. I wanted to not be a pile of howling self-pity on my bedroom floor. Sitting on the cushion, I realized I might not have an option.

    It was undeniable. At this moment I might just be a weeping mass on my bedroom floor. A word came to mind: overwhelm. I was overwhelmed.

    So I reset my timer. Five minutes. For five minutes I could cry my heart out. Then, I decided, I’ll get up, cook dinner, eat dinner, drink a cup of coffee, and read a novel, and then I’ll come back to the cushion.

    The new plan went much better. Only, I wept for about thirty seconds, and then I lay there breathing deeply. The timer went off and I got up.

    I remembered Pema Chodron’s advice about lightening up, which is exactly what I needed to do. She said, splash water on your face, go jogging, do anything different. I put on Donna Summers instead of the cathartic break-up music I’ve been playing recently.

    I danced while I cooked dinner. I had my dinner, my coffee, my reading. I sat on my cushion. I experienced the feelings that had now transitioned into numbness.

    The gratitude I have for that experience, for being able to recognize my needs and provide them for myself, to simply give myself a positive, healthy break, is immense.

    I gave myself the space I needed. I had hoped to sit on the cushion and get that space, but I found it shaking to “Bad Girls” instead.

    It’s not uncommon to want ourselves or our situation to be different. It is the desire to be a better person that pushes us to grow, change, and actually become better people. However, personal growth is often a slow and painful process.

    The expectation to be something we are not, whether temporarily or permanently, is a form of aggression toward our selves.

    The best thing we can do is nurture ourselves and our circumstances just as they are. Listen to yourself and do not try to force yourself or your situation to be something it is not.

    When you give yourself a break, you create space. Allowing things to be, just as they are, without judgment or expectation, gives you room to breathe. And that is good for clarity. You may find things start to get better, if you let them.

    My situation remains “complicated,” and I still experience confusion. However, the confusion has slowly begun to dissipate. I am more willing to rest in that confusion, to accept complicated.

    The truth is, I am moving forward, day by day, no matter what my choices. There is nothing disappointing about complication; it’s a sign of growth and transition. It’s hard to see sometimes, but the joy of living is in the unknown.

    Letting myself be weak gave me strength. Letting myself be confused gave me clarity. Letting my life be complicated simplified it. Letting myself off the hook gave me a really pleasant evening when I needed it most.

    Girl meditating image via Shutterstock

  • When You Fear Emotional Abandonment: Do You Know Your Worth?

    When You Fear Emotional Abandonment: Do You Know Your Worth?

    Alone in the Woods

    “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown

    Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…says Lady Liberty. She was speaking to immigrants wanting to start a new promised life in America, but those words could be my tagline for the men I have had my most intimate relationships with.

    If you were broken, emotionally unavailable, complicated, and confused, I was your girl.

    I would love you more than you loved yourself, or could love me. 

    I would put all my energy into trying to make it work, trying to help you heal, but I would abandon my own needs or truth in the process, because the desire to recognize or honor my own worth was not as strong as it was for me to show you yours.

    Was I aware of this pattern? Perhaps on a superficial level, but it didn’t truly emerge until I ended my most recent long-term relationship last summer.

    One day the light bulb turned on as I went from six years with a man I was engaged to marry (and before that in an eleven-year relationship that sucked my soul dry) to an emotional affair that had left me more raw and exposed than before.

    I was the common denominator in this series of events, but what was I contributing that left my soul and heart so ravaged?

    I devoted the summer of 2013 to unraveling this mystery. I was done with repeating the same outcome just with a different man.

    My search took me back to my childhood, as it would inevitably for all of us adults struggling with conditioning or behavior that we just can’t seem to let go, even though it does nothing to serve our higher purpose.

    My relationship with my mother could be described as a fractured one, at best. She too was broken from her childhood experiences, which shaped her choices, mostly the not-so-good ones as she aged. The difference is, she chose to stay in that place of unhealing and unawareness, whereas I knew better.

    Through my teens and early adulthood, I struggled with trying to understand her choices, her inability to love me and support me the way that I needed.

    I was not brought up to understand my intrinsic worth, to know what a healthy and nurturing relationship looks like and, most importantly, that I deserved to be in one.

    I turned to the metaphysical, spirituality, and yoga to shed light on what I just couldn’t see.

    With each year, I was able to piece together a little more of my toolkit for understanding, but the toolkit my mother gave me for tolerating emotional unavailability and abandonment in my closest relationships seemed to win out.

    I could support, tell all those around me in their darkest days how beautiful, how amazing they were, but when it came to myself, those words were like bitter-tasting medicine that I just couldn’t swallow.

    Subconsciously, I ached for my partner to help heal me—to echo the sentiment I would bestow to them—but it never came in the quantity or consistency that I required. And it never would if I kept looking outside myself. It was a vicious cycle that had to end.

    Then one day it became clear. Through my search, which I was fiercely committed to, I came upon a psychological term coined by Freud: repetition compulsion. The trumpets sounded, the lights turned on, and in that moment it all made sense.

    Repetition compulsion is an “inherent, primordial tendency in the unconscious that impels the individual to repeat certain actions, in particular, the most painful or destructive ones.”

    Usually, it stems from an unhealed relationship with a parent. So in adult life, we’ll attempt to heal the traumatic event that took place as a child through intimate adult relationships, but the outcome will end up the same.

    It never occurred to me that my relationship with my mother, and all the hurt it brought, would ever affect my adult relationships with men.

    My father and I were very close; he was a friend, a rock in my life. But even so, I kept finding the same man drawn to me or I drawn to them. In essence, they were emotional replicas of my mother.

    I was not brought up with clear emotional boundaries or the ability to validate my own worth—not on the level I required to be a strong, confident woman. I flailed. I would have bursts of drive and chutzpah at times, but I spent most of my energy feeling not good enough, not lovable enough, not worthy enough.

    I talked myself out of many opportunities or shied away from experiences because of my inner demons. In a nutshell, I sold myself really short.

    Armed with this new knowledge, I consulted with a counselor to understand further. In a few sessions and with more reading as the summer wore on, I came to that place of healing.

    I saw, objectively, what had happened and what I wanted to and needed to do differently to end the cycle. This education was put to the test this past winter when I ventured into a new relationship that had great promise.

    All my old fears came up, fears of being emotionally abandoned. And when it looked like the same thing was happening again, I did something that I didn’t know I could do. I said no. No to repeating the same mistake. I set my boundaries, I stated my worth, and I was prepared to walk away.

    I spoke my truth and came from an authentic place when communicating with this newest partner. It mattered not if he understood or heard me; it only mattered that I said what I did and took responsibility for my own outcome instead of placing the power in the hands of another.

    In the end, he did understand, and I was heard. Although we did part ways, I was left with more clarity than I ever had before.

    I don’t regret the path taken or the experiences had, including the heartaches. For each one brought me to this point. The point of seeing my intrinsic worth, something we all are born with.

    We must nurture it firstly within before it will be mirrored to us fully. It’s not about being defined by ego or conceit, but knowing, from an inner wisdom, that others cannot define the value we all possess; only we can do that.

    That being said, I’m still human, and sometimes I catch myself falling into that old, familiar pattern. But before I fall too deep, I bring myself up again. I cannot undo the past, but I certainly can lay the groundwork for my present and my future, cultivating fertile soil where my needs are nurtured and my worth is evident.

    I do not have to fear being emotionally abandoned by another, because I won’t abandon myself anymore. So now the tagline reads, I can help show you your worth, not because yours is more important, but because I firstly see and honor my own.

    Alone in the woods image via Shutterstock

  • Stop Holding Yourself Back and Start Proving What You Can Do

    Stop Holding Yourself Back and Start Proving What You Can Do

    Woman with suitcase

    “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~Sylvia Plath

    Singing professionally has always been something I have wanted to do. Always. The home I grew up in wasn’t a particularly musical household, unless you count playing the radio as playing an instrument.

    To my benefit, there was a lot of music in our home ranging from gospel to the Beach Boys; but really nothing beyond the sixties was allowed unless it was a spiritual song of some kind. So, I sang in the church choir and later I helped lead the music for Sunday morning services. Anything to sing.

    As a kid, I loved to make up songs. It wasn’t songwriting in my mind; it was playing with words. For example, changing the lyrics to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” for a friend moving away or playing with a melody because I loved it.

    The problem was there was no one around to tell me it was any good or anyone who knew enough about music to encourage a budding talent. As a kid, I thought this meant I wasn’t good enough.

    The logic that reigned was if I had something worth praising, someone would tell me. When no one did, I took my talents, dreams, and hopes underground.

    Hiding became my normal because I loved music, and since I assumed I wasn’t any good, why put it out there for anyone to criticize? I was too sensitive for such judgment.

    When given the opportunity in the fifth grade, I began to play in the orchestra. I played the violin, or was it the viola? I can’t recall. All I can remember is the hideous screeches of “Hot Cross Buns.”

    As soon as band was an option, I switched to the flute and fell in love with music in a whole new way. Still, I believed I was no good. The question that seemed to always ring out was, “Do I have what it takes?” When no one responded, I assumed the answer was, “No!”

    It’s silly looking back because I never really asked the question, attributing people’s lack of interest or encouragement as rejection and an affirmation of my inability.

    Everything was confirmation of my lack of talent.

    Like my mother’s warning about the reality of the music industry. Her explanation that it was a tough business meant in my head “You aren’t very good.”

    The high school talent coordinator telling me I was better on the flute and should be doing that instead of singing equaled “You aren’t a great singer.”

    The flat out discouragement of a church music director saying I was “pitchy” (which I now know was only a matter of bad technique) made me think “I guess I will sing back up forever.”

    When I auditioned for American Idol and heard, “You’re good but not what we are looking for,” that was the nail in the coffin.

    Why even try? Everyone had told me I wasn’t good enough. Inside I was asking the question “Can I?” and the response was “No!” It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t the world, my music teacher, or even my mother’s job to answer the question “Can I?” It was my job.

    One day I decided I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This thing called music screamed inside to be let out. Finally, I decided songwriting and singing had been gifted to me for a purpose, and I was going to see what that purpose was. Insecurity would no longer be my prison.

    It hasn’t been an easy road but the question has changed. Now I ask myself “Why wouldn’t I?” Could it be fear? That is a terrible reason to quit anything. Rejection? I will face that no matter what I do. Failure? I guarantee failure by not trying.

    Just changing the question made a world of difference. Not relying on others to answer a question only I was responsible for made me feel empowered.

    I still battle insecurity and I still ask myself the wrong questions but more and more I ask myself the right one. Why wouldn’t I? Try it and see what happens in your life.

    I surprised myself. You might surprise yourself too. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and will be your cheerleaders. Don’t take no for an answer, even if the person saying “No!” is you.

    Woman with suitcase image via Shutterstock

  • Why You Don’t Need to Eliminate Self-Doubt and Fear

    Why You Don’t Need to Eliminate Self-Doubt and Fear

    Man at sunset

    “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

    Self-doubt has been a companion that has followed me around like a trained dog follows his master. Every step I’ve made outside of my comfort zone, it’s been there, right beside me.

    Moving from Germany to England to attend high school, I was full of high hopes and aspirations. But despite my intensive English course and hard work, I could hardly understand anyone in the first few weeks.

    Feeling left high and dry by my so-called “English skills,” I started feeling shy and nervous. My German accent made me sound different, and doubtful thoughts like “Can I ever cope here?” and “Do I belong?” entered my head.

    Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, should that be starting a new chapter in your life like I did, doing creative work, or changing your career, self-doubt and fear can creep up.

    The problems start when fear and self-doubt take over, when they stop you from doing what you once loved to do or from taking the actions you know you need to take to move ahead. This kept me wondering: What’s the right way to deal with self-doubt and fear?

    Entering the War

    I was taken over by society’s notion that self-doubt and fear were bad things that I urgently needed to eliminate.

    At the beginning of high school, I avoided interacting in class and kept away from meeting new people to calm down my fear.

    Today, I see I was simply running away from these difficult feelings and thoughts. I did everything to avoid being in the horrible situation of having to repeat myself because the person I talked with didn’t understand what I was saying.

    But trying to avoid difficult feelings and thoughts can become a trap, if we start constructing our life in a way that allows us to avoid them instead of constructing our life around our desires and dreams.

    What’s known as “experiential avoidance” can take over our lives.

    For me, avoiding uncomfortable feelings meant avoiding fun opportunities such as being part of certain sport teams or going out with friends. By avoiding situations that could bring discomfort, I enormously reduced the amounts of joy and fun that I could have had.

    But who says we need to eliminate or run away from our feelings and thoughts?

    Eckhart Tolle wrote, “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

    So, what if we could stop striving for elimination and learn to accept self-doubt and fear as our companions? If we let the dog be where it wants to be?

    Diving deeper into the philosophy of ACT (acceptance & commitment therapy), I discovered that there was an alternative way to deal with self-doubt and fear: the path of acceptance.

    The 3-Step Process to Deal with Self-Doubt and Fear

    Self-doubt and fear are normal human reactions that we all experience, no matter how “far ahead” or successful we already are. So, why we are still surprised when they show up? Here are three steps that I wish I knew back in high school.

    1. Witness.

    Become aware of what’s going on inside of you; witness the voice inside your head when it speaks from a place of fear and doubt. What is that voice saying?

    The majority of your daily thoughts are repetitive. Sometimes your mind just tells you different versions of the same old story.

    Observe your thoughts and feelings. Witness when you’re playing your “self-doubt story.” Like an internal observer, simply watch and notice in a loving and self-caring manner, without harshly criticizing yourself for anything that shows up.

    2. Accept.

    Accepting means allowing your fear and doubt to be within you, to give them room, and not try to escape them. Whatever thoughts and feelings come up inside of you, start to be okay with them.

    Stop resisting what you feel and think, and soon you’ll develop the capacity to hold your difficult feelings and thoughts inside you.

    As Russ Harris, author of the bestselling book The Happiness Trap wrote: “Your capacity to accept pain directly related to your long-term happiness level.” Because anything that matters to us comes with a whole range of difficult thoughts and emotions. Avoidance is not the answer.

    Despite them being painful, they are not the problem; your reaction to them is. Problems arise when you try to get rid of or control your self-doubt and fear.

    Today, I’m still sometimes in the situation where people don’t understand my English or I don’t understand what they are going on about. But I accept that’s just the price I pay for talking in a language that’s not my native one.

    When you start accepting how you feel and think in any given moment, you start noticing that feelings and thoughts are just like clouds in the sky—they are merely passing by.

    Also, become aware of the urges that may come up to escape or eliminate this fear or doubt. Simply notice the urge, hold it inside you, and realize you don’t need to act on it.

    Whenever I feel the urge to not talk to someone or not take part in something, I try and catch myself and act on what I truly desire: making meaningful connections and enjoying life to the fullest.

    3. Shift your attention.

    Your mind isa past-future based machine designed to keep you alive and alert of dangers. Your doubt and fear are there to keep you within your comfort zone and, therefore, safe.

    So, whenever unhelpful thoughts enter your head, thank your mind for doing its job. It is just trying to keep you safe! Next, shift your attention back to the activity in hand.

    I had to learn to shift my focus away from worrying and hoping that I did not have to repeat myself to focusing on the actual interaction and on what I wanted to say.

    Venerable Wuling, author of Path to Peace, wrote,  “In a task, we can control the effort but not the outcome.”

    So, let go of the need to control it, because you can’t. I can’t control if my counterpart understands what I am saying. But I can control how well I articulate myself.

    When you cling onto the idea of how something should turn out or should come across, you create stress and fear. Have an intention of what you want to do and achieve, but stay open to the actual and maybe even different outcome.

    Today, I believe acceptance is the best way to deal with fears and doubts—to witness and not resist what’s showing up inside and instead shift focus back to the task at hand.

    What’s your experience with doubt and fear?

    Man at sunset image via Shutterstock

  • I’m Not Broken, and Neither Are You

    I’m Not Broken, and Neither Are You

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” ~Marianne Williamson

    I used to have this secret habit of flipping through the DSM—The Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders—and diagnosing myself with every disorder in the book.

    Reading over the criteria for borderline personality disorder, cigarette in hand and eyes wide open, I scanned the diagnosis criteria.

    Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment? Check. Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships? Check. Unstable self-image? Check. Impulsivity that’s self-damaging? Check. Suicidal behaviour? Check. Unstable moods? Check. Chronic feelings of emptiness? Check. Inappropriate and intense anger? Check. Paranoia? Check.

    Oh my god.

    I thought that was an uncanny description of me, until I found antisocial personality disorder.

    Failure to conform to social norms? Yup. Doing things that are grounds for arrest? Regularly. Deceitfulness? Impulsivity? Failure to plan ahead? Oh yes. Irritability? Aggression? Reckless disregard for safety? Lack of remorse?

    Oh my god.

    That seemed spot-on, but nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to when I first read about post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Exposure to traumatic event? Yes. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive memories? Oh god, yes. Traumatic nightmares? All the time. Flashbacks? Yes. Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli? Yes! Feeling alienated from others? Persistent negative beliefs about self? Persistent negative emotions? Distorted memory and feelings of blame?

    Oh my god.

    After a few years, I added body dysmorphic disorder, substance use disorder, occasional episodes of manic disorder, and constant rotations between bulimia and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise classified).

    Admittedly, some of those diagnoses should really have cancelled each other out, but I was more interested in collecting diagnoses like some would collect stamps than achieving medical accuracy.

    All of my self-imposed labels gave me a strange kind of soothing feeling. They affirmed something I already believed, deeply, within me: I was broken. I was in a state of disorder. There was something wrong with me.

    In my scourings, I avoided certain disorders like the plague. Anxiety, for example, and depression. Anxiety didn’t seem like a very “cool” thing to have and depression just didn’t seem plausible because I was so violently self-destructive, never stopping to rest for a moment unless I got infected with mono or West Nile meningitis (both of which actually happened).

    To an onlooker, these things might have seemed like ploys for attention or misguided attempts at impersonating Hollywood. But, truly, these self-diagnoses stayed more private than many of my tortured war stories. They were something personal. They were just for me.

    Looking back, I realize that the fuel behind my self-diagnosing was an obsessive, perpetual drive to find the answer to a question I couldn’t avoid for more than a few hours at a time: “What’s wrong with me?”

    What was wrong with me, I liked to think, was childhood-trauma-induced permanent damage that, in mixing with my apparently high IQ, had created a sort of “Dr. House” complex within me, making me irreparably and irrevocably screwed up.

    That was a nice story, but it didn’t satisfy the question. A question like “What’s wrong with me?” isn’t just some domestic house cat in the mind. It won’t sit quietly and patiently for most of the day, becoming vocal only if it isn’t fed for too long.

    No, a question like that is a wild, ferocious, insatiable beast that rips into anything and everything in its path, killing simply for the sake of the kill, feeding constantly and ceaselessly on anything that smells like nourishment.

    What was wrong with me?

    By the time I made it to age twenty-three, there were so many answers.

    What was wrong with me?

    The stretch marks all over my body. The pimples on my skin, my back. The little hair growing an inch above my nipple. The moles on my upper back. The fat all over my body.

    What was wrong with me?

    The way I blushed at the drop of a hat. The way I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing when other people did. The way I made jokes that weren’t funny to anyone but me. The way my upper lip twitched when I was nervous.

    What was wrong with me?

    How I had absolutely zero ability to be sexy or act sexy without alcohol, feeling frozen and ugly if anyone ever saw me naked. How I had flashbacks, nightmares, and hallucinations I told close to no one about. How I drank alone.

    How I just couldn’t seem to sustain happiness and, even when I tasted joy for a second, soon enough the drugs would wear off and I’d be right back where I started, wishing for a freedom I wasn’t sure was real.

    All of my happiness, for about ten years, was induced by chemicals and co-dependence. I thought what was wrong with me was that I couldn’t feel happy without buying it or begging for it. I thought I was just that kind of person. I thought it would always be that way.

    I’d love to tell you that I was afraid of being broken and damaged, afraid that past emotional trauma had rendered me dysfunctional, afraid that I was different from other people. Of course, that’s what I used to say and that’s a nice story, but I know now that it was all a big lie.

    You know what I was really terrified of?

    Deep inside of me, there was the awareness that, even if I fit every symptom in the book, I had no excuse to live half a life. Somewhere in there I knew I wasn’t really broken. I was terrified of what my responsibilities would be if I allowed myself to be, truly, whole.

    When I was an addict, a victim, a diagnosis, I had no responsibility to anyone. If your neck is severed and bleeding, you can hardly be expected to open doors for people and make the world a better place.

    Like this, I dodged the responsibility to discover my skills and talents, to serve people, to do something meaningful in the world—all by playing broken.

    Of course, it wasn’t all a giant act. I had been abused. I had been raped. I had been an addict. I had horrible body image issues. I heard voices. I hated myself. Yes, those things were “wrong,” but so is a paper cut. And your body will do its best to heal the paper cut with no further intervention from you, if you let it.

    Yes, I’d been broken, but I didn’t have to keep being broken. For fear of my own greatness, I put bandages on my wounds, letting them grow necrotic for lack of oxygen. I never wanted to get better; I just wanted to get pity, because I was too scared to ask for love. I kept myself sick for fear of my own health.

    I’ll tell you right now that my fear wasn’t unjustified. Now that I’m not playing small anymore, I have more responsibilities than I ever have. I’m trusted with people’s most painful memories, with their deepest secrets, with the chance to support them when they’re on the brink of hurting themselves or others.

    Yes, the responsibility is there, but it’s not the horror show I imagined it would be. I think the only reason I ran from it was because I was so weak from keeping myself broken that I couldn’t imagine how much energy I’d have to help people when I allowed myself to be whole.

    I couldn’t have imagined how fulfilling it is to spread love, give love, be love instead of scrounging for tiny little pieces of approval and acceptance like a thief in the night.

    From what I’ve seen of myself and of people, I believe, without condition, that no one is irreparably broken. In fact, no one is broken. Is having a paper cut broken? Of course not. From the moment you get a cut, you’re already healing.

    And that’s what I believe. I believe we’re all already healing, no matter how great our pain or how serious the offenses against us. We’re built to heal, we’re already healing, and we can all experience this amazing life process—if only we’d get out of the way.