Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • 4 Fears That Create People-Pleasers and How to Ease Them

    4 Fears That Create People-Pleasers and How to Ease Them

    “It feels good to be accepted, loved, and approved of by others, but often the membership fee to belong to that club is far too high of a price to pay.” ~Dennis Merritt Jones

    Like a lot of people, I grew up putting others’ needs and wants first. I learned early that doing things for other people and accommodating their wishes gained me attention and approval. It was only in those moments that I felt good enough and deserving of love.

    As a child, I liked nothing more than feeling indispensable and being told I was a good and nice girl. This praise was incredibly important to me, as was making others happy. My own happiness did not come into the equation; I was happy because they were happy. I felt loved, safe, and appreciated, in the short term at least.

    As I got older, my people-pleasing went into overdrive. I continually tried to gain people’s approval, make them happy, and help them whenever needed.

    I hated to see loved ones hurt or upset and felt it was my responsibility to come to their rescue and ease their problems and pain. Before long, I became so hyper-aware of others’ feelings that I lost sight of where I ended and where other people began.

    For many years, I didn’t question why I felt I didn’t have the right to say no to people’s demands. I just assumed this was how my relationships were meant to be. By the time I was in my late teens, however, I often felt lost, drained, and empty.

    After a terrifying anxiety attack, I realized I’d been unhappy for years. Trying to please everyone had made me miserable and ill, and my relationships felt draining and one-sided.

    I took a long, hard look at myself and realized I’d become a people-pleaser not simply because I wanted to be a nice person or help others, but due to a specific emotion, an emotion I’d felt since early childhood: fear.

    I realized I’d given control over my life to other people out of fear. I’d let an emotion steal my life and well-being.

    When I examined my past behavior, it was obvious I’d been compelled to people-please due to a fear of certain situations stemming from my childhood. I believe these specific fears are the reason why many of us become people-pleasers.

    Fear of Rejection and Abandonment

    Inside every people-pleaser is a little child who never felt worthy of love and was afraid of being rejected and abandoned by his or her loved ones. Being good and nice and striving for approval is a way to try to suppress the fear.

    Children know instinctively that their survival depends on other people. As a child, I felt I had to be good all the time—one misdemeanor would be enough to make my loved ones reject me.

    That’s not to say my family didn’t love me; they absolutely did. But they were often emotionally distant, worried, stressed out, and very busy with other things. My strategy was to do my best to please them so I wouldn’t feel even more rejected than I already did.

    Many of us take this fear into our adult relationships too. People-pleasers usually believe they cannot disagree, not do as their loved ones want, or displease them in some way because their family or partner will stop loving them and leave. They don’t feel emotionally secure in their relationships.

    Yet how realistic is this belief? Would our loved ones really reject and abandon us if we displeased them? Is our position in their lives so uncertain and fragile that they would do this?

    People-pleasers tend to overestimate other people’s imagined negative reactions to what they do or say. They work hard to gain and keep love and friendship, but assume those ties are easily broken.

    Realistically, it’s highly unlikely your loved ones will reject you if you don’t do what they want. They might be disappointed or upset, but ultimately they’ll be able to cope with their expectations not being met. Regardless of their response, you aren’t responsible for their emotions or actions.

    When we know this, we can feel more secure about saying no to others. And that in turn helps them to respect our boundaries.

    Fear of Conflict and Anger

    People-pleasers try to avoid conflict and others’ anger at all costs and will do anything to defuse a confrontation or argument. This usually means backing down or not disagreeing, even if the other person is in the wrong. It means saying yes when we really want to say no.

    When you fear upsetting someone and causing an argument, you don’t speak up about what’s bothering or hurting you, and you don’t reveal your true feelings. You do all you can to keep the peace, believing mistakenly that conflict of any kind is bad for relationships.

    The truth is, our peacekeeping behavior builds a barrier to intimacy. It stops our relationships from growing and maturing. As a child I feared doing something wrong and being told off and punished, and as I got older I often felt lonely in many of my relationships. I also found trying to keep the peace exhausting.

    The harmony I worked so hard to maintain was nothing more than a false harmony; there was often an undercurrent of anxiety and frustration.

    Healthy relationships aren’t without disagreements because conflict and problems are inevitable in life. But the difference is that good, balanced relationships are able to handle conflict and problems constructively and use them as a way to deepen learning and understanding.

    As a people-pleaser, I wanted to find instant solutions to problems in order to minimize any potential conflict, regain harmony, and soothe any negative feelings. I rarely took my time to find an effective solution, and as a result, the problems were never fully resolved.

    I was also afraid of my own anger and repressed it or directed it at myself, and this no doubt contributed to my anxiety disorder. I mistakenly believed nice people didn’t get angry, not realizing that we cannot change our behavior for the better or improve our well-being unless we feel and recognize all our emotions.

    Fear of Criticism and Being Disliked

    No one likes to be criticized or disliked, especially a people-pleaser. We hold in high regard other people’s good opinions of us. We crave approval and think that accommodating everyone else will somehow protect us, but that’s rarely the case.

    I used to feel a sense of betrayal whenever someone criticized me. Didn’t they know how hard I tried to please them? How hard I tried to be good and nice all the time? Their criticism was like an arrow in the heart.

    When we fear others’ lack of approval and acceptance, we rarely show them who we really are and often live a life that does not feel authentic. We hide ourselves behind a mask of niceness and find it near impossible to separate our self-worth from our actions.

    Fearing others’ bad opinions of you makes you feel you cannot show you are fallible and flawed—basically, a normal human being.

    People-pleasers judge themselves very harshly and often set themselves unrealistic expectations. They feel they need to be perfect in order to be accepted or loved. They feel they cannot make mistakes or risk upsetting or disappointing people.

    If you don’t voice your opinions or needs, people will assume you’re happy to go along with what they want. They’ll also assume you’ll accept disrespectful behavior. Like many people-pleasers, I became an easy target for others’ dissatisfaction and nastiness.

    When we hand so much control over to other people, their criticism can be devastating, but this is only because we vastly overestimate the importance of what they think.

    In time, I realized that someone’s opinion of me is none of my business, and it’s impossible to control their thoughts about me, no matter what I do. It seemed crazy to let their opinions dictate how I lived my life because the only person I needed to seek approval from was myself.

    Fear of Losing Control and Not Being Needed

    People-pleasers need to be needed. It’s their automatic response to help others and try to make others happy, and they very often take other people’s actions, behavior, and emotions personally, believing they’re responsible for making others feel better.

    I grew up in an environment that was often anxious. Many of my loved ones did not handle their anxiety very well, due to their own upbringing. I became a confidante at a young age, before I had the maturity to handle certain problems or others’ anxiety. It was simply too burdensome for my young shoulders, but it didn’t stop me from trying to make things better.

    Because my sense of self was closely tied to how other people felt, I couldn’t bear to see loved ones hurting, and so I tried my hardest to ease any upset. Each time I succeeded, I felt needed and in control, but when I failed, I felt like I had let everyone down.

    I would become anxious if I couldn’t soothe or help someone else. I readily soaked up their negative emotions because I’d become so attuned to how they felt, placing their emotional well-being before my own. Because people-pleasers believe it’s their job to make others happy, they feel they need to control others’ anxiety and pain.

    But it’s not our role to make others happy or their lives problem-free; that’s their job. The sky won’t fall in if you cannot help someone. You can still be there for the people you love and empathize with them, but you don’t need to rush in and rescue them or lose yourself in their business. You don’t have to make their problems your own; you can instead trust them to solve their own issues.

    When I stopped hyper-focusing on other people, I saw that the only thing I needed to control was my half of my relationships. There’s no need to try to control others’ reactions because I’m not responsible for their thoughts or emotions.

    Many of our interactions with people don’t need to have the sort of emotional judgments people-pleasers attach to them. It’s okay to say no and not feel guilty. You aren’t betraying someone if you don’t do what they want or disagree with them. Just because someone doesn’t like you doesn’t mean you’re unlikeable. Just because you sometimes want to focus on yourself, it doesn’t mean you’re selfish.

    You gain this self-empowerment by easing the fear that’s caused your people-pleasing. While much of the fear comes from your childhood, as an adult you now have control over changing aspects of your behavior that don’t serve you.

    This doesn’t involve any self-blame, nor is it about blaming our loved ones. We’re all the products of our upbringing, and we all have scars. Most people try to do the best they can with what they have and know. By changing our behavior, we can often encourage positive change in others too.

    People-pleasing is always linked to self-worth. When you create a strong sense of self, you realize that you aren’t your past, your thoughts, or your emotions. You know your self-worth isn’t linked to another person.

    How to Ease the Fear

    Instead of looking for validation from other people and the outside world, we need to search inward. In order to ease our fear, it’s important to face it, no matter how painful it feels. Understanding our fear helps us to move forward.

    Because our people-pleasing and our fears usually stem from childhood, we need to revisit our child selves. Try this exercise:

    Find somewhere quiet to sit and relax. Close your eyes and take slow, deep, even breaths, and imagine in your mind a time when you felt rejected as a child. Replay the events as you remember them and feel the feelings you experienced at that time.

    Then imagine your present self holding your child self’s hand as they go through that moment of feeling rejected. Tell your child self how much you love them and care for them, and that there’s nothing to fear. Each time your younger self feels afraid or rejected, soothe them and let them know they’re in a safe place.

    Think about what you’d like to say to your child self and what advice you’d like to give them, knowing what you know now. You are now able to protect, support, and encourage your child self. Think about how you want to feel and be treated rather than focus on any negativity.

    When I did this exercise, I told my child self that she was worthy, valuable, and precious. I advised her that what she wanted and needed was valid and important, and she had the right to speak up and say no.

    I told her she would never be rejected because she had my unconditional love and support, and she didn’t need to strive for love from anyone because she was already lovable. I encouraged her to think about her dreams and goals and not stifle them because of others’ opinions. Most of all, I kept repeating that I loved her.

    When you feel ready to end the exercise, bring yourself back to the present moment and think about what the exercise has taught you. Do you understand your child self more and your reasons for people-pleasing? Do you think about those past events in a different way?

    You can do the exercise as many times as you wish. It gives you the time to focus on how you feel about past experiences, and as a result, it also helps you come to terms with what happened and to heal.

    When I stopped basing my identity on my relationships and the past, I stopped hiding myself behind people-pleasing behavior. I started to set boundaries, and as my self-love, self-acceptance, and self-respect grew, my relationships improved too. People soon adapted to my new behavior because I showed them how I wanted to be treated—with respect and consideration.

    Self-love is essential. It isn’t selfish to think about what you want and need. It isn’t selfish to make decisions about your life based on what you want and need rather than to merely please others.

    You owe it to yourself to put your people-pleasing ways behind you. You owe it to yourself to take care of yourself first, because that is the only real way you can truly help other people.

  • The Dangers of Safety and How to Live Fully

    The Dangers of Safety and How to Live Fully

    “A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is built for.” ~John Augustus Shedd

    Growing up in the Midwest in a traditional family steeped in Catholic values, safety was paramount. We adhered to conventional roles: father, mother, brother, and sister, with me as the baby sister.

    My parents were loving, but my mom parented through a lens of fear, constantly worrying about potential dangers. This fierce protection was a testament to her love, yet it ingrained in me the belief that taking the safe route was the only way to navigate life.

    One day, when I didn’t get off the bus because I went to a track meet after school, I was met with a sobbing woman when I got home an hour late. Now, as a mother, I can fully understand this. It was long before cell phones, but she taught me early on that safety was my priority, and I never wanted her to be scared for me again.

    In the Midwest, the traditional path is clear: go to school, come home, play outside with friends, graduate from high school, stay close for college, meet a partner, get married, and have kids. This is the safe plan. The thought of deviating from this path—being thirty, unmarried, or childless—was paralyzing.

    What if I didn’t follow the script? What if I dared to be brave and bold and leave the familiar zip code? What if I yearned for non-traditional roles and longed to explore the world? Who could I have become if I had let my heart lead instead of my fears?

    Safety is a universal desire. We plan for financial security, choose safe neighborhoods, and follow predictable paths. As a coach, I see this pattern repeatedly. Clients stay in marriages longer than they should out of fear of the unknown. They stick with toxic friends or jobs, fearing how their lives might change if they let go.

    This fear surfaces when people want to leave their industry or start their own business, worrying they are too old or lack the skills to succeed independently. Consequently, they live quiet, safe lives, confined by a small glass box that keeps them stuck.

    What if we were taught and supported early on to stretch beyond our comfort zones? To make brave decisions? To put ourselves out there, even at the risk of failing? We could maintain the safety net of “you’re always welcome at home, and home is safe” while also encouraging bold steps—go play, go away to school, travel the world. I often wonder who I would be if I had learned this lesson earlier.

    I followed the traditional plan to a T. I did what was expected and what was safe. I attended a nearby college, graduated, got a job, met a man, got married, and had two children—a boy and a girl. I thrived in business, got promoted, bought a house, and built another. I followed the rules and fit right in. I made friends and, by all accounts, was successful, checking all the boxes.

    But I was in an unhappy marriage, and things on the inside did not reflect the outside. Divorce wasn’t part of the plan. There wasn’t a checkbox for it, so I stayed. It wasn’t until my husband said, “You won’t divorce me, hotshot,” that I decided to let go of the checkbox and let myself take the reins of my life.

    I vividly remember sitting there with a racing heart, feeling like it would beat out of my chest. Did he call me “hotshot?” about our lives?

    The thing is, he was trying to call my bluff. I told him I was unhappy that the years of pain had finally caught up with us, but he knew, or at least he thought, that I would never leave. Because I followed the rules, he felt that we could continue the same abusive path that we had been on for a decade because I would not veer from the good girl path.

    This time, I boldly made the change. I called the lawyer and started the process of filing for divorce. This started my seven-year journey of trying to come back to who I am at my core. What do I want in my life, and am I living for my heart or out of fear?

    Only when I allowed myself to step outside the lines did I truly start living. I feared what others would think, but how could I continue living based on others’ expectations and not on what I wanted for myself? I took the brave step to file for divorce.

    This fear of judgment resurfaced when I wanted to leave my high-income corporate sales job to start my own business.

    I had just started with a company a few months earlier, went through training, and knew this wasn’t going to be a long-term fit. I hated corporate culture and the made-up rules that went along with it. We were governed by rules created out of fear. I knew I wasn’t going to survive in this role. But quitting after I just started was scary, and I agonized over what others would think.

    I knew I wanted to do something so much more, with deeper meaning, with the possibility of helping others. But this, again, was not something that was on the checklist. Start a business? Become a coach? What the heck is a coach anyway? Will people make fun of me behind my back? That thought made me want to play small.

    I explored every possible way to succeed without sharing my plans with those who knew me. Again, there wasn’t a checkbox for this. But I did it anyway.

    Looking back, I realize that staying small in my life has hurt me. I got married before I was ready, remained in a marriage longer than I should have, and worked corporate jobs with chauvinistic men who I wouldn’t say I liked because that is what I was supposed to do.

    My house was pretty, my Facebook pictures looked happy, and my salary grew. By all external accounts, I was a success. But these come at their own costs. Playing safe has confined me, limited my potential, and stifled my dreams.

    I have learned that safety, while comforting, can be dangerous. It can keep us from truly living, experiencing the fullness of life, and discovering who we are meant to be.

    So, I urge you to leap. Be brave. Step out of your comfort zone. Embrace the unknown.

    We are all given one chance here on this earth, and we spend it playing safe. What a shame not to allow your beautiful visions to become a reality. Safety may protect us, but it can also hold us back.

    Let go of the fear and let your heart lead the way. You might stumble, you might fall, but you will also soar. And in the end, you will find that the dangers of safety are far greater than the risks of living boldly.

  • Then, One Day, It Clicks

    Then, One Day, It Clicks

  • The Importance of Setting Strong, Healthy Boundaries

    The Importance of Setting Strong, Healthy Boundaries

    “If you love yourself, it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like you because you don’t need their approval to feel good about yourself.” ~Lori Deschene

    I spent my whole life trying to please other people. I would put myself through stress and discomfort to fit in with what they wanted or needed. I would rarely feel confident enough to communicate what I wanted because when I did, I would be met with frustration or anger, and I’d often come away feeling stupid.

    When I was growing up, I would feel my emotions very strongly, so a lot of the time I would receive comments like “you’re too emotional” or “just relax.” I now realize that people made these types of comments to make me feel like I was wrong for feeling sad, stressed, or uncomfortable when others weren’t respecting my boundaries.

    At the time, I didn’t understand this happened because I wasn’t enforcing my own boundaries strongly enough, because all I wanted to do was please others. So when I felt strong emotions, I would just assume I was wrong for feeling them.

    This eventually led to me losing most of my confidence and keeping myself “small.” I felt I wasn’t deserving of being seen or heard. I had learned that by trying to communicate my boundaries, I would frustrate other people and be made to feel I was being unreasonable.

    If I wanted certain people in my life, I had to adapt to what would make them happy. Of course, this would just result in me becoming more and more unhappy, leading to unhealthy relationships anyway.

    It wasn’t until I had my son that I realized how unnecessary it was to not enforce my own boundaries. Even for a while after he was born, I would bend over backwards to fit in with others, even if it meant messing up my son’s schedule. I became stressed, unhappy, and anxious a lot of the time.

    I realized one day how this was becoming too much for me because I made a decision to stay home with my son for the day (which, at the time, I felt very selfish for doing!), and it felt so incredibly peaceful.

    Before this, I would often think my son wasn’t a happy baby, but quickly understood it was because I wasn’t putting our needs first and was instead always racing around and going out of my way to meet other people’s needs.

    As soon as I started saying “no” to things I didn’t really want to do or didn’t feel I had time for and began communicating what situations would suit me and my son, we were both so much happier and more relaxed!

    However, since doing this, my relationships with several people have changed. I’m no longer as close with certain friends, and I’ve had to deal with hurt responses from family members. The guilt I’ve felt was almost too much to bear at times. But I am no longer willing to cause myself sadness and stress just to make others happy.

    The result? Some of my previously close relationships are no longer as close, and that has been tough to digest. You start prioritizing yourself more and spend less time accommodating others, and they eventually stop speaking to you… ouch!

    However, other relationships have become stronger, happier, and healthier! I’ve even made several new close friends. I also want to mention one previously close relationship because I now spend less time with this person, but I feel our relationship is much stronger. I’ve learned I need to protect my own energy when around them, as they have quite a negative view on life at times.

    Since it was someone close to me, I didn’t want to lose them. So I had to find a way to adapt the relationship to suit my boundaries.

    I don’t think all boundaries need to be communicated, especially if the person is likely to be offended or not understand. Instead, I was able to keep things positive by changing the dynamic. So I would arrange coffee meets with this person occasionally and subtly shift from going over to their house regularly, as this would result in more time and energy being taken from me.

    One thing I noticed that made me realize I wasn’t setting healthy boundaries was that I felt anxious about going into social situations and family events—even events in my honor. One year, someone else decided what we would be doing for MY birthday, and I didn’t have the confidence to speak up to explain I didn’t want to do what they had chosen.

    I also felt upset if I tried to communicate my preferences, but someone got frustrated or implied that I was being unreasonable. I would often question if certain people even liked me and would exhaust myself trying to make them happy so they would accept me.

    Setting boundaries can be really difficult for some of us, but it doesn’t mean we can’t do it. It can also be scary because it can mean not having such a close relationship with certain people, or maybe even losing them completely.

    But the question we need to ask ourselves is this: If relationships change or we lose people in the process of creating strong boundaries, were they even meant for us? Our happiness is just as important as the next person’s. As long as we aren’t acting in a way to hurt others, our boundaries are valid and acceptable. It isn’t up to us to make other people happy. We are all responsible for our own happiness. We can both create it and change it.

  • Because You Were Kind

    Because You Were Kind

  • Healing from Chronic Fatigue: The Amazing Impact of Self-Compassion

    Healing from Chronic Fatigue: The Amazing Impact of Self-Compassion

    “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~Dalai Lama

    In my mid-thirties, my active and adventuresome life as a broadcast journalist collapsed. It began with a trauma, followed by flu-like symptoms that stuck around for thirteen years. Almost overnight, I lost the pep to walk around the block, much less file reports for the evening news.

    A battery of doctors diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), among other diagnoses. They said I’d have to live this way since there was no reliable cure. I became one of the medical mysteries I used to cover.

    Needless to say, I was terrified and grief-stricken. To add insult to illness, I beat myself up for ‘failing’ to get well. I should be able to master my new vocation of healing, reasoned my Type A personality.

    I used every ounce of energy I had to research my own health story. Intravenous vitamins, antiviral medications, sage-burning healers—I tried them all. I eliminated the foods I enjoyed and washed my elimination diet down with mounds of herbs.

    Sadly, I was also feeding myself bitter pills: self-pressure and self-criticism. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t make my body well, save a career I loved, or actualize the family I dearly wanted.

    There were enormous reasons for grief. But I didn’t have the support in and around me to feel this maelstrom of emotions. My mind swooped in to distract me.

    I blamed myself mercilessly, even though my symptoms started after I was sexually assaulted by a man who walked away free. There’s something unhealthy about a society that rarely punishes rape, even though an American is sexually assaulted every sixty-eight seconds, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

    We also know that people who experienced adverse childhood experiences have higher rates of chronic illness as adults. There’s mounting evidence that adult stressors and trauma can also topple our health. This is what happened to me, although it took years to make this connection.

    No matter whether we’ve experienced big ‘T’ trauma, little ‘t’ trauma, or the unavoidable insults of being human, we need self-compassion. This quality was once illusive to me. But after years of illness, I started softening.

    It was too painful to endure the pressure of trying to be a perfect patient. The hard-driving approach I adopted in my journalism career didn’t work when I could barely cook a meal.

    Exasperated by the medical maze, my yoga mat and meditation cushion became my medicine. I’d stretch like a cat in my backyard patch of grass. Trees, birds, and poetry became my companions.

    Eckhart Tolle’s voice was a melody to my nervous system. I steeped myself in his words each day. Instead of lamenting all the things I couldn’t do, I began to actually enjoy the imperfect present moment.

    You could say I accidentally fell into self-compassion. It’s not that I gave up on healing, but I began treating myself kindly for my very real suffering. I resonated with Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Kindness, in which she writes:

    “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.”

    I awakened with sorrow and spent many insomniac nights mired in it. Much as I wish joy had become my teacher, suffering got the job.

    Soon, I started noticing kindness in and around me. My parents would drop by for a movie. We’d curl up on the couch, ditch my anti-candida diet with a bowl of popcorn, and sink into the relief of other people’s stories.

    Meanwhile, my state disability ended, and I was petrified about how I’d support myself as a single woman without a job. One day, a flier came in the mail saying, “Kindness is like a boomerang that comes back to you. We’re dedicated to financially supporting members of the media in a life crisis.”

    That was me! I’d never heard of this non-profit and don’t know how I got on their mailing list. I applied, got financial aid, and managed to save my house from the clutches of foreclosure!

    In the face of crisis, life’s generosities abounded. A friend listened to my heartbreak. My mom brought homemade chicken soup. One yoga teacher came by with superfood treats.

    Since I paused my pursuit of a cure, I decided to use my spoon-sized energy for an online writing class. Here, I found a community of kindred spirits. A fellow writer told me she recovered from chronic fatigue syndrome through a type of mind-body healing.

    This approach was brought forward by John Sarno, Howard Schubiner, and other physicians who realized the role of unresolved emotions in perpetuating chronic symptoms. Miraculously, her story gave me a sudden boost of energy and catapulted my recovery!

    I stepped into a new paradigm and realized I could overcome my seemingly endless flu-like symptoms. Rather than attacking viruses, I learned to soothe my brain and nervous system.

    No wonder I was hypervigilant. I’d first experienced a massive trauma, then suffered the stress of living with chronic symptoms I felt powerless to overcome. I’d subsequently lost my ability to support myself financially and function in the world during the prime of my life.

    My dear father also passed away during these years, as did three other close family members. My brain was on overload and became stuck in a hypervigilant state—exacerbated by fears that I was ill for life.

    In a training I took a year later, Dr. Schubiner described fibromyalgia as PTSD for the body. I finally felt seen and understood. This was the polar opposite of how I felt with most of the fifty practitioners I saw over my CFS saga.

    While allopathic medicine is miraculous in fighting infections and saving lives, it often neglects the role of emotional stress and trauma on our physical health. Physician and author Gabor Maté writes, “All of the diagnoses that you deal with—depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, even psychosis, are significantly rooted in trauma. They are manifestations of trauma.”

    I needed to explore my storehouse of trauma, which I did through meditation, writing, and somatic therapy. I also shifted my beliefs about my condition and moved slowly back into activities. It took months of dedicated practice to retrain my brain so that I could safely inch out of my bubble.

    I brought mindfulness to personality traits like people-pleasing, pressure, and perfectionism since they can fuel chronic symptoms. I once heard a physician named John Stracks say, “When I think of why people develop pain, self-criticism is at the top of the list.”

    I wanted tools to soften my harsh inner dialogue, so I dove into Kristin Neff’s work. The research psychologist says self-compassion fills us with good-feeling hormones like oxytocin, while self-criticism fuels stress hormones like cortisol. This alone causes a cascade of physical symptoms.

    When our subconscious brain senses danger—even if it’s an internal, psychological one such as “There’s something wrong with me”—it activates our nervous system. In flight or fight, we might feel anxious or aggressive. In freeze, we can feel immobile or dead.

    Neff describes three elements of self-compassion: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Here’s the gist of each one as I understand them.

    Mindfulness: We acknowledge and witness our physical or emotional pain as a felt experience in our body. We might say something like, “It’s hard to feel so sad and exhausted.”

    Humanity: We remember that suffering is part of being human. Although our circumstances are unique, we’re not alone in this universal experience.

    Self-Kindness: We treat ourselves as we would with a dear friend, offering ourselves the supportive words we yearn to hear. When we’re struggling, we ask with sincerity: What do I need right now?

    With self-compassion as my companion, I started speaking to myself tenderly. An indescribable relief would wash over me. Instead of feeling abandoned by life, I felt seen and witnessed by the only one who knew what I needed: myself.

    This dovetails beautifully with mind-body healing. A big part of my recovery was tracking sensations in my body with open curiosity. Fatigue felt heavy. Pain was burny. Brain fog felt spacey.

    To the extent I could, I stopped fighting or fleeing from my feelings and started holding them with curiosity. Often, restlessness and rumination reared up. When I stuck with it, sometimes my system settled and my symptoms shifted into emotions.

    Other times, my body spoke to me. Please don’t push so hard. Don’t say yes when you mean no. Tell me I’m okay just how I am. I need to do something fun.

    As I tended to my hurts in this new way, the physical symptoms began subsiding. This took patience and persistence. Many months later, I was back in the land of the living. Not only that, I was experiencing life in a more authentic and embodied way than I had before the CFS.

    This isn’t woo-woo mumbo-jumbo. Neuroscience shows that our brain creates pain, fatigue, anxiety, and other stress-related symptoms. It does so based on a perception of danger, whether that’s a wayward car, an angry spouse, or harsh inner dialogue.

    “Certain behaviors can bring us to a state of high alert without our even realizing it,” writes Alan Gordon in The Way Out. “There are three habits I see again and again in my patients that trigger fear and aggravate neuroplastic pain: worrying, putting pressure on yourself, and self-criticism.”

    When our nervous system shifts into a threat state, it communicates through symptoms. Sensations from dizziness to dullness are encouraging rest and inactivity. With ongoing stress, our brain can become sensitized, firing memos to our body in rapid succession.

    Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion corroborates this. “Pain is often caused by tension and resistance, so when we soften a little bit as opposed to a harsh reactive stance, it tends to reduce the amount of pain we physically experience,” Neff says in The Healthy.

    Recently, I felt tension flare when speaking with a curt customer service agent who couldn’t help with a large payment I was supposed to receive. It was, apparently, stuck in limbo. My stress level rose, and I felt a knot in my throat—surely full of all the things I wanted to say to her!

    After two hours, my money was still missing in action. My frustration soared as I’d frittered away precious time I’d set aside to write my blog, conveniently on self-compassion. (The irony is not lost on this writer.)

    Instead of trying to fix it further or rush back to work, as I would have done before, I acknowledged that I was angry and scared. I reiterated how impossible the modern age is sometimes. And I said to the trembling part of me, “I am sorry you’re dealing with this stress. What do you want and need right now?”

    It turns out that I needed to growl (literally!). I needed to walk (briskly). And I needed to practice somatic meditation. I did all three and felt a wave of calm energy. The oxytocin potion, perhaps?

    I was ready to return to work with vigor and fresh material for my blog, conveniently enough. That jives with studies showing that self-compassionate people are less anxious and depressed than self-critical people.

    If self-compassion feels like a foreign concept to you, you’re simply a modern Homo sapien. For a long while, it was like a distant planet to me. With intention, we can cast our gaze towards self-kindness and move steadily into its orbit.

    The next time you feel hurt, scared, or symptomatic, you might pause and ask yourself: How am I feeling right now? What words or deeds would feel supportive to me? You may be surprised by what you find in the medicine chest of your very own heart.

  • How I Changed My Life by Becoming a Thought Snob

    How I Changed My Life by Becoming a Thought Snob

    “Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world. ~Wayne Dyer

    Driving home from another visit to the pediatrician, Mother reiterated how puny I was: “You’re just like Mommy. She was so frail. You get sick easily.” I’d say I was five years old when I wholeheartedly accepted this hogwash as fact. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I stayed sick for three decades because I truly believed I was prone to illness.

    I come from a long line of women who never got what they wanted. They settled, conformed, and were submissive to their male spouses. I recall when I was probably eight and witnessed a heated knock-down drag-out between my parents.

    Those fights used to scare me, and I always ended up resenting my father because my mother was no match for him physically or intellectually. As she cleaned up the black mascara that had bled underneath her eyes, she told me something that ended up shaping my relationships with men.

    “Paula, if you care about a man, he’ll treat you like dirt beneath his feet.”

    And just like that, my perspective of men and where I stood with them was ill-fated. My teenage and adult relationships with men mirrored that belief that I accepted as fact when I was still getting bad perms. The bad perms were evidential proof that my brain wasn’t fully developed, so I was far too young to accept any beliefs as facts.

    Let’s flash forward a few years to when my father decided he was too much of a man for one woman. I was eighteen when my parents divorced. Two new women entered and filled our shoes one week after Mother and I left the brick-and-mortar institution we had called home.

    My father had taken on a girlfriend who had a daughter. The daughter set up shop in my bedroom and quickly adapted to answering to my nickname, “Little One.” I felt like I had been replaced because I had been. Very brutally and in true narcissistic form.

    At eighteen, I wasn’t equipped with the emotional intelligence of Mother Teresa, so I blamed myself for not being lovable, a subconscious belief that controlled my behaviors for the next twelve to thirteen years.

    During that time, I went from a size six to sixteen, bought property in Hell on Earth, and dated a drug-addicted criminal with multiple personalities, a mentally ill redneck who self-medicated, and a sex-addicted politician who had five out of the nine defining narcissistic traits. Believing I was unlovable created a string of unlovable experiences.

    At thirty, I realized I had experienced more heartache than love, and I was sick of living a life that wasn’t worth living.

    A couple of years prior, I was introduced to Dr. Wayne Dyer and was evaluating why my life looked the way it did. One day, I heard Dr. Dyer say something that changed the trajectory of my life: “Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”

    Holy shit. That’s when I put two and two together and realized I had been a victim of a downbringing, but that didn’t mean I had to stay a victim. Downbringing is a word I created to describe a socialization that taught me how to live in havoc instead of happiness.

    You might be wondering, “Well, Paula, what defines a downbringing versus an upbringing?”

    A downbringing happens when a young person accepts the subjective opinions (aka lies) of the people who influence them most without questioning or awareness of what is actually true (aka objective). In turn, the subjective beliefs creep into their subconscious minds and control their behaviors before they even realize what has happened. After many years, their mind is like a landfill because they have allowed any thought to live there rent-free.

    Using myself to demonstrate what a downbringing does to the mind, here is an overview of my belief systems during the first three decades of my life:

    • Women getting abused by men was normal.
    • Backstabbing friends and family members was normal.
    • Anyone who looked different than me was of lesser importance.
    • People are born lucky or unlucky, and no one has control over that.
    • I was more susceptible to sickness than others, and there wasn’t anything I could do about that.
    • Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol was normal.
    • There was one way to make money, so I had to take any job I could find, whether I liked it or not.
    • Women aren’t capable of making as much money as men.
    • Everyone was better than me.
    • It was wrong to want more. Wanting more meant I was a stuck-up snob.
    • Jealousy is a healthy response to anyone who looks better or has more.
    • Anger is totally acceptable in any situation when someone presents opposing beliefs.
    • The amount of money someone has makes them superior, and they earn the right to control people who have fewer material assets.

    I can keep going, but I think this list is the perfect Polaroid. Notice that what I stated about wanting more meant I was a stuck-up snob. There was something that was said to me repeatedly when I was still getting bad perms and on up until I was in my thirties.

    Whenever I mentioned wanting a better life, I was told I was getting above my raising. If I mentioned admiring someone who was wealthy, highly educated, or beautiful, I was quickly shot down with that statement, usually with a belly laugh from the person who said it.

    Have you ever been around someone who always found a way to humiliate the living daylights out of you? I have. I was raised by a man who used humiliation as a disciplinary tool, and he loved to pull that tool out of his pocket and use it strategically, especially when he had an audience.

    For many years, I stopped vocalizing my big dreams out of fear that he would embarrass me with a cruel, disempowering lie (aka subjective opinion), but one day, I responded differently to his humiliation tactics. This was a few years into my personal growth evolution, and I had figured out the key to living the best life possible. I wasn’t quite there yet, but I had figured it out and was heading toward a better life at the speed of an Amtrak train.

    He was intimidated by that because he could no longer intimidate me. On this day, he told me I was getting above my raising, and I loudly said, “God, I hope so.” His eyes got as big as two cannonballs, and at that moment, I transitioned from a thought slob to a thought snob.

    As I write this article, I am forty-seven. I have spent the last twenty years living the opposite of how I was taught to live. And guess what?

    I’m not frail at all. As a matter of fact, not only am I in optimal health, but I am also asymptomatic from a rare bladder condition called interstitial cystitis that is supposedly incurable. There’s more.

    My husband is the kindest, most supportive person I’ve ever known. I walked away from an employer who wanted to own my soul for a couple of bucks and thrived in my female-owned business. As it turns out, the people I was jealous of ended up being my greatest teachers because it was those people that I admired.

    If I continued behaving like a thought slob, accepting everyone’s opinions as absolute truths, something irreversible would have happened. This inner knowing caused me to pivot from my long, fruitful career in fundraising to helping people overcome a downbringing. While I worked to figure out this career change, I reflected on my past, and the core memories that surfaced made me realize two things.

    1. Young Paula’s mindset was rooted in self-loathing, and that blocked the better life I wanted.

    2. My self-loathing was the outcome of accepting the subjective opinions of others as facts.

    “Whoa,” I thought. “How simple yet so complex.”

    When I analyzed every aspect of my past existence, one word came to mind: slob. Physically speaking, I didn’t look like the stereotypical definition of a slob because I was very well put together and had excellent personal hygiene; however, I had neglected my brain hygiene for almost thirty years. It was corroded with filthy thoughts that nearly destroyed my life.

    “So, if I used to be a slob, what am I now?” As I thought through that, I came to the conclusion that what I had always wanted was better, but instead, I chose self-loathing because of how I viewed the world and my role in it. My newfound awareness led to the creation of two acronyms:

    • SLOB – Self-Loathing Overrides Better
    • SNOB – See New Objective Beliefs

    BAM! There it was—the perfect way to describe my transformation—from Thought Slob to Thought Snob. I had officially gotten above my raising.

    Awareness is the foundation of all change. When I started behaving with mindful awareness, I was able to interrupt thoughts that would turn into some crazy, scary story.

    Here is an example of how I used my Thought Snob method to reprogram my subconscious mind and train my brain to migrate away from negativity bias and toward thoughts and feelings that lifted me up instead of bringing me down.

    Before I met my husband, I had been alone for quite some time, healing from the tormented relationships I had tolerated and endured. During that time, I thought about what I had been taught as a child. Caring about a man is equated to being treated poorly.

    My awakening came from asking one question: Is this true? Always? Do all men treat women badly? Are all women punished for loving a man? The answer to all of these questions was a hard “NO!”

    I am telling you the moment I started viewing my life objectively (aka, looking at the facts), everything changed. I moved out of the hostile world I had always lived in into a loving world and sold that property I bought in Hell on Earth. I became so snobby with what I allowed my five senses to take in that I let go of 90% of the people, places, and things that had once helped create my identity.

    Bye, Felicia.

    Start here if your life isn’t how you want it to be. Examine your beliefs about the most important things to you. For demonstrative purposes only, let’s use money. If you’re broke and you desire wealth, what are your beliefs about money?

    Let’s say you discovered that you don’t believe you are capable of obtaining wealth because you were taught to believe that money was hard to come by. As you self-reflect, you find yourself feeling resentment toward wealthy people because you grew up in a household where people badmouthed the wealthy.

    Now, use SNOB and answer those questions objectively. For example, was it hard to come by when you received money for your birthday? No, it was easy.

    Are all wealthy people bad? No, they aren’t. The truth is, there are some wonderful wealthy people, and resentment comes from wanting what they have.

    Building self-awareness leads to asking self-reflection questions, and the answers that come reveal the culprit. The culprit is the lies you accepted as truths before your brain was fully developed. Those lies have controlled your behaviors, but here’s the good news.

    You’re an infinite choice-maker. At any moment, you can choose peace or hostility. That’s a fact.

    Here’s what I want you to do: Start practicing mindful awareness. Examine your whole life through an objective lens. When you see new objective beliefs, your self-loathing will no longer override better.

    Examine your life without judgment. You know where your beliefs came from. Show yourself tremendous compassion and move forward mindfully with a desire to change.

  • The Breakthrough That Helped Me Stop Comparing Myself to Others

    The Breakthrough That Helped Me Stop Comparing Myself to Others

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

    In March 2020, the UK went into its first Covid lockdown, and the country was swept with anxiety and sadness. When would we see our loved ones again? Would our health be okay? Was my job safe? And more pressingly, how the heck was I expected to teach my kids?

    Along with everyone else, I first received the news with a sense of impending doom and tried to make the best of a bizarre situation. “Normal life” consisted of stressful home schooling, online working, mask wearing, and (in the UK at least) stockpiling toilet paper!

    We were forced to slow down and retreat because nobody was allowed to socialize or engage in any activity outside of work or home. This was hard at first, but then, after a few weeks, something strange happened. I realized I’d never felt happier.

    You see, before lockdown, I might have appeared happy on the outside, but inside, I was an insecure mess. My mind was full of all the things I thought I “should” be doing: planning more exciting weekend plans, engaging in better hobbies, and making a bigger group of friends. Unless I was at the latest summer festival or spending my Wednesday evenings doing yin yoga, I didn’t feel good enough.

    After a busy day at work, scrolling through Facebook just gave me another list of things to do. An empty schedule felt like failure, and everyone else’s lives looked so much more exciting.

    So I lived for the future, constantly in planning mode and looking over my shoulder for approval. The pressure to keep up and always be doing something was exhausting. It caused rows with my husband (who couldn’t care less what everyone else was up to!), made me ignore my own needs, and reinforced low self-worth.

    If I wasn’t thinking about plans, then I was thinking about people. I compared myself to (what I assumed were) other people’s busy social lives and felt obliged to organize group nights out or always have people over for dinner. Even when I wasn’t seeing friends, I was always preoccupied with them. Were they a good friend? Was I? Why hadn’t they replied to that text? Do they even like me?

    Just below the surface of all the “planning” and “people” chatter that filled my brain was the ever-present noise of self-criticism.

    If you’re not making the most of life every minute, you’re failing.

    If you don’t have the perfect gang of besties like everyone else, then there’s something wrong with you.

    Your life is boring compared to everyone else’s.

    Nobody finds you interesting.

    Do more!!

    What made it all worse was assuming I was the only one with this nagging need to keep striving and do more just to feel good enough.

    I now know that, not only am I not the only one, but this type of thinking is natural.

    When I trained as a compassion-focused therapist, I learned all about how social comparison is wired into our brains. This is because having the biggest tribe and highest status gave us protection in Stone Age times.

    What gives us a sense of status these days? How big our social media following is, how many likes we get, and how amazing our social feed looks! We can’t help sharing if we’ve done something exciting because that inner caveman is driving us to compete.

    The problem is that when we don’t feel like we’re keeping up, our brain will turn on our inner critic because it thinks it’s helping (thanks brain!). It also has a negative bias, which makes us focus on the ways that everyone else seems to be doing better than us. And the false images we see on social media don’t help!

    Although this tendency is natural and we cannot help it, we are living in an age of unprecedented information about what everyone else is doing, and it’s putting our innate comparison nature into overdrive! This puts a strain on us all.

    For me, this started to change when the country closed down. Since everyone’s social calendar was empty, I no longer had anything to compare myself to. Since there were no longer any events or classes, there was nothing I felt like I “should” be doing.

    I spent my evenings and weekends doing what was in front of me because there was no other option. I’d take a local walk, relax in the garden, watch TV, and make it an early night.

    Surprisingly, rather than feeling unhappy and bored, like my critic told me I would, I felt relaxed, deeply content, and at peace. No more feeling like I was missing out; no internal should-ing; no self-criticism for being “boring.” The world had gone quiet, and so had my mind.

    I also realized how small my social circle needed to be. I know that many people felt crushingly alone and understandably missed those vital connections, but for me, it wasn’t an issue. I had my husband and kids, and, for the most part, that’s all I needed.

    Seeing very few people felt incredibly liberating, and it occurred to me that my desire to have a large social circle came from a need for validation. I liked my own company and was an introvert. Who knew?

    As life started to open up again, I was determined to hold on to this deep sense of contentment, and I didn’t want the world to have to stop again for me to keep it.

    Here are five useful steps I practice regularly that have helped me do that.

    1. Practice mindful self-compassion.

    As a newly trained therapist and committed mindfulness practitioner, I’ve found that mindful self-compassion is a powerful tool that helps keep comparison and criticism at bay. It’s becoming a widely used method taught by psychologists and spiritual leaders to improve mental well-being and self-acceptance.

    So, when I find myself being self-critical and comparing myself to others, I pause and bring a curious attention to my thoughts so that they are less consuming. Something simple like “I am noticing I am having self-critical thoughts” can be enough to recognize it’s just a thought, not a fact.

    Next, I tune into how I am feeling in my body so that I can label my emotions and allow any discomfort to be there. There might be a tightness in my chest from turning down an invitation or a heaviness in my stomach from feeling not good enough.

    Then, rather than judge how I feel, I remind myself that I cannot help it and that everyone feels like this from time to time. This step is so powerful because it releases the self-judgment cycle that makes us feel worse and opens up space for compassion.

    Finally, I ask myself what I need to hear, what would be helpful in this moment, or what I would say to a friend. Inevitably, I am able to tap into a deeper wisdom to remind myself that I am good enough already, that my needs are important, or that we have no idea what other people’s lives are really like.

    2. Give myself permission to be boring.

    We can be perfectly happy with our relatively chill weekend or evening, but as soon as we scroll through social media and see what other people are up to, we think there’s something wrong with us, and we experience FOMO.

    If you’re an active type and love staying busy, then great. But for me, the constant need to be doing something came from social pressure, and quiet evenings in front of the TV were what I craved the most after a busy day at work.

    Giving myself permission to be ‘boring’ honors who I am and helps me tune into my needs, which helps me know and like myself more. If the self-critical thoughts creep in, it’s a perfect time to practice self-compassion, and I remind myself that nobody is paying attention anyway.

    3. Keep my circle small.

     Many friendships changed for everyone during Covid because we were forced to focus on who mattered. I felt grateful that Covid made me realize that a large social circle was not actually making me happier, and social comparison had been a big driver for that.

    Not everyone has or needs a big gang, like my self-critic had told me. So, instead of going back out there and rekindling all my friendships, I made a point of keeping my circle small. I now focus on one to two close friendships and am able to be friendly with others without feeling like I have to be best friends with everyone!

    4. Embrace my inner introvert.

    It can be easy to think that introverts are quiet, bookish types, and if you met me, you would know that I do not fit that description at all. “Life and soul,” “chatterbox,” and “super-confident” are words that might more accurately describe me. But, as an empath, I have limited social reserves to be around people constantly, and I don’t need to either.

    I am perfectly happy in my own company and need lots of time to recharge in between socializing. Such tendencies do not suit a lifestyle with a busy social calendar and wide friendship circle. Acknowledging and accepting my introversion has allowed me to tune into what I need rather than thinking I need to be like everyone else.

    5. Work on my self-worth.

    Although we are all prone to social comparison, we are much more likely to do it if we lack self-worth. This is because our default “not good enough” belief makes us automatically assume other people are better than us, so to feel good enough, we try to keep up and secure imaginary approval.

    But it’s a slippery pole we can never get to the top of because it’s coming from a faulty belief that won’t go away just because we have external conditions. We therefore need to accept that we are already okay as we are, focus on what is important to us, and leave other people to their own lives.

    For me, using self-compassion and self-worth meditations, acting as if I was already good enough, and offering myself positive self-worth validations really helped.

    —

    Learning to let go of destructive social comparisons and having the courage to be myself has been life changing, and I haven’t looked back since. There was so much about the pandemic that was negative, but I am grateful for the changes it helped me make.

  • If Someone Cares for You

    If Someone Cares for You

  • Shadow Parts: How to Recognize and Release Them

    Shadow Parts: How to Recognize and Release Them

    “When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.” ~Allan Looks

    Last year, I took my then-six-year-old son to a kite festival. He was ecstatic about flying his kites, and we spent a lot of time doing just that!

    At one point, his kite string got tangled with another lady’s kite string. Both kites crashed to the ground, and the lady and I started working to untangle the strings.

    In his excitement, my little one repeatedly asked if we were done yet and if he could fly his kite again. I reassured him, saying I understood his excitement and that his kite would be ready soon.

    However, the lady, visibly annoyed, gave him judgmental looks and eventually told him he was being impatient and needed to stop asking.

    Calmly, I explained to her that he was just excited to fly his kite and reminded her that he was only six years old.

    This incident made me observe her shadow of impatience. She was essentially impatiently telling a young, excited child to be patient without recognizing her own impatience. This is what we call a shadow.

    Recognizing our own shadows can be challenging because they are hidden within us, much like how a computer operates with its set of programs without being aware of them. Our shadows are ingrained from early childhood, making it difficult for us to see them clearly.

    Here are some common examples of shadows I’ve witnessed in clients, family, friends, and even myself:

    • A parent yelling at their child to stop yelling.
    • A parent (or anyone) being impatient with their child’s impatience.
    • Someone badmouthing another person while complaining about that person’s meanness, not realizing that badmouthing is unkind.
    • Someone desiring more benevolence from others but gossiping behind their backs.
    • I often feel unsure if someone wants me in their life or business, but the truth is, I am the one who is indecisive.

    Shadows make us judgmental and inhibit our capacity for love, compassion, joy, presence, and understanding. They limit our experience of life. This is why I believe shadow work is crucial for living a joyful and connected life.

    So, how can we shine a light on and release our own shadows? Here are a few steps:

    1. Bring Awareness: Notice your triggers—when you feel frustrated, impatient, annoyed, or judgmental towards someone else.

    2. Acknowledge the Emotion: Allow yourself to feel the emotion fully, without judgment or resistance.

    3, Be Curious: Curiosity transcends judgment. Ask yourself: What is it about this person that makes me feel this way?

    4. Identify the Shadow: Recognize that the part of yourself you have denied or repressed is being projected onto others. Ask yourself why you are judging them.

    5. Observe Honestly: Be radically honest and observe this shadow part of you. Acknowledge it by saying, “I see you.”

    6. Understand the Cause: Ask yourself why this shadow is showing up. Often, a younger, wounded part of yourself needs healing and love.

    7. Nurture the Wounded Part: Identify who you are protecting—perhaps a little girl who was scolded or punished. Hold this part of yourself with love, acceptance, and compassion.

    8. Heal with Love: Send love, patience, and kindness to this part of yourself. Give her what she needed at the time.

    9. Apply this Love Now: Extend this love to your current self and observe how it changes your feelings toward the situation or person.

    10. Practice Regularly: Repeat these steps until it becomes easier. As you nurture these parts of yourself, they will trust you more, and you will feel more grounded and loving.

    By shining a light on our shadows, we can transform judgment into understanding and impatience into patience, and ultimately live a more joyful and connected life.

  • So Often, Children Are Punished for Being Human

    So Often, Children Are Punished for Being Human

  • How to Move Forward After Loss: The 3 Phases of Healing

    How to Move Forward After Loss: The 3 Phases of Healing

    “Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass. You won’t feel sad forever. At some point, you will feel happy again. You won’t feel anxious forever. In time, you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them. You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride this out. Resisting your emotions and shaming yourself will only cause you more pain, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve your own love, acceptance, and compassion.” ~Lori Deschene

    To this day, I still remember that call. I had just come home after an exhausting day at work, put on my sneakers, and went jogging. I left my phone on the table because I just couldn’t handle any more calls from my clients that day.

    As I was jogging, I was hit with a feeling that something was wrong. I tried to shake it, but I couldn’t. It was very pervasive, like an instinctive ‘knowing’ that something terrible had happened.

    I turned around and rushed home. As I got there, I picked up my phone and saw twenty missed calls from my mother and father. I didn’t even have to call back. I knew what it was.

    I grabbed my car keys and started driving to my mother. As I was driving, I called her, but she was so emotional and upset that she could barely talk. My dad picked up the phone and told me to come quickly. “Your brother…” he said. “Your brother is no longer with us.”

    At only twenty-eight years of age, two years younger than me, my brother had decided that enough was enough. He’d lived a life filled with severe anxiety and depression, which he tried to mitigate with alcohol and, I suspect, stronger substances.

    It wasn’t always that way, of course. He wanted nothing more than to fit in—to find his place in society and live his purpose. Nothing was more important to him than friends and family.

    But time after time, society failed him. First, by trying to push him through a “one-size-fits-all” education system that just wasn’t for him. Then, after he was diagnosed with depression, he wanted to get help and heal himself, but the doctors deemed him too happy and healthy to receive psychological care. He was dumped full of medication, which did nothing but worsen his physical and psychological condition.

    After years of trying to cope with depression and fighting a healthcare system that’s supposed to be among the best in the world here in Finland, he could no longer take it. He saw no other way out of the constant pain and suffering other than to end it all.

    My brother, as I like to remember him, was always outgoing and social. Nothing was more important to him than his friends and family. He was very open about this, and the last thing he would have wanted was to cause any pain or suffering for those closest to him. Or anyone else, for that matter.

    But there we were, our parents and me, trying to get a grasp of what had happened and how to deal with it.

    How Not to Deal with a Loss

    The first couple of days, I was devastated. I couldn’t eat or sleep or do anything other than just lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I had daily calls with my parents to make sure they were okay, but they did not know how to deal with it either. They could offer no solace to me, and I couldn’t offer anything to them. I had no idea what to do or how to handle my emotions.

    As days went by, I got back to my routines. My boss was very supportive and told me to take as much time off work as I needed. But I told him I was fine and said I had no intentions of taking any sick leave.

    That was the only way I could handle it: by working and taking my mind off what had happened. My method of dealing with my emotions was not to deal with them at all. I did everything I could so that I wouldn’t have to think about it: I worked, I partied with my friends, and I distracted myself by doing literally anything other than giving some time and thought to what had happened.

    Needless to say, that was not a healthy way to deal with the situation.

    Soon enough, I started to notice a total lack of energy. There were days when I couldn’t even get out of bed. I turned off my phone because I was so anxious that I just couldn’t deal with anything and just stayed in bed all day.

    If I wasn’t happy at my job before, now things seemed even more depressing. I could not find joy in anything and avoided social contact. I was irritable and had no motivation, even toward things that I previously enjoyed

    I thought things would improve with time. Time, they say, is a healer. Not in my case. It felt like things were getting worse by the day. I was checking all the marks of severe depression, and I seriously started to contemplate what would become of my life.

    Then one night, when going to bed, I was feeling so sick of it all. I was depressed and anxious, an empty shell of the joyful extrovert that I had previously been. I sighed, closed my eyes, and quietly asked myself, “What’s the meaning of it all? What am I supposed to do? How am I going to get over this?”

    To my surprise, I received an answer.

    “Help.”

    I don’t want to say that it was a divine intervention or anything like that. It was more like suddenly getting in touch with long-forgotten deep wisdom within myself. My purpose. The driving force behind my every action.

    Whatever it was, I understood at that moment that it would be my way out. The reason I’m not healing with time is that I’m supposed to help myself by learning how to overcome depression and anxiety and then help others do the same. It became very clear to me.

    I also understood the source of my problems. The depression, the anxiety—it was all because of my inability to deal with the emotions related to my brother’s demise. Heavy thoughts and emotions were piling up, thus making my mind and body react negatively.

    I vowed that I would find a way to release the thoughts and emotions related to what had happened to my brother. I decided to be happy again. Happiness and good mental health—those would become my guiding principles in life.

    The process of finding answers was an arduous but rewarding journey. I contemplated and studied, meditated, and sought advice for months, but eventually I found the emotional blockages that were holding me back and methods to release them in a healthy way.

    Now I want to share what helped me with you.

    The intention behind sharing my personal experiences is not to diminish or downplay the unique pain that you may be enduring. Loss affects each of us differently, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. My aim when sharing this story and the following three phases of letting go is to offer solace or insights to each of you navigating your own paths of healing.

    1. Allow yourself to grieve.

    The first phase, and our first natural reaction to a loss, is grief, and the first mistake I made was not allowing myself to grieve.

    Grief, when allowed to be expressed naturally, is a powerful tool for dealing with loss. It is there to help you let go when you can’t otherwise. It allows you to express and process your emotions, including sadness, anger, and confusion, which are common reactions to bereavement.

    Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five distinct stages of the grieving process:

    1. Denial
    2. Anger
    3. Bargaining
    4. Depression
    5. Acceptance

    But, as you probably know, the process is highly individual. I never felt the need to deny what had happened. I wasn’t angry about it and wasn’t trying to bargain my way out of it.

    Instead, I repressed my grief. I used all the non-beneficial coping methods, such as overeating, drinking, working around the clock, and so on, and that led me to the fourth stage, depression, and got me stuck there for a long time.

    Fortunately, grieving is very simple. Just allow it to happen naturally, the way it wants to be expressed.

    If you allow yourself to express your grief, it will go away or at least decrease in intensity. My mother was, unknowingly, an expert at this. She said, “I have cried so much that now there are no more tears to be shed.” She had processed the grief and was done with it much quicker than I was.

    When you express your grief naturally, without trying to repress it or ignore it, you can eventually move through sadness. But if you have learned to repress your grief and not cry, your grief can grow into depression, as it did in my case.

    It can take time to heal and recover from the emotional pain and sadness associated with grief. And even though the situation can seem dark, recovering from loss, depression, and psychosomatic health problems is possible, as my story shows. When I finally allowed myself to grieve, I noticed a significant improvement in my mood. I felt lighter and gained more energy, and suddenly life didn’t seem all that dark anymore.

    2. Accept and forgive.

    The second phase is accepting what has happened and forgiving those involved, including yourself, to reduce anger and resentment and, ultimately, create a sense of peace.

    In essence, forgiveness is a two-fold process:

    First, forgive yourself. We tend to blame ourselves, even when there’s nothing we could have done. Odds are, you did everything you could. But especially if you feel like you made mistakes, forgiveness will be crucial for healing. Step in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eyes. Say, “I forgive you.” It will be uncomfortable and hard at first, but it will get easier and easier if you keep working at it.

    Second, forgive others. I firmly believe that, deep down inside, the people we have lost never wanted us to suffer. Forgive them, and forgive anyone you might be tempted to blame for their pain. You can do this by telling them in person or by closing your eyes, imagining them in front of you, and saying to them, “I forgive you.”

    In the case of my brother, it was easy to see that his actions were not intended to cause distress or grief to others. He acted the way he did because it was the only way he knew how to deal with his pain and depression.

    I could have blamed his actions for my depression, but I understood that he was in constant pain and agony and why he saw no other option.

    It would have also been easy to blame my parents for what had happened. They had their problems— including divorce and depression—which heavily affected my brother and me. But the thought never crossed my mind. I love my parents, and I’m sure they did everything in their power to raise healthy and happy children.

    Forgiving myself was the hardest part. I believed that if only I had visited my brother more, given him more of my time, and just listened to his worries, I could have somehow helped him heal. It took time and deep self-reflection to understand that we cannot change other people’s minds. At best, we can help them change their minds, but we cannot make decisions for them. Each of us walks our own path through life, and our choices are ultimately our own to make.

    There’s nothing I could have done that would have made a difference. I’ve accepted that now and forgiven myself and everyone else.

    3. Move forward with purpose.

    For me, the most crucial part of moving on is finding meaning and purpose in the loss. It can be as simple as reflecting on the positive aspects of the relationship, the lessons learned, or the impact your loved one had on your life.

    In my case, I decided to dedicate my life to teaching what I had learned so that no one would have to suffer the same fate as my brother. It was a deep calling that gave meaning to my brother’s life and a purpose to what I had to go through.

    It is my way of honoring his memory, and it feels like it finally gave the meaning to my brother’s life that he was always seeking. He never found his place in this world, but now he would help others live a happy life filled with purpose through my telling of his story.

    The Beauty of Life Lies in its Ephemeral Nature

    One truth about life is that it will eventually end. Consequently, throughout our lives, we are bound to encounter loss.

    Even though letting go and moving on after a loss is undoubtedly one of the hardest things to do, it’s what we should do. There’s no point in giving up on life just because we lost someone dear to us. We can grieve for as long as we need to, but eventually, acceptance and forgiveness pave the way for moving forward, reclaiming joy, and honoring the memory of those we have lost.

    And please remember: There is always hope, and there are those who wish to help. So dare to ask for support whenever you feel like things are too much for you to handle. You don’t have to go through it alone.

  • Take Note of How Far You’ve Come

    Take Note of How Far You’ve Come

  • Rereading My Chapters

    Rereading My Chapters

  • 5 Lessons Pain Taught Me About Love

    5 Lessons Pain Taught Me About Love

    “If there is love in your heart, it will guide you through your life. Love has its own intelligence.” ~Sadhguru

    Love was something I craved for most of my life. I dreamed that one day, a person would come into my life, preferably a man, who would love me and save me from my painful suffering filled with emptiness and desperation.

    Even when I was single, which I was quite often and for prolonged periods, I would fantasize about a perfect relationship with someone who’d understand and accept me even in my worst moments. I wanted a partner and a best friend.

    When mister BIG wasn’t coming, I turned to my parents. I wished for a loving mom and dad—parents who would heal themselves and give me all that I felt I’d missed out on.

    This led to unmet expectations and a series of disappointments and relationships in my life that were borderline abusive and unhealthy.

    It all resurfaced and pushed me to my limits when I met another man. It was one of those situations where I knew it wouldn’t work out but proceeded anyway. He ended up returning to his previous relationship, and we remained friends. Or rather, I pretended to be a friend while secretly hoping things would change one day and we would live happily ever after.

    After a year and a half of deliberately staying in this dynamic, feeling depleted and deeply depressed, our paths split, and I began healing myself. This time, for real.

    I think that many of us hold the idea that love is beautiful. And although it is one of the most empowering emotions, love is also an emotion that brings pain. When we care about someone and they are struggling or hurting themselves, we feel pain. When we lose people we love, we feel pain. A willingness to love is a willingness to hurt.

    But what if we are hurting because we don’t believe we are worthy of love? What if we are looking at love from a limited perspective?

    It’s been a couple of years since I promised to change the relationship I had with myself. Seeing what the desperation to be loved made me do, I got quite scared.

    Throughout this time, I went through different stages of growth while addressing and looking at every relationship I’ve had, from my childhood through my marriage and divorce to the last encounter with a romantic relationship. Here are five lessons I learned about love.

    1. Love can only exist within. 

    A while back, I watched a video with a yogi named Sadhguru.

    In the video, he asked, “Where do you feel pain or pleasure, love or hate, agony or ecstasy?”

    The answer: only within.

    Our emotions can’t be felt or created outside of our inner experience.

    Growing up, I believed I could only feel and receive love from external sources. It didn’t occur to me that I could awaken this feeling without an outside presence since it is something I can only feel and create within.

    This helped me realize that the love I was seeking had been with me all along, and there must have been a way to access it.

    I decided to focus on my thoughts and overall perception of myself while questioning every belief that told me I wasn’t worthy of love. Then, I would dissect these beliefs while intentionally looking for evidence that they weren’t true.

    I focused on pleasurable things and people who I loved and adored. I could see that any time I focused on the sweetness and kindness of my environment, my emotional state became pleasant.

    2. Love is always available. 

    Love is always available, and you can feel it if you choose to.

    Since I know this is a bold statement, try out this experiment.

    Close your eyes and bring to your awareness someone you love dearly. Maybe it is your child, a puppy, or someone else. You can see something they do that you absolutely love and cherish or simply think of their presence. Focus all your attention on this vision, fully immerse yourself, and stay with it for at least three to five minutes.

    Then open your eyes and check with yourself how you feel. Do you feel that the sweetness of your emotions has increased?

    And all you did was close your eyes and work with your imagination. I am not suggesting you should go live on an abandoned island all by yourself. But as you can see, love is within you, and you can access it through simple exercises like this one.

    3. Love doesn’t guarantee happiness. 

    At the beginning of my recovery, I had to face a question: “What do I expect to gain from others offering me their love?”

    I realized that I never went into any relationship with the idea of giving but, rather, taking. I wasn’t thinking to myself, “Well, I am overflowing with goodness and joy, and I want to share it with someone.”

    Instead, I was looking to fulfill a need. Whether it was in a relationship with my parents or different men in my life, I was looking for a payoff.

    When it didn’t come, my starving soul would throw a tantrum. Since I didn’t have a healthy relationship with myself, I naturally attracted relationships that reflected that.

    Often, we go into relationships looking for something. Whatever our intention is, we unconsciously hope to receive love to make us feel better and happier.

    Initially, we may feel ‘it’ as the dopamine of a new relationship floods our nervous system. But eventually, as the excitement from the newness subsides, we are back to our old challenges, with the persistent longing for something more while missing the fact that it only and always exists within all of us.

    4. Self-love doesn’t always feel good at first.  

    When we say the word love, it has a soft and pleasant connotation. Therefore, when we look at the fact that, let’s say, setting boundaries is an act of self-love, it doesn’t quite fit our ideology because it can evoke discomfort.

    This one was hard for me to accept. I thought that loving myself should always feel good. So, when I did positive things for myself and felt the fear of rejection or worried that others wouldn’t understand or accept me, something that the unhealed part of me struggled with, I felt uncomfortable and scared.

    Eventually, I learned that love goes way deeper, beyond immediate pleasure or comfort.

    Sometimes self-love means setting boundaries, standing up for yourself, looking at your toxic traits, speaking your truth, saying no, loving some people from a distance, or putting yourself first.

    It’s about respecting yourself enough to honor your needs and well-being, even if it means someone else is displeased.

    5. Loneliness results from disconnection. 

    When I was married, I felt lonely. Then I got divorced, and the loneliness was gone. Eventually, I got into another relationship and felt lonely again. After I broke it off, loneliness disappeared again.

    This dynamic got me curious.

    Typically, we expect to feel lonely when we are alone. But I realized that loneliness isn’t about other people’s presence but rather the connection we have with ourselves.

    Since I was staying in abusive and toxic situations, I knew I was betraying myself. But because I ignored it and denied it, I was naturally disconnected from who I was and what I was worth. And that brought painful feelings of loneliness.

    On the other hand, when I stood up for myself and left the situation that was hurting me, my higher self understood that I was taking a healthy step and led me back to myself. This is when loneliness started to dissipate.

    At the time of this writing, I am choosing to be single. I feel that for the first time, I am truly taking care of myself and honoring my worth and value—things that were so foreign to me all my life.

    I see this as a time of deep recovery and healing while peeling away every layer of past conditioning and trauma. Seeing that love is always available to all of us, I am beginning to understand that who I am, where I am, and what I do are and always were enough.

    —

    Although approaching emotional pain will always be a challenge for me, I am beginning to see that my pain was never meant to make me suffer. Instead, it showed me the love I was capable of feeling and taught me how I can use it to heal myself.

  • Happy Couples Prioritize Growth

    Happy Couples Prioritize Growth

  • Who Your People Are

    Who Your People Are

  • How I Healed from Addiction One New Belief at a Time

    How I Healed from Addiction One New Belief at a Time

    “Recovery is all about using our power to change our beliefs that are based on faulty data.” ~Kevin McCormick

    I struggled with what I would consider a disconnect with myself from a very young age. I was born a free spirit, curious and interested in so many things. I was also very shy and sensitive. I was not the type to be put in a box or expected to conform to the norm. That just wasn’t me. I needed to be accepted and supported for who I was.

    Instead, my well-meaning parents attempted to “domesticate” me, especially my father. I experienced severe mental abuse by him and was told repeatedly that I was no good, that I would never amount to anything, and that I was stupid, as well as many other negative statements. Due to his behavior, I rebelled in every way.

    Unfortunately, I believed everything he said to me, and I struggled for many years with feeling that I was not good enough and not worthy of anything good. I honestly thought something was wrong with me. I tried to be and do what was expected, but it was not who I was. Quite frankly, I did not know who I was.

    At age fifteen, I discovered drugs and alcohol. Using substances helped me get out of myself, my pain, and numb all my feelings and check out. I had created beliefs about myself that simply were not true, and I continued to live from the faulty belief that I was not good enough.

    Well, that didn’t work out well for me, as you can imagine. It seemed to be a great solution at first, or so I thought because I didn’t have to feel, but things continued to spiral out of control.

    I chose men that didn’t always treat me well, and I didn’t excel to my potential because I did not believe I deserved anything good or that I was good enough or smart enough to do anything great with my life.

    I had to work very hard to overcome my addiction and then heal my life as well. It took a lot of work with therapy and life coaching to help me heal and accept myself for who I am. I had to work on getting to know my “real” self and to learn how to like and then love myself, which meant working on changing beliefs that were stored in my subconscious mind without my realizing it.

    Someone once asked me why I was abusing drugs and alcohol, and I told him that I didn’t like who I thought I was, which was true, but my thoughts and beliefs about myself were not true.

    As I progressed in the work I did on myself and through my studies, I learned that my thoughts and beliefs were not set in stone, and they were most likely someone else’s beliefs, things I’d heard as a child and identified as my own. When I realized that I could decide for myself what thoughts I wished to think and, therefore, what beliefs I chose to live by—that I could make my own rules—well, that was an eye-opener and a game changer.

    I stopped using drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. I went back to school to expand my knowledge, to obtain a degree to become a drug and alcohol counselor, and to focus on understanding the root causes of addiction. The drugs and alcohol were simply a way to avoid getting to the deeper issues and healing my whole self.

    Today, I can honestly say that I have a healthy relationship with myself. Was this an easy journey for me? No, it took work and perseverance. I worked with a counselor who was in recovery, I attended AA meetings, and I worked through the twelve steps of the program, which I continue to use today. I then discovered life coaching and hired a coach, which was how I learned to examine and identify my beliefs about myself.

    At first, I was afraid to look at myself and my life. I was afraid I would not like what I found inside. But once I began to see things unfold and learned that my thoughts and feelings stemmed from my faulty belief system, which I developed at a very young age, it helped me put things into perspective.

    I began to enjoy the journey of learning who I am and have continued to learn and grow every day. I became curious and began to identify and create my own belief system. I learned to pay attention to what I was thinking and feeling.

    Today, I have tools that support me on my journey, such as gratitude, focusing on my goals, identifying fear-based thoughts, understanding my triggers, connecting with my higher self, practicing self-love and self-care, journaling, and living in the present moment. I’ve learned to appreciate each day and have the utmost gratitude for all that I’ve been through because my life experiences have brought me to where I am today.

    I continue to study every day, as there are still so many things to learn. After all, we are all here on this earth to learn, experience life, and grow.

    If you too are battling with addiction, practice self-awareness around your struggles so you can get to the root of your issues. I like the quote, “Life is happening for us, not to us.”

    When you can look at a situation objectively and with curiosity, you are much more equipped to make good, healthy decisions instead of harshly judging yourself. This is how we heal—by empathizing with ourselves and all we’ve been through and supporting ourselves every step of the way.

  • I Don’t Have to React to Everything That Bothers Me

    I Don’t Have to React to Everything That Bothers Me

  • When You Avoid a Hard Conversation

    When You Avoid a Hard Conversation