Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • A Mindfulness Technique to Overcome Perfectionism and Step into Self-Love

    A Mindfulness Technique to Overcome Perfectionism and Step into Self-Love

    “When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we are not pretending, we are not hiding—we are simply present with whatever is going on inside us. Ironically, it is this very feeling of authenticity that draws people to us, not the brittle effort of perfectionism.” ~Maureen Cooper

    Most of my life I have been really good at following the have-tos and oughts of perfectionism.

    I have to keep the house clean. What will the company think?

    I ought to be pleasant and pleasing. Stop being stubborn. Worse yet, stop being angry.

    I should not have told that long story to my coworker. They looked bored. Oh, yes, they were probably bored.

    Doing what I thought other people wanted and doing it in just the right way was my attempt to use perfectionism to belong.

    We all want to belong, and some of us, myself included, learned that belonging comes with strings attached. If I could control those “strings,” then I wouldn’t have to feel rejected and judged. Perfectionism was a way of exercising that control.

    The intense need to meet my too high expectations filtered into every area of my life: relationships, academics, body image.

    I remember from an early age becoming obsessed with getting straight A’s in school. Anything less than a 100% was not good enough. Anything below an A- was a moral failing.

    I worked out until my BMI was low enough to still be considered “healthy” because I wanted to be pretty enough for other people.

    All the perfectionism in my life was a way to protect myself against the inevitability of being judged. Of being seen as someone less than, flawed, failing—human.

    And if I wasn’t judged, then I might be liked? Accepted? Maybe even loved? Even if I didn’t like, accept, or love myself.

    Perfectionism, at its core, is a drive toward accomplishment, characterized by an internal pressure to avoid harsh criticism and failure.

    The problem with this way of thinking is that you can’t control other people. No matter how perfect you try to be, someone will judge you. You will fail. No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to maintain the facade of perfection.

    Perfectionism is the armor I have worn through my life to protect myself from what is underneath the judgment and criticism. Perfectionism protects me from the fear that I am not good enough. If I am not good enough, then I am not worthy of belonging.

    I desperately wanted to be loved, but in trying, I stopped loving myself.

    From small details, like what to wear to a party, to big problems, like the realities (and conflicts) of an authentic and healthy relationship, my high expectations made it impossible for me to relax into who I am.

    I was constantly beating myself up. I didn’t wear the right outfit. I look too dressed up/not dressed up enough.

    I was constantly biting my tongue, hesitating to share bits of myself. What will he think? That part of my personality is too weird, too different, too messy to be valued?

    My life was a constant struggle to meet unattainable ideals. The maintenance of which was stressful, all consuming, and riddled with anxiety. Furthermore, no matter how hard I tried, I still didn’t feel like I belonged.

    It was not until I decided that my relationship to myself was the problem that I started to see changes.

    If I wanted to feel connected to other people, belong to a community, a friendship, a partnership, I had to let go of being perfect.

    I had to let people see me authentically, and I had to be willing to let go of the too high expectations that were keeping me from being myself.

    To help me let go of perfectionism, I started practicing the art of mindful self-compassion.

    The tenants of mindful self-compassion are based off of the work of mindfulness teacher Tara Brach. To explain mindful self-compassion, she coined the term RAIN.

    RAIN stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture.

    Recognize and allow your perfectionism to be what it is.

    Based on RAIN, the first two steps of mindful self-compassion are the basis of any mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing non-judgmental awareness to your present moment experience.

    In other words, you first recognize or bring awareness to your lived experience in the now and then you allow, without judgment, that experience of thoughts and feelings to flow through you.

    When it comes to perfectionism, this means recognizing the need to worry over, hustle through, force, or avoid a particular way of being. It also means allowing those same feelings and thoughts to exist without trying to change them and without trying to act on them.

    For example, if I notice I am feeling the need to write and rewrite, edit and re-edit this essay because isn’t “good enough,” then instead of continuing on the track of perfectionist behavior, I can recognize that I am feeling worried and allow those feelings to exist without doing anything to change them.

    Investigate the deeper why.

    The next step of the RAIN mindfulness technique is investigate. Investigating and the last step of nurture are the two aspects of this technique that have helped me see the biggest changes in my own habit of perfectionism.

    Investigating means you dig a little deeper. You ask yourself, why are these feelings and thoughts here? What is actually at the heart of my need to control?

    Investigating requires you to be vulnerable with yourself. Are you worried about failing? Do you think that if you let go of control people won’t like you?

    In what ways are your perfectionist tendencies guarding your heart?

    If we go back to my writing example, the reason why I am trying to perfect the outcome of this essay is because deep down I really, really want you, dear reader, to like it. If you like it, then that means that I am a “good” writer, and I so desperately want to be a good writer.

    By investigating my feelings around perfectionism, I get to the real reason for my actions, which is that I want to be accepted. I want to be liked. I want to belong.

    Which brings me to the last component of RAIN, nurture.

    Nurture the feelings and thoughts behind the perfectionism.

    The last step of RAIN, nurture, asks you to take all of your feelings and care for them. How can you give love to the person you are today who is worried about being good enough and worried about belonging?

    Maybe this looks like reaffirming you are good enough and that everyone feels like you feel right now from time to time.

    Maybe this looks like journaling about your feelings or talking it out with a good friend.

    Maybe this looks like giving yourself a hug, taking a warm shower, or doing some breath work, then going back to the task when you feel ready.

    Ultimately, nurturing what is underneath the perfectionism means giving yourself a bit of a break. You don’t have to do everything just the right way for it to be enough.

    For me, in the context of perfectionism related to publishing this essay, I would take a break, go for a walk, and remind myself that 80% is good enough.

    Overall, RAIN is an incredible mindfulness technique for letting go of perfectionism.

    By using this technique, perfectionism is less at the forefront of my life. RAIN helps me let go of the big feelings and thoughts associated with perfectionism and tend to the underlying beliefs and assumptions I have about myself that contribute to it.

    Ultimately, I have learned that I don’t have to be perfect to be loved and that being imperfect still makes me worthy of belonging. The RAIN technique helps me see that I am good enough for others and, most importantly, I am good enough for myself.

  • Adult Friendships Are Hard

    Adult Friendships Are Hard

  • You’ll Get Through It Again

    You’ll Get Through It Again

  • 5 Things to Remember When Heartbreak Feels Too Heavy to Bear

    5 Things to Remember When Heartbreak Feels Too Heavy to Bear

    “If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come.” ~Unknown

    For a big lover like me, heartbreak has always gotten the best of me. I have felt heavy pain from the ending of a relationship, the ghosting of a situationship, and the loss of what could have been with someone I never dated. And I’ve experienced the sting of friendships leaving my life.

    It’s all heartbreaking.

    It starts with a crippling, piercing full-body agony. And eventually it grows into a dull ache and lethargy toward anything.

    That’s because heartbreak can throw you into a type of withdrawal. And it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

    When I was going through my last breakup, I felt like I lost a piece of myself. I felt like this person had taken my heart and ripped it apart. I was in a confused state, wanting them badly back in my life and yet wanting nothing to do with them ever again. I had to teach myself how to process my day without communicating with my ex.

    As it turns out, this is all a very normal part of going through heartbreak.

    Breakups, whether romantic or platonic, are like a death. In fact, we process the stages of grief during a breakup similarly to losing someone who dies. And sometimes it feels even more cutting, because we know that person is still living and existing. Just without us.

    While it’s important to feel all the feelings that come with heartbreak, it’s equally crucial to plant seeds of hope, as there is something better waiting for you on the other side.

    Going through a breakup is a transformative experience of shedding old layers and welcoming new ones. You are growing and learning from these emotions.

    While I was going through this particular breakup, I developed deeper emotional resilience and empowerment. The weight on my heart gradually lifted as I alchemized the lessons and self-reflection to remind myself of the following things.

    1. You are not alone.

    When you’re in the heat of heartbreak, it can feel as though everyone else around you is doing just fine and you’re the only one who is suffering. And the sudden absence of someone you cared about heightens the loneliness.

    But I know without a doubt that you are not alone. Everyone has dealt with what you’re going through right now (just take me as an example!). And there are likely people in your networks who are currently going through it. Take some time to reach out to people you trust or seek out events that will help foster connection. It’s okay to ask for help.

    2. You broke up for a good reason.  

    When my heart was aching for my ex and any sign of him coming back, I had to remind myself that we broke up for a good reason.

    He wasn’t prioritizing or respecting me consistently. I had to stop romanticizing the moments of brief happiness and look at the longer-term picture. We were fundamentally incompatible and not bringing out the best in each other. If we continued to try to make it work, it would feel as if we were dragging our feet in the mud.

    All relationships will bring up their own unique challenges, but I want to be with someone who I can feel safe to tackle them with.

    If you feel the urge to get back together or if they are trying to get back into your life right away, write down the positive reasons for this breakup to give you a healthy perspective.

    3. They never completed you. You are whole and complete as you are.

    Even if you don’t feel okay right now, you are still whole and complete. The people that come into our lives, whether as friends or romantic partners, complement us. But they never complete us.

    Thinking that we need someone to complete us or be our better half is a fairy tale misconception. And it convinces us that we’re not enough, especially if someone leaves us behind.

    But the fact is, you are enough. You might want a romantic relationship, and that’s natural because we all need connection to thrive. But you can live a full, satisfying life even if you’re single right now.

    While deep love can be experienced between you and other people, the deepest love will first come from you. Take the driver’s seat of your life and steer it. Anyone else that comes along is joining the road trip.

    4. This relationship was not a waste of time.

    When we’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and resources into relationships, it makes the breakups that much more painful. You might think that you’re back at square one, but it’s the opposite.

    And often this investment makes us stay longer than we should.

    There’s a term in psychology called “sunk-cost fallacy,” which perfectly describes this phenomenon. It’s when you are reluctant to walk away from a course of action after heavily investing in it, so you continue to invest even though there’s a more desirable option.

    Ultimately, the most desirable option in my situation was to walk away so I could stop trying to prove my worth to someone who didn’t see it.

    I could have looked at my relationship as a waste of time, but instead I saw it as an important example of what I didn’t want in my next relationship. I’m now grateful toward my ex for the growth and experiences gained, even though the relationship ended.

    It also helped me look at my relationship with myself so that I can show up for my life with more self-esteem and confidence. And I believe that has gotten me further ahead rather than behind.

    5. You will feel your sparkle again.

    Happiness doesn’t start and end with your past relationship. You can feel happiness after them. As you heal and focus on new things that excite you, your life will become more vibrant and abundant. And I promise, you will feel like yourself again.

    Give it some time and pour back into yourself. Invest in new skills or hobbies, spend time with your community, and reconnect to your future goals.

    Breakups are often a portal for our next highest chapter. Walk through this door believing the best is yet to come—because if you believe amazing possibilities are ahead of you, you’ll do your part to help create them.

    —

    Feeling heavy emotions after a heartbreak is a part of the healing process. And it will ebb and flow. Even though healing isn’t linear, it’s always happening.

    Get curious and show yourself more love and reverence. You owe it to yourself to heal from this. Because there’s something more painful than a broken heart. And it’s a closed heart. I would rather continue to love big and get hurt at times than not love at all.

  • What Makes a Relationship Perfect

    What Makes a Relationship Perfect

  • If You Want to Be Happy

    If You Want to Be Happy

  • 181 Days Teetotal (And Counting): All I’ve Gained Since I Stopped Drinking

    181 Days Teetotal (And Counting): All I’ve Gained Since I Stopped Drinking

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post references an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some. 

    “When you quit drinking you stop waiting.” ~Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story

    I’m now at 181 days teetotal. I prefer teetotal to sober. I say sober sometimes, but teetotal feels lighter, airier, and I feel lighter and airier these days.

    For the life of me, I can’t remember when I took my first sip of alcohol. It probably came from a grownup’s glass.

    What I can remember is being sixteen or so, half waking up from a blackout with a friend’s hand down my pants.

    Or being eighteen, head in a toilet, while a guy I didn’t know followed me into the bathroom to “help me hold my hair back”—and instead helped himself to my body as I cried for help from a girlfriend who eventually came to my rescue, kitchen knife in hand, and forced him to leave.

    Or many a morning waking up with a blinding headache, ashamed of what I might have said, done, or was afraid I let happen the night before.

    I can remember that exposed, unsafe feeling, and thinking to myself, “Never again.”

    I can also remember (and well) the little voice that come late afternoon would say, “A drink will make this better.”

    And it did. And then (surprise!) it didn’t.

    Although this article isn’t about sexual assault, I want to mention that this has happened to me sober as well, and to acknowledge that a person letting their guard down doesn’t amount to an opportunity given. Seizing vulnerability and framing it as invitation is predatory, period.

    With that said, my adventures in drinking after I turned twenty-five tended to be less extreme. I became more careful about where I drank and who I drank with. Par for the course were physical and emotional hangovers, and those I learned to deal with. The tradeoff was worth it to me. Everyone drinks. It’s what we do when we get together! It’s fun and it’s fine, and you can always apologize the day after if things get out of hand, and maybe no one will remember anyways.

    And if you drink alone… well, that’s okay too! No need to apologize for anything.

    But something happened around three or four years ago. Friends I’d enthusiastically drank with, or who I knew cracked a bottle open to unwind at the end of the day, decided to go dry. Hand on my heart, I was happy for them, but hand on my heart… not for me.

    Booze, namely a glass (and then another, and then another) of very cold rose on a warm evening outside, or if I was feeling creative, was at the pinnacle of my pleasure pyramid. I loved chatting and drinking, playing music and drinking, writing and drinking, dancing and drinking, anything good and drinking, really.

    Give that up? I don’t think so.

    Last summer, I packed up my life of twenty years living in Brooklyn and moved, alone, to a hill near Florence, Italy. Don’t be fooled by the cliche of a thirty-something straight, white woman moving to Tuscany, though. It’s been a heavy and wild couple of years, and life on this cypress-peppered hilltop’s often been more Werner Herzog than Nancy Meyers.

    This chapter of my life, hugely marked by the choice to estrange from my mother and navigate the grief that’s come with that—not to mention in isolation, in what used to be a convent in the backwoods of a country I know no one in—has been, in one word, rough.

    They make wine here; did you know that?

    Really good wine. Really good, cheap wine too. The weather and setting are also great, so that pleasure pyramid pinnacle I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it beckons all the time, and being that I’m alone a lot and still know very few people, reaching for a bottle’s been a no-brainer and… a surefire ticket to the emotional rollercoaster from hell.

    On that morning 181 days ago, I woke up hungover with a body like a bucket filled to the brim with sadness, anxiety, fear, and nausea. Slosh, slosh, slosh. Nothing new.

    A few weeks earlier, one of my sober friends had come to see me, and what struck me most about her manner was that, far from being overwhelmed with emotion (which, as I understood, was one of the “costs” of sobriety: FEELING A LOT), she seemed so even kilter. So damn okay.

    It looked incredible.

    Around that time, it occurred to me the reason I’d made all these changes (the move, the estrangement, other things too) was to enter a new phase in my life. One that was more even kilter, more okay. I’d made all these moves, really hard ones, but I was still resorting to the coping mechanism I’d employed to tide me over in my previous life: Drinking. What throughout my twenties and into my thirties had been coupled with pleasure, relief and connection was actually keeping me stuck, sad and isolated.

    So there I was, in my front yard, actually weeping as the world spun, waiting for my dog to pee, when something welled up from inside me and said (and meant), “No more.”

    No more?

    No more, Melanie.

    And so it was, and here’s the most surprising but not surprising thing I’ve learned since.

    Empty calories, empty emotions.

    The hangovers and subsequent emotional manholes I’d have to crawl out of virtually weekly left me under the illusion of processing what felt like a bottomless well of despair. I was doing the work, right? That’s what it’s all about, feeling the discomfort. Feeling the trauma. Being in the hole. Grieving. Aching. Sticking with it. Right?

    Well…

    I’ve read that drinking doesn’t necessarily make you pack on weight, but your body burns the calories from alcohol first. So rather than using what you eat for fuel, when you give your body booze, it’s the booze it runs on and the real nourishment that gets stored.

    For me, it wasn’t just that way with the calories, but with the feelings too. Even a little alcohol (and it was rarely a little alcohol) created a synthetic emotional experience I had to overcome that took precedence over my very real emotional surplus and felt like labor. Like doing the work.

    But that wasn’t my real labor, my real pain, my real trauma, my real unmetabolized feelings. Turns out my real ones are of a completely different quality. Even when they’re hard, there’s an ease to them, a naturalness to them. Even when they’re heavy, they’re lighter. There’s a purity to them, a pulling up rather than down. An unburdening that registers fully, a clearing like the sky after a downpour. The relief of a healthy morning poo rather than being covered in shit.

    The work of healing has not only been a constant in my life; I made it my job. Oh, the humbling irony in realizing a good 70% of the emotional hellscape I was trying to overcome, not to mention my lack of clarity, energy, and zeal, was pure ethanol.

    Alas, all the positive feelings I’d tried to get through every avenue other than choosing water over wine have cropped up and grown robust in 181 days (that feel like 181 years considering how full they’ve been). Feelings like inner peace, inner safety, well-being, courage, honesty, efficiency, self-trust, joy, and resilience are finally setting in.

    Now we’re cooking with gas.

    In many ways, drinking became a way I kept myself from healing in the way I allegedly wanted to. A way to postpone the well-being I didn’t feel entitled to. A way to remain tethered to the drama I’d become so used to trying to overcome. A manifestation of my skepticism that what I was looking for might actually exist—in me, no less!

    I’m lucky. Every morning upon waking fresh as a button, especially on weekends or Mondays, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude at this inner leveling. Almost every day, I reach out or hear from my two teetotal close friends, and 99.9% of the time we don’t discuss how hard or boring life without alcohol is, but how much better, easier, brighter, richer, and solid we feel. How happy we are to have gotten out of that cul-de-sac.

    There’s a lot of shame and shaming stitched into the drinking dilemma, and I find it such a hindrance. For me, this hasn’t been a journey from shame to pride, and I’m completely convinced that had it been, it wouldn’t have stuck for more than a couple of weeks.

    Pride can be so brittle, so about the shame in the end, like the ‘after’ looking at the ‘before’ with a smug superiority. That doesn’t sit right with me.

    This has turned out to be tender, a pleasure, a streamlining of emotion, abundance, self-giving, taking, daring to receive, and giving from a full well. I sleep like a baby, say what I mean, mean what I say, know what I want, and know I have the energy to execute it. And as it happens, I have a personality that’s not bottle-of-wine adjacent, and I love her. 

    This isn’t a badge; how dead, how bland. This is a delight, alive and fluid and not for tomorrow—not to deserve something better now that I’ve quit that I didn’t deserve before, or to be better than people who haven’t quit. Hell no. This is my experiment, a treat from me to me.

    Have there been added bonuses? You bet. I’ve processed more trauma, melted more limiting beliefs, felt my nervous system unwind more, and even had bigger breakthroughs in my work in these past few virgin months than I did in decades before, and with far more ease.

    What changed for me that February morning wasn’t so much that I was done feeling those super low lows, but that for the first time in my adult life, I felt worthy of feeling myself. Just myself. And wow. Pretty cool.

    I won’t lie to you, sometimes around sunset, when the breeze is blowing and the crickets are singing and the company’s good or a favorite song comes on, I do think, “Dang, a cold glass of vino would make this even better.” But so far, the fresh mornings after, the healing that’s unfolded in this untampered space, and how much more present I feel for the sunset and the breeze and the crickets and the company and the song, has been kicking that thought’s ass.

    I’ve committed to a year of not touching the stuff, and I’m taking it a day at a time, but I don’t know, this is really good. It’s hard to imagine giving it up. Hah! Who’d have thought?

    Thank you for reading. Whatever relationship you have with alcohol, wherever you are with anything you’re struggling with, no judgment. Really, truly, no judgment. And to any person who’s experienced sexual assault, drunk or sober, you were never at fault.

  • Those Are Your People

    Those Are Your People

  • Someone Who Lacks Emotional Maturity

    Someone Who Lacks Emotional Maturity

  • Surrounded by Good People

    Surrounded by Good People

  • Hug Deprivation Is Real

    Hug Deprivation Is Real

  • Caretaking Your Sensitive System for More Love in your Relationship

    Caretaking Your Sensitive System for More Love in your Relationship

    “Sometimes you’ve got to look straight into the tired eyes of the woman staring back at you in the mirror and tell her that she deserves the best kind of love, the best kind of life, and devote yourself to giving it to her all over again.” ~S.C. Lourie

    I learned the hard way that in order to have an intimate relationship (and life) that feels deeply satisfying, nourishing, and fulfilling, highly sensitive people (HSPs) need to attend more to their emotional well-being than non-HSPs.

    Before I knew I was highly sensitive (which is a normal trait found in 20-30% of the population, where we process all stimuli more deeply than others)—or what it took to stay grounded and emotionally well as one—I was married to a good, kind man. Together, we took on a wild pace of life and lots of responsibilities in quick succession over the course of a couple years. We had kids, built a house (by ourselves!), and were both developing our careers.

    There was little to no time for taking care of myself. I was always on—even at night when I was taking care of my two young sons, who were poor sleepers.

    I was overwhelmed, irritable, and stressed out much of the time. I remember thinking something was wrong with me, like I was a “problem person” because I was grumpy and short-tempered so much and couldn’t access that sweet feeling of peace and calm I felt regularly as a younger person.

    I also had trouble feeling connected with my husband and tended to blame it on him a lot—which just drove a wedge between us. (I now know this was due more to my stress levels than anything he did or didn’t do.)

    The toll this took was the loss of our happiness together—and eventually our marriage.

    Later, when I realized I was a highly sensitive person, and how important it was to support my nervous system and learn to work with my big emotions in intentional ways, I realized not knowing or doing this was the downfall of my marriage. 

    Over the years, I’ve taken on big projects, built another house and a business, and had another baby, and I am very happily remarried. But this time I did all of it while truly caretaking and honoring my sensitive system. The difference has been huge.

    After talking with many other HSPs who also experienced shifts in their relationships after learning to support themselves better, I’ve concluded that we HSPs simply require more conscious attention to our sensitive mind-body-heart systems than non-HSPs do.

    If you are an HSP, you may not love hearing this fact. Most of us HSPs living in these busy modern times have trouble with this, including myself. At least I used to. Because it can feel a bit unfair—like, why do I have to put so much effort into feeling well when others don’t?

    I get it. It’s normal to expect yourself to be like non-HSPs because, well, that is the norm. And also, maybe you didn’t know that you are highly sensitive until recently—or just now!

    Also, the message we get left and right is that we all should be able to keep up with the frantic pace of modern life, to push through with few breaks without much more than a yoga class here and there and be FINE.

    But the truth I’ve found is, once we accept that our systems need more loving attention from ourselves—more spaciousness, more quiet and downtime, more emotion-tending—and get to work honoring all of this, magic begins to happen in our relationships.

    But before we are good at that, our love lives can feel hard. Because love can’t flow from stress and fear. Connection can’t come out of a defended, stressed state.

    Because confidence, security, and internal safety (essential for strong, fulfilling relationships) can’t come from overstimulation and a nervous system that’s regularly in a fight, flight, or freeze state.

    Because effective and connecting communication can’t come from the closed-off heart that we have as humans when we’re run down, overwhelmed, and on edge.

    Because we can’t respond effectively to our significant others when challenges arise if we’re coming from a reactive or overloaded nervous system.

    For love to thrive in our lives, as I now know from deep experience, we need to be able to access all of these things (love, connection, security, confidence, responsiveness, and communicating well).

    And this all comes from being in a centered place in ourselves: our heart and higher brain.

    Like my experience in my first marriage shows (and briefer moments here and there still remind me!), we can’t be there steadily as an HSP when we aren’t actually listening to and honoring the needs of our sensitive body, mind, and nervous systems, and guiding them back to “home.”

    So how can we be in that centered place more steadily?

    For me, I had to learn quite a few things and break some old ways of thinking and behaving (like not listening to my brain when it pushed me to just push through, learning to say no, setting boundaries with myself and others, and more),

    For today, I’d love to offer you four things you can get started with right away that were key for me.

    1. Accept you need to attend to your emotional well-being more than most people.

    Just like one person needs to eat more regularly than another to keep blood sugars level or needs more sleep than their friend to be well rested, you simply need to pay more attention to your mind-body-heart system than non-HSPs to be at your best.

    We are all different, and that’s that.

    It can also help to know the benefits you and your relationships will reap. For example, you’ll feel more attracted to your partner and more attractive to them; you’ll feel more secure and be less likely to take things personally; and you’ll be better able to access your intuition, advocate for what you want and need, say no, set healthy boundaries, and more.

    Although it may be inconvenient at the time or make for “achieving” slightly less each day, I now even consider myself lucky to need this extra attention from myself. Because those same things that restore and nourish my sensitive system tend to also feed my heart and soul—like long walks in nature, or a half hour yoga of nidra. And because I know I need them to be well, I weave them into my life regularly, and they truly make my life richer.

    Once I experienced how much of a difference it made in my life and relationships—and how good I felt doing it—it was much easier to give myself the extra attention to emotional regulation I need. It will likely be the same for you!

    2. Use irritability or reactiveness as a signal.

    In fact, when you find yourself on edge, rundown, reactive, or feeling a lot of negative emotion often, it’s a signal from the intelligent wisdom of your mind-body-heart system telling you:“Slow down, my love. Take care of me, my love. I need your attention. I need your caretaking! Please love me. Please listen to me. Please support me.”

    Listen to that wise part of you and get to caretaking your beautiful sensitive self, in one of the many ways you know how to. Or learn new effective ways. Which brings me to…

    3. Learn about your nervous system.

     You don’t have to understand a lot of the science of the nervous system to work with yours, but understanding how your nervous system states affect your life and how to support yourself to shift states is really powerful

    In the most basic sense, your fight-or-flight system and your freeze system should only be activated briefly and fairly rarely.

    You want to spend the majority of your time in the states of calm and connect (that peaceful, engaged state of being that allows you to access to your heart, wisdom, and ability to connect with others, and where oxytocin is produced); and you want to spend some time in rest/digest mode (the state that allows for digestion, as well as healing and regeneration of the physical body) so you can be physically and emotionally at your best.

    To build awareness of your own states, start noticing what state you are in at any given moment. Are you in an agitated, anxious, aggravated state (fight or flight)? Or in an empty, shut down, numb and disconnected state (freeze)? Or are you in calm and connect, which feels like being centered, home in your heart? Or are you in rest /digest, which often feels like a peaceful, cozy almost sleepy state?

    4. Find your favorite ways to support yourself back to or to spend more time in calm and connect. 

    For me, the beginning of real change happened when I started doing daily nervous system practices for twenty minutes or more. Luckily, there are so many to choose from that it’s not hard to find ones you enjoy. Long walks in nature, deep breathing practices, and, a favorite of mine, yoga nidra, are all great. Even dancing counts (movement can really help calm an agitated state or thaw a frozen state).

    Yet, one bigger chunk of regulation alone often isn’t enough to help us stay primarily in our calm and connected selves, so pepper into your day smaller nervous system practices—such as feeling the ground beneath your feet, noticing your breathing without changing it, or slowly scanning the room with a curious noticing of what’s around you.

    Here is one you can try right now that I love:

    • Place your hand on your heart area so that you feel your own warm touch.
    • Breathe softly into that hand and heart area, a bit deeper than normal.
    • As you do, remember one moment when you felt safe and loved by another human being. This could be a partner or child, a friend, therapist, teacher, or even a pet. Don’t think of the entire relationship, just one moment of it.
    • As you remember this moment, let yourself feel the feeling of that moment. Stay with it, allowing the feeling to wash through your body for twenty or thirty seconds.
    • Notice any shifts in your sense of relaxation and calm and how in your heart you now feel.

    The idea is to weave emotional regulation practices into your daily life on an ongoing basis. These practices are not just for when you feel off-kilter or triggered. They are for helping you go into those triggered fight, flight, or freeze spaces less often, and come out of them more easily. So make them part of your regular life, even and especially when you feel fine.

    If you are anything like me, it can be tempting to go on as you always have, the way non-sensitive people can just go on, pushing through without slowing down to learn and do the work of honoring and supporting your sensitive mind-body-heart system.

    But continuing to go on as always isn’t likely to get you the life and love that you want.

    For HSPs, tending to our nervous system states is the basis for all the other mental and emotional skills that make up relational agency—which is our ability to guide ourselves back to a space where we can navigate life well and relate to our significant other in ways that generate deep connection, love, and intimacy.

    It also allows the love-enhancing aspects of our trait of high sensitivity to come out naturally, paving the way for our best possible life and relationship.

    —

    So start caretaking your sensitive system as much as it’s asking for. Learn to listen to it. It wants all the best for you: love, peace, ease, intimacy, and adoration.

  • Stop Torturing Yourself

    Stop Torturing Yourself

  • The Last Time

    The Last Time

  • The Allure of Unhealthy, One-Sided Friendships and How I’ve Let Them Go

    The Allure of Unhealthy, One-Sided Friendships and How I’ve Let Them Go

    “The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?” ~Eugene Kennedy 

    I could not. When I was with them, we had to be doing something. That is why I didn’t see it. I kept myself too busy to see or feel what was happening.

    It was the panic attack during a long-distance drive home that should have been the sign that something was very wrong.

    I didn’t see or expect that my choice of friendships was ruining my mental health and, in turn, my business.

    It was so much fun, you see. To be with them both.

    We’d stay up late into the early hours drinking, eating yummy food, or watching our favorite TV series. In the thick of a global pandemic, when you could only meet with limited people and had nowhere to go, this felt like the perfect escape. We also did healthy things like yoga and meditations together.

    How lucky I was.

    Or was I?

    I’ve since come to learn about trauma bonds through inner child work, and I’ve recognized there was something seriously wrong with my seemingly perfect and fun life.

    The Drama Triangle

    From a young age I took on the role of rescuer within my family. My mother suffered from severe depression following my birth, and she needed her children’s love and care.

    Fast forward to 2020, during a global lockdown, I was playing the role of rescuer with my friends, completely unaware of the inauthenticity I was creating within myself and how I was neglecting my own needs.

    What does the rescuer look like?

    Warning Sign Number 1: People-Pleasing

    I was constantly people-pleasing and offering solutions to anyone around me, even though they never asked for help.

    I never considered how my friendships would be if I were not ‘useful’ or ‘fun.’

    I could see the red flags—for example, not speaking up when I felt something wasn’t right and instead working even harder to justify or understand one of my friend’s behaviors, and trying to help and save her even more by doing household chores.

    When we’re people-pleasing to gain someone else’s approval, we chose behaviors that are not true to ourselves. And we act in ways that negatively impair ourselves because in rescuing others, we’re neglecting ourselves.

    Warning Sign Number 2: Numbing Through Binge-Drinking and/or Eating  

    I was constantly binge-drinking with my friends, and it was damaging to my health. As a result, I experienced:

    • Sleep deprivation from the late nights
    • A dysregulated nervous system due to hangovers
    • Weight gain due to eating junk food

    And like a catch-22, the bad feelings I had after these episodes made me want to do it all over again to feel better, leaving me in a vicious cycle.

    I wanted to be with these women, like an obsession or craving, but I was using substances to numb the fact I didn’t feel safe with them. Eventually, this set off my internal radar telling me this wasn’t right.

    If you are in a cycle of unhealthy behavior with certain people and you’re developing self-destructive habits, it could very well be a way to cope/numb deeper feelings that you don’t want to face.

    Warning Sign Number 3: They Are Unavailable

    I began seeing our meet-ups as booty calls, enjoying the thrill and drama of rushing to meet them.

    I would drop everything to be in one friend’s last-minute plan, or I would try to make future plans if I saw her and I didn’t want it to end.

    These friendships felt like a drug—I felt addicted to seeing them, despite knowing it wasn’t good for me or my health. I would eagerly wait for one of my friends to tell me when she was available.

    The thing is, she wasn’t available. She didn’t want to make plans in advance or prioritize us on weekends when she had other plans. So I made myself more available. I’d drop things if she was free and wanted to meet.

    Being someone’s last resort and being okay with that are clear signs that a relationship isn’t healthy.

    —

    I’ve come to realize that I’ve carried a mother/daughter wound my whole life—because my mother wasn’t available due to her mental health challenges—and I was desperate to be seen, wanted, and accepted by people who weren’t available as a result. It was all I knew. It’s how I became programmed.

    I was seeking out women who replicated the relationship I had with my mother as a child. I was befriending those who seemed confident, unattached, and unavailable.

    However, the issue wasn’t what they were doing. The real work was asking myself why I was making the choice to be around people who made me feel unsafe. So unsafe that I was numbing myself with food and alcohol when I was around them.

    Due to my mother’s depression when I was growing up, I didn’t know what it felt like to be in a safe relationship. Since drama and dysfunction were all I knew, that’s all I was seeking out.

    Through trauma coaching I learned how to listen to my physical body and then connect to my inner child. To find and heal that little Rav who was looking for love by people-pleasing.

    Here’s how I connect to my younger self:

    1. I take a moment to pause and feel. I close my eyes and breathe calmly. I scan my body for any aches/tension or obvious pains. After locating the pain, I ask myself when I felt like this as a child, and I explore that.

    2. I FEEL the feeling in all its depth. This might mean crying, shouting into a pillow, or even punching a pillow for the hurt I felt as a child during a specific incident, or for the pain I’m feeling now.

    3. I journal it all out of my mind and ‘re-parent’ my inner Rav: “It’s okay—I got you. That wasn’t very nice. You’re safe now. You don’t need to speak to mum right now. You can play with your toys or cuddle your teddy. Let’s help you feel better.” It can be in the form of an imagined conversation or even acting it out in the now after writing it out.

    The power of this process and being able to recognize those wounds is immense. You really start to understand and sense your own sense of self and your worth. And your current patterns and issues become so much clearer to see.

    The questions I went on to ask myself:

    • Were my friends asking me to rescue them?
    • Did they know I was withholding my honest feelings, too scared to tell them how I really felt?
    • Was it my choice to stay with them when I felt unsafe or to drink and stay up late?

    After I took an honest look at what was really going on, those friendships came to an end, and I still find myself grieving them but far less than when it first happened. It’s not easy. It hurts. However, I now have the tools to feel safe and to come back to my true self.

    Throughout the day I take my right palm to my heart, close my eyes, and remind myself “you are safe.” I repeat this as many times as necessary as I slow my breathing and connect to the present moment.

    It is so worth the struggle and the commitment to healing in order to break free. It’s actually created space for me to welcome more aligned friends into my life.

    It’s a process to adjust to a less dramatic, chaotic life than I had with them, but I am much more content within myself. I don’t need to hustle or the drama. It’s okay to be safe.

  • What Didn’t Work Out for You

    What Didn’t Work Out for You

  • The Highest Form of Love is Consideration

    The Highest Form of Love is Consideration

  • What You Used to Look Forward To

    What You Used to Look Forward To

  • How You Can Have More with Less: The Magic and Joy of Being Present

    How You Can Have More with Less: The Magic and Joy of Being Present

    “Don’t let this silly world trick you into starving your soul for material things. Cause someday you’re gonna be sitting out under the sun and realize how little you actually need to be truly happy.” ~Brooke Hampton

    It was early morning. The birds were chirping, the street sweepers were methodically clearing debris off the sidewalk, and the coffee vendor was chattily filling his customers’ cups with fragrant java from the dispenser precariously balanced on the back of his bicycle. There I was, taking a pleasant and serene walk while on my recent visit to India.

    As I took a turn into a small sideroad, I noticed two little girls running around and playing. At first, I didn’t take much notice. But then something grabbed my attention.

    The gleeful duo was scampering around chasing each other, squealing with delight, clapping their hands, laughing hard, and just plain enjoying each other’s company. Again, nothing extraordinary. But something was drawing my attention to them, and then I saw it.

    They were pretty much absent of what we would define as typical material needs.

    No toys to play with. No playground to run around in. Old, worn-out clothing. Disheveled hair. Not even any footwear while running around the street.

    My first thought was, how could they be so happy? Do they not feel despondent or envious of other kids that have more? Do they not feel worried about their futures?

    But none of that really seemed to matter. They were living life in the moment, completely and joyfully absorbed into their natural sense of play.

    My next rationalization was “they are just kids,” ignorant to the social and economic structures and norms. Oblivious to how the world really works.

    But then, I figured, we see this same level of psychic energy and consciousness in adults too.

    A climber could spend hours on a rock face and be completely absorbed with the challenge, the interaction between her fingers and the next rock outcrop, the changing weather patterns, and the ultimate goal—the top of the cliff.

    A violinist in an orchestra becomes the violin, completely engrossed with the activity of playing his part, but also being in absolute synchrony with the broader group.

    A painter could spend hours honing her painting, unaware of her immediate surroundings.

    So does this experience only come to fruition when the skills required are more refined or complex? Not really.

    Take a factory assembly line, where two workers are next to each other doing the same repetitive task over and over again. One may be carrying out their task in a mechanical fashion, while the other may be immersed in their curiosity, with a sense of perseverance to continually improve their skills and quality of work.

    Imagine two individuals standing next to each other at an art museum staring at a Rodin statue. One may be passing through and merely throwing a glance at the marble figurine. The other may be swept into a different realm, admiring the intricate contours and appreciating the level of difficulty and complexity of the art in front of her.

    How does this happen? Why are the experiences for the exact same activity so different for two individuals?

    I truly believe this is due to what I call the power of play.

    And the beauty and simplicity of this is that it can work with anyone, in any activity, in any situation, or in any environment.

    There are a few criteria we need to keep in mind to make an activity an optimal experience. Ask yourself these questions before you start any activity.

    Can I actually do it?

    The activity has to be achievable. In other words, you have the needed skill to complete it, or the ability and resolve to learn the skill.

    Can I focus on it with my everything?

    The activity should require your full concentration, and that’s usually possible when we are applying effort toward a goal and getting immediate feedback as to whether it is working or not. If not, we can find our concentration starting to wane.

    Does it move me into a different mental axis?

    This concentration and effort take us away from our day-to-day reality, and any negative connotations that may be encumbered with it—away from the worry, stress, anxiety, or fear that we may experience in our daily lives.

    Will I “be present” in my being?

    Our level of self-awareness is acutely sharpened, taking in all the ebbs and flows of our thoughts, feelings, and energy levels. This allows us to feel in control of our consciousness, our emotions, our life flow.

    Can I alter time?

    And finally, it changes the perception of time. Sometimes, say when playing an exciting game of tennis, time can swiftly fly by. Sometimes, like when we are excitedly learning some new dance steps, time and motion can slow down, and we appreciate these micro-moments.

    When we leap off the diving board and plunge into this state of play, we experience a great sense of enjoyment—a feeling that the psychic energy we have consumed was worth it and has resulted in a great outcome, one that can be savored for a long time to come.

    And that is how we can have more with less.

    If we can make small, discrete changes to meet these criteria, it can make a transformational difference in whether we immerse ourselves into the experience or are “just in it for the ride.”

    We can make every day, every activity, every experience, fulfilling and nourishing to our soul by simply being more present with what we’re doing and bringing more enjoyment to what we do. Pause and think about how you can make any activity more enlightening, and you will see it lightening your life as the heaviness melts away.

    Just like the two little girls that were completely involved and enjoying the experience of play together, savoring life together.

    They didn’t need anything more.

    PS: The next day I bought those little kiddos some footwear, and the way their faces lit up was such a joy to see!

  • Accepting Fear and Sadness as Normal Parts of a Good Life

    Accepting Fear and Sadness as Normal Parts of a Good Life

    “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.” ~Naomi Shihab Nye

    I knew it was around that time. When I opened my eyes, it was pitch black outside and I couldn’t yet hear the chickens in the distance waking up. It was 4 a.m. again.

    In the past few days, I have loved this gift of jet lag; transitioning to a thirteen-hour time change has afforded me this dark, mysterious quiet that has woken up inside of me the place from which I write—a place that spontaneously arises when the conditions are such that something flows through me.

    However, next to me in my bed, my daughter slept soundly. I lay there, paying attention to and feeling my body breathe, sensations arising and falling, and thinking about life—the past, present, and future.

    As I lay there, I noticed the sweet ebb and flow of my breath and the glorious feel of the air from the fan washing over my warm and rested body.

    Yet on this particular morning, I noticed my belly rumbling and my heart tensing. I placed my hands on my body and noticed.

    Nothing in that moment could provoke anything but peace, calm, and gratitude, and yet, wherever you go, there you are. Regardless of how far I am from my physical home, I know that what lives inside of me, travels with me.

    I asked these sensations in my body, what do you want me to know? Without hesitation I heard a voice, I am scared.

    There was nothing to be scared about in the moment. I was completely safe in every possible way other than being away from home. I didn’t feel any imminent threat or danger to provoke fear.

    I stayed curious and started seeing images of my father.

    Earlier in the day while on a boat with my teenage daughter, a memory washed over me with an image of him. He loved taking us places and giving us opportunities to explore life. As a teenager, I often and unfortunately remember rolling my eyes at him.

    When I was in the seventh grade, he took me and my brother rafting in the Grand Canyon. To get to our raft boats we took a helicopter into the canyon. That summer there had been massive rains, and the water was brown from the mud. This made the canyon waters muddy, which meant that my hair for five days was basically a brown ratted nest. I complained throughout the exquisite adventure that my hair was a mess.

    But what I thought about today in that moment on the boat was that he had gifted me curiosity, a little adventure, and a love of life in the moment. I felt a wash of gratitude and appreciation for him. The moment passed.

    I continued to lie in bed and stayed present to the sensations in my body. Memories and feelings started coming of when things started changing.

    I remember noticing there wasn’t as much food in the pantry, he began sleeping on the couch, he had more doctor’s appointments, and bill collectors started calling. And there were more fights between my parents and between us. Things slowly began to fall apart.

    The money from my college savings was gone. My wish for where I wanted to go to school wasn’t possible. And it wasn’t just me that was feeling all of this. It was all seven of his children.

    In the course of ten years, my father’s business had crumbled. My dad was an amazing people person and a fantastic salesman, but he wasn’t the best at administrative things. When the economy suffered a setback and changes in his industry began happening, he didn’t have the wherewithal to get support and ask for help.

    So we watched the unraveling of his business and felt the impact with no exact words to describe what was happening. Nobody talked about it. We just felt it.

    That stirring in my belly was familiar. That ache in my heart was also familiar.

    It was a mixture of fear and sadness.

    We are told to think positively and everything will work out. Everything will be okay. It sounds good to have that beacon of light as hope. But that wasn’t my experience. He never recovered financially; his health deteriorated over the years and life was exceptionally difficult for him and for his family; his body suffered terribly until he passed away at sixty-five years old.

    We don’t often talk about the fact that life sometimes doesn’t work out: people get sick and die early, businesses fail, marriages end, children get sick, and people change. We say that there are lessons in those failures; we will learn and something positive will come of it.

    Yes, there is truth in all of that. I live in the life lessons, see the positive in hardships, and trust that blessings are also a part of life, but we don’t also hold that life can be hard and that leaves an imprint inside of us.

    On this particular morning, as I lay in bed, I was reminded again of something important. The experience of watching my father lose his business and his health deteriorate over twenty years was scary. He told me in our last conversation before the fall that led to his death that he had entered into a dark hole many years prior.

    It was terrifying. It was also sad.

    What I continue to learn is that fear and sadness are not independent of each other but are related; it’s not just that I was scared, but I was also sad.

    Everything can be lost.

    We often want to heal what hurts and feels uncomfortable so that it will go away. Or we pretend that it doesn’t impact the way we live, see the world, are in relationship with others, or even raise our children. But the truth is that hurts like that, experiences like that, alter us. They change the trajectory of our life.

    I continue to learn to hold with love and understanding that fear and sadness are sacred parts of me. They ebb and flow. They are welcome to have a home inside of me. I am not flawed or any less human because I carry them with me; in fact, they probably influence my curiosity and my awe for our capacity as humans to heal, grow, and make peace and live with pain in our heart.

    Fear still comes. Sadness still comes.

    I get scared sometimes when I let uncertainty of the future get the best of me. I can worry too much about what’s to come. Fear that I, too, can lose everything.

    I feel my heart ache at what could have been. The grief of all that was lost.

    Life can be scary, and life can be sad. It can also be beautiful.

    Despite all my father went through, he always looked at the positive. He never complained even when he could barely walk, when he couldn’t take care of his body or afford basic things. He thought that it could always be worse and harder than his situation. 

    I think that it was a gift for him, that he could see the positive, because it helped him live with the pain and losses in a dignified way.

    The last phone call that I had with my dad, not knowing just a week later he would fall and lose consciousness, I told him, “I am so sorry that life was hard for you.”

    He replied, “I lived a good life, Carly.”