Chef Adam Smith serves perfectly good food that would otherwise go to waste, on a pay-as-you-feel basis. As for why he decided to do this in Leeds, in the UK, Adam says, “You can’t change the world unless you change your hometown first.”
What a beautiful mission! Follow the Pay As You Feel Cafe on Facebook here.
“If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.” ~Daisaku Ikeda
As kids, we are beings of wonder. Spending hours inspecting blades of grass, hoping to discover lady beetles, rocking fairy wings or a cape at the shops because we feel like it, laughing for the silliest reasons, and finding unadulterated happiness in special treats, our favorite cartoon, or a game of hide and seek.
As teenagers, we often become too cool to find joy in the simplest things but still manage it hanging out with friends, falling in love with celebrities, and listening to that one song over and over again.
But, by the time we reach full-blown adulthood, those whimsical childhood traits may be as forgotten as an invisible friend.
As grown ups we’re allowed to do all the fun things we spent high school wishing we could do, and yet, we get caught up in jobs we hate, paying bills, sitting in traffic, and sometimes ‘just getting by.’
I know this feeling, because I’ve been there.
And then, one day, I decided it was time to stop for a second and find a way to get back to a time when life was more joy-filled. Rediscovering the beauty of life, instead of focusing on the ugliness, the negativity, or the laborious pains of just getting by.
Since I was fifteen, I wanted to work in film and television. I did my high school work experience at a post-production company and decided I would work there one day.
I graduated top of my class studying film and TV in high school, I was (and still am) a total film geek, I studied it at university. And then landed by dream job at the company I’d experienced five years earlier.
I could not believe it.
From that point onward, I went from contract to contract working some crazy hours (like 2PM to 2AM shifts for an entire month).
I went through periods of no work between contracts (and, as a result no money), being morally torn between staying true to myself and doing what it takes to butter people up for the good jobs, working on shows I hated, working with people who made my skin crawl, getting praised by my superiors but being ignored by those doing the promoting, and continuing to strive for a dream job that felt like it was never going to happen.
Of course, the perks of the job were fantastic—working with some great people, every day being interesting and unexpected, traveling, and working in what I still consider to be a really fun industry.
But when something stops serving you, it becomes so much harder to see the good from the downright terrible.
This all culminated when I landed the producing job I’d been working toward. Oh, what an achievement! You can imagine my excitement after so many years of working my way up to the job I’d always wanted. The celebration that followed the promotion was…non-existent.
I was earning good money. I had the job title. I was finally getting somewhere. And I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it because all I could see was that I still wasn’t happy.
A friend rang to congratulate me and I didn’t even notice.
I was so overwhelmed by the anticlimax of it all. And that’s when I knew something needed to change.
It may seem like a ridiculous notion to some, but I honestly and truly believe that when you see these habits of what feels like never ending complaining, whining, and frustration then it’s time to make some changes.
Some people are totally cool to accept that this is all there is, but not me. (And maybe not you, either).
When I realized that too much of my time was spent unhappy, I decided to do whatever I could to change that.
I changed jobs as soon as possible. I started working with people who meant the world to me in a role that was much better suited to me. This gave me room to breathe and come up for air after ten years on a career path that I decided I hated.
I started to see what I loved again.
And even if I was still trying to decide what to do, this made it easier to finally be happy. And I became aware of how I could do more of this on an everyday basis.
I set dinner dates with friends on Monday nights to make the beginning of the week oh-so-enjoyable. I took advantage of coffee runs at work and turned them into glorious sun walks. I found joy in the simple pleasure of sitting in the park on the weekend just chatting or reading.
I noticed I was changing. Sure sometimes stress still popped it’s head up and challenges arose, but I was becoming better equipped to handle the unknown because I had simply brought more joy into my life. The unexpected inconveniences became less frustrating, and the simplest pleasures became more obvious.
The power of needing to change allowed me to find ways of doing more of what made me happy.
I’ll be completely honest with you: this is not something that just happened to me overnight. I’m still working toward my new career path and finding what I really want out of life. I still get frustrated or upset sometimes, and I still have a lot of work to do.
But something changed the day I decided to take life into my own hands and seek out the beauty of life.
I became more aware.
I started attracting more happy moments and wonderful people to me because I actively sought them out, and what I put out came back to me tenfold.
I seek out the good stuff instead of dwelling on the not-so-good.
And, through this, I’ve learned that the more we search for beauty of life, the more we invite it in. As kids we noticed it with ease, exploring to our heart’s content but, as adults, we sometimes forget to pay attention.
We get caught up with the mundane, we focus on the negative, and we love joining in on a mutual whine-fest with others. But imagine how much we could gain from our day if we took a moment to soak in the bliss of being alive.
Lying in the grass, laughing with a loved one, being recognized at work for doing a great job, swapping out things we don’t like with things we love, acknowledging someone else and seeing their joy, and just embracing the moments that make up our day-to-day lives is the key to finding the extraordinary in each day.
It may not always seem that simple but, I promise, if you’re willing to give it a shot, try it out, and be intentional when seeking out wondrous moments, it will make a significant difference to your life. And, the more you practice, the easier it will be to see.
I invite you to be aware of what you might need to change and seek out possibilities for joy in the coming week.
Find ways to bring the fun in and keep your eyes wide open for special moments or people that can make your life even more beautiful. Or, even better, take time to be grateful for what you’ve already got.
Try it out, see how you go, and then leave me a comment and tell me how it went!
Photo by deveion acker
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” ~Benjamin Disraeli
Although laziness is common and a natural part of life, it has the potential to completely consume us.
I personally have times where laziness causes me to feel trapped. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to shake it off. I feel tired, fall asleep constantly during the day, sit around a lot and feel unable to be active, avoid doing anything productive, and put on hold things that I want to accomplish.
I believe there are two kinds of laziness. First, there’s the kind where you have been working your butt off for weeks and finally, after all your hard work, all you want to do is be lazy and do nothing.
But then there’s the kind of laziness where you struggle to find motivation. Every time you think of something you would like to do or achieve, you cannot find the energy or drive to work toward it. This is the kind of laziness that I am talking about.
Being lazy is actually quite draining and depressing. I know because I regularly find myself feeling so lethargic that even the simplest task seems like a challenge. I’m sure I’m not alone in this struggle.
I have found five effective ways to overcome my laziness that I want to share with you so you can win your personal battle too.
We often create a big list of things that we want to do and achieve. Focusing on two or three things at a time will allow you to feel less overwhelmed. Instead, you will feel motivated, as your goals will now seem so much more achievable.
Out of the two sets of six-month goals below, which set gets you more motivated?
Learn to play guitar, do well at work, and get fit.
Learn to play guitar, do well at work, get fit, build big muscles, get better at singing, get top marks at school, learn how to draw better, and write a book.
When I see the second list, I feel overwhelmed. When my life looks a bit like this, I usually don’t know where to start or if I can succeed at anything I’ve set out to do.
People feel motivated when they feel they have a good chance of success.
This has been a big learning curve for me. When success seems like it is just around the corner, suddenly I get an amazing rush of energy where I feel liberated and excited to achieve bigger things.
Set yourself two or three easy to achieve goals at a time and you will notice that you will naturally gain inspiration and motivation.
Exercise is the simplest way to overcome laziness. A lot of the time, we feel lazy because completing a task seems too difficult. With exercising, you don’t have to figure anything out. You just have to make that one big decision to literally start moving your body (jump up and down, go for a run, or start doing lunges in your living room).
This has been a big revelation for me. Sometimes I get so fed up with feeling lazy and lethargic that I literally just start running. I have learned that if you can overcome physical laziness, your mind will naturally follow.
You will find that you will become more willing to think about complicated things, such as working on a project or doing something that you have been avoiding. Exercise will help you break through that barrier of inertia and will help you feel motivated and more willing to put in effort.
Sound’s ironic, doesn’t it? Overcoming laziness by relaxing! But it works.
Often, we become lazy because a task seems too difficult. By relaxing and doing the things we enjoy, we allow ourselves to feel satisfied. When we are satisfied, we are more willing to take on bigger tasks and achieve bigger things.
By relaxing and enjoying yourself, you also allow yourself to think about things, reflect, and feel inspired.
For example, I often feel uninspired to write articles. I get a mental block. Writing and researching becomes an overwhelming task, so I retreat to laziness. I completely block out anything that requires hard work.
I have learned that as I relax and do things I enjoy, my mind is encouraged to reflect again. It is not scared of becoming overwhelmed because it knows that I am not going to push it to do something productive if it does not want to.
This is how I gain inspiration again. When I relax, I suddenly find myself thinking of all these great ideas and I regain inspiration and motivation.
Your physical surroundings have a big impact on how you feel. If your house is a mess, you are likely to feel even more overwhelmed—both because clutter creates a sense of chaos and because having to clean your house adds to your giant list of things to do in a ridiculously short amount of time.
Clean your house and organize your physical surroundings and you will naturally feel motivated to be more productive and active.
You will be making life simpler and easier to manage.
Once you’ve organized your home, you may feel motivated to get organized in other areas of your life and tackle tasks you’ve neglected.
As I mentioned earlier, laziness is often our attempt to avoid difficult or unpleasant tasks. Ironically, once you start tackling them, it will all feel less difficult and overwhelming and you’ll likely feel a lot less tense.
Our internal dialogue (the way we speak to ourselves) has such a big impact on how we feel and what we do.
Anthony Robins, world famous motivational speaker, explains that if we want to feel ecstatic, all we need to do is adopt a point of view that creates that emotion.
For example, picturing in your mind the things that make you feel that way, change the tone and content of your internal dialogue and change your posture and breathing to create that state in your body.
This has become my personal motto, and I am genuinely amazed at how much more positive I feel just by choosing to have a positive outlook.
Every time I have a negative thought, such as “today is going to be a long, hard day at work,” I immediately challenge that thought by telling myself something like this: “I have so much to be grateful for and today is going to be fun and enjoyable!”
I then make a choice to get rid of my slouchy posture and tell myself that I have lots of energy.
Just thinking that way makes me feel excited and gives me a big boost of energy.
I once learned that we have over 50,000 thoughts a day. Even if only 10% of them are negative, it equals a total of 5,000 negative thoughts a day. When I heard this, I realized that we have way too many negative thoughts and it helped make sense of why so many of us struggle to feel motivated.
Being aware of and monitoring your internal dialogue is so important, and will inevitably impact on how lazy you feel and how easy it will be for you to overcome that laziness.
These methods have helped me incredibly and continue to help me everyday. I am sure that if you apply them too, you will experience a big boost of energy and motivation in your daily life.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
I will never forget June 20, 1999.
I experienced many firsts on that day: leaving my family behind, traveling by plane, and being surrounded by people talking a different language.
But that day wasn’t exceptional for those reasons alone; it also put me on a path of independence and self-discovery that has treated me well ever since.
My dream was simple in my teens: to live abroad and speak a foreign language.
I wanted this because of the hardships of my childhood in Hungary and my desire for a better life. I picked up the philosophy early on around me—put up with what you have because things won’t get better, and you may as well accept that.
I did that mostly, but something pulled me back to my dream.
So after I left school, I saved up and contacted an employment agent who found a placement for me with an English family.
I was happy, but my friends thought differently. They asked, “Why would you want to go on your own, being so naïve, socially awkward, and barely understanding the language? What if there was a problem?”
I knew they were right. I had those exact fears.
But my mind was made up; I could not entertain the idea that something might go wrong. I was raring to go.
Saying goodbye to my father at the airport was the toughest part. He faithfully carried my suitcase to check in, but we were both uncertain what would happen after our parting.
Whatever awaited me at the other end, I knew I had to face it.
After landing in London, I travelled 200 miles by coach to a sleepy little village to meet the new family. My mind kept switching back and forth between anxiety and excitement. I couldn’t wait to start out on a new adventure, but I was equally aware I’d just left behind everything familiar.
I was counting down the minutes.
What would they be like? Would they have a sign with my name on like in the movies? Will they like my gifts?
By the time the coach rolled into the station, it was already dark.
I grabbed my worldly possessions, scanned the waiting area to see if a family vaguely resembling the description I was given was there. But nobody was there. No boards with my name or curious children and a happy mother pleased to meet me.
The agent specifically said they would be there. I just had to arrive and everything would be taken care of. Perhaps they were held up?
I waited. And waited. Where were they?
Then reality struck—no one was coming.
The time was close to midnight by then; I had to do something, as the station was closing.
I plucked up the courage and approached an attendant explaining in my limited English what I was doing there. I showed him the letter from the family, which showed their phone number and address.
He dialed the number but to no avail. Then he suggested I try a taxi instead, as I could not stay there. I was on the move again. I could see some relief now. Whatever their reason for not picking me up, everything would be resolved soon.
We reached our destination, a quaint suburban house. The driver helped me with my suitcase (after duly pocketing the taxi fare—leaving me with very little money) and rang the bell.
No answer. I tried again by knocking on the door. Nothing. He found a stick and banged on one of the windows, but still, no sign of life from the house.
He was getting agitated. He wanted to go home; he’d done his duty. I was not his responsibility, and so he left me there, without a solution.
My mind was racing. What am I to do now? And where are these people? They are the only link I have to this country, and I cannot even so much as find them?
I felt truly stranded, terrified, and alone like never before.
I went around back to their garden and the only thing I could think of was to sleep on the garden bench. It was summer but I shivered like a leaf.
As the sun came up, I decided to call home and speak to my father. He was in utter disbelief, demanding I come home immediately.
Then I contacted the agent whose frosty reply cut through me: “I’m sorry but I cannot help you from here!”
I returned to the house as the sun was breaking. This time I heard noises from inside. I was banging on the door like my life depended on it. Finally it opened up.
And there she was, looking at me surprised. I trembled as I showed her the letter, and she said they were not expecting me for another week! To this day, I have no idea why she never opened the door the day before. I slept ten hours straight that afternoon.
At long last I felt some kind of beginning to my new life. I had a roof over my head and people to look out for me.
Or so I thought.
We didn’t connect from the start. Without knowing the language, I sensed our moral ground was a galaxy apart. She was barely in the house, and when she was, she gave curt orders without kindness or structure. She also completely forgot about feeding me and paying my wages.
I wanted to get away as quickly as I could. I had to spend another four weeks in that household before I was placed with a new family.
What a contrast from the previous place! The family lived in a spacious home in a nice area of London. The three children were under five, and we got along well from the start. And learning English from them was easier, having similar levels of comprehension.
For the first time ever, I was introduced to a formal routine where I knew exactly what to do each day. Looking back, this was an unexpected bonus; I learned the value of having a daily structure. This one habit still saves my skin each day.
They took me to all sorts of places—posh weddings and foreign holidays. I also had this amazing city at my fingertips waiting to be discovered.
World famous sights—sights I’d always wanted to see—were now an underground trip away. I also met people from many different backgrounds, which allowed me to gain a glimpse into other cultures—something I never would have experienced had I stayed at home.
My English adventure had begun.
From then on, everything fell into place and I gradually achieved all the goals I set myself before I left home.
Nowadays, I dream in English. I keep studying and improving myself not only professionally but also personally. I could have very well turned back during those first few weeks, but without that I wouldn’t be who, or where, I am today.
I truly believe I needed to go through that trial by fire to prove to myself what I was capable of under my own steam. Yes, it was painful and emotionally trying, but isn’t that all part of learning and growing to be a better person?
Sometimes we must put up with uncomfortable parts of our lives, because what we label as “problems” might be opportunities in disguise—opportunities that help us get over the darkest of times.
Even when we feel like fleeing and giving up at the first hurdle, doing so would be unwise.
Sure, we may get knocked down a hundred times, but if something is worth achieving in life, we must endure some bitterness—not least because we owe it to the younger versions of ourselves who were so determined at the beginning. To them, anything was possible.
Continuing on is easier if we have the rewards in sight and recognize the hiccups as a part of the journey. They are signs we are heading in the right direction.
Sadly, dreams only remains dreams to most, but if we have the courage to begin and see them through tough times, they become reality.
So jump in with both feet and don’t worry what might happen next. The answers are within you.
Photo by gizelle rivera
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Von Goethe
I am on a journey of trust. It’s been about trusting my body, knowing that it can take care of itself without the control of my mind.
For three and a half years, my body and mind have been enemies and I have been trying so hard, and knowingly, too hard, to get back to where I was at seventeen.
It all began when I had an episode of hyperventilation in January 2010, when I heard that my Granny, who was terminally ill, had just suffered a heart attack.
She survived it, but I knew she was going to go soon and I had never lost anyone before. It scared me and caused this anxious reaction. I feared the same thing would happen to me. My parents told me otherwise, and I believed them.
My Granny died that April, and my reaction to it all was very delayed. It took me several weeks to let it all out.
I was fine then until that August, when my parents and I stayed in a rented apartment that resembled a home of an elderly couple. It reminded me of my Granny, and that was the trigger.
I hyperventilated again. This time, rather than breathing and relaxing, I thought the best way through was to tense up.
I didn’t realize that this would be my automatic reaction whenever I got stressed for the next three and a half years.
It felt like my body had an invisible belt that tightened, no matter how I tried to relax.
Even if I didn’t feel stressed about anything in particular, this tension polluted events that I had looked forward to because I was trying so hard to enjoy myself, which made it all the more frustrating.
Over time, it began to worry me. I would wake up, hoping it would disappear, and ask for a day where I could just breathe in a relaxed, normal way again. When I wouldn’t, I thought of the consequences of chronic tension and worry and what it would mean to my health.
Living away from home in my second year of university, I experienced severe anxiety and mild depression.
I had been suffering inside alone until January 2013, when I told family and friends, hoping that they would understand and give me some support. Still struggling, I went to my doctor and asked about therapy.
For four months, starting in June, I did cognitive behavioral therapy to help improve my thought patterns so I could learn to react to stress in a more rational way. I also received modules to help me through hypochondria, which was the key problem.
Mid-way through my therapy, I had an emergency kidney operation. While recovering in the hospital, I found that my mind trusted my body to breathe, simply as a survival instinct. I knew then that I could do it and hoped that I would be able to continue to breathe easily once I was better.
I recovered at home for most of the summer and found that, as I got healthier, my mind got busier. Old controlling patterns returned and my anxiety was back.
I saw improvements, though, as I continued with therapy. When the four months were up, my therapist was pleased with how well I had done, bringing my severe anxiety and mild depression down to the sub-clinical, everyday range.
She reminded me that I had done all the work myself, and that she had only be there to listen, which I think is something to remember if you want to get counseling.
After I was discharged I had a couple of wobbly months. I described it as being like a child who has had their training wheels taken off their bike. I wondered, though, when that period would end so I could start living the life I wanted.
I realized that my therapy work had gone out of the window and that I had to continue practicing what I had learned in those four months for the rest of my life.
For the last year I have been reading the articles on Tiny Buddha. I have been motivated and inspired by the stories from people who also dealt with anxiety, depression, and loss. Sometimes just reading a post would make me feel better.
However, just reading their tips only took me so far. I needed to try them out for myself, to see if they worked for me. It’s that word, practice, that I have been struggling with, and patience and perseverance. These are my words that help me through, and now I can add trust.
I find knitting is a great representation of all these things.
Without practice, you won’t expect those uneven stiches to improve and or the projects to be completed. Without patience, you won’t accept your flaws and will be extremely angry with yourself. Without perseverance, you won’t be able to see your improvements being made, and without trust, you will be deprived of the belief that you can achieve great things.
I find knitting is a great way to relax, and scientifically proven to slow the heart rate and calm the mind.
Another thing that helps me is my stress journal. Writing is an effective way of logging of your thoughts, processes, and achievements. It is also scientifically proven that writing relaxes the mind.
Music, such as instrumental tracks, have also been effective for me. There are plenty on YouTube such as “relaxdaily,” who creates beautiful New Age music. Other types of relaxing music come in meditation form, such as PMR (Progressive Muscle Relaxation), which loosens tense muscles all over the body.
It can take a long time to see progress when you’re using these kinds of tools, and I often need to remind myself of that. But I now trust that I will get better at this.
I have been making good progress and I have tense days every so often, but only the other day, when I was having a mild panic attack, did I realize that it’s about perspective.
I had been so tight inside because I thought I had to be relaxed all the time, and I wasn’t. I felt I had to breathe slower so I wouldn’t be susceptible to high blood pressure and my mind wouldn’t take control, preventing me from just being.
But I’ve come to realize I don’t need to try so hard. Recently I’ve started trusting my body, telling myself that I am healthy and I am living a healthy lifestyle. I’ve begun to trust that I can breathe freely if I allow myself to.
We all experience stress, anxiety, and depression in different ways, and we all recover in our own unique ways too. However, it’s not about finding a cure. It’s about taking power back from our thoughts so we don’t allow stress and fear to control us.
We all want to enjoy our lives, and we can: by being patient with our progress, persevering with our progress, and trusting that we are making progress.
Eventually, you will see that progress. Just keep practicing.
Photo by Hartwig HKD
“Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.” ~Doris Mortman
As I sit here writing this, I am still in the middle of a huge shift in my life, a shift that has seen me move from living by other people’s values and expectations to identifying and living by my own.
The catalyst for change was a health scare when, on my thirtieth birthday, my doctor told me that I may have cervical cancer. Luckily, I got the all clear, but something had shifted and I realized how dissatisfied with my life I was. I felt like I was swimming against the tide; everything was a struggle.
At the time I was well on my way to achieving what I wanted: money, a high-status job, and the ability to buy lots of stuff.
I owned my own house and a car and I was out of the house twelve to thirteen hours a day working. For me, that was success. However, my ambition just seemed to disappear overnight and I went into freefall.
I felt exhausted, I was ill all the time, drinking and eating too much, and it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed in the morning to go to work. (I was doing a daily four-hour commute.) To quote Julie Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, “You know what I felt this morning? Nothing. No passion, no spark, no faith, no heat, no nothing!”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but as soon as I started to question my life, I subconsciously communicated to the universe that I wanted—needed—to change things.
I started taking on freelance work to see if I could reignite my passion for my career. I found that people wanted my services, which increased my confidence and made me realize just how low I felt after working for years in a macho and competitive environment that was never going to nourish me.
I suddenly thought, I can earn money as a freelancer, I should start my own business. I decided to keep going at my current job for another six months and build the business in what little spare time I had.
An hour after making that decision, I had yet another confrontational email from a colleague based on a lie told by another. I resigned that day. I already felt lighter.
I went into business for myself and I hated it. Now I know that it was because I wasn’t ready, plus I went into business as a marketing consultant, which I wasn’t passionate about.
Working on my own at home didn’t suit me, and the income instability meant I hit rock bottom. There were panic attacks, more illness, and I am certain I was fast heading to the stage where I would be needing antidepressants.
As I hit rock bottom, I had an epiphany and realized that two of the main things I need in life are:
1. Human interaction on an almost daily basis
2. A certain level of security—that’s why I was so keen to buy a house, when most twenty-five-year-olds are renting and moving around. I am a homebody to my core.
If a base level of security and being alone all the time are my life ‘deal breakers,’ then why had I been trying to build a life that didn’t incorporate them? I needed to get in touch with my real values.
I began reading books and articles, anything I could get my hands on, about personal values and how to identify them.
I identified the values I had been living by for the past thirty years, the values that had been the basis of every major life decision I had ever made. I have listed the top ten below:
Status achieved through career
The values that I had been living by were not mine but a close family member’s. They are not bad values, but they are not my values; they are not the things that are most important to me and how I live my life.
So who was I? What were my values? I had no idea.
At this point I had been trying to carry on with my business to earn money to pay the bills while ‘finding myself’ and interviewing for jobs. I got the first role I applied for as the marketing manager for a lifestyle business and a much more suitable environment for me as a person. It has allowed me to carry on with my voyage of self-discovery.
My ten core values, the values that I now live by, are:
So what wisdom can I pass on after my journey?
If you are unhappy with parts of your life—if you are suffering from stress, illnesses, and feel generally uneasy in the living of everyday life—then it might be time to go inside yourself and answer honestly the questions “What is important to me?” and “How do I want to live my life?”
You need to spend time identifying your values; it’s well worth the effort.
This makes life hard because you are never being true to yourself. It is so easy to do this because so many people, parents, family members, and teachers have a say in how we should be living our lives, and this can mean that we develop their values and not our own.
You don’t hold on to the things that no longer serve you because you have everything you need within yourself. For example, I realized that although I was a good marketing manager, it wasn’t my passion.
I’ve taken the leap and decided to try writing full time. This may mean many more life changes and it’s scary, but I need to follow my heart.
Photo by Elade Manu
“When you have a choice to make and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” ~William James
I have been single for most of my life; sometimes it would seem by choice, and sometimes not. In that time, I have learned and experienced a lot. Some of the things I had thought I wanted changed, and some of the things I thought I didn’t want have become things I do.
Over the years I have tried various forms of meeting people, including the “bar method,” online dating, and approaching random strangers in public places. It’s not that I was desperate to find someone; I just find dating interesting and meeting new people thrilling. Nothing is really off limits these days, and no one really knows a concrete method for meeting “the right one.”
While I don’t think there’s any “right” way to meet people, I can say this about relationships: our consciousness is everything.
It is so complex and profound that science can’t even measure it. Think about that. The one thing we use to experience and create every aspect of our lives is not remotely understood or measured.
As someone who has been exploring his own conscious potential for years now, I am simply blown away by what we as humans are actually capable of, and I am learning more every day—not by reading, or hearing from others, but by experiencing.
Our thoughts influence our emotions, and our emotions affect the health of our body. If everything is connected and influenced internally by how we think and feel, why is it such a stretch to think the “outside” world—the world made up of the same atoms we are each made up of—isn’t just as influenced by these thoughts and feelings?
This is not about The Secret or simply attracting what you want. It is about consciousness, free will, and choices in this life.
In my experience with dating, I have learned that:
As human beings, we are here to learn. We attract people with the consciousness that closely matches ours at a given time, but most importantly, people that will bring about the greatest lesson—mainly because both need to learn the same one, though sometimes in opposite ways.
Simply put, the more you work on bettering yourself and raising your consciousness level, the more likely you are to attract someone who is healthier, and healthier for you.
If you are living out of your inauthentic self, you are going to attract someone who mirrors that. We have all been there.
Understanding this concept and applying it to your life really helps you make sense of relationships and move forward positively, if you choose to. Once I realized there were lessons to be learned from the people around me, I could find them, learn them, and let those people go when it was time to move on.
To get to this place of clarity and understanding, you need to recognize which of your regular choices contribute to what you decided you don’t want.
When you understand who you really are behind all of the fears, addictions, and ego, you begin to understand what you really want and need in your life. When you understand this, you can put yourself in situations with people who closely align with your real interests and level of consciousness. It might sound like common sense, but it isn’t.
For example: Drinking heavily or doing drugs aren’t healthy or genuine soul interests. So trying to meet people while drinking to excess at bars is not likely to lead to a healthy relationship.
As soon as I stopped putting myself in situations that contributed to an addiction process and started spending more time doing the things that were healthier for me, I found I began losing touch with certain people and meeting new, healthier ones.
Put yourself in more situations with people who like the same healthy things you like, and that make you a better person, not less of one.
If you have commitment issues, then that probably means you bounce back and forth between wanting love and fearing it. If you—the consciously empowered, self-authoritative, and free human being—won’t decide what you really want, how can you expect to attain it?
I found that no matter what I tried, when I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted, my results were confusing and disappointing. It’s not just about where or how you meet; it’s about knowing yourself and what you really want and then making the conscious choice to open up to it.
When you make this choice, firmly and consciously, your subconscious can stop resisting. It is important to affirm the intention of what you do want, not what you don’t want.
Soon after I decided firmly and consciously that I wanted something real, something long-term, and as soon as I began healing my “unworthiness,” I opened myself up to a new relationship that reflected this new-found consciousness, but only after years of confusion about what I wanted and deserved.
I recommend getting a journal and writing your goals. It not only puts that energy out there and sets your intention, it also helps you understand what you really do and don’t want in your life at that moment.
Do whatever you need to do to heal negative energy, emotions, and thoughts that are holding you back from moving on and loving yourself for who you really are—not who someone made you think you are.
Before you can have a healthy relationship, you have to first remove old stuck energy from situations where people have treated you poorly or led you to feel unworthy of self-love, happiness, or respect.
Unfortunately, you cannot think, rationalize, or talk these blocks away. There are many ways to heal: meditation, energetic healing, therapy, and so on. Do whatever resonates best for you. Sometimes a simple daily affirmation, like “I am worthy of love, I am worthy of a healthy relationship” is enough to spark a healing journey within.
If you don’t feel worthy, then find the source of that feeling. If you spend some time and do some hard “me work,” you will uncover the people and situations tied to those emotions and thoughts holding you back.
We have all heard the saying, and it is true: you have to love yourself before someone else can. The only way to do this is to clear other people’s voices from your mind and emotions.
I, like many, have spent years dealing with worth issues: I felt unworthy of love, success, happiness, and so on. If you struggle with the same thing, consciously choose to work through it.
Working on these issues frees us to attract healthy, loving relationships—and know that we deserve them.
Photo by Christopher Michel
It’s hard to be a person sometimes. That’s where Soul Pancake’s Kid President comes in. In this short video, he lays it all out–everything we need to know to be an awesome person. No matter how far is from your first day on Earth, this is one worth watching!
“Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron
As a child, anxious thoughts stopped me from doing a lot of stuff, so I missed out on sleepovers, parties, and scout camps some of the time.
Anxiety whispered in my ear that it was always better to avoid, and so it became easy to convince myself I didn’t really want to do whatever was on offer. I now recognize those thoughts and don’t let them influence my choices.
I remember as a teenager I went to a carvery with my friends, and when I queued up for my food I didn’t see the roasted potatoes. When I sat down I saw all my friends had roasted potatoes, and they were surprised I had none.
The restaurant was full, and I felt too anxious to queue up again because I thought that people would look at me, which sounds crazy to me now, but I remember it very clearly.
In reality, no one would have cared or even noticed had I got up and got some potatoes! My anxious thoughts forced me to go without.
Making decisions has always made me feel anxious, as I constantly worried about what other people would think, and always allowed my anxiety about doing stuff to influence my decisions.
Anxiety for me brings up feelings of helplessness, dread, and resistance. Helpless, as my anxious thoughts lead me to avoid what I want to do. Dread, as anxiety often makes things seem a lot worse than they really are. Anxiety has led me to resist many things I wanted to do and also to do many things I didn’t want to do.
When I was eighteen I had the lead role in a play in a local theatre. I had never performed in front of many people before, so this was a huge deal for me. To my surprise, when the first night came I was not anxious but really excited and happy.
This was a major turning point for me, and I realized it was because we had rehearsed and practiced so much that I was totally convinced it was going to be a success.
At university, presentations made me feel highly anxious. People would often comment that as I had done some acting, presentations should be easy for me. That definitely wasn’t true.
Public speaking is a very common fear and is something that I tried to avoid at all costs. After I finished university I did a master’s degree, and it was around this time I started to get interested in personal development. My book collection grew as I discovered the vast number of books that could help you with issues like anxiety.
I began to realize that, even though I often had anxious thoughts, they didn’t have to control my choices and behavior.
Now when I have anxious thoughts they often make me laugh, because I recognize them for what they are: just random thoughts from a part of my brain that never wants to do anything challenging or move out of my comfort zone.
In the past, I was always worried about the future and never really focused on the present moment. Being mindful of what’s going on right now, and recognizing that thoughts are natural occurrences that you can choose to focus on or not, has really helped me to let go of my anxious thoughts and negative predictions about the future.
As I studied personal development, I learned that you can change your mental state through your physiology, your body language, breathing, and speech.
Making sure I stand up straight, control my breathing, speak clearly, and say positive phrases with real intensity changes my state. I do this when I am mindful that I have become worked up by some situation, and the anxiety of it is starting to affect me.
Being aware of my thoughts and feelings, being mindful, and living in the present moment helps me live with my anxious thoughts. Changing my state has enabled me to get back to that feeling I had before going on stage, prior to activities which would have made me feel anxious in the past.
After I finished my Master’s degree, I was astonished when my tutor invited me back to do some lecturing on the course I had just completed. I realized how far I had progressed in terms of dealing with anxious thoughts. And even though I immediately experienced some anxiety, I was able to realize that this was a wonderful opportunity for me, and that I would accept.
During the following months, there were many times when I thought about the lectures and began to feel anxious. Each time I focused on how grateful I was to have the opportunity and what an amazing learning experience it would be. When I accepted that it would be a wonderful experience whether it went according to plan or not, I felt even more enthusiastic about it.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” ~Samuel Beckett
It seems to me that, like many others, much of my anxiety is born out of a fear of failing and being judged by other people.
Since I started studying self-development and reading about people like Honda and Edison who failed over and over again, and attributed those failures to their success, I have become less afraid of failing. Failure is an important step toward being successful and the best way to learn valuable lessons.
Another of the most important outcomes of coping with anxious thoughts has been that the more often I deal with them, the less afraid of them I become and the fewer I experience.
That doesn’t mean I still don’t experience anxious thoughts from time to time, but if anxiety starts to build up, I address the cause of it straight away and do something positive to help the situation rather than avoiding. For example, before my first lecture I joined Toastmasters and made some speeches there, which helped prepare me and gave me confidence in my own ability.
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that it is possible to experience anxiety without letting it play a major role in our lives. We can have anxious thoughts without letting anxiety control us.
Photo by lian xiaoxiao
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~Einstein
“Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself fall into landslide. Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself give into low tide. Go do!”~Jonsi
I recently heard from a friend whom I had not heard from in over two years. He sent me an email just to check in and see how I was doing, congratulate me on my recent marriage, which he had heard about, and let me know that he had faced some hardship over the past couple of years.
He had been, simply put, stuck. To my surprise, he also mentioned that some words I had sent him in an email, many moons ago, had stayed with him and encouraged him over the years.
What were those words? “Don’t even talk about dreams. Think of it as actually the moment, the doing.”
At the time, my friend was facing a very common fear: what to do with his life. He had dreams like we all do. He had goals he wanted to accomplish.
This is something we all face at some point in our adulthood and with my friend, that fear of what’s to come, what may be, was holding him back from simply doing anything. In that way, he found himself feeling so stagnant that depression was taking hold.
Funny, I had not remembered ever saying that. Nor did I recall our correspondence, but upon reading the words, I thought, Wow, I still say that to myself now! Keep doing… cause it’s all about the journey.
These are all things we’ve heard before. I had said nothing new.
The thing is, we all have dreams and goals. But when we get caught up in the small things around us, we forget the big things. At the same time, when there are so many big things to potentially bog us down, we forget to enjoy the small things in life.
So how do we find the balance and keep moving? How do we have big dreams, and still obtain them? How do we experience the day to day? How do we go do?
In my early twenties I was briefly married to a man who was one person before marriage and another person after. During our marriage he was extremely abusive, dangerous, and to be frank, downright selfish and mean.
During that time, despite everything else going on in my life—the day-to-day stresses, hopes, demands, and needs—I was still in fear for my very own life, whether it was at stake in reality or not.
At the time, I didn’t realize this fear.
I spent three dreadful years married to this person and trying to do anything and everything I could to avoid being exactly where I was.
I would come up with excuses to be out of the house or out of town. I was telling myself I would leave or that I could change my husband, and in the worst way, I was not allowing myself to emotionally recognize the true danger of the situation I was in.
Why? Because I was terrified. Terrified my marriage would fall apart, terrified to tell my friends or family, terrified I would be looked at as the ‘poor victimized wife,’ and even more so, terrified to confront my husband for fear of what he might do.
Had I known then how important living in the present was, I likely would not have stuck around in that marriage for so long.
When we are in crisis situations, even stressful situations at work or school or at home, our bodies tell us to fight or fly. Mine did both while I was being abused. But more importantly, and on a conscious level, I was denying myself the one thing I needed most—to see where I was and accept it.
I would not allow myself to see the danger and weight of the situation I was in. I feared the abuse and would not allow myself to face it because of my fear.
Now, let’s take this example and move it into something perhaps a bit more relatable.
Consider the stresses of a demanding job. Consider monetary problems—too many bills and too little cash. Consider a fight with a loved one or confusion on where to go in life or what to choose for your career.
In any stressful situation, of the many and hundreds of situations that abound our lives, there is truly only one answer that I’m aware of that applies to all these open ended questions. That is: go and do.
When times are tough it is easy to get caught up in the toughness and remain there.
Whether that means you stick to your guns in an argument or ponder your dreams rather than take action, either way you’re stuck. You’re stagnant. But, if you remind yourself to go and do, then you move.
I won’t say forward because I don’t know if we are ever moving forward; perhaps we are just swarming around in an eternal grain of sand. Perhaps life is just a string of present moments, neither past nor future. In any case, the movement, the doing, is the living.
Had I allowed myself to be in the dangerous moments of my marriage, mentally accepted that my life was in a situation of abuse, and at stake lay my happiness, my well-being, my peace of mind, I would have not stayed stagnant in that marriage for so long. I would have made a change. I would have gone.
Had my friend not spent so many years questioning what he should be doing, he would have just done.
The key is to recognize every moment and keep moving.
It is an oxymoron to be in the moment and always moving from the moment, but such is life and it is a truth that cannot be denied if we are in search of peace.
The world is ever moving. Ever changing.
Living in the moment means doing or feeling or seeing or recognizing what’s right in front of you. The important thing is to let yourself experience everything—the good and the bad—and once you experience it, then you let it pass.
We get caught up in our pasts because we did not allow ourselves to live those pasts when they were present.
Take my example. After finally extraditing myself from an abusive environment, I lived with PTSD for the following six years, reliving over and over everything that had happened to me once before.
Take my friend; had he been doing and changing and living rather than pondering what’s to come, he would have done what he is finally doing now.
Now he is just, simply put, exploring life. He is not setting ultimatums saying, “I must be here and have xyz by this point.” Rather, he is in the moment and recently took some time for himself, volunteering at a Buddhist retreat in California.
Instead of worrying so much about where he would be, he is taking time to be now, living and relishing in his current situation.
You have to live in the moment so that it can pass. You have to face your fears, so they too can pass. And since it must pass, we must feel its presence, good or bad, while it actually is present, for it too will haunt us, for better or for worse.
Whether you are fighting abuse, fearing your future, worried about school or a test or a meeting at work, stressed about money, losing sleep over love, no matter what is on your mind at any given moment, the point is to be aware of what you’re feeling, what’s around you, and in all cases, to continue to go do.
We so often get caught up in the stress, the worry, and in some cases, so caught up in avoiding the danger or real fear in front of us, that we forget to just live. So try to balance and stay on your bike. Remember to live each moment, let it pass, but keep moving and enjoy the next. As Jonsi said, just “go do.”
“Happiness is really a deep harmonious inner satisfaction and approval.” ~Francis Wilshire
Acceptance.
This is a word we often toss around, but what does it truly mean? Perhaps the meaning of it ultimately resides within its beholder. I know I have certainly achieved my own understanding of what acceptance means to me and for me, and so far, this definition is ever evolving.
On November 6, 2013, I returned to the United States after having lived in Australia for two and a half years. I spent the majority of my time there studying and practicing yoga and teaching yoga and meditation.
As a teacher, I had to face my attachment to the experience my students had or did not have. I feared that I would not be good enough, that somehow they would find fault in my delivery, and that I would ultimately not be accepted.
Now, let’s be clear, this fear was no new fear. It had haunted me all my life. Becoming a yoga and meditation teacher was just one of the divine blessings that brought this fear to the surface for me to clear and overcome, like nothing had been able to before it.
At the end of last year, I traveled to the Oneness University in India. For thirty-one days we went through many classes, ancient rituals, and ceremonies, and had an abundance of time and opportunity to see ourselves clearly.
The monks lovingly guided us to look at our unconscious fear, pain, suffering, and inauthentic actions.
This was extremely confronting, because most of us had no idea we were operating on a level of such fear.
After that, I went back to Australia and spent the next five months falling apart as I became aware of so much inner dissatisfaction and disapproval. Holy Moly! I sometimes wondered if I’d ever come through it.
During this time, I did some coaching with a woman named Jaxin Brooke. In our initial consultation, it became clear how much I longed to feel like I fit somewhere, like I belonged, like I was completely accepted.
She helped me see how I had been going about this with external efforts; I thought if I could up my career game, or perhaps if I moved back to America, or got married, then maybe I would “fit in.”
The truth was, I suffered from internal rejection and an inability to feel like what I was offering, who I was, and where I was at in my life were good enough.
Awareness is the most effective tool for helping me shift from fear to love, from criticism to compassion, and from conditional to unconditional love.
Awakening begins with seeing.
Once I become aware of the way I am currently operating—meaning I can see the inner critic, the judgments, the fear, and the stories—the awareness alone brings light to the darkness or consciousness to the unconscious. This brings about an automatic shift in perception. So for me, inner satisfaction and approval depend on my level of inner awareness.
Between working with Jaxin and watching a TED talk by Brené Brown on vulnerability, I began to experience a profound shift. There was a specific message that I received, and that message was this:
“Acceptance comes as a result of sharing what’s in our hearts, regardless of the outcome.”
It clicked. I understood that acceptance was no one else’s responsibility. It was my own. The first step toward it was vulnerability. Vulnerability is courageous. Courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart.
I began to share what was in my heart, regardless of the outcome, in my classes, with my boyfriend, with my clients, with my friends, in my articles, and I began to experience something beautiful.
Showing up and sharing was no longer about the feedback or responses I got from others. It was about me doing my part. It was about showing up as the best version of myself, without hiding the things I assumed other people wouldn’t love.
I began to apply this into my daily life as a spiritual practice. I began to give fully, to speak my truth openly, to share what was in my heart each day, regardless of the outcome, and I experienced the joy of connecting with people like never before.
I was no longer trying to be perfect, but rather letting them see me exactly the way I was.
I was finally able to see my boyfriend through loving eyes, becoming aware of everything that was awesome about him instead of picking out what was wrong about him.
I was able to share, personally and professionally, from a place of authenticity and vulnerability. I was no longer taking responsibility for what others did or did not get from my sharing, because I knew my only job was to generously and unconditionally give what sat in my heart and to surrender the rest.
As a result, my relationships became even more powerful, even more mutually nourishing, and even more effective.
Everything began to flow in abundant ways after this awareness blossomed within me, which has been a huge help for me now that I am back in the U.S. and spending time with family.
Our loved ones have the ability to show us our deepest, darkest corners of insecurity, self-judgments, and inner disapproval.
As a result, we typically end up pointing the finger at them and complaining about how imperfect they are. This trip home has been different for me than trips in the past.
I have always assumed my family thinks certain things, that they judge me, or are disappointed in me for not being what they may have wanted me to be.
Now, however, when I see myself in conversations with them and the old programs come up, telling these stories of their disapproval of me, in that moment I can soften. I can recognize the pain that is present in us all in that moment. I can have compassion for them and myself.
I can reaffirm that I know who I am, I know what I’ve achieved in my life, and I know what amazing things I am up to; and therefore, I don’t have to demand their approval.
I can consciously choose to let go of the old stories, the boxes I have put us in, the need to prove anything, and instead I can re-examine things with fresh eyes that have only one goal: to love myself and them.
Even if my assumptions about my family were right, which is unlikely, with inner satisfaction and approval, I can still be happy and okay in the face of other people who may think, feel, and see things differently than I do.
Awareness is what opens the pair of internal eyes that we need to see what is going on onside of us. Awareness will shine the inner flashlight on the internal fear and criticism. It will show us where we are currently operating and offer us the opportunity to upgrade.
I am not inviting you to fix or change yourself. I simply invite you to turn on the flashlight within and see what happens. I invite you to become willing to surrender to the process that will follow such awareness, and to stay committed to your intention to accept yourself and others.
Photo by Jennifer Graevell
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” ~Maya Angelou
I sat on a big, cold stone on the beach next to Lake Ontario and watched as the waves lapped upon the shore.
To my right, there were swans and ducks floating on the water. The swans were graceful and beautiful as they glided along the shoreline, and the ducks were being their usual kooky selves.
It always made me laugh to watch them dive underwater, kick their webbed feet in the air, and wag their feathered bums back and forth. They were so natural, so unaware of my presence, so carefree.
I admired them for their untroubled lives and yearned for what they had—the complete and total lack of care for what I thought of them.
To my left in the distance, I saw the CN tower and the surrounding high rises of Toronto. I was in college studying acting for film and television, which had always been my dream.
But now, sitting next to the vast open water under the clear skies and watching as the waves slowly rolled up and receded, breathing in the fresh air, I realized this was the most content and peaceful I’d felt in weeks.
All of my life, I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to see my face on the big screen, my name credited in large, bold letters; to be a guest on talk shows and able to meet all of the successful actors I admired.
I wanted to be someone who was noticed, praised, respected, and looked up to. I wanted to be special.
I also loved the craft of acting itself and thought that connecting with other people was so beautiful. But since coming to college four months ago, all I’d really felt was judged.
Rosalind Russell said, “Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.” That’s exactly how I felt in my program, every day.
Day after day, I would pour my heart and soul into a performance for my professor and my classmates. I’d receive some small praise but buckets and buckets of criticism on top of that—what I could have done better and what was wrong with what I did or how I looked.
Deep inside, I knew that that was how I’d learn, grow, and become better, but the constant flow of negative feedback was really taking its toll on me. Most days I would go back to my small residence room and cry about how terrible I was.
I never felt good enough. I hadn’t yet realized that I was so afraid of judgment from other people because I was constantly judging myself.
Flash forward to exam week and I was sitting on the beach. To my left was the city. The hustle and bustle, the crowds, the competition, and the never ending flow of judgment and criticism.
To my right was the gentle blue waves, the soft stones and pebbles strewn along the sand, the ducks in all their carefree and content splendor, the swans with their heads held high, floating peacefully along the shoreline.
I knew in that moment that I would have to make a choice.
I either had to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to this profession, with all its criticism, or walk away and find something new. Both choices were equally daunting.
I always loved nature, and being immersed in it made me feel so calm. Life became simple and easy in those moments and it was okay to be me.
But I also loved performing—the sound of applause and the times when the light shone on me and I was approved. The brief moments when what I did was good enough.
The ducks didn’t need anyone to tell them that they were good enough. They didn’t have to memorize a script, work on it for hours, find the perfect costume, and perform their guts out to earn a single head nod.
The ducks were simply themselves. They didn’t care that there was someone on the beach. They didn’t instantly attempt to straighten their feathers or worry about whether or not I liked how they were swimming. They were completely at ease. Free.
I knew that if I continued down the path an actor takes, judgment was going to be with me every step of the way. It would be there for every performance, every agent I met, and every audition room I entered. What everyone else thought would always matter.
I decided that I would much rather be a duck with ruffled feathers and happy with myself than someone constantly striving and working toward validation from others, which was how I felt as an actress.
I had also started to hide behind the characters I was playing as a way to avoid being myself. That day, I resolved to find a different path, one I could walk down as me.
I gathered up my courage and withdrew from my program, which was terrifying. Dropping out meant letting go of the image I had of myself, and the image everyone else had of Stacey, the actor.
I had to let go of the idea of me, the idea I loved, the idea of who I wanted to be, in order to accept who I really was as a person.
Just as I was judged when acting, I knew I could also be judged for leaving it behind. But that simply didn’t matter anymore.
The best and most fulfilling realization came to me that day on the beach. I didn’t have to earn the right to be deemed good enough. I didn’t have to work for it. I didn’t have to do a song and dance to prove I was worthy.
The truth is there will always be judgment in life. There will always be someone to tell you that you aren’t smart enough, thin enough, or successful enough. You can’t change what people think. The good news is you don’t have to. If you believe in yourself, nothing else matters.
Sitting on that rock alone, appreciating the breeze in my hair and smiling at the ducks, I finally embraced the truth. I was already good enough. And it was in that moment of acceptance that I was truly free.
You can’t change people but you can change how you respond to them, which is what I did. Now, I acknowledge the criticism when it comes and immediately let it go. When someone offers support, encouragement, and love, I bring it in and allow it to raise me up higher.
The wonderful part of self-love is that once you know you are good enough already, there’s no way to go but up. The negativity fades and the positivity grows. Embrace the security, contentment, and inner peace that come with accepting yourself.
How can you accept yourself today? My best advice is in three small words: be a duck!
Let the judgment and criticism from others slide off your beak like water, swim how you want to swim, look goofy with your bum in the air, make silly sounds, do whatever makes you happy without caring what anyone else thinks, knowing you are wonderful exactly as you are right now.
Shout it from the rooftops and let the whole world know.
“I am good enough!”
Because you really are. So, give yourself permission to be you. Accept, believe in, and love yourself knowing you are already enough and you don’t need anyone else to tell you that. It is only once you accept yourself that you’ll be free to live the life you’ve imagined.
“Be who you want to be, not what others want to see.”
I learned that lesson from the ducks. And for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
Photo by ikon
“The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown
Throughout my life, I thought of myself as someone who felt too much. I was very gregarious and could easily be consumed by moments of joy and celebration. But when I was alone, I could be overtaken by angry, self-destructive voices that would dominate my mind.
By senior year of high school, I was spending many hours of the day crying, and had taken to pinching and punching myself until I was black and blue.
I felt I needed to gain more control over my emotional state, be more rational, have more perspective. Those were the kinds of things I was looking for when I first called my therapist, Marc Bregman, who invented a unique method of Archetypal Dreamwork.
Instead of learning how to manage my feelings, though, Marc taught me something totally different: how to feel them at all.
Normally, it’s taken for granted that we feel our feelings and know how we feel. We even believe we know how others are feeling. And yet, we can accept that how we actually feel in any given moment is often extremely complex, confusing, and difficult to communicate.
In fact, I would contend that we are usually in an avoidance reaction to our feelings rather than truly feeling them.
Why? Namely because feeling our feelings means allowing states of experience that are truly difficult: pain, fear, despair, or vulnerability. So we cling to our assumptions about our feelings and often confuse these ideas with how we truly feel.
We can spend our whole life cycling on this level of feeling, never letting ourselves be conscious of what is driving our emotional states underneath.
Yet, just as matter cannot be created or destroyed, the energy carried by these deeper feeling states do not leave our psyche simply because we want to deny they are there.
Instead, they fuel the myriad of negative behaviors that we are often trying to fix—totally numbing out, projecting our feelings onto others, blaming others for our feelings, or engaging in compulsive and self-destructive behaviors.
Furthermore, by keeping our deepest pains at bay, we also lose access to the sweetest and most joyful aspects of our hearts.
More than where you are from, how much money you have, what your family is like, or what knowledge you’ve gained, I believe that it is what you feel, what stirs you, what you love and what causes you pain that makes you you.
I believe that every human is connected to an eternal, infinite source, and it is our deepest feelings that connect us to this source. Through seeking the deepest parts of our hearts, we can learn what it means to manifest our true selves into the world.
To begin the journey of feeling of your feelings, try these steps:
We often rely on our mind to interpret our inner feelings. Understand that our ideas about our feelings aren’t usually the whole story. Be curious and ask, what could be underneath this current emotional state?
At the core, your feeling state is a physical experience happening in your body. Bringing your attention to where in your body you’re experiencing a feeling is a great way to deepen your visceral experience of it.
It’s easy to get tangled trying to figure out what we feel by weighing various judgments, ideas, and experiences to determine what we should be feeling. What you feel doesn’t need any supporting evidence. It just is. Let it be.
Dreams, on a fundamental level, are felt experiences. They can be a tremendous help in mapping out your internal emotional landscape, especially the places we’d rather avoid. Try writing down your dreams and feeling into them rather than interpreting them. You may be surprised by what you uncover.
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When I began following these steps, I had a number of dreams that showed me immersed in guilt for things, like being late to a meeting. By closing my eyes and concentrating on the image in the dream, I was able to attach the word guilt to a sinking, constricting feeling in my stomach.
This allowed me to become more aware of when I was feeling guilt in waking life. I didn’t realize it, but it was almost all the time. When I brought curiosity to those moments of guilt and understood there was probably a deeper feeling underneath, I began to feel fear, and eventually, desire.
In the past, being late to meet someone was my worst nightmare. The idea that someone might be agitated by something I did was excruciating.
I realized that all of this pressure I put on myself to please others was really driven by the deeper fear I had of truly being myself, regardless of what others thought of me. Once I was able to feel this fear, the guilt did not have as strong of a hold.
When I let myself feel how scary it would be to not be concerned with what others thought of me, I also began to feel how much I wanted this for myself. I’ve learned that feelings of desire, excitement, and exhilaration are often intertwined with feelings of fear.
Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive, but it is that same combination of feelings that prompts us to ride life-threatening rollercoasters or write soul-bearing love letters to the ones who have stolen our hearts.
We fear what we desire because we know how vulnerable we’d be if we actually got it. But until we let ourselves access the fear, we don’t have the opportunity to be courageous.
Now when I feel guilt come up I don’t get stuck there for hours but am instead able to access my fear much more quickly. I can let the fear run through my body and let it take the time it needs to transform into feelings of excitement or desire.
Through letting myself feel these things, it’s become much easier for me to decide what I want to do. Instead of making decisions based on what I think others may or may not like, I’m able to choose the things that scare me, and thus exhilarate me.
This is just a single example of a myriad of surface feelings I have learned to relate to deeper feelings within me. While I am very far from living out these lessons all the time, just knowing what these deeper states feel like has made a tremendous difference in my life.
I wake up everyday with curiosity as to what aspects of my felt experienced could be revealed next, and gratitude at the amazing journey that is exploring my inner self.
And it can all start with a simple exploration—what does it truly feel like to be you, in your body, in this place, right now?
Photo by Clay Junell
“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere. I keep telling myself that every time I am stuck.
Well, I’ve been a widow for year and a half, and I am twenty-four years old. Maybe that’s the way to start here.
My husband had cancer. We tried to enjoy the time before his passing as best we could, so he would die with memories, not dreams. And I guess that the fact that he died content is quite an accomplishment in our relationship.
But it doesn’t change anything in my sorrow. People keep telling me that I am young, I have my life ahead of me, I should forget, move on, stop mourning, take anti-depressants, and usually they add that I will find somebody else and be happy again.
This advice makes me sad because I am struggling to live “here and now,” not in the future. I want to live every minute of my life in fulfilling way. And to be honest, I’m kind of scared of the future and I don’t have the possibility to live in the past.
My whole life changed. There is no way to prepare for loss of the loved one. But I had to be functioning in this world, even when my soul was screaming for help.
I didn’t let myself break down. I was wearing a mask of a strong, independent woman that deals with everything. I work, study for my master’s degree, have hobbies, and take care of my family. I seem “normal.”
But deep down, I was broken to pieces. I still am. But that’s okay. I just build myself again like a puzzle. I see those puzzle pieces more clearly now—who my real friends are, what really matters, and what I care about in my life. I have my priorities straight and now I have to build myself up.
I was searching in books and on the Internet, talking with my friends, other widows, and in therapy, trying to discover what I should do to get through the day more happily. I was looking for help creating peace—just for me, not for the mask I put on for others.
Here are some tips that help me keep going and be peaceful with myself, beyond the mask.
I keep writing in my journal about my life. I am introverted and I don’t like sharing my sadness with everyone around me. Occasionally, I let my brother-in-law read it. I write about my husband, how I miss him, and what makes me smile or cry in my day. It’s a way to organize the stuff in my head.
When you make time to explore your feelings in writing, it’s easier to process them.
Keeping a journal helped me move toward acceptance. I stopped asking, “Why him, why me, why us?” I wrote it down so many times that I lost interest in searching for an answer that I couldn’t figure out. I just accepted it. And the same thing happened with many things I repeatedly wrote down or said out loud; I just sorted them in myself and could focus on other things I had to process.
You may not feel you can accept what happened right now, but keep it as a goal in your mind and you will slowly move toward acceptance and inner peace.
Music describes how I feel and it makes me comfortable just to listen to the emotions of other people. I keep singing, too. I’m not so good, but for three or five minutes, I am myself.
I sing the emotions with my mind, heart, and body and it makes me feel alive and whole again. It’s possible to find this state of mind in other activities—sewing, painting, cooking, composing music, or creating anything else.
Fully immerse yourself in an activity or task that makes you feel whole.
I started jogging/running every day. I prefer night runs, where I clear my head. I never liked running, but my challenge is to put on my running shoes and go outside every day. I don’t mind the weather or if I run 600 m or 15 kilometers—it’s about me, my thoughts, and my body.
Aside from this, I do martial arts, but yoga has also helped me to stay focused and relaxed within my body and mind.
Exercise in the way that feels good to you. It helps in your fight against sadness and depression.
Usually my life deals with extremes. To work it out, it’s about learning time-management and putting everything in balance—time for myself (relaxation, reading), for school/work, time for nourishment (keep eating properly), for exercise and hobbies, time to socialize so I don’t isolate myself (meeting friends and family, volunteer work), and time devoted to my health (doctor’s appointments, for body and mind).
Balancing your assorted needs can have a huge impact on your life. Balance isn’t always easy, so don’t stress about it. Just keep trying.
I don’t watch/read bad news, or at least I try to avoid them. I look for entertainment in my low moments (videos with cats help). I also used to read books about widowhood just to know that I am “normal” in my behavior, in my feelings.
I needed confirmation because I thought I was going crazy. Now I prefer to look for the positive instead of focusing on the depressing things in my life. I search for humanity and beauty in life and focus on my appreciation for those things.
Nurturing a sense of gratitude can help you survive some of the sadder days.
I had to figure it out by myself. Nobody else could tell me. I now know that I don’t have to put on a mask, to pretend and be strong. I just have to let myself experience my feelings and accept that I am not okay. I have to let myself cry for days. I know I will always climb up again after I am done. I always find a reason to keep going.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Don’t be hard on yourself for feeling down. Give yourself a break.
Every day, every minute of my “here and now” world, I try to keep open to experiences and people. I have learned how to sew on a sewing machine and do sign language. I’ve started conversations with sad strangers just because I want to cheer them up for a while.
Little everyday tasks like these get me out of my comfort zone. And I try to be grateful for things I haven’t seen before.
Appreciate the beauty of the ordinary, because you already know that nothing lasts forever.
Widowhood and grieving are not contagious, but some people act that way and distance themselves. Mostly, they just don’t know how to respond, to help, to exist nearby.
Of all the things that have helped me, I am most thankful for people that have supported me with their presence (face-to-face, through e-mail, or on the phone). I am grateful for the ones that took me to dinner/coffee and let me talk about what I miss the most about my husband. Or just gave me a hug.
I wish for everyone who is going through something like this somebody who understands. Who is there for you, even when you say “I am okay” but tears are falling down. You are doing okay. In your own unique way.
Photo by mrhayata
