Tiny Buddha

Tag: worry

  • How Perfectionism and Anxiety Made Me Sick and What I Wish I Knew Sooner

    How Perfectionism and Anxiety Made Me Sick and What I Wish I Knew Sooner

    “Perfectionism is the exhausting state of pretending to know it all and have it all together, all the time. I’d rather be a happy mess than an anxious stress case who’s always trying to hide my flaws and mistakes.” ~Lori Deschene 

    “That’s not how you do it!” I slammed the door as I headed outside, making sure my husband understood what an idiot he was. He’d made the appalling mistake of roasting potatoes for Thanksgiving instead of making stuffing.

    He was cooking while I studied, trying to make sure I got a semblance of a holiday. We lived away from our families, and I had exams coming up. I was on the verge of losing it most of the time—and he was walking on eggshells. Or roasted potatoes.

    I was in my first year of law school. Every student knows that if you look to your left and then to your right that one of those people won’t be there next year—they will have dropped out or failed. I was terrified of failing.

    Every morning, I had a pounding headache that no amount of painkillers touched. My shoulders sat permanently around my ears (try it, you’ll see what I mean). I had insomnia, was highly irritable, and often felt panicked. 

    My friendly barista made me a triple vanilla latte each morning at 7:00, and by 10:00, I was out of energy. I bought Red Bull by the case to get through the rest of the day, and in the evening, I’d switch to red wine. My digestive system was distressed to say the least.

    I was hustling so hard, trying to get it all right. And then, I got a C on my Torts midterm. And sobbed for three days.

    I know this must sound ridiculous. A big part of me thought it was. I beat myself up for being such a “drama queen” and not being able to move past it.

    But at the time it was devastating. My sense of self-worth was so inherently tied to my achievements that I felt like a giant failure.

    I didn’t tell anyone. I was too embarrassed. What would they think of someone who got that upset?

    I knew that I appeared to be highly functioning externally, and that was something. I had friends, I went out to dinner, I went to the gym, I walked on the beach. Internally, though, I was in turmoil.

    My husband encouraged me to go to the doctor. He could see how hard I was on myself and how it was impacting me. As I relayed my physical symptoms, she asked whether I was under much stress. I replied, “No, not really. Just the usual.”

    I didn’t know what to tell her. Partly because I’d lived much of my life this way and didn’t know it was anxiety, partly because I felt so out of control, partly because I was ashamed, partly because I assumed she’d only be able to help with the physical.

    And … part of me knew that saying it out loud would shatter the illusion of having it all together. 

    So, I went away with a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome. It wasn’t funny, but it makes me laugh now. My bowel was definitely irritable, but that irritability was nothing compared to what was going on in my head. It was a piece of the problem, but certainly not the whole problem.

    It wasn’t so long ago that I figured out I’d struggled with anxiety for a long time before I even knew what it was. Like many of us, I learned that if a feeling wasn’t “positive,” it wasn’t acceptable. So I stuffed down all the “negative” emotions we’re not supposed to have: fear, rage, jealousy, and sadness.

    Because I’m a highly sensitive person, I have a lot of big, deep feelings. A lot to shove down, or suppress, deny or project. I was good at this, and I looked down on people who expressed their feelings.

    I thought they must be needy. The truth is, I was scared of my feelings. And I didn’t know I had needs.

    Rather than daring to let either my feelings or needs show, I used perfectionism to make it seem like I had it all together. Perfectionism made me feel like an anxious mess. But I couldn’t admit that because it would be acknowledging a problem.

    That makes it hard to ask for help. It’s also exhausting. As Lori Deschene said in her quote at the beginning, “I’d rather be a happy mess than an anxious stress case always trying to hide my flaws and mistakes.”

    Life is hard enough without stressing about how we appear to everyone else. It’s just not worth it. When I allow myself to be fully human, I can laugh at myself, talk about my struggles, and show up in my imperfections. It makes life so much easier.

    Here are five things I wish I’d known earlier:

    1. Perfection is unattainable because it can’t be quantified.

    What is perfection anyway? Do we actually know? I don’t.

    It’s something I kept setting up for myself—an arbitrary standard I thought I was supposed to meet. But once I’d achieved something, I was already looking for the next thing.

    Where does it end? It doesn’t, and that’s the problem.

    2. No one looks back on their life and wishes they’d had worse relationships.

    This seems obvious, but it’s something I think about. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely untie my self-worth from my achievements, or find an amazing balance where I feel fulfilled yet not striving. Maybe? One can hope.

    I do know that when I’m on my deathbed, that’s not what’s going to matter. My people will matter. And I don’t want my striving or perfectionist tendencies to get in the way of those important relationships.

    3. Anxiety feels very real, and it’s just a feeling.⁠

    If you’ve experienced anxiety you’ll know how awful it feels. For me, it’s a racing heart, shaking hands, flushed face, and a feeling of dread.

    It’s important to remind yourself to breathe. And to keep breathing. It will pass.

    Anxiety is fear, and fear can’t hurt you, as much as it can seem like it might.

    4. Anxiety is the stress response in action. It’s physiological and nothing to be ashamed of.

    Anxiety was my brain telling my body that it believed there was a dangerous situation. That’s it.

    While the fear of falling short is hardly a saber toothed tiger running toward you (as our cavemen ancestors had to worry about), my brain didn’t know the difference. And where’s the big stigma in that? To be clear, I believe there should be no stigma around mental health either, but I’m painfully aware that there is.

    Reminding myself there was no tiger, and thus no real danger, was useful.

    5. Imagining the worst in every situation isn’t as helpful as you’d think.

    Going straight to the worst-case scenario did seem helpful at the time. On some level, I believed if I could plan for the worst, I’d be prepared for it. But it can also create a lot of unnecessary anxiety about unlikely (even extremely unlikely) possibilities.

    For example:

    “If I get a C, I’m not going to make it through the first year. I’ll get kicked out. That would be a disaster. It also means I’m a failure. People might pity me. They will definitely think differently of me.”

    Helpful thoughts would have been:

    “If I get a C, that means … I got a C. Nothing more. Perhaps I could learn differently. Perhaps I could seek extra help. Or perhaps I could remember that I’m doing my best and that is enough.”

    Unravelling what fuels anxiety, learning to manage it differently, and being able to extend a lot of compassion to myself has been a journey. Wherever you’re at with yours, I hope something here makes a difference for you.

  • It’s Okay to Feel Scared: How to Stand Up to Fear by Standing Down

    It’s Okay to Feel Scared: How to Stand Up to Fear by Standing Down

    “It’s okay to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.” ~Mandy Hale

    When it comes to plane travel, I frequently quip: “I’m not a nervous flier, but my bladder is.”

    In a way, this is true. Aside from brief freak-out moments when there’s a patch of turbulence or when a flash from my catalog of gruesome “what-if” scenarios forces its way into my mind’s eye, I remain blissfully disconnected from my fear. Meanwhile, my bladder takes the brunt of it, with hourly pit-stops to the lavatory alongside a persistent, dull ache.

    While this is physically annoying, my strategy has its utility: it conveniently shifts the blame and shame for my irrational fear onto my bladder so that I don’t have to face up to it. (Otherwise known as somatizing my emotions, if you or my therapist want to get technical.)

    So, as you might imagine, when I recently boarded my first plane flight in two years amidst a still-very-present Covid pandemic, my bladder felt even twitchier than usual. Especially at the abrupt jolt of going from socializing at a distance to being packed like sardines into a confined space with a bunch of breathing, coughing, possibly infectious humans.

    At least, that is, until a little boy said something heart-stopping.

    A Cry for Help

    No more than six years old, the slender boy with a mop of golden-blonde hair had just clambered into the window seat of the empty row in front of me, trailing his white satin-trimmed fleece pillow and blanket.

    While the boy fiddled with his seat belt, I noticed that his mother and grandmother—each equally youngish-looking with lemony hair and tanned skin—were still lingering in the aisle, conversing in hushed tones. As I casually eavesdropped, I learned that they were debating which of them would sit with the boy versus with the rest of the family located several rows up.

    At first, I cursed my luck to be seated right behind a kid too young to be vaccinated or keep his mask up. Thanks a lot, universe, I grumbled internally.

    But as his mother began walking away to sit with her younger child (presumably expecting that her older son was in good hands with his grandmother), the boy wriggled upward in his seat, shoulders tensed, assessing the situation. Then, he called out quite loudly, without a hint of self-consciousness or shame: “Mom, I want you to sit here with me, because I’m scared and I need you.”

    Instantly, the radius of chatter around Row ten fell mute.

    Like a silent lightening strike, the boy’s words charged the atmosphere with an almost electric energy. For two long seconds, they hung there in the air above us, almost too sacred to desecrate with sound. During that time, I swear, you could practically feel our collective hearts opening. Then, a sincere chorus of “Awww”s and “Bless his heart”s rang out, cushioning the silence.

    A Permission Slip

    As I marveled at what had just transpired, I realized that, in one simple sentence, this young boy had done something remarkable: he’d given us permission to be human.

    After all, how many times had many of us felt just as fearful in life yet pretended we didn’t? How many times had we wanted to cry in the midst of overwhelm (if not wail like hell for our mommies), yet told ourselves to “buck up” or “be an adult”? And how many times had we rushed to the side of a friend in need yet readily denied ourselves this small grace?

    Perhaps the reason the little boy’s words stirred us so deeply, it struck me, was that he reminded us of what we already knew yet stubbornly denied: Of the power in vulnerability. Of the courage in asking for support. Of the importance of honoring our feelings, especially our fear—meeting it with acceptance, rather than my preferred method of hastily swatting it away like a poisonous wasp.

    Meeting Fear with Acceptance

    Fortunately, the boy’s mother was much more adept at dealing with fear than me.

    Making a beeline back to her son’s side, she enveloped him in a warm embrace, murmuring, “I’m so sorry, honey. It’s okay, I’m here for you,” (a relational repair that was powerful in itself).

    Spying through the narrow slat between our seats, I watched as the boy’s shoulders immediately unknotted. Seconds later, he began chattering to his mother about the character on his video game player—his fear a seemingly distant memory.

    It was then that I realized something even more remarkable: to the boy, the preceding moment was likely just an ordinary moment.

    Too young to be fully conditioned by our cultural garbage around fear or gender “norms,” he had no idea that he’d done anything profound, much less impacted a plane full of people much older and “wiser” than him. He was simply acknowledging his fear and taking care of himself.

    Okay, Lisa, I told myself. If that little boy can unabashedly proclaim for all to hear that he’s scared, then the least I can do is acknowledge my own fear to myself.

    Especially considering that, the very day before, a beloved teacher of mine had providentially reminded me about the power of acknowledgement. How, oftentimes, just acknowledging our feelings can considerably ease our unease. And sometimes, she claimed, it’s the only thing we need to do.

    Huh, I realized with a wink to the universe. You’re giving me an opportunity to practice this right now, aren’t you?

    And so, I did. Closing my eyes as the plane taxied down the runway, I felt into my fear and whispered: Okay, fear. I see you. I hear you. And it’s okay that you’re here. In fact, it would probably be abnormal not to feel you on my first post-pandemic plane ride after two years of semi-hermitude.

    From there, I stayed quiet and present in my body. I didn’t try to do anything with the fear, other than “stand down” so that its stifled energy could move through me.

    A minute or so later, wouldn’t you know it, the tight ball of yarn that was my bladder muscle magically slackened. Even my abdomen, I noted, no longer bloated out like I was carrying a small fetus. My entire body felt lighter too, as if I’d released a leaden weight I didn’t know I was carrying. Holy moly! I boggled, gazing down at my body in both awe and glee.

    “Alrighty, folks,” the captain’s disembodied voice announced over the PA system just then. “We’re about to head out, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

    Grinning to myself, I silently replied in my head: You know what? I think I will.

    *A Magical Postscript*

    Incredibly, the story doesn’t end there.

    Toward the end of the flight, I tentatively caught the attention of the boy’s grandmother, whose name I’d soon learn was Beverly.

    “Um, pardon me,” I started, “but I’m a writer, and I was so inspired by what your grandson said before the flight that I actually just wrote an article about it!”

    “Oh, really?” Beverly replied in surprise, my unanticipated admission taking a few seconds to sink in. Then, her surprise gave way to delight, as her eyes crinkled into a smile above her mask and she added, “Wow, that’s so wonderful!”

    “I’m happy to email it to you if you like,” I continued, “but I really just wanted to thank your family. For providing such a powerful moment for me—as I’m sure it was for many others.”

    “Well, let me tell you something,” Beverly responded, leaning toward me with an unanticipated admission of her own. “That moment was a bigger deal than you know. You see, my grandson has autism, and for him it was a very big deal to express his feelings like that.”

    Straightaway, goosebumps traveled up and down my arms. Of course, the writer in me couldn’t help but be tickled by the added significance to the story. But the real eye-opener for me was the extent of my own ignorance. That I assumed the moment was important to everyone but the boy. That I assumed there was only one “giver” and one “receiver” in the equation. As if the universe ever worked that way.

    When the plane touched down soon after, tears sprang to my eyes as the full-circle nature of the experience hit me.

    Thank you, universe, I humbly mouthed—this time meaning it.

  • I Thought Meditation Would Fix My Anxiety – Here’s Why It Wasn’t Enough

    I Thought Meditation Would Fix My Anxiety – Here’s Why It Wasn’t Enough

    “Your mind, emotions, and body are instruments and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.” ~Harbhajan Singh Yogi

    The earliest memory of my anxiety was at ten years old in fifth grade.

    I remember it so vividly because in middle school the bus came at 6:22am exactly in the morning.

    Each night I would look at my Garfield clock and think, “If I fall asleep now, I’ll get five hours of sleep…. If I fall asleep now, I’ll get four hours of sleep… If I fall asleep now, I’ll get three hours of sleep…”

    And without fail, my sister would slam my door open at 6:15 because my alarm didn’t wake me, yelling that we’re going to miss the bus, and this is the last time she’s going to wake me up.

    I didn’t know I had anxiety.

    When my doctor asked my mother, “How is she sleeping?” the answer was always “She’s never been much of a sleeper.” And that was that.

    Or when I couldn’t concentrate in school and do my homework, the “answer” was ADHD and I was given medication, which helped a little but didn’t solve the problem.

    In high school, the anxiety about going to school was worse. I couldn’t eat breakfast because I was too nauseous in the morning from stress.

    By college, my TMJ was so bad that there were months when I could barely open my mouth because my jaw was so tight. I had started scraping at my knuckles with a dull butter knife as a physical distraction from the angry swirl of anxiety in my stomach.

    More of this as the years went on.

    In my late twenties, after panic attacks that sent me to the emergency room, codependent relationships driven by the fear of rejection, and a wreck of a body with daily tension headaches, stomach issues, and a barely existent immune system… I finally figured out that this was all anxiety.

    It was starting to make sense why my pursuit of symptom relief for all my physical ailments was not working—I wasn’t getting to the root of the problem.

    In came meditation into my life.

    And it helped—a lot!

    It helped calm me. It taught me how to breathe properly. It gave me time every day to care for myself.

    And because I was also practicing yoga, eating a healthy, vegetarian diet, going to the gym, smoking pot, and taking medication, my anxiety symptoms improved. But my anxiety didn’t go away… yet.

    Without really understanding what anxiety is and why meditation helps (and what is missing from the equation), I was stuck from progressing further in my recovery.

    What is Anxiety, Really?

    We often confuse stress and anxiety.

    Stress is an important bodily system.

    Stress happens when a triggering event (like a bear or a tight deadline) activates our sympathetic nervous system to send cortisol and adrenaline through our body so that we can fight or flee our situation in order to keep ourselves safe.

    It diverts energy and resources from “non-essential” systems like digestion and reproductive and immune systems so that it can divert it to our heart, lungs, and large muscles.

    This is a reaction that lasts give or take twenty minutes (or until the immediate danger is no longer present).

    Anxiety is when our thoughts continually activate our stress response.

    While our bodies are built to recover from acute stress, they were not built for prolonged stress.

    And that’s why we end up with symptoms like:

    • Exhaustion
    • Muscle tension
    • Gastro-intestinal disorders
    • Immune suppression
    • Fertility and menstrual disorders
    • Headaches
    • (and like a hundred other things)

    How Meditation Can Help with Anxiety

    Like I said, I was definitely seeing the benefits of meditation, but I wasn’t seeing more progress with my anxiety.

    That’s when I realized I had to change how I meditated and learned how to “practice” even when I wasn’t meditating.

    Meditation is more than just focusing on your breath. It is a training exercise for your mind.

    The goal isn’t to relax (though that is often a wonderful side effect), it is to change your relationship with the thoughts that come into your head.

    That was the first lesson that made a world of difference in my practice, learning that “you are not your thoughts.” It blew my mind at first, but then it made sense. I have thoughts. I have ideas, stories, and sentences constructed by my brain to try to explain a situation. They are not me or the truth, just neurons firing off ideas.

    A focused-attention meditation, like mindfulness meditation, teaches us three main things: notice, acknowledge, and redirect.

    When we meditate, we notice when our attention has been taken away from our focal point (like our breath).

    Then we acknowledge this without judgment, maybe even label what we were thinking about like “planning” or “worrying.”

    And then we gently release our hold on that thought and redirect our attention back to where we want it—our breath.

    This process of noticing, acknowledging, and redirecting teaches us how to:

    • Be in the present moment
    • Become consciously aware of our thoughts
    • Choose curiosity over judgment
    • Practice self-compassion and patience
    • Let go of control

    These are all skills essential to learning how to relate differently to the thoughts that cause our anxiety.

    Once I started thinking of meditation as practice—like football practice—I began to realize that each two, five, or twenty-minute session of meditation was really preparing my mind to handle the real-world stressors off of my meditation cushion.

    So, when I texted a friend and she didn’t text back (an old trigger of mine), I was learning how to:

    • Notice: “Ah, I’m feeling anxious because I am thinking the reason she hasn’t replied is because she doesn’t like me as much as I like her, and I’m believing that her reply would prove that I am good enough and likable.”
    • Acknowledge: “This is an uncomfortable feeling, but I will allow it to be here until it has passed. Even though she hasn’t replied, I choose to love and accept myself.”
    • Redirect: “I open to the possibility that her lack of reply could have another explanation—she may be busy or sick or forgot to reply. I can wait or I can message her again. Even if she is angry with me, I can make amends because I am a good person.”

    Instead of swirling down the rabbit hole of “what is wrong with me?”, I was learning to recognize these thoughts as just ideas that my brain served up based on a habit I’d cultivated after years of believing I wasn’t good enough.

    While this understanding didn’t stop me from having those thoughts, it reduced them, and it taught me to change my relationship with them. Instead of believing them as truth, I was now able to see them for what they are—a defense mechanism to try and keep me safe.

    But even after I understood that meditation is really a training practice, I was still missing an important piece of how it can help with anxiety.

    Even though I had made huge strides with my anxiety, I still kept feeling some of the physical symptoms that went along with it like tightness in my chest and a constriction in my throat.

    This is when I learned that meditation engages our parasympathetic nervous system—our rest and digest mode.

    We have a sympathetic nervous system to engage our defenses, and a parasympathetic nervous system to disengage that defense system.

    That’s why we often find meditation relaxing. Anxiety keeps our fight-or-flight mode engaged, so by slowing down, focusing on the breath, and relaxing our body, we’re able to tell our nervous system that we’re safe and it’s okay to chill out.

    Our Emotions Get Stored in our Bodies

    Even though I’d made huge progress in disengaging from anxious thoughts, and I was able to stop believing the ideas that “I’m not good enough and no one likes me,” I still felt that physical anxiety tension in my body.

    That’s the piece that was missing for me for many years—the knowledge that our emotions get stored in our physical body. By that I mean we carry a muscle memory of how our body responded to our stress triggers in the past.

    Have you ever had a meeting coming up that you know you are ready for, yet still you feel nervous? Or you try to relax, and you have nothing to be stressed about, yet your body is still tense? That’s what I’m talking about.

    While meditation helped me reduce these physical symptoms, I still held that tension. I came to realize that we each need find the right tools for us—beyond meditation—to continually and regularly engage our calming systems.

    There are lots of ways to do that. Practicing yoga, walking or dancing, laughing, singing, petting a cute puppy… all of which helped me some.

    There are other embodiment practices as well that can send sensory information directly to our vagus nerve (a huge part of our parasympathetic system) that we are safe and we can relax

    I found it fascinating to learn that it is our nervous system that creates our muscle tension. For example, if you were put under anesthesia, your muscles would go limp. Once you woke up, your nervous system would remember where it was tense and tighten back up.

    This feeling of physical tension sends a signal back up to our brains that we are not completely safe, and that’s why it’s hard to shake that feeling of anxiety even when all is well.

    The practices in addition to meditation that helped me personally to release that lingering tension were things like:

    • Acupuncture (I had a huge physical release after a session once that blew my mind!)
    • Tapping (EFT)
    • Reiki
    • Kundalini breathwork
    • And a few simple vagal nerve stimulation practices that send sensory information directly to the nervous system

    One example of vagal nerve activation is to lie on the floor with your nose pointed toward the ceiling. Using just your eyes, look to the right and hold the gaze until you notice a shift in your energy, a need to swallow, a sigh, or a deep breath. Then relax back at neutral and repeat by looking off to the left.

    If you’ve practiced meditation to help with your anxiety and it didn’t work, or didn’t completely work, try the notice, acknowledge, and redirect technique I mentioned above to take power back from anxious thoughts. And if you still feel the emotions trapped in your body, perhaps trying new embodiment practices can help you release that stored tension.

  • Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness

    Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness

    “Lean into the discomfort of the work.” ~ Brené Brown

    Anxiety was the core of my existence for decades.

    When I look back at my life over that time, what comes to mind first is the constant tension in my chest, a knotted stomach, and a lump in my throat.

    From the outside, my life looked great. I was college-educated, had a good job, was in a relationship; I lived in a nice place, had a decent car, and enough money to buy organic food and a gym membership.

    But I was miserable.

    Not only was I anxious all the time, worrying that people would judge me, I felt like I couldn’t feel happiness.

    Even when the situation around me was a happy one—a surprise birthday party for me, getting gifts on Christmas, a lazy Sunday morning with nothing to do but enjoy a nice cup of coffee, or a hilarious scene in a comedy movie—true happiness never seemed to surface.

    Those were all my favorite things, but I couldn’t feel the happiness in my chest and my gut. I felt like I could only intellectualize happiness.

    All I really felt was discomfort, and not just because of my anxiety but because I was constantly resisting it. I refused to accept sadness and fear as perfectly normal emotions. I thought I shouldn’t feel them, so whenever I felt that familiar tension in my mind and body, I shut down, trying to block out all the negatives.

    My Resistance to the Discomfort of Anxiety Blocked Me from True Happiness

    We can’t turn off one emotion without blocking the others. It took me a long time to learn this. In my journey to learn how to stop worrying about what other people thought of me, practicing meditation to calm my body and strengthen my mind, or learning how to deal with heartache in a healthy way, I began to lean into the discomfort.

    By that I mean I gave the tension and discomfort permission to be there. It’s like the difference between trying to pull your fingers out of a Chinese finger trap as opposed to pushing your fingers together to loosen the grip of the trap so you can eventually wiggle your fingers out.

    Years of anxiety left me feeling numb. I thought I would never truly feel happy. That was for lucky people. Or people were just lying about how happy they were.

    But as I progressed along my journey, leaning into the discomfort allowed it to flow through me instead of staying stuck.

    I leaned into the discomfort physically, mentally, and emotionally. I would sit there and breathe slowly, relax the tension and resistance in my body, and allow the discomfort to be there. I would think, “Okay, this sadness is uncomfortable. I feel it in my stomach and my chest. I give you permission to be here while you work through me.”

    And I would sit and watch the emotion instead of fighting it. It brought the wall down. I would feel the intensity lessen as I was compassionate toward it and to myself. I felt it shift. Sometimes it went away completely. It made me feel more in control. Which is a funny irony, gaining control by letting go.

    Our Emotions Can Become Stuck in our Bodies

    When our stress response is triggered, it sends cortisol and adrenaline through our veins to give us the energy and motivation to fight or flea. Once the danger has passed, if there is extra adrenaline in the body, we mammals naturally shake it off to burn the rest of it.

    For example, if you almost get in a car accident, you might notice your body shaking after. Or maybe you laugh out loud (even though it’s not ha-ha funny). These are ways we naturally “finish” our stress response.

    But us smarty-pants humans often stop this process from finishing. We get stressed at work and hold in our emotions so we don’t look weak. We experience a loss, so we hold in laughter because “it’s inappropriate” to feel happy right now. We feel sad or afraid and we stuff it down to ignore it.

    All this ends up leaving us disconnected from our full emotional experience. You can’t deny fear without also blocking joy. You can’t hide from sadness without also hiding from happiness.

    Paradoxically, by leaning into the discomfort, without fear, without judgment, we get closer to happiness.

    Without Anxiety, I Cry More

    Today I no longer “suffer” from anxiety. Sure, I get anxious if I have something important coming up—that’s perfectly natural. But I accept that anxiety and let it move through me instead of fighting it and shutting down.

    For the most part, I’m the chill person I’d always hoped I could become.

    And the funny thing I’ve noticed lately is how much more I cry. Not tears of sadness, but of happiness, pride, appreciation, and gratitude.

    I watch the news every day, and there’s almost always a feel-good story at the end. So nearly every day as I sit there sipping my coffee, I look forward to that energetic surge swelling up from my gut, through my chest, up my throat, and watering my eyes.

    Watching a talent show like America’s Got Talent, I cry every time someone does a great job feeling incredibly proud of this stranger who I know nothing about.

    I love feeling genuinely happy for others. It’s something I never fully appreciated before. I couldn’t embody the emotions even when I mentally knew “this is great.”

    If you find yourself feeling numb to happiness, know that there is hope if you’re willing to start letting yourself feel the full range of emotions.

    It may take some time, but don’t be afraid to lean into the uncomfortable feelings that arise. Anger, frustration, shame, envy—none of these feelings are “bad.” And they won’t consume you. You just have to open up, feel them, and let them naturally pass.

    Relax your body, focus on your breath, and let the energy of the emotion work its way through. Know that this is only a moment that is uncomfortable. It isn’t causing you long-term harm, and it won’t damage your body (note, if you feel truly unsafe during a practice like this, it is better to do so under the supervision of a licensed mental health professional).

    It’s like the story of the second arrow. A soldier got hit with an arrow and it hurt. Pain happens, right? When that soldier started shouting in anger, upset that this shouldn’t have happened, wailing over the unfairness of it all… he created suffering on top of the pain.

    If you were watching this soldier, you would know that if he were to just sit, take some deep breaths, and relax his body, the pain would lessen. That resistance to the pain created more physical pain as his body tensed up, and mental pain as he fought the idea of what happened.

    Here are a few resilience-building practices that can further teach you the art of letting go and leaning into discomfort:

    • Relax your body in cold water instead of tensing up
    • Resist quenching an urge like eating a cookie when you know you aren’t hungry or reaching for your phone when you feel bored
    • Mono-task instead of multi-task, especially when you feel worried about getting things done

    And as you work through the emotions that arise in these scenarios, be sure to speak kindly to yourself.

    On your journey through your anxiety, or whatever “negative” emotion you’re tempted to resist, know that you might come across some interesting things, like joy and crying, and it’s all so worth it.

  • What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    “Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner

    Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious?

    Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.”

    It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “Something’s wrong with me, I’m flawed, I’m bad, I’m wrong, I don’t belong.”

    Anxiety can be highly misunderstood because it’s not just a symptom, it often stems from what’s going on subconsciously as a result of past experiences, mostly from when we were little beings. And yes, the body does keep score and remembers even if the mind doesn’t.

    Anxiety is often a signal/experience that happens automatically from our nervous system. It’s emotions/sensations letting us know that we don’t feel safe with ourselves, life, or the person we’re with or situation we’re in. It’s our inner child saying, “Hey, I need some love and attention.”

    Maybe, instead of blaming, shaming, or making ourselves feel bad or wrong for experiencing anxiety, we can be more compassionate and caring, knowing it often comes from deep unresolved pain.

    Just taking a medication or doing symptom relief may help ease the anxiety, but are we really healing the “root” cause? Are we taking time to understand what the anxiety is conveying? Where it’s actually coming from and what it’s showing us about what we need?

    Many people are living with anxiety but aren’t even aware it’s happening. Our minds and bodies aren’t at ease, and we may try to soothe them by being busy, over-eating, drinking alcohol, scrolling through the internet, smoking, compulsive shopping, over-achieving, or constantly working.

    From my earliest memory I felt anxious. I didn’t feel safe at home or at school. I felt different than the other kids; in a sense I was an outcast.

    I was alone a lot, and food became my companion and coping mechanism. When I was eating, I felt like I was being soothed. It gave me a way to focus on something else to avoid my painful feelings, and it also helped me cope with being screamed at or ignored by my family.

    At age eight I started experiencing dizziness, which was another form of anxiety showing up in my body. My parents took me to the doctor, and they checked my ears and did other tests but couldn’t find anything wrong with me physically.

    That’s because the dizziness wasn’t caused by something physically wrong with my body, it was stemming from the fear and anxiety I was experiencing. I was afraid of everyone and everything—I was afraid of living and being.

    I was experiencing extreme panic. I didn’t know how to be, and no one comforted me when I was afraid; instead, my father called me a “big baby.”

    When I was ten my parents started leaving me at home alone, sometimes at night, where it was very scary for me, and I cried and sat at the door waiting for them to walk in. When they did, there was no acknowledgment. They just said, “Go to bed.”

    They didn’t meet my needs for connection; my needs to be heard, loved, seen, and accepted; or my needs for safety and comfort when I was hurting and afraid. Because of that, I experienced severe panic and anxiety. I didn’t know how to be with myself when those feelings were happening, which was constantly.

    Then, when I was thirteen, my doctor told me to go on a diet. I became afraid of food and started using exercise to soothe my anxiousness. Little did I know I would exercise compulsively, to the point of exhaustion, daily, for the next twenty-three years of my life.

    I couldn’t sit still for a minute. If I did, my heart would race, and my body would sweat and shake. My trauma was surfacing, and I didn’t know how to be. The only way I felt okay was if I was constantly moving and being busy. 

    I was also self-harming and limiting my food intake, so at age fifteen I entered my first hospital for anorexia, depression, cutting/being suicidal, and anxiety.

    Was there really something wrong with me? No, I was just a frightened human being trying desperately to feel loved, accepted, and at peace with who I was. I just wanted to feel safe in some way.

    I didn’t realize what was going on at the time, and the people who were “treating me” didn’t understand true healing. They were just doing symptom relief, which never took care of my inner pain, the trauma my mind/body was stuck in.

    Deep down I was living with the idea that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t a good enough human being, I didn’t fit into society. I had a shame-based identity, and I was trying to suppress my hurt and pain.

    I was stuck in fear and worried about the future and what would happen to me. I was trying to make the “right” decisions, but no matter what I did my father called me a failure. No wonder I was so anxious all the time. I couldn’t meet the standards on how I should be according to my family and society, and I never felt safe.

    When I was old enough, I started working and found that when I made money, I finally felt worthy, which temporarily eased my anxiety.

    This became an obsession, and I became a workaholic, basing my identity on my income and trying to prove myself through my earnings.

    I also hid my thoughts, feelings, and needs because I never knew, when I was a kid, if I would be punished for doing, saying, or asking for anything. This left me with many unmet needs and continuous anxious feelings. 

    How can someone live that way? We can’t. It’s not living, it’s running. It’s trying to just get through the day, but then the next day comes and the panic sets in, and the routine starts all over again. Living in proving, self-preserving, and trying to find a way to feel safe—what a life, eh?

    I also had to deal with the anger my family projected onto me for “being a sick puppy.” They said I was ruining the family, not to mention all the money my parents spent on treatment that never helped me get better. That really upset my father and made me feel guilty.

    All that panic, fear, guilt, shame, pain—feeling not good enough, unlovable, and unworthy—was going on unconsciously, and because I was trying to suppress how I was truly feeling I experienced the symptom of anxiety, as well as depression, eating disorders, cutting, and other ways of self-harming.

    Many people have these feelings but do a great job of covering them up through physical means. Internally, they’re at war.

    That’s why I share my story: I know there are other people out there who feel this too. If this is you, please be kind and gentle with yourself.

    Please know that whatever your survival/coping mechanisms, you’re not bad or wrong; in fact, you’re pretty damn smart, you found a way to help yourself feel safe.

    And, if you’re experiencing anxiety, please know it’s not your fault; it’s how your nervous system is responding to what’s happening internally and externally. 

    Sometimes anxiety can mean that we care deeply and we’re in a situation or with a person who means a lot to us. We want to be loved and accepted, so we get anxious about trying to do and say the right things, which makes it hard to express ourselves authentically.

    Anxiety can also be a response from our nervous system letting us know we’re in dangerous situations or our needs for belonging, safety, and love aren’t being met. However, there’s a difference between a real threat and a perceived threat based on outdated neuro patterning stemming from traumatic past experiences.

    Here’s the simple truth: We all have some anxiety—it’s part of being human—but when anxiety shows up in our daily living and it’s extreme like it was for me, it can be helpful to notice it with compassion and loving so we can do some inner healing.

    I started feeling at ease by embracing the part of me that was experiencing anxiety, listening to why it was feeling how it was feeling, and giving it what it needed; this is called inner child healing, loving re-parenting.

    I started feeling at ease when I made anxiety my friend and I saw it as a messenger from within. By taking the time to listen, I saw how anxiety was serving me; sometimes I really needed protection or a shift in perception, or to speak up or leave a situation, and I only knew this by listening.

    When I started loving and accepting myself unconditionally—my insecurities, my imperfections, my wild ways of being, my free, authentic, and crazy expression, the ways I love and care deeply and the things that frightened me—I became truly free.

    We’ve all been conditioned to be a certain way in order to be loved and accepted, and this often creates a disconnection from our soul’s loving essence and can cause us to be anxious with the false ideas that we’re not good enough and there’s something wrong with us. 

    For those of us who experienced trauma too—the trauma of not being heard, seen, or comforted when we were frightened or hurting, or not having our needs met as a little being, or being beaten physically or emotionally—well, it’s understandable that we would feel unsafe and anxious.

    When we’re in situations that trigger our anxiety, we need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves:

    What am I afraid of?

    What is this experience bringing up for me?

    What am I feeling and what am I believing to be true about myself, the other, and/or what’s happening?

    Is that really true?

    What do I need? How can I give this to myself?

    One thing that has really helped me is the idea that it’s not really about the issue or the other person, it’s about how I’m feeling, what I think it means, and what’s going on internally, as we all see the world through our own filters, beliefs, and perceptions.

    We find ease with anxiety when we make it our friend, relate with it, and respond to it instead of from it, and offer ourselves compassion instead of judgment. 

    We find ease with anxiety when we forgive ourselves for betraying ourselves to get love and approval and/or forgive ourselves for past mistakes, seeing what we can learn from them and how we can change.

    We find ease with anxiety by taking risks and making small promises to ourselves daily, which helps us learn how to trust ourselves and our decisions, so we don’t feel anxious when there’s no one around to help us.

    We find ease with anxiety when we realize there’s nothing wrong with us, and we take time to find out what unrealistic expectations we’re trying to meet in order to be a “good enough human being.”

    We find ease with anxiety when we have a safe place to share our fears, shame, and insecurities so we no longer have to suppress that energy.

    We find ease with anxiety when we notice the “war” between our mind and our heart—our conditioning and our true being.

    We also find ease with anxiety when we see it as a positive thing. Because of my anxiety, I’m empathetic and sensitive to my own and other people’s feelings and needs. This helps me understand what I need, as well as what my friends, clients, and other people need and what they’re experiencing internally.

    We find ease with anxiety when we understand what’s causing it internally; express, process, and resolve our anger, hurt, shame and pain; and offer those parts of ourselves compassion, love, and a new understanding.

    We find ease with anxiety when we pause, take a deep breath, put our hands on our heart, and say, “I am safe, I am loved.” This calms our nervous system and brings us back to the present moment.

    We find ease with anxiety when we experience a re-connection with our soul’s loving essence; this is where we experience a true homecoming, a loving integrating.

    If you’re someone who has experienced trauma, please don’t force yourself to sit with your feelings alone. Find someone who can lovingly support you in your healing, someone who can assist you in working with those parts of you that are hurting to feel safe, loved, heard, and seen.

    Oh, and one more thing, please be kind and gentle with yourself. You’re a precious and beautiful soul, and you’re worth being held in compassion and love.

  • What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

    What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

    “Tears are words that need to be written.” ~Paulo Coelho

    It was lovely to see you today. I haven’t seen you in such a long time. So much has happened since the last time we saw each other.

    You asked me how I was. I politely replied, “I’m fine” and forced a smile that I hoped would be believable. It must have worked. You smiled back and said, “I’m so glad to hear that. You look great.”

    But I’m not really fine. I haven’t been fine for a very long time, and I wonder if I will ever know what “fine” actually feels like again.

    Some days are good, some not so good. I’m doing my best to stay optimistic and to keep faith that tomorrow will be better. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s worse. I’m never prepared for either outcome.

    I’m doing my best to pretend I’m fine.

    The mask I wear hides my pain very well. I’ve been wearing it for so long now that no one can see through it anymore. It’s my new face, and it smiles on demand.

    Some days I wish I didn’t have to pretend to smile. I long for the day when it will come naturally, sincerely, and genuinely.

    When I say I’m fine this is what I really mean…

    I’m sad. I’m really having a hard time right now. I wish I could tell you. I’d like to think that you might even care. And maybe you do truly care. But I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to bother or burden anyone with my troubles.

    My troubles are big and ugly. I can’t burden you with them. You are facing demons of your own. You don’t need to be exposed to mine. That would be so selfish of me. To think that your demons are not as important or debilitating as mine.

    So I just tell you I’m fine. I’m protecting you when I say I’m fine. Because I’m afraid my pain is just more toxicity.

    I want to tell you my troubles. I want you to take them away. I wish someone could fix everything that hurts, though I no one else can do that for me. Still, I wonder, does anyone have all the answers to these questions that are pounding in my head and causing me grief and anxiety?

    Anyone?

    There’s a tightness in my chest that won’t go away. There’s a darkness in the pit of my stomach that makes me nauseous. My shoulders feel weighted and my arms long for human touch. A body to wrap around tightly to comfort me and ensure me that everything will be okay.

    My troubles have completely consumed my life.

    Inside, I’m crying all the time. My soul is crushed, and my heart is full of holes that I’m desperately trying to patch up as best I can.

    I’m full of anxiety inside, and no matter how hard I try to find peace, it eludes me. I feel there are a million demons inside of me, and I don’t know which one needs my attention the most.

    So I ignore them all. It’s too much for me to bear most days.

    When I say I’m fine I really wish you could hear my inner voice screaming, “I’m not fine, and I need help. Please stay and talk to me, comfort me, help make this overwhelming pain stop.” I want to say this to you. But I open my mouth, and “I’m fine” comes out instead.

    I’m not really fine. I’m not sure how to handle today, and I fear what tomorrow may bring. It’s constant anxiety. I wish it would go away if only for a day.

    I want to be fine, honest I do.

    One day I would love to sincerely tell you how fine I am. That all my anxieties, worries, and fears are gone, or at least less overpowering. That I walk with a skip in my step and a song in my heart. I want to feel that. I may have felt this once before a long time ago, but I don’t really remember it.

    Every day I’m doing my best to smile and make the day better. I’m thinking positively, I’m taking big deep breaths when I need to. I’m reading inspirational blogs and quotes. I’m even listening to guided meditations.

    Today I went shopping and bought myself something nice. I know, a temporary fix. But it worked.

    It all works. For the moment. And then the moment is gone, and it all comes flooding back. All the turmoil, the anguish, the anxiety, the pain. I breathe deeply again. And I’m okay for a few more minutes.

    But for now, I’m doing my best. I know that everything in life is temporary. The good, the bad. Even life. It’s all temporary. If I can just get through today, I’ll be fine.

    I’m doing my best to see the bright side. I can see it some days. But it doesn’t take away the turmoil brewing inside of me. It only masks it with a Band-Aid. A temporary fix.

    Everything is just a temporary fix until I finally become brave enough to get to the bottom of my demons. I need to face them one at a time. I need to bring them to the surface, dust them off, address them, heal from them, and then let them go.

    This I know. But it’s such a daunting task. Just thinking about doing that is overwhelming and causes me a great deal of anxiety. I know it’s up to me to be able to say, “I’m fine” and really mean it.

    One day I will. When I feel strong enough to do so. Until then, I may say I’m fine when I’m really not. But I will try to find the courage to say, “Actually, I’m sad,” even though I know you don’t have a magic wand to take all my troubles away.

    Maybe just opening up and letting you support me will help. Maybe if I stop painting a smile on my face and telling you “I’m fine, really I am,” one day soon I will be.

  • The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

    The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

    “We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown

    “Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy

    I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where he spent the first fourteen days of his life. In that moment, I changed. I’d already had one miscarriage. I couldn’t lose anyone else.

    Man, life is fragile. I spent the next decade making sure he played on the swings at the park, but not too high since he could fall and break his neck. We always took him to the river or the lake, but no swimming. There are amoebas in the water. (Funny and crazy, I know.)

    I now have two children who are fourteen and nine. Just a couple weeks ago, we went to the zoo. I had to talk about not leaning on the railings; you could fall in an enclosure. I am exhausted. The worry never ends.

    I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, anxious, neurotic, controlling, and scared. I never meant to be that helicopter mom. I had great ideas about how I would parent my kids. My husband and I always talked about how we would raise teenagers and what their curfews would be, but being in the middle of it, I’m terrified. I live in a constant state of panic and fear.

    I constantly worry I’m having a heart attack or a stroke. I worry my kids will die. I worry I will die.

    During the early months of the Covid-19 lockdown, we completely shut off from the world. Guess what? We all got Covid-19, except my nine-year-old. My elderly mother (who lives with us) got it too. I even sanitized groceries. We have no clue how we got it. We are all fine. Thank goodness. I know not everyone is as lucky.

    Every pain or sniffle is a worst-case scenario. Have you ever seen the movie My Girl? I am totally Veda Sultenfuss.

    It took several years, trips to the emergency room, shaky relationships, and a whole lot of self-discovery to figure it out. My lack of confidence, yet another sad part of anxiety, made me think I wasn’t enough. It caused my divorce. Thankfully, we are remarried. He sees me, he sees the moments I am fun and carefree, and he helps me work through my anxiety. Old Bob Ross reruns help too.

    So, what is the lesson here? I am not in control of a single thing. (Mind blown, I know.) Life is full of terrible things, wonderful things, heartache, tears, laughter, death of parents, even children. It’s all those moments in between that make life worth living.

    If we hide because of fear, we miss out on those moments. We miss out on a chance to save a memory we could pull out of our little brain file when we’re seventy-three and watching the snowfall on Christmas morning when all our kids are grown up.

    It’s really scary, letting go. It’s like walking on a tightrope. You see what could happen, but you just walk, because you know you’re not fully living if you sit out, and at the end of that walk, you realize how fast it went by. Either way, it will go by. It’s up to you how you spend that walk. Frank Sinatra says it best, that’s life.

  • How a Cancer Misdiagnosis Helped Me Face and Heal from Health Anxiety

    How a Cancer Misdiagnosis Helped Me Face and Heal from Health Anxiety

    “Trust yourself. You’ve survived a lot, and you’ll survive whatever is coming.” ~Robert Tew

    “I have bad news. I am sorry. You have cancer.”

    Sitting in the cold, clinical doctor’s office on a snowy, cloudy January day in Chicago, I was six months postpartum with my daughter, and I felt like I had woken up in a nightmare.

    My husband had gone to work that day when I was supposed to have my stitches removed after the laparoscopic surgery to remove a large cyst, so I was alone with my daughter.

    When Dr. Foley entered the room, I took one look at his face and knew something was wrong.

    “Are you sure,” I asked? My daughter was munching away on her Sophie Giraffe in her stroller next to me.

    “Yes, I am sure. I am so sorry.”

    I started to cry. The first thing I said was “I knew I didn’t deserve a good life.”

    “What did you say?”

    “Nothing, it doesn’t matter now.”

    He told me it was stage 1 ovarian cancer. That I would be okay. He told me I might need chemo and to have my ovaries removed, and I may not be able to have any more children. He then referred me to a gynecological specialist. I waited to see her for three weeks.

    My mom flew out to help me. My husband accompanied me to my appointment with the gynecologic oncologist. The office was bleak. The women in the sitting room showed me my future.

    When it was my turn for the appointment, the nurse came in with the doctor. They were pleasant and made chit chat. I could not tolerate their light-heartedness for very long as they asked me about my daughter and being a new parent. Finally, I said, “Can you tell me about my cancer please?!”

    They looked at me astonished and said, “You don’t have cancer! Didn’t Doctor Foley tell you? He called us and said, ‘I have a disaster here!’ We told him it was not a disaster. What you have is a borderline mucinous cyst, which is common for women your age.”

    I don’t think I have ever experienced more relief or gratitude than I felt then, not even after my children were born. What could be more profound than feeling like you were handed a death sentence and then be given a “get out of jail free card?”

    I went home and felt like I had been given a second chance at life. I opened the windows, I cleaned the house, I smiled again. However, that sweetness lasted only a short time before I began to ruminate and worry again.

    The relief never lasted because there was always another disaster around the corner.

    For the years following, I stayed diligent. I saw cancer everywhere. I felt lumps, I felt bumps, I saw weird looking dots on my body, rashes, twitches that would have me flying into a panic. I avoided school outings because I thought a mom had cancer (turns out she has alopecia!) To this day I still get high blood pressure in the doctor’s office even if I am just going in to have a splinter removed.

    I was living a traumatized person’s reality. On the surface, I was functioning, but underneath I was filled with pain and weariness. This diagnosis was one more trauma to now pile onto a lifetime of traumatic experiences.

    Before I got pregnant, I had made two visits to the emergency room because I thought I was experiencing a heart attack. I routinely felt like I could not swallow and that I was choking even when I had nothing in my mouth. I often felt like I could not breathe or get enough air.

    I had lots of visits to the doctor’s office, a heart ultrasound, tests for asthma, bloodwork, etc. They told me it was anxiety, but I could not believe that my mind would cause such strong symptoms.

    Recently, I spent some time doing a form of EMDR on myself, going into the feeling of terror that I feel with health anxiety. It brought up an old memory of me driving with my dad at about ten years old.

    He was drunk driving with my sister and me on the highway.

    I remember yelling at him, “Dad if you don’t stop driving this way I am going to drive!” I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I remembered that feeling of complete helplessness and being out of control.

    “Aha,” I thought to myself. That’s the first time I felt that feeling.”

    Of course, it makes sense I have health anxiety and that I obsess and try to avoid or control it.

    We all have formulated parts of ourselves that at one time served an important purpose—to keep us safe. My protector identity understands how overwhelmed I was and has worked my whole life to keep that feeling at bay. Health anxiety can be a manifestation of trauma.

    Healing took time and intention. It also happened not in a therapy chair but in a dance studio. It was in this space where I first slowed down and was able to feel safe in my body.

    I started salsa dancing and just doing the warm-up of a dancer. Moving each part of the body with intention and curiosity, helped me get acquainted with my body’s unique inner sensations so they felt more familiar and less scary.

    I also tend to have a more obsessive type brain, and finding a way to channel my anxiety into healthy challenges that I can control has been crucial in getting less reactive to health scares. That means dancing more as well as starting a business.

    My brain needs things to latch onto, and both of these give me what health anxiety was giving me (a place to channel overall anxiety) but in a way that feels healthier and within my control.

    Finally, working on my nervous system and getting into a parasympathetic state has been incredibly healing. When you are trained to be hypervigilant, relaxing feels scary! I have found doing practices like restorative or yin yoga help me feel deeper into my body within my window of tolerance.

    Slowly, with time and consistency, my life and outlook for my future started to change. The change was so profound that people saw me and asked what I was doing differently. I started to fully investigate the power of the body to influence the mind. It was at thirty-six years old I started to feel joy for the first time that I could remember.

    I saw recently on Facebook an acquaintance from high school, his wife, young and beautiful with two small children, died of colon cancer. I felt so much sadness and anger at the unfairness of this. I felt compassion. I see it as growth that I did not start researching statistics or going into a health fear spiral.

    Five years ago, I asked my sister what she felt when she heard the tragic news, and she told me she feels compassion.

    I said to her, “Is that what normal people feel?” I saw every tragedy as a warning to get more vigilant, more hardened in my body and my mind, and as a chance to numb out to not feel the range of human emotions.

    Some days, I do feel anxiety at the uncertainty of the world, and health anxiety can still pop up for me. Part of the healing process is changing the way we relate to something that we cannot change and finding healthy tools to help us a cope.

    If you struggle with health anxiety, like I did—obsessing over every ache, pain, or even minor discomfort, worrying about the potential for a serious diagnosis that could irreparably change your life—it might interfere with your ability to function from day to day.

    Maybe you spend hours googling your symptoms and diagnosing yourself, and regularly find yourself in doctor’s offices for the relief of hearing you’re okay—which is likely short-lived. On the flip side, your health anxiety may prevent you from taking good care of yourself, if you skip necessary medical appointments to avoid confirming your worst fears.

    The irony is you might end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Excessive worry can create physical symptoms, like changes in heart rate and blood pressure, tightening in your chest, and difficulty breathing, which can further convince you that you have a terrible disease—and potentially cause health issues down the line.

    Maybe you’ve experienced trauma that made you feel helpless, like me, and that’s why you fear the unknown and being out of control. Maybe you lost someone you love to a serious illness, and you’re afraid it could also happen to you, if you’re not diligent. Or maybe you have a health condition, and you’re afraid of it advancing into something even more dangerous. Whatever the cause, it is possible to heal.

    The first step is recognizing the stories you’re creating in your head and how worry is interfering with your ability to enjoy the people and things you love.

    The next step is accepting that you need help—and then finding the courage to seek it.

    Perhaps, like me, you’ll find it beneficial to try EMDR to help you work through old traumas; and you may want to adopt a practice that calms your nervous system and gets you out of your head and into your body, like yoga or tai chi.

    Or you might need the guidance of a therapist who can help you learn to challenge your fear-based thoughts and beliefs, reduce the coping behaviors that only increase your anxiety, and sit with the discomfort of uncertainty when it arises instead of creating even more anxiety.

    In the end, that’s what it all comes down to: learning to accept that “bad” things may happen in life, but we can’t prevent them by staying hypervigilant and avoiding all activities that could potentially put us at risk. We may feel safer when we do these things, but we’re really just living half-alive in our attempts to protect our lives.

    I do not know the outcome of much of life. What will happen to me, my children, the people I love, the world? In moments of joy, I often feel a twinge of grief. I can now hold both at the same time. I understand sadness and grief in a new way, not something to be afraid of, to numb out or push away, but simply a feeling to let move through me so I can fully experience the range of human life.

  • How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body

    How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body

    “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.” ~Unknown

    I began the morning with a meditation. After taking my dog out and brewing the coffee, I sat in my sunny living room, my little dog Frankie nestled beside me. I perched cross-legged, a blue pillow on my lap for warmth. I closed my eyes and began to focus on my breath.

    When ten minutes passed, I raised my hands in appreciation. “Thank you for this day. Thank you for my family and for our health. Give me strength, wisdom, and love.” Then I extended my hands forward, “So that I may give strength, wisdom, and love.” Finally, I stretched both arms out sideways, wiggling my fingers in my peripheral vision, a reminder to be fully aware. This is how I start every day.

    It wasn’t always this way. My older brother Marc tried to get me to meditate when I was fourteen. Although he was a patient teacher, I didn’t understand the point of the exercise.

    “Let’s sit together. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.”

    “Why do I have to do this?

    “Just sit, Lise. It’s good for you to learn. We will do it together.”

    “OK, but why?”

    Marc tried, but I resisted. I stopped meditating as soon as he went back to college.

    Years later, as part of my psychology training, I took classes which touted meditation as a stress-reducing technique. During the classes, there were demonstrations which I always enjoyed. I sat back, breathed deeply, and felt a deep flow of relaxation inside me. But, back home, I had no follow-through. Once the classes were over, so was my meditation.

    My breakthrough into daily meditation happened in 2020, one of the few good things that arose from that dreadful year. I was home, virtually every minute of my life. I didn’t have to dash from of the house, brave traffic, and arrive at the office by 9:00. Mornings stretched more languidly. It was easier to find those ten minutes to breathe every morning.

    Now I sit every day. I scan through my body, noting points of tension, areas of pain and pressure. Simple awareness of the tension shifts any pain, and my body settles.

    My mind, free from my constant to-do lists, drifts along, as if floating on the waves of a gentle sea. I hear the sounds of the house around me, the heater outside, working mightily to warm our home; Frankie the dog beside me, sighing. My stomach muscles unclench. I notice thoughts drifting in. I don’t attend to them. The thoughts fade away. Peace.

    Of course, that’s when meditation goes well. Sometimes every minute slogs on. My scalps itches. “I forgot to return that phone call,” I think, and my body tenses into high alert. “Oh no, I have to write that woman back!” My throat tightens. “What if that editor doesn’t like my submission?” My stomach jams into a knot. I cannot let these thoughts go. “I suck at meditation. Why can’t I just breathe? When will these ten minutes be over?”

    Sometimes meditation goes like this. It isn’t always peaceful, and it doesn’t always feel good. The key, I’m told, is to keep at it. Like any skill, the more we practice, the better we get at it. It is no accident that we say one “practices meditation.” I didn’t get decent at writing in one year either.

    If you are like the fourteen-year-old me, you might be asking, why meditate at all? There are so many benefits I don’t even know where to begin; here is a partial list. Meditation…

    • Soothes anxiety: When you learn to focus the mind, your thoughts don’t spin off into anxious “what-ifs,” spiraling into anxious ruminations.
    • Calms anger: Focusing on breathing calms the mind, stopping our internal tirades over people who have wronged us.
    • Improves the immune system: The body is not designed to be in a constant “fight or flight” mode. When we are tense, our immune system works poorly. When we relax, our immune system resumes its work.
    • Lowers blood pressure: Meditation is a proven technique for improving hypertension.
    • Manages emotional reactivity: This is a big one. It is easy for me, sensitive soul that I am, to feel hurt and wounded by other people. Meditation allows me to detach from the provocations of the moment, and to tap into inner peace. Once I have calmed myself, I find freedom from reacting emotionally. I can bring more thoughtfulness and wisdom to my relationships.

    Happily, the benefits of meditation extend past the ten minutes into the whole day.

    Now that I practice regularly, I notice when my shoulders leap to attention. With mindfulness, I can lower those shoulders down.

    I notice when my stomach tenses up, and I can breathe that tension away.

    I notice when my mind anxiously swirls around my to-do list and I can tell my mind to relax.

    The awareness that comes from a regular ten-minute mediation follows me throughout my day, helping me stay calmer and more serene.

    A while ago, I was getting ready for a radio interview, as part of my recent book promotion. I had an hour to spare, and I thought I’d make a quick phone call to an insurance company.

    This “quick” phone call dragged into an infuriating forty minutes. I was on hold, listening to inane music, on some incessant torture loop. Finally, the customer service rep came on, but we had with a terrible connection. I could barely hear her, as she was undoubtedly on another continent, and I couldn’t understand her either.

    After a brief exchange, which I barely fathomed, she declared she couldn’t help me. I got off the phone in disgust.

    “I’m so aggravated! I just wasted an hour on the phone with this stupid company and now I have an interview in fifteen minutes. What a colossal waste of time! I have this radio interview and I am so upset I can barely think!”

    My husband gazed at me. “Why don’t you do your meditation thing?”

    I glared at him. I really just wanted to righteously complain. But my husband was right; I was a wreck.

    I sat in my bedroom and closed my eyes, focusing on my breath. Immediately I sensed my body’s distress. My heart rate was elevated. I breathed rapidly. My shoulders were raised and my stomach was in spasm.

    “My god,” I thought. “My body is completely dysregulated, all from one stupid phone call.”

    Quietly, I focused. I felt my muscles relaxing and my heart rate slowing. I ended the meditation, feeling like a different woman, and started the interview with a smile on my face.

    That is the power of a regular ten-minute meditation practice.

    Let’s be clear. Everyone, no matter how busy, has ten minutes to spare. You can do this, and build yourself a calmer, more peaceful life, in a healthier body.

    One final tip: it is best to find a regular time of day for your meditation practice. Do your breathing every morning, or every bedtime, or every evening after work. Otherwise, you will keep putting it off until later. If you are like me, you might even put it off for forty years.

  • Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

    Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

    “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” ~Kahlil Gibran

    Anxiety has followed me around like a lost dog looking for a bone for years now.

    I feel it the most acutely when I’m worried about my health or my daughter’s health. I notice a strange rash or feel an unusual sensation and all of a sudden: panic!

    My worries are not limited to health concerns though, and my ruminations go in the direction of dread about the future of the world, worries about my finances, and fears that I’m not good enough.

    Is my anxiety warranted? My mind tells me it is.

    “Remember how you had that bad reaction to a medication? It could happen again!”

    “You know how your daughter had that febrile seizure two years ago? You never know what could happen next!”

    “Think back to that time you and your family had a slow winter and were extremely worried about money. That could be just around the corner!”

    And on and on my mind goes. I know I shouldn’t believe what it tells me, but sometimes I get sucked under and can’t help it.

    I don’t think I was anxious like this when I was a kid. I think these underpinnings of nervousness started when I was older, probably my late twenties. I suppose by then I’d lived enough life to know that things can and do go wrong.

    I don’t like feeling anxious. I don’t like the way my body feels jangly and my mind races. I don’t like it when I can’t focus on the thing I’m supposed to be doing.

    But this is not a sad story, it’s a story of tiny improvements and little steps forward. It’s a journey of finding peace in the middle of a storm.

    For me that peace began with painting.

    Let me go back a few decades, back to when anxiety wasn’t part of my life. When I was a child, I loved art. I drew, I colored, I took extra art classes on the weekends because that’s what I enjoyed.

    I went to college to become an art teacher, switching to a graphic design track later. When I finished school in May of 2001, I had a part-time design job, and after the events of September 2001, I knew I needed to travel, to get out of the safe life I was living in my hometown.

    That’s when my creative practices fell by the wayside. I would never give up those years of travel and camping and working random jobs, but when I look back, I see this is where I stopped making art.

    Luckily, after the birth of my daughter in 2014, the desire to create came roaring back. At first, I was using a tiny corner of a bedroom in our small mountaintop rental house to paint. Eventually we bought a house, and I had the space to spread out, to keep my supplies on top of my desk, ready to paint whenever the urge struck.

    That’s when I started noticing something important: Painting stilled me in a way that nothing else did. It eased my fears and anxieties in a way other practices (deep breathing, meditating) did not, at least not as consistently.

    Painting is my peaceful place. Painting brings me directly into the moment, quickly and easily. You know how you’re supposed to stay mindful and present? That’s what painting does for me, no tips or tricks or timers or mantras needed.

    Yes, I use other methods to quell my anxiety, but painting is my absolute favorite. I get to bring forth something new. I get to flow with wherever the brush takes me. I get to be still inside while the rest of the world drops away, all while allowing something beautiful to emerge.

    When anxious thoughts start to swirl, I know what to do. I head into my studio, grab some materials, and start creating. Soon enough, the spiraling worries are gone and instead my mind is quiet.

    Even if you aren’t artistic, even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, I still think you can achieve the stillness I achieve when painting. You might not have a brush in your hand, though!

    First things first: If you struggle with anxiety, you should seek the help of a licensed professional. As helpful as painting is, I also see a counselor, and the tools she’s given me are absolutely priceless.

    Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are the other ways I think stillness and peace can be found, even if you’re not meditating or breathing deeply while counting to ten.

    Think back to what brought you joy and the feeling of flow when you were a child. Maybe for you it was playing sports or a musical instrument; writing your own sketches or training your dog to roll over. Whatever it was, look for ways to add more of it back into your life now.

    Start paying attention to your life as an adult and what activities make you forget about the time. When are you fully immersed? When do you fully let go? Maybe it’s during a yoga or meditation class, but maybe it’s when you’re preparing a meal for your family or writing up a budget for work.

    Still your mind any time you remember. I do this now, especially when I’m not painting. I know that a still mind releases my anxiety, and I also know I can’t paint all hours of the day. Simply noticing the feeling of my body on the chair below me or listening to the sounds in the room around me helps my mind to quiet.

    I think the reason painting is so helpful for my anxiety is that, in order for me to be anxious, I have to be worrying about the future and what it holds. When I’m doing an activity that requires my full concentration, I have to be in the moment; there is no other choice.

    All of the practices that we can use to find calm, whether it’s changing our thoughts, following our breath, repeating a prayer or mantra, they all rely on the same thing: bringing our presence to the now.

    What activity brings you into the now? What makes you feel fully alive and entwined with the moment? It doesn’t matter if you’re artistic. It doesn’t matter if you like making things. The only thing that matters is finding a way to be here, in the now, instead of in the unknowable future.

    **Artwork by the author, Jen Picicci

  • How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    “The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and dreamed of escaping my body. I had struggled with depression for many years, and I was terrified that I might feel that way forever.

    Someone recommended I do a mindfulness-based course. This turned out to be the one of the most helpful parts of my journey. The therapist suggested I needed to learn to sit with my feelings instead of resisting them, but this terrified me. I was afraid of my feelings, and I thought that accepting them meant accepting they would be there forever.

    But as I practiced the skills of mindfulness and distress tolerance, I noticed that when I accepted my emotions they often shifted more easily. Or at least I didn’t make them worse by worrying about them. I realized that I had been making the depression and anxiety worse by resisting my feelings.

    Connect to the Present Moment

    I’m guessing this is a common struggle, and the solution can feel counter-intuitive. Many people fear that if they let themselves feel their emotions they will be taken over by them. However, when I make space for my emotions without acting on them, sometimes there is pain and I might cry, but it is a clean pain rather than a mental anguish, and it doesn’t last as long.

    I also find that connecting to the present moment helps me create a little space in my mind when my thoughts start stressing me out.

    It’s easy to get caught up thinking about the past, worrying about the future, or wishing the future would hurry up and arrive. When I notice this happening now, I ground myself in the present moment by listening to the sounds around me, noticing my feet touching the ground and my breath flowing in and out, and I feel calmer.

    Observe Your Thoughts and Emotions

    I’ve learned to observe my thoughts instead of attaching a story to them. Emotions can’t last forever on their own. I heard that the natural lifespan of an emotion is about ninety seconds. But we can keep them alive for longer by thinking about them, being afraid of them, and resisting them. Emotions, like everything else in life, come and go.

    Once I had the ability to create distance from my thoughts and not be consumed by my emotions, I was able to take action to make my life better, even when I didn’t feel like it. I did my best to embrace life as it was instead of focusing on how I would like it to be.

    This doesn’t mean I didn’t still struggle at times, but embracing the present moment helps me get through these times more constructively. I don’t think my relationship with my partner would have worked if I hadn’t already started learning these skills before we met.

    Stop Resisting the Present

    Fast forward a few years and I am in Colombia, South America, where my partner is from. I was visiting his family when Covid-19 hit.

    Like many people, I no longer had the freedom and independence that I was used to. Instead of living in the city like we had expected, we were staying in his parents’ town, and my partner was working from home. I didn’t have the option to join a Spanish class or get a job like I had planned, and at times I felt lost. After six months of this I was getting desperate, but I couldn’t travel home to Australia even if I wanted to.

    During a tearful conversation, my partner suggested that maybe I was resisting the situation too much. There was nothing we could do about it, and I was just making it worse for myself by resisting reality.

    The next day my sister suggested I read The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. It totally changed my perspective. I was reminded that in the present moment in front of me everything was actually okay. It was when I thought about the future that I got into a dark place.

    Stop the Mental Time Traveling

    Just like when I was depressed, I thought, “I can’t take this anymore! How long is this going to go on?” And just like then, when I accepted the current situation it didn’t seem as bad. I started to enjoy the free time and relish my time there knowing that nothing lasts forever, good or bad.

    I read books, did yoga, lay in the hammock, and studied Spanish. These were all the things that I was doing before, but it felt different. I wasn’t resisting being in Colombia anymore, I was just there. I stopped wishing to be back home or worrying how long it would be. And that allowed me to enjoy the beautiful, unique things about that season.

    I slowed down and let myself stare up at the trees and listen to the birds. I enjoyed the chance to get to know my in-laws and my fiancé’s culture. Sometimes now, when I stop and listen to the silence, I feel a deep sense of peace and joy.

    Take Action When You Can

    Now, if there had been something that I could have done to change things, of course I would have done it. I’m not advocating for passive submission or fatalism. Sometimes we need to take action, set boundaries, and be proactive. In fact, when you stop resisting the present it allows you to see things as they truly are. This can empower you to focus on the actions you can take right now rather than focusing on the future.

    But when there is nothing we can do, accepting this present moment is often more powerful than worrying about all the moments to come. You’ll know what to do when the time to act arrives.

    Surrendering Saves Energy

    If you are struggling with a situation that you can’t control, can you come back to your body and what is around you here and now? Can you make space for any emotions that are present and allow them to move through you? Focus on the one breath you are taking right now. What can you feel, see, smell, taste, and hear?

    Surrendering to the present is like floating on your back instead of thrashing around in the water trying to get out. Trust that eventually you will drift safely to shore. This not only saves energy, it allows you to enjoy any positives in your current situation, because just like the difficult things the good things won’t last forever either. The present moment is all we have, and in a way it’s all that is real.

    It’s a Practice

    I’m not naive enough to think that I won’t have any more bad days. That’s part of being human, especially when we’re tired, hormonal, or stressed. I may forget this lesson and need to learn it again in a new context. I suspect it’s something I will be practicing for the rest of my life, and that’s okay. But I hope that next time I will be able to catch myself a little sooner when I am resisting instead of simply being in the present moment—where I inevitably find peace.

  • 8 Ways to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You

    8 Ways to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You

    “You can’t force anyone to value, respect, understand, or support you, but you can choose to spend your time around people who do.” ~Lori Deschene

    It can be paralyzing.

    The worry about what other people think about you, I mean. That worry can hinder you from pursuing your dreams. It can stop you from expressing your true nature and stand in the way of the life you so badly want to create.

    This worry can easily get your mind wandering to dark places and trigger feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and self-doubt. When it has a grip on you, you do anything to avoid rejection, ridicule, and potential embarrassment. Better to be unseen than negatively judged, right?

    You know that you shouldn’t worry about what others think of you. But that’s just easier said than done.

    For a long time, I felt stuck because I was afraid of other people’s opinions. Due to this fear, I was terrified of pursuing a new career path. Eventually, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

    I knew I had to deal with the fear and worry of other people’s judgment, or I wouldn’t be able to live the life I wanted. And I was not willing to compromise on that—neither should you.

    To help you move past the fear of other people’s opinions, I’ve put together a list of ideas that have helped me. Use this list as your go-to whenever your worries about what other people’s opinions get the best of you.

    1. Know that you’re not a mind reader.

    I used to assume that I knew what other people thought of me. But assumptions often lead to bad conclusions.

    When I left my corporate job to travel and pursue my own entrepreneurial endeavor, I was afraid of ex-colleagues judging my decision. I thought they would see me as naive, reckless, or foolish for making that decision.

    Turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong. During the following months and years, many of them became my greatest supporters! Some said I was brave for walking my own path, others opened up about their desires to do something similar. The takeaway here is: You never know what people think about you unless you give them a chance to speak.

    2. Understand that it’s never about you.

    This has been a game-changer for me! Hear this: Another person’s judgment about you is never about you—it’s about them. It’s a reflection of their fears, limitations, and perceptions.

    One of the closest people in my life told me that I was making a mistake by quitting my corporate job to start my own business.

    First, I felt that he judged me and didn’t support my decision. Later on, I realized that his reaction was a mirror of his beliefs, fears, and view on the world. For him, staying at a corporate job meant security, safety, and a good life.

    When I realized that he always had my best interest at heart, I felt nothing but compassion and love for him. To make sure you navigate your choices right, ask yourself: What do I want? What is the right thing for me to do?

    3. Stop judging yourself.

    Many times, we’re so aware of what we find awkward about ourselves that we look for others to confirm our beliefs. So, the judgment we fear from others is really a reflection of what we judge ourselves for. Sneaky, right?

    Be honest with yourself, what do you judge yourself for? It can be related to your health, career, relationship status, living situation, or looks. Then ask yourself why you judge yourself for this. What beliefs are driving the judgments? Do you believe it’s wrong to prioritize career over family? Do you believe it’s bad to be the center of attention?

    Once you challenge these beliefs and stop judging yourself, you’ll be able to make peace with who you are and the choices you’ve made, good and bad. Once you’ve reached acceptance, you won’t fear the judgment of others because you stand behind yourself.

    4. Stop judging others.

    The more we judge others, the more we tend to believe that they judge us. It’s a vicious cycle. So, instead of judging others for their choices, character, religious views, ways to dress, or something else, choose to be curious about the differences and diversity.

    Ask yourself what you can learn from this person? Why this person is in a certain way? Maybe there are reasons for it. As Wayne Dyer said, “When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

    5. Use your worry as guidance.

    What is it that you worry other people will judge you for? Perhaps it’s your job position, living situation, relationship status, insecurities, looks, or intelligence. That worry tells you there’s either something you need to accept and make peace with or something you need to change.

    For example, maybe you can start pursuing a new career path that feels more aligned with your values. Or maybe you can choose to view your situation today as a stepping stone to something better. When you approve of yourself and your life, other people’s opinions won’t matter as much.

    6. Expect reactions from others.

    Instead of trying to avoid getting reactions from others, expect them! If you try a new plant-based diet, change career paths, or decide to go all-in on that geeky hobby of yours, expect people to say something about it. And take it as a good sign because it means you’re doing what’s right for you, even though people will have opinions about it.

    As Aristotle said, “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” And that’s not you, right? You are here to live to the fullest, follow what excites you, and be the incredible person that you are.

    7. Focus on long-term happiness.

    Judgment and criticism from others can hurt. But it will never hurt as much as regret. Do you know what most people regret on their deathbed? This: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

    Be willing to take judgment and criticism in the short term, in exchange for what will serve you long term. Focus on living life true to yourself and not on the life others expect of you.

    8. Approve of yourself.

    Acceptance of yourself is what it all comes down to, right? Once you approve of yourself, you stop worrying about other people’s opinions. You have the one approval that matters most: your own.

    Look at your imperfections, flaws, and the choices you wish you had made differently and accept it all. Know that you are enough. Know that you’ve done the best you can, from where you once were. We all want you to be the person you are meant to be—including the quirks, flaws, and imperfections.

    —

    Living with the worry that other people will judge you is hard. It can keep you stuck, paralyzed, and separated from the life you want to live.

    It’s time to take your power back. Use this list, choose one or two points that resonate, and practice them. Then, once you’re ready, come back to the list and choose another point.

    Stop living in accordance with other people’s expectations and start living life true to yourself.

    Now, go out and show the world what you’re made of. We are waiting eagerly.

  • How to Stop Obsessing Over What Other People Think of You

    How to Stop Obsessing Over What Other People Think of You

    “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

    I spent way too much of my life worrying about what other people were thinking of me.

    I couldn’t walk down the street without sucking in my gut for fear a stranger might have thought I looked fat (mind you, I did this even when I weighed 120 pounds!!)

    Going to any social gathering—a Halloween party, networking event, craft fair, even a holiday family meal—was so stressful it felt like I had a bees’ nest in my chest.

    I had a successful thirteen-year marketing career, was one of the founding employees of a startup company turned publicly traded international corporation, but I still worried someone was going to figure out that I didn’t know what I was doing—because there was no way I was smart enough to be there, regardless of any accolades I received.

    It trickled into even the seemingly smallest tasks in my life—calling someone on the phone, going to the grocery store, going to the gym. If there were other people involved, I could find a way to believe they were going to judge me, and harshly.

    At a certain point I said, “Enough is enough. I need to stop this because I’m miserable.”

    I was sick of living in other people’s heads, imagining the horrible things they could be thinking of me, and never feeling like I could be my authentic self because I didn’t feel good enough for anyone.

    I’ve come a long way since then. I’ve done the work (and keep on doing it!) to recognize when I’m sinking into my negative thinking habit, to accept instead of resisting what I’m experiencing, challenge my inner bully, change my perspective, and best of all, let it go.

    The change in me was so drastic that I look at my life as the old me and the new me.

    The old me would never be able to strike up a conversation with a stranger, eat at a restaurant alone, never mind be on a podcast or do live videos on Facebook.

    The old me most definitely couldn’t handle making a mistake, failing at something, or putting my foot in my mouth without relentlessly beating myself up for hours, days, or months.

    So why do we worry so much about what other people think?

    For one thing, there’s a bit of a survival instinct going on. We’re a communal species and understand that there is strength in numbers and security being part of a group. And if anything (real or perceived) threatens our place in the community, it triggers our fear response—our fight-or-flight instinct.

    But remember when I wrote “perceived threats?” That’s really what we’re talking about here.

    Because what is really happening when we’re worried about what other people think, we’re taking judgments we hold against ourselves, and we’re projecting them onto others, assuming they believe the same things that we believe about ourselves.

    We hold these limiting beliefs about ourselves, so we are constantly on the lookout to “prove” them to be true.

     So let me walk you through, step by step, how to break this habit of worrying about what other people think.

    Step 1: Mindfully recognize when it happens.

    You can’t change unless you know where you are starting from and when you are there. Mindfulness is the ultimate empowerment tool and crucial first step to taking back control over your thoughts, emotions, and actions.

    Mindfulness is paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgment. It’s recognizing what is really going on right now in your mind and in your body.

    So let’s say whenever you go to the gym or yoga you spend the whole time worrying about what people think about how you look.

    You can’t break this habit until you catch yourself doing it. What usually ends up happening is we just run with these worries, get caught up in the stories, and before we know it, we’ve spent the whole hour stuck in worry. Then we carry it into the locker room and on the drive home like we’re stuck on a broken record and dancing to the beat.

    Mindfulness is noticing the feeling. Usually we feel it in our bodies first. Where does this feeling of worry show up physically? Knots in the stomach or tightness in the chest?

    It’s noticing what thoughts we’re having, without judgment. Ask yourself, what story I’m I telling myself about this?

    Mindfulness is noticing “Ohh, look, I’m doing that thing again where I’m worrying that other people think I look fat.”

    From there, label what you are feeling. “I’m feeling anxiety and self-judgment.”

    Do you see how taking a step back to be objective and curious about what is happening inside our own heads is like taking the needle off that broken record? It stops us from mindlessly running with this worry, and gives us pause to examine it, and the space to choose how we want to respond. But before that, let’s go to step 2 because it’s important not to skip.

    Step 2: Practice radical acceptance and self-compassion.

    Normally when we feel these uncomfortable feelings, we want to run from them, ignore them, numb them (with wine, pot a Netflix binge, whatever your vice is). We don’t like how it feels, so we hide from it, which means we don’t fully process it.

    Emotions are energy in motion. Ignoring them does not make them go away. Allowing them to exist, accepting that this is an emotion I’m experiencing right now, is a step toward letting it run its course.

    In step 1 we recognized and labeled this feeling. From here, you can look it square in the eye and say, “Oh, hello self-judgment. Welcome to the party.”

    I personally find it really helpful to minimize the feeling by almost belittling it. I know that sounds harsh, but bear with me.

    I’ll say, “Oh, hello self-judgment, don’t you look adorable this evening.” And I picture myself opening the door, allowing her in, and letting her find her way to the bar. And I picture myself not joining her.

    That’s how I allow her to be, to exist, to show up in my life, but I don’t need to go swap stories with her over a glass of wine.

    This is a much more self-compassionate approach than denying the real emotion that arose in that moment because I’m not judging or beating myself up for having had this thought, nor am I indulging in the negative emotion.

    Step 3: Challenge your core beliefs.

    But let’s dig into that thought with Step 3—challenging core beliefs.

    Going back to the gym example, the thought that was causing the feeling of anxiety and self-judgment was “other people are looking at me and they think I look fat, unattractive, that I don’t belong here.”

    To get to the core belief driving this thought, think, “If that were true, what would it mean about me?”

    Does it mean you think you are not likable, not worthy, not good enough?

    This is how you identify the limiting core belief that is driving you to judge yourself and imagine other people are judging you.

    When it comes to beliefs, our minds are always on the lookout for anything to prove that belief to be true, with the exclusion of all the evidence to the contrary. We have blinders on to anything that proves that belief to be false.

    So let’s stop that. Once you identify your limiting core belief, I want you to list out all of the reasons this belief is not true, or at least not completely true.

    You may be thinking, “But I am actually overweight, how do I come up with a list?”

    Don’t forget, the limiting belief is found by asking, “What do I think this means about me?” Which might be that you think you are not lovable. So list off all the evidence to the contrary.

    Use this list when you’re feeling down about yourself. Remember, when we have these limiting beliefs, we have blinders on blocking us from the truth, from the positive qualities about ourselves and our accomplishments.

    Step 4: Reframe the situation.

    Ok, now we’re really getting into the good stuff.

    Here is where we are going to reframe the situation and give ourselves a new perspective. The situation in our example is that you are at the gym or yoga, there are other people there, and they can see you and you find yourself thinking, “People think I look fat.”

    Our emotional response to that thought is anxiety, depression, sadness, etc…

    Those emotions then influence our behavior: We ruminate, obsess over this thought, maybe we leave the gym early, maybe we don’t go use the machines on the other side of the room because there are more people there.

    Without changing the situation, what is another way we can think about what is going on?

    Here some ways to reframe this:

    People are not thinking about me, they are thinking about themselves.

    This one is really quite true. People are not thinking about you as much as you think they are. They are thinking about themselves. See, you aren’t thinking about them really—you are thinking about yourself and how you look in their eyes and worrying about what they think of you.

    If they are thinking about you, maybe they think they are proud of you.

    They may have been just as out of shape as you just a few months ago and are rooting you on in their heads. I do this all the time! I’ve gone through some great physical journeys myself, and I love feeling proud watching others on theirs.

    Maybe the guy across the room actually thinks you are cute.

    Maybe the lady in downward dog thinks you kind of look like her sister.

    Maybe someone else is wondering where you got your top.

    The goal is to come up with a new thought. One to replace the automatic thought that came to mind due to your limiting belief.

    With that new thought comes a new emotion. With that new emotion comes a new behavior. And that is now changing your relationship with your thoughts literally changes your life.

    Step 5: Let go.

    You’ve recognized what’s going on, allowed yourself to feel, gave yourself a moment of self-compassion, challenged your core beliefs, looked at the situation from another perspective, and now it’s time to let it go.

    I want you to ask yourself, “Is holding onto this thought serving me in any positive way?” If the answer is no, give yourself permission to let it go.

    You do that by bringing your focus back to the present. You can take some mindful breaths and focus on that.

    If you’re at the gym, bring your full attention to your feet hitting the treadmill. The feel of your sweat on your skin. The sound of the music playing. When you notice your mind has gone back to those negative thoughts, just notice it, say, “Oh yeah, I decided to let that go,” and come back to the present task at hand.

    It will happen again, your mind will go back to the thought—just gently guide your attention back to the present.

    This is meditation in action. This is how a meditation practice translates into real world change.

    Notice, acknowledge, and come back. Rinse and repeat.

    You are working on cultivating a new habit. One that allows you to let go of all that is no longer serving you.

  • How to Welcome Uncertainty into Your Life and Release Your Worry

    How to Welcome Uncertainty into Your Life and Release Your Worry

    “Fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.” ~Celestine Chua

    Uncertainty can be the glue for anxiety if you allow it. One thing can snowball into another and soon you are looking at the road ahead, absolutely dumbfounded about which way to go. It shakes us to our core; it disrupts our security, our stable foundation and makes us feel unsettled, even a bit lost.

    But can our lives change without uncertainty?

    I don’t believe they can.

    Two years ago, I found myself wondering: Is this all there is? The road I’ve been on is where I’ll stay; no passionate youthful ambitions, no joyful exuberance; just working and paying the bills, day in and day out. That’s being an adult, isn’t it?

    At least I have a comfortable life, I told myself, with little disruptions, no drama, and nice friends that I have trouble feeling close to.

    There must be something better, I told myself.

    I searched everywhere.

    Then I found my passion. It was buried deep. I dusted the cobwebs off. I wondered why I had abandoned such a beautiful passion. Then I remembered, convincing myself decades ago, that my passion had no real use, especially in a world that valued money above everything else.

    But it made me happy, so I worked at my passion twice a week in the evenings when I had time. It was a very busy time. I had little space left for my distant friends, superficial dating, or any of the other things that were slowly draining my soul.

    Miraculously, my passion had quickly filled my cup in a way nothing else could, not dating, not friends, and definitely not work. I made a choice to give it all I’ve got; to make a big change.

    This was happiness! I had found it!

    I sold my business and pursued change. I chased it, shedding the old chains that bound me, blazing my own path. Then something happened that I didn’t fully expect.

    Uncertainty.

    It shook me to the core.

    Here I was, with little money, a fixed income, and no clear path ahead of me. Do I turn right or left? Do I go straight or take this side road? Which path is the best path? Will I succeed or become a failure?

    Anxiety gripped me, threatening to choke the air out of my lungs. What have I done? How could this be? I’ve ruined everything.

    I put all my heart and soul into my passion, continuing tirelessly. The negative thoughts tugged at my brain at night, raising my anxiety levels. My sleep was disturbed, and my life was in chaos. Nothing was for certain anymore.

    I analyzed every direction. One direction must be better than the other! But they all seemed the same, fraught with obstacles and inconsistences.

    I started making plans to move but froze. I felt unable to make a decision.

    I mulled things over and over in my mind until I could no longer think about anything. My path was so wide, and the waters were unchartered. I felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or where I was going.

    How could this be? How could the path to happiness be so rough and riddled with peril?

    Then I forced myself to breathe. It was going to be alright, I told myself. Exercise and take care of things every day but accept that there will be mistakes. You are human after all.

    I began talking myself out of the crippling anxiety and came up with a list of positive messages to counter the worry:

    1. You are intelligent; you make good choices. You always have. Look at all your past achievements. They are tangible proof.

    2. Trust yourself. You’ll make it.

    3. Change is better than going back to where you were before.

    4. Release your power over things if you want them to evolve.

    5. Go ahead, analyze your situation, but leave many margins for error.

    6. Take a break sometimes and focus your mind on other things that have absolutely nothing to do with your decisions.

    7. If you don’t know the right path, just start swimming in the right direction. The river will eventually take you there.

    So, I started swimming. The river slowed down along the rocks a few times, but I found clever ways to get around them. Sometimes the water was freezing cold and I learned if I kicked my legs faster, I would stay warm. A few times, I just waded in the water, enjoying the scenery.

    While I was admiring the scenery, I wondered if maybe the journey was more important than the destination. Those moments were precious.

    I still have crippling anxiety often, but I have grown an impressive amount of faith in myself. I believe things will work out; they always do somehow eventually.

    Every day I wake up with uncertainty hovering over my head. I wonder how I could rid myself of this unwelcome guest.

    Then I had an epiphany.

    If you want change in your life, you must open the door to Uncertainty. He might stay awhile, so be sure to invite him in and shake his hand. It’s okay, he’s not the bad guy. Uncertainty is actually the guy that’ll introduce you to Future.

    Oh, and that guy Anxiety? Don’t listen to a thing he says; better yet, tell him he’s not welcome and slam the door in his face.

    And remember, you’ll be okay.

  • Giveaway: Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal – A Tool to Calm Your Mind

    Giveaway: Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal – A Tool to Calm Your Mind

    THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN! 

    Thank you, everyone, for opening your hearts and sharing a piece of yourself and your journey. I am amazed and inspired by all of you, and so grateful that you shared your strength and your stories here.

    I wish you all peace, joy, and so much love!

    The winners are:

    Please send your address to email@tinybuddha.com so I can send you a copy of the Worry Journal!

    —

    Though life has become a lot less busy for many these days, I suspect a lot of us have incredibly busy minds given all the uncertainty we’re facing.

    It’s easy to get caught up in worst-case and what-if scenarios, trying to create some sense of control in a world where we have very little.

    I know, because I’ve done this many times. I’ve locked myself in a corner in my mind, filled my internal whiteboard with every possible combination of outcomes, and obsessed over how I could avoid potential pain—ironically, causing myself immense pain in the process.

    To some extent advance planning can be helpful. It gives us a chance to prepare for the worst and ascertain how we can do our best to get through it. But beyond a certain point it becomes maddening.

    It’s natural to have worrisome thoughts—they arise without our conscious choice. But we can consciously choose how we engage with them instead of spinning them into a tornado of anxiety that will surely destroy our peace, and possibly our health.

    This is why I created Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal a couple years back: to help us all work through the fearful thoughts that would otherwise consume and control us.

    With writing prompts, quotes, questions for contemplation, and coloring and doodle pages, the Worry Journal can help you feel calmer, less anxious, and more present in your life.

    It’s a tool to help you reflect and then release, while broadening your perspective and helping you develop trust in your own ability to handle whatever’s coming.

    I think we all need that right now—a reminder that we’re stronger than we think and more resourceful than we realize. And that is why I’m giving away three free copies of Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal.

    The Giveaway

    There are two things you need to do enter the giveaway:

    1. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha if you’re not already a subscriber. (You’ll receive instant access to Tiny Buddha’s 30-Day Health Challenge and three cool desktop wallpapers!) You can join the list here.

    2. Leave a comment below completing one (or more!) of these prompts from Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal:

    • Today, I choose to let go of things I can’t control, including…
    • I recognize that I don’t need to have all the answers right now. Today, I give myself permission not to know…
    • Dear inner critic: You always focus on everything I’m doing wrong, but I know I’m doing a lot right, including…
    • I know I’m strong enough to handle whatever comes at me, because I’ve survived a lot, including…

    Your comment can be as short or long as you’d like, and you can enter until midnight PST on Sunday, May 31st.  I will list the winners at the top of this post some time on Monday, June 1st.

    Please note you’ll need to check back then to see if you’ve won so you can email me your address.

  • The Secret To A Happy Life Is Hidden In Your Daily Habits

    The Secret To A Happy Life Is Hidden In Your Daily Habits

    “The key to being happy is knowing you have the power to choose what to accept and what to let go.” ~Dodinsky

    It hit me as I cruised along at full speed on a busy motorway on my way to a friend’s house.

    Shaking like a leaf, I pulled myself out of the car and stood by the side of the road. I desperately gulped in the fresh air, a frantic attempt at calming myself down.

    This was the ninth day in a row I’d experienced a wave of panic so intense, it felt like I was about to die. It was utterly unbearable.

    I’d been worrying about all the work I had left to do on my Master’s dissertation and berating myself for taking a day off to spend time with friends when I should have been working. All of a sudden, my throat closed up, my chest tightened, and my hands shook so much that I was convinced I would lose control of the car.

    This was the final straw.

    I’d been waiting for a magic solution, a miraculous savior, a quick fix that would snap me out of my near-constant state of worry. I’d been waiting for the universe to wave its wand and finally grant me a normal life. It wasn’t happening.

    I wasn’t willing to face up to the work I needed to do in order to stop indulging in my bleak hypothetical predictions about the future. And more importantly, I didn’t even know what the work was. But that day, I made the decision to find the key to a happy life and to start putting in some serious elbow grease.

    I just couldn’t live like that any longer.

    That was three years ago.

    What You Practice, You Get Good At

    The problem is, for a very long time, I practiced worrying. About everything.

    I worried about what people thought about me. I worried about what might happen to my health. I worried about whether I would have the career I wanted.

    I also practiced managing this worry, and the myriad of unpleasant emotions that accompanied it, with food, alcohol, and sex. I used substances (and other people’s bodies) to make myself feel good, to take my mind somewhere else, and to give myself a moment to relax.

    But underneath, the worry was still there; these “fixes” just masked it. Instead of paying attention to what was actually going on in my head and realizing that my thoughts were creating a reality that didn’t actually exist, I practiced covering up my desperation, hoping that this fix would be the one that actually worked.

    I was constantly feeding habits that gave me short-term satisfaction or relief, that I knew were ultimately destructive. And I know I’m not the only one.

    Many of us spend our days acting mostly out of habit—the foods we eat for breakfast, the route we take to work, even the thoughts we entertain. These become the actions we practice, over and over again.

    And what we practice, we get good at.

    What Do You Practice?

    Here’s a little something to reflect on: What habits are currently running your life? What thoughts do you think every single day? And are these serving you, or not?

    We might not think of habits as a practice, but that’s exactly what they are. Each and every day, we’re practicing being the type of people we want to be, whether we realize it or not.

    My anxiety, despite being a very real (and often terrifying) experience for me, was a habit. I was practicing being the type of person who was constantly stressed out and worried about everything. Nowadays, however, I practice being the type of person who recognizes these thoughts, knows her limits, takes care of herself, and makes a different choice each time her old pal worry comes out to play.

    Think about it:

    • How many times a day do we complain about things not being the way we want them to be?
    • How many times a day do we disengage from connection with others and allow ourselves to be distracted by technology?
    • How many times a day do we worry about things that haven’t even happened yet?

    The answer is likely: a lot.

    We’re experts at this stuff. After all, the key to mastering any skill is repetition; if we repeat a specific action enough, eventually we’ll gain fluency and competency at it.

    This is why the true secret to happiness lies in our daily habits rather than in the “magic fixes” we often think will make us happy.

    Daily Practices for a Happier Life

    So what if we became conscious of the habits that are running our lives and switched them on their head?

    What if we started practicing things we actually wanted to get better at? And what if, instead of making it some huge, life-changing mission, we simply set the intention to live this way, making small steps toward it wherever we could?

    Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

    With this in mind, here are a few suggestions for habits we could start practicing daily in order to live a happier life:

    • Kindness
    • Compassion
    • Generosity
    • Acceptance
    • Non-judgment
    • Presence
    • Listening
    • Forgiveness
    • Relaxation

    The way these look in our lives will be different for everyone, but the intention behind them is the same—to notice our destructive habits and to make a different choice.

    Personally, I’ve found three super effective ways to start bringing new practices into our lives.

    1. Notice your autopilot.

    We have to recognize our habitual autopilot mode in order to do something about it.

    Becoming aware of the way we live our daily life—the choices we make, the people we surround ourselves with, and the stories we tell ourselves—helps us to remember who we really are and what we really want. It also helps us make more conscious decisions about how we act so that we choose our response rather than react out of habit.

    The best way to do this is to first make a list of all the times you already know you tend to slip into autopilot.

    For example, you might recognize that you frequently spend your lunch break scrolling through Facebook, and then you feel bad about yourself after comparing yourself to other people. Or, you might notice you regularly worry about worst-case scenarios when you’re lying in bed at night.

    Once you’re aware of what you’re doing, you can commit to making a different choice the next time you’re in that situation, practicing a habit that doesn’t serve you.

    I have to be honest here. This takes time.

    In the beginning, it was difficult for me to recognize when my “worry” head was on because it felt so natural to me. But once I started paying more attention to my habitual thoughts and behaviors, I found it much easier to switch the script in those moments and instead practice some deep breathing to relax myself.

    Action step: Take a moment to think about the times you already know your habitual autopilot-self takes over. What could you do to in those moments to break that pattern, re-engage with the world, and make a different choice?

    Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

    2. Focus on your physical sensations.

    Another great way to practice new habits is to focus on how they make us feel in our bodies. I like to think of this in terms of openness (expansion) and tightness (contraction). I usually feel pretty open and soft in my heart space when I practice kindness, for example, and tight and tense in my belly when I practice being rude.

    Our sense of expansion or contraction in our body can act as an “mindful shortcut,” giving us an easy way to determine what might be going on in our heads.

    If we focus on how we physically feel in our bodies and the sensations our habits bring up for us, we can really start to distinguish between the ones that currently serve us and the ones that definitely don’t. Since our physical sensations often directly relate to our emotional experience, it’ll also provide us with a little motivation to continue practicing the things that make us feel expanded.

    The issue most of us run into here is that we mostly walk around feeling completely out of touch with our bodies. In fact, it wasn’t until I really started to dive deep into yoga that I realized my body was constantly giving me important signals—and I was totally ignoring them.

    The best way to begin observing your body is to sit in stillness and just notice your bodily experience, even if you start with just a few moments a day. The more you “check in” with your body, the more you’ll be able to tune in to what it’s trying to tell you.

    When I started paying attention to my body, I noticed how different thoughts affected me in completely different ways. My worry made my body feel tight, tense, and achy, for example, whereas calm thoughts made my body feel soft, relaxed, and open. This helped draw my attention to my worrisome thoughts and choose to focus on my breathing in the present moment instead of on my “faux” reality.

    Action step: Start your day by asking yourself one of these questions:

    • “How do I want to feel today?”
    • “What do I want to practice today?”
    • “How do I want to live today?”

    Then check in with yourself regularly throughout the day (setting up a reminder on your phone helps!) to observe how your body’s feeling. Pay particular attention to your heart, solar plexus, and belly areas. Is there a sense of expansion or contraction? Does this align with how you want to feel? What are you currently practicing? And does this align with what you want to practice?

    Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

    3. Set an intention.

    We can also practice new habits by simply affirming to ourselves that it’s our intention to practice them.

    Intentions are perfect because they’re designed to be a guideline rather than a goal. With goals, it’s far too easy to beat ourselves up if we don’t reach them, but with an intention, we can just start over again.

    If we set an intention to be kind, or compassionate, or generous in the morning, we’re also far more likely to jump at opportunities to practice this as we move through our day. It helps us make decisions that are more aligned with the people we want to be, since our intention will still be fresh in our mind.

    For example, I’ve recently been setting an intention to practice forgiveness. I realized that I’d been holding on to so much resentment, anger, and blame toward myself (and others) about my anxiety. I felt so much rage about my past—the years I’d spent constantly trying to please other people at the expense of my own needs; my first boyfriend’s extremely controlling behavior, which left me feeling utterly weak; and the pressure I’d felt growing up to be “perfect.”

    So every morning I listen to a forgiveness meditation, which includes repeating to myself, “I see and feel the pain you’ve caused me, and it’s my intention to forgive you.” Then, as I’m about to go into my day, I remind myself that it’s my intention to continue to practice forgiveness.

    Have I forgiven everyone (or myself) yet? No. But that’s beside the point.

    The point is that every single day, I’m practicing.

    Action step: Decide on at least one new habit you’d like to start practicing. How can you set this intention for yourself each day? How can you remind yourself of this intention when you go off track?

    Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

  • 3 Ways to Stop Obsessing and Start Enjoying More of Your Life

    3 Ways to Stop Obsessing and Start Enjoying More of Your Life

    “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    I’ve come to realize that worrying and obsessing don’t help or change anything.

    Hold up. Wait a minute!

    Let me rephrase that, because worrying and obsessing do change things. They make your life worse. I think pretty much everyone in the world knows this, but how hard do we try to stop doing these things?

    What If?

    Every day you wake up and you think and obsess and wonder, “What if?”

    What if I lose my job? What if he leaves me? What if I lose everything and end up homeless?

    Day after day your mind spins out of control contemplating all the things that could go wrong with your relationship or your life. On and on and on it goes, and where it stops nobody knows.

    Aren’t you getting tired of thinking all the time? Isn’t obsessing about possibilities wearing you out? At what point do you decide you should stop getting caught up in your thinking, but then actually make a change?

    I’m tired, and I know relentless thinking wears me out. Just to let you know that I understand, I’ll give you an example.

    Honestly, I have the best boyfriend ever (for me anyway) because he doesn’t let a lot of things get him down. I mean, the guy is genuinely happy and content 99% of the time. Me, not so much. He has been through multiple deployments, many of them combat, and still he never lets stuff get to him.

    But, how does this happen? Where can I get some of what he has? This, I have been contemplating.

    I’ve come to realize he feels happy more than I do because he doesn’t overanalyze life, question everything, and obsess about the future. And he probably also doesn’t obsess about how happy he is and how he can be happier!

    Here’s how it goes:

    Me: “Does he even love me? Is he ever going to totally integrate me into his life? Am I too boring for him? I really need to get some hobbies. Am I settling, or do I expect too much? I’m so fussy sometimes and I don’t know how he handles it. Where are we going to move? When is he going to deploy? Where is he going to go? Is he going to leave me here all alone?”

    I look over at him longingly, wondering what’s going through his mind, because it must be something serious and important, and he must be contemplating the fate of our relationship or the existence of the Universe, right?

    He knows when I look at him with that longing look I want to know what he’s thinking about. So, I say, “Tell me, I must know!”

    Him: “I need some new pants.” Or he’ll utter, “I want a key-less ignition for my bike.” Or, the earth-shattering statement, “My feet really stink.”

    It’s possible he’s just not telling me what he’s really thinking, but if he is obsessing like I do, it doesn’t show in how he lives his life.

    The more time I spend with him, the more I realize I’m wasting my life away obsessing about what might be or what could be or what isn’t instead of simply enjoying the moment and living in gratitude for what I have.

    My guy gets all happy and excited about the little things, and for some reason I don’t. I try. So far, I have failed. But, I vow that going forward I will not fail. I will stop obsessing all the time and I will be a lot happier as a result.

    Do you know why you obsess? Is it serving a purpose anymore? If not, you can change it. Here’s how.

    1. You have to want it.

    Are you at the point where you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired yet? If not, keep doing what you’re doing. Maybe obsessing still works for you in some way and you aren’t yet ready to change. That’s okay. We all change when we’re ready, and we get to different points at different times.

    Wanting to change starts with a conscious choice you have to make. At some point you decide that you want to take control of your life instead of letting your life, your history, and your mind control you.

    Think long and hard. Do you truly, really, honestly want to be happier? I believe that I have struggled with this notion for a long time. In my head I want to be happy, but in my heart there’s a seed of doubt.

    Happiness is something I had briefly when I was a small child, but it was shattered by abusive adults. What if I get it back and it gets taken away again? As an adult I know that isn’t logically possible because no one can take away my happiness, but it’s still a lingering fear.

    Do you feel something similar?

    Despite this fear I’ve decided that I want to be happier. I’m running out of time. We’re all running out of time. Your life is ticking away every day, and you never know when it will end.

    Decide you want to enjoy more of your life. Decide you deserve to enjoy more of your life. Decide you will do something to change, and then you will.

    2. You have to rewire your brain.

    This is the hard part. Your mind has been wired a certain way, possibly due to traumatic events, abuse, or neglect. There’s a roadmap that takes you from Point A to Point B, without fail. Before you know it, an innocuous thought like, “Does he really care about me?” has turned into you remembering every instance he showed you he didn’t care (or at least that’s how you interpreted those events), and you have now convinced yourself you should break up.

    See how this works? Often, it isn’t logical, and it isn’t factual. You’re creating stories in your head because your mind is trying to contain and assuage your fears, put them in a box, and allow you to function with the ever-scary “not knowing.”

    The fact of the matter is, you don’t know. You don’t know if your partner will leave you (they might die or cheat or break up with you—or they might stay forever). You don’t know if you’ll die tomorrow. You don’t know if you’ll lose your job or have financial struggles or end up winning the lottery.

    Recognize when you’re obsessing, then decide to accept what you don’t know and stop getting caught up in your thoughts. Do it once. Do it twice. Do it over and over and over until you have a little peace. If meditation helps, then do that. If sitting at the beach or reading a book helps, then do that. Do whatever will help you bring a little peace to your mind.

    Once you’ve created a little space in your head, you have to start believing. When you realize you’ve been wondering, “Does she really care about me?” remind yourself, “She shows she cares about me.” Start believing the good instead of the bad.

    It took me about a year to convince myself that my boyfriend really cared, even though his actions showed he did. He kept showing up and didn’t run away, but still, I had to get over my fear that no man would ever really care about me and they’d only want to use me.

    If your partner doesn’t show they care, then that’s something you need to actively address. Obsessing about something can’t change it. Only action can.

    3. You have to learn to love the little things.

    I know this is hard sometimes. If you feel apathetic or tired or depressed it’s hard to see the good in anything. But every day there are usually little things that happen that could bring you joy, even if for a few minutes.

    Yesterday I went to the beach for a few hours. Being in the sun, feeling the wind, and hearing the ocean brings peace to my soul. I try to do this as often as possible because it reminds me to appreciate being alive.

    Watching him cook breakfast makes me happy. I had to learn to sit back and let someone do something (anything) for me, and now I smile a little every time he whips up some eggs and bacon.

    They have a baby hippo at the zoo. He weighs five hundred pounds, but he bobbles around like a fat, happy, little apple in the water, and watching him makes me happy.

    I decided to buy some flowers to put in our bedroom so I can look at the sunny little yellow bunch every day.

    And I’m thinking we need a dog so I have something else to focus on.

    I’m trying to find simple things to make me happy instead of waiting for some big, giant event or some magical time when life suddenly changes and becomes more fulfilling, because that won’t ever happen. You create your reality, and if you keep waiting for life to happen, it will slowly pass you by.

    What about you? What makes you happy? There must be something you’re grateful for, and if not, find or create something. Do you paint or write? Maybe you like animals and want to volunteer at a shelter. Maybe you need to get out in nature every day even if only for an hour.

    Think of those little things that bring you joy and make sure you do them as often as possible. Try to focus on what’s good in your life, because we can spend all day focusing on what’s wrong or what isn’t working or what could be better, but honestly that doesn’t get us anywhere but into a negative spiral.

    Most importantly, don’t give up if you fall backward. Don’t let the outside world make you feel like you aren’t enough if you aren’t perfect and happy and smiling all the time like everyone else on Instagram. A picture isn’t life, and social media can make you feel like a failure if you let it.

    It’s okay to struggle. You don’t have to be perfect. You’re enough just the way you are, and as long as you keep moving forward and make peace with your journey, you are doing all you can and you should be proud of yourself.

    So, get out there. Stop letting obsessive thoughts control you and start living your life for today!

  • How I Went From the Pain of People-Pleasing to the Freedom of Being Me

    How I Went From the Pain of People-Pleasing to the Freedom of Being Me

    “How hurtful it can be to deny one’s own true self and live a life of lies just to appease others.” ~June Ahern

    Growing up I felt lost, separate, and different from everyone else in my family. After all, everyone else was a fit; they pursued the same hobbies, had the same aspirations, and even thought in the same way (everything was very black and white with hardly any grey areas). I was interested, it seemed, in everything they were not interested in.

    I had a different way of looking at the world. Any task I was asked to do I did my way, which, of course, was wrong and not fast enough. No matter how hard I tried to please, to get attention, to be listened to, I failed.

    When my parents weren’t judging, criticizing, and shouting at me, I felt invisible to them. Because I believed everything they said to me and about me, and sensed that I was a disappointment to them, a part of me slowly started to give up. When my grandparents supported and encouraged me, especially when they realized I had an interest and talent for athletics, I felt great.

    As far as my dad was concerned, it didn’t matter whether I succeeded or failed. He managed to find something wrong with everything I did.

    Because I put so much importance and belief in what he said, instead of feeling proud of what I had achieved, I felt empty, not good enough, and like there was something wrong with me. To say I had low self-esteem would be an understatement.

    In my early twenties, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so, still trying desperately to fit in and please them, I ended up working in a bank. They thought this was a respectable job, but I hated it.

    Over time I realized I didn’t know myself or what I wanted anymore. I’d lost contact with how I truly felt. I tried to be someone that they would accept, until I realized that person didn’t exist and couldn’t be found.

    I sought fulfillment in external things, buying clothes I didn’t need and drinking too much at parties.

    I often became disappointed with friends, because I relied too heavily on their judgments and opinions to feel okay in the world. I put huge expectations on others to give me the love and acceptance I didn’t have for myself. My self-worth and confidence depended solely on what other people felt and said.

    I put too much pressure on myself to reach a perfection that didn’t exist. I often felt anxious, had panic attacks, or just felt a sort of paralysis when I tried to do things that I really wanted to do, and wanted to do well, because I feared I couldn’t get it right. In fact, I felt like this whenever the real me would try to sneak through and show up.

    But not taking action and always checking and worrying whether I had offended anyone or said or done the wrong thing just left me feeling sad. Somewhere deep inside of me I knew I could do something worthwhile, if only I could break this cycle.

    It took a long time, but eventually I realized that I couldn’t find what I needed from anyone or anything else until I found it within myself first.

    I realized that only I could fill the void and emptiness inside. Being a people pleaser in order to be liked just made me feel resentful. I had to stop blaming other people for things that happened and the way I felt, which, I admit, was not easy to do.

    Slowly, over time, I faced the fact that I am responsible for my own decisions—no one else can make me do anything I don’t want to do—and I don’t have to put so much weight on other people’s opinions or believe my own criticisms, judgments, and negative thoughts.

    I realized that thoughts are not facts but simply words we use to try to make sense of the world. And our choice of words can determine how we feel about a situation. I could choose my words, my thoughts, and thus my feelings.

    I knew I had to find ways to listen to myself, not everyone else, and deal with my anxiety. After all, at best, others’ opinions are just that—opinions, which are based on their thoughts, perceptions, and judgments rather than facts. Here’s what helped me do just that.

    Learning To Listen To Myself And Tapping Into My Inner Wisdom

    Whenever I felt anxiety about what other people think, instead of resisting it I allowed it to be present. I used my breath to ride the wave of emotion, by breathing deeply and slowly into my belly. I welcomed the emotion by really feeling it, noticing where it was in my body, and being curious.

    At the same time I started to become aware of any thoughts and judgments that came up. As I listened I brought my attention back to my breathing, so as to not indulge and engage with various thoughts. This prevented me from getting lost in specific thoughts and feelings.

    I found that, with practice, the feelings would subside and I’d feel calmer and better able to observe and be aware of how unsupportive most of these thoughts were. I practiced various forms of meditation, in particular a kundalini Yoga meditation called Kirtan Kriya – Sa Ta Na Ma Mirabai Ceiba. I found doing this meditation everyday for at least forty days very helpful.

    This meditation helped me feel balanced and neutral, neither very happy nor sad, nor any other emotion.

    From this neutral position I could observe and be a witness to what I was automatically thinking, formerly without conscious awareness. I quickly realized how crazy some of my thoughts were, and in the realizing I could let go of their hold on me.

    Being able to observe and be the witness to what was going on inside my mind, not engaging with unsupportive thoughts, and allowing the feelings to come and go, enabled me to feel calm and centered and to see things from different angles.

    This practice also started to give me the time and space to decide how I wanted to respond, rather than react instantly without awareness.

    Over time I learned a lot about myself. Most importantly I learned to like, love, respect, accept, and forgive myself. I was able to stop beating myself up, cease being my harshest judge and critic, and start allowing myself to take action.

    This helped me discover what I loved and didn’t love doing. I allowed myself to make mistakes and concentrate on what really interested me, by allowing myself to do more of what I wanted to do. As I got in touch with who I really am, I found I had more unconditional love and tolerance for others.

    I felt happier, clearer, more emotionally and mentally resilient, and more connected to myself and others. And I was less thrown by life’s challenges. I was able to trust myself and my intuition, which made making decisions easier. I can handle my family now, no matter how they choose to show up.

    Most of the time I am able to respond in the way I choose to, authentically, assertively, and with compassion, my self-respect and self-worth in tact. I am me, and that feels freeing.

    If you also give too much weight to other people’s opinions, worry about getting their approval, and beat yourself up in your head, perhaps meditation can help you too. Learning to sit with your feelings and observe your thoughts, instead of believing and acting on everything that pops through your head, is the key to making peace with yourself. And making peace with yourself it the key to living the life you want to live, regardless of what other people think.

  • How to Beat Insomnia and Get a Good Night’s Sleep (A Spiritual Approach)

    How to Beat Insomnia and Get a Good Night’s Sleep (A Spiritual Approach)

     

    “Our spiritual mission is not to ignore the darkness, but to bring light to the darkness.” ~Marianne Williamson                              

    It’s 3:17 a.m. You’ve been staring at the clock since 1:42 a.m., mind racing, body tense. In five hours you’re going to have to drag yourself to work, terrified that you’re going to fall asleep at your desk—again.

    If you have trouble sleeping, you’re not alone. I know what it feels like to lie awake, reliving mistakes, making lists of things that might go wrong, waiting for sleep that never seems to come.

    In fact, almost one-third of the adult population in the US has trouble falling asleep from time to time. Ten percent of us have long-term insomnia, which means we struggle to fall asleep at least three nights a week for over three months.

    Whether you have a wakeful night once in a while or find yourself lying awake all the time, here are some new ways to think about and deal with insomnia that could change the way you feel about those sleepless nights. 

    Preparing for Sleep

    Using the following Feng Shui techniques can help turn your bedroom into a sanctuary that invites relaxation and encourages a good night’s sleep.

    Clean Out the Clutter

    Begin by getting rid of anything in your bedroom that isn’t useful or doesn’t bring you joy. Clean out the clutter from under your bed, the back of your closet, and all your drawers. Dust out the corners of the room and make your bed. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people who make their beds are 20% more likely to get a good night’s sleep.

    Remove or turn off as many electronics as possible. If you choose to have a phone or personal device in the room, keep it as far from the bed as possible. That blue light from your device can inhibit the production of melatonin, which helps you fall asleep.

    Engage Your Senses

    Once your bedroom is clean and clutter-free, turn it into a welcoming retreat by finding ways to appeal to your senses.

    First, surround yourself with soft colors. Focus on pastels or earth tones, no black floors or walls. An occasional splash of vibrant color is fine, but the overall effect should be soothing and peaceful.

    To bring balance to the room and help you feel safe as you sleep, make sure the head of your bed is against a wall, the bed is easily accessible from both sides, and the bedside tables are a match in size and proportion.

    If you’re bothered by noise, try using a white noise machine, or play some soothing music to help you unwind.

    To appeal to your sense of smell, use a diffuser with scented essential oils. Lavender and jasmine are great for helping you relax.

    Every fabric that touches your skin should be soft and inviting. Your sheets should be the best quality you can afford. If you haven’t replaced your pillow in this century, it’s time for a new one. Your mattress should support your weight comfortably. If it’s more than ten years old or it sags in the middle, replace it.

    Making your bedroom into a safe, comforting sanctuary is a wonderful way to help ease insomnia.

    Getting to Sleep

    Acupressure

    Acupressure works by removing energy blockages in your body and restoring the flow of qi (life energy) throughout your body. This renewed flow of the life force helps bring a sense of calm and balance to your body, mind, and spirit, paving the way to a good night’s sleep.

    One of the most effective acupressure points for insomnia is called “The Spirit Gate.”

    To find this point, place your right thumb on the horizontal crease of your left wrist, in line with your little finger. Press or massage the point gently for a minute or two while you breathe deep into your belly. Repeat on the other hand.

    Continue, alternating sides, until you feel both your body and spirit relax.

    Qigong

    This technique is my favorite stress-buster. I often use it after a long, hard day to ease the tension in my body and soothe my anxious spirit. It comes from The Qigong Workbook for Anxiety, by Master Kam Chuen Lam, and is called “Overwhelmed, Lying Down, in the Middle of the Night.”

    Begin by lying on your back in bed, arms at your sides. While your heels remain on the bed, lift your toes so your feet are at right angles to your legs and you feel a stretch up the back of your legs.

    Turn your palms toward your thighs. Clench your fists and curl them inward until you feel a stretch in your wrists. As you squeeze your fists as tightly as possible, lift your head and look at your toes. Breathe in and hold your breath to a count of four. Then breathe out with a whoosh, relaxing your body at the same time.

    I suggest you repeat this pose up to six times or until you’re fully relaxed and ready to drift off to sleep.

    The Sacred Hours

    If you’re like me, you may have had no trouble getting to sleep but find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night. And if you’re a worrier like me, you can lie awake for hours, worrying about the undone project at work, the annoying thing your sister said, or the strange noise your car’s been making.

    Worst of all is the fear there’s something’s wrong with you and that you’ll never sleep again. Believe me, I know all about the vicious cycle of worry leading to insomnia and insomnia leading to more worry.

    What broke that cycle for me was learning that waking up in the middle of the night is a perfectly normal function of the human body. Believe it or not, before the invention of the light bulb brought us artificial light, people traditionally slept in two distinct segments.

    The first segment of sleep began in the early evening (starting between 7:00pm and 8:00pm). This first sleep was followed by a wakeful period of a few hours in the middle of the night (usually around midnight) and was followed by a second sleep through morning.

    For thousands of years, people used this time to think, pray, read, or even go visiting. Today research suggests that the time between those sleep segments is a good time to meditate, create, and imagine.

    Once I understood that segmented sleep was normal, I stopped yelling at myself for being awake, and I stopped trying to force myself to sleep. Instead, I began using those wakeful hours as an opportunity to reimagine my environment, rethink my self-care, and reconnect with both my spirit and my creativity.

    How about you? Does the idea of segmented sleep change the way you feel about your insomnia? Can you think of any way you could use that time to improve your life?

    Here are some techniques I use that you might find helpful. Try them all and see what works best for you.

    Meditate

    If you already have a meditation practice, this quiet time is perfect for making a connection with your inner spirit.

    If you don’t know how to mediate or find meditation difficult, just start noticing your breath as it moves in and out of your body. With each inhale, focus on the word “in.” With each exhale, focus on the word “out.” Notice how cool the air is as you breathe in and how warm the breath is as you breathe out. As you continue breathing, notice how, over time, your body relaxes and continues to sink deep into an ever-growing sense of peace.

    If you have trouble meditating on your own, listen to a guided meditation CD or app.

    Think Positive

    Instead of spending time reliving all the missteps and mistakes you’ve made in the past, why not use this time to focus on all the things that have gone well?

    If you don’t know where to begin, here are some prompts I use to get started:

    I’m glad I tried…

    I’m proud that I…

    I’m thankful for…

    I’m happy I have….

    I love being with…

    I appreciate …

    I had fun…

    I savored….

    All right, maybe you’re going through a tough time. Maybe you’re dealing with a recent loss or are facing a difficult challenge, and you’re struggling to find a single thing to be grateful for.

    Don’t give up. I promise you, no matter how bad things seem right now, there’s something in your life to be grateful for. Look for small joys, moments of pleasure, or unexpected beauty.

    Are you grateful for the warmth of your bed? Or that you have a great support system? Maybe you’ve recently enjoyed a great meal or heard a song that you liked. Be gentle with yourself. Just coming up with one or two things you appreciate can make a big difference in how you feel and how you sleep.

    If things are going well in your life, why not make a game of seeing how many things you can come up with to be grateful for? Can you find ten things to celebrate? A hundred? More?

    A positive shift in your thinking brings an inner sense of calm that can help you ease into a restful sleep.

    Forgive

    What if you used this peaceful time to let go of an old hurt, anger, hate, or shame? The burdens you’ve been carrying around for so long weigh you down. Releasing them can make your life easier and your sleep more restful.

    Think a minute. Is there someone you could forgive? Is there a situation you would like to put behind you? Do you need to forgive yourself?

    If you’re ready to release this old pain, begin by focusing on the person or situation you would like to forgive or let go. When you bring it, or them, to mind, what do you feel in your body? Where do you feel it?

    To let go of that pain, put your hand over the place in your body where that pain lives. Now, imagine that pain is slowly dissolving under the heat of your hand and draining out of your body into the ground below. As you breathe out, let go of those old hurts. As you breathe in, welcome a new sense of light and love.

    Continue until you feel a deep sense of calm and you gently drift towards sleep.

    Get Up

    Finally, if you still can’t sleep, consider getting up and doing something restful or creative.

    This is not a time to tackle a work project, answer emails, clean, or do anything that causes you stress. This is a time to explore who you are and to get in touch with your heart and your soul.

    Relax

    Sip a cup of herbal tea. Read something that uplifts your heart. Do a puzzle. Knit. Gaze up at the stars. Follow the path of the moon across the sky. Just sit and soak in the peace and quiet. Try a yoga pose or two if that feels relaxing, or maybe take a warm shower to help ease any muscles that feel tense.

    Create

    This is also a great time to write or draw in a journal. (It’s better to go old school here and use a paper and pen. The blue light from a personal device can keep you awake.)

    You could also use this time to sketch, write music, write a poem, or try your hand at that novel you’ve always wanted to write. (But no working on anything that causes you stress. The idea here is to enjoy the act of creation, not to judge or critique your work.)

    Another idea is to write a letter of gratitude to someone who helped you when you needed it or a letter of encouragement to someone who could use a kind word. Or you could write a letter of encouragement and support to yourself.

    Reassess

    After twenty minutes, check back in with your body. How is it feeling? Are your shoulders relaxed? How about your belly? Your jaw?

    If you’re feeling physically relaxed and emotionally calm, try going back to bed. If you’re still tense, wait another twenty minutes, then check in again. At that point, no matter how you feel, climb back into bed for twenty minutes knowing that it’s perfectly normal to still be awake, and that you will eventually fall into a deep, restful sleep.

    —

    No matter what’s keeping you awake at night, there’s always a way to bring some light into the darkness, to care for your heart and soul with kindness, and to love yourself through the night.

  • Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

    Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

    “You are strong for getting out of bed in the morning when it feels like hell. You are brave for doing things even though they scare you or make you anxious. And you are amazing for trying and holding on no matter how hard life gets.” ~Unknown

    I couldn’t take it anymore. I no longer wanted to answer to the heart beating on my ribcage, my sweat on my palms, or the breath that got caught in the upper part of my lungs. I wanted the swirling thoughts in my brain to settle. I imagined them falling like leaves finding their place on the ground after a gust of wind forces them into a cyclone.

    Driving my daughter to daycare, I couldn’t calm myself. We had just moved to a new town in what was our last relocation.

    Over the past thirteen years, my husband and I had moved across the country and lived in several cities—Baltimore, Milwaukee, San Diego, Winston-Salem, NC, Oxford—and I was tired. Tired of the stress of packing and unpacking our things. Tired of finding new doctors. Tired of making new friends. Tired of setting up daycare for my toddler. Tired of finding her new therapy providers to address her gross motor delays. Tired of finding new babysitters. Tired of rebuilding our home.

    If tired had been all I had felt, I may have coped better. But, as always, anxiety was there. Like a childhood friend—or foe, or frenemy—it never leaves my side. As long as I have had memories, anxiety tagged itself in.

    So, when driving my daughter to her first day at a new daycare, my thoughts were sent into a tailspin.

    It wasn’t until this last move, during that drive down yet another College Avenue in yet another new city, that I realized my anxiety was something I needed to deal with.

    I asked myself: What if my daughter sees this? Will she learn to live in fear? Will she worry about big things and small things, just as I do? Will she learn to stress over things she cannot change or that have yet to happen? Will she see my tears on our way to her new daycare and wonder if she, too, should be crying?

    My daughter is fun-loving, silly, humorous, and independent. Life never gets her down, even though she was born eight weeks early, spent five weeks in the NICU, and continues to struggle with muscle weakness.

    She cannot run with her friends on the playground. Yet she has friends. Lots of them. All of the children in her classroom call out “Evelyn!” when she arrives in the morning. Teachers from the other side of the building know her. It may be because she uses a walker, or because she has special braces on her feet. More likely, it’s because of her outgoing personality and willingness to try anything.

    She has an empathy that cannot be taught. She pats babies’ backs when they cry. She hugs me when I look sad. At snack time, she shares her crackers. She always wants to play and is sure to include others. All this and she is only three.

    She never worries what others will think of her slow walking. She just walks. She never judges others for being different. She just plays. She never worries about hiding her disability. She just sits down with the group of children playing with the Legos.

    During that drive, with the tears streaming down my cheeks, I knew this excessive angst was something I should not pass on to her. She deserved better.

    My daughter needed a mother who worried less and enjoyed more. A mother who could show her that happiness is found from within. I wanted her to learn that she is worthy of a peaceful life.

    At this point, my suffering had spanned thirty-six years. As a child, when I had started a new grade in school, I cried the night before. When we visited relatives’ homes, they would call me “bashful” or “shy” or some equivalent when really I was none of those things. I wanted to engage more, but fear of saying the wrong thing held me back.

    When I started college, I was certain I would fail. My dream of studying abroad was almost squashed by fear of living in a new country.

    I was afraid of learning to drive, going to school dances, and being invited (or not) to birthday parties. Even attending Girl Scout meetings in grade school meant I had to interact with others whom I feared didn’t like me. I never knew if that was really how others felt. My anxiety didn’t care about truth.

    Anxiety whispers to me: You’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You’ll fail at that. No one will like you. You can’t do that.

    And then the questions start: What if you get lost? What if you have to eat in front of strangers? What if food gets stuck in your teeth? What if your car breaks down? What if….

    So, by the time we reached my daughter’s daycare, when the tears wouldn’t stop, I had had enough. I vowed to get help.

    That night I found a therapist who has taught me the importance of my anxiety.

    “The anxiety won’t completely go away,” my therapist told me. Even though I had hoped she had the secret to an anxiety-free life, I knew she was right. Anxiety is natural. It is useful. Just not at my level.

    I explored it, feeling its crevices and textures. It’s a part of my personality. It makes me me. Anxiety was not the problem. My inability to cope was. Allowing it to take over my thoughts until I became frozen was.

    Now, I’m learning to accept myself. I check in with myself. I allow myself to feel what is there, yet I can step aside enough to analyze what is really happening.

    Through our therapy sessions, I found compassion for my anxiety. It’s there to tell me something. It often points out the paths in life that are most worthwhile. My instinct to fight back, to push myself through the angst, was right. Each time I face my anxiety, I come out the other side victorious. Yet the energy drained from me each time leaves me fatigued. As I reach each threshold between relenting to anxiety or jumping into something something fearful, exhaustion fills my body. I feel as if I could go to sleep and never wake up.

    “I don’t want to have to force myself to do things every time I get anxious,” I told my therapist.

    She responded, “What if you looked at it as not forcing yourself but rather you made a choice to do something despite your fear?”

    Being proud of myself for my achievements despite my anxiety never occured to me. My anxiety didn’t have to be my enemy. It wasn’t the harrowing fight between knight and fire-breathing dragon that I thought it was. My anxiety tested me, pushed me, and ultimately made me who I am. Accepting it would not be conceding, but rather it meant I could live with more sanity.

    It’s not easy to live with anxiety, but with the aid of a few goals, my days now start with more purpose and end with more peace.

    Through my self-exploration, I found a mantra that recenters my focus from one of fear to one stillness; Feed my mind, body, soul. I found a way to leave my ego on the side—that which feeds my negative thoughts about myself—and relax into the present moment. Days on which I manage to include all three elements of focus, I feel the most calm.

    It takes work to achieve them all. One usually fights to take on more weight than the others. But when I insist on balance, I can settle my rattled brain for at least a little while. I do this work daily. The triangle image hangs in my thoughts as I try and balance each side into a perfect equilateral shape. When achieved, I go to bed feeling like my soul has evened out.

    As my therapist had suggested, reframing my self-language focuses on the mind. Just as my daughter can find compassion for the people around her, I am learning to find compassion for myself. I’m not broken. I have emotions and needs and fears. I can allow those to exist. I honor them for what they are while also finding pride for choosing the tough road time and again.

    Giving my mind a safe place to find quietness has also enhanced the this portion of my triangle. But when the battle is with anxiety, that is a difficult feat. Meditation is tougher than I thought. ‘Doing nothing’ is actually doing quite a bit. Yet, when I am able to put aside the noisy chatter in my head, the peace is exhilarating. At times, when the anxious voice is shut out—along with all of the upcoming things I should be worrying about—I feel as if I am floating off my couch cushion.

    Yoga, kickboxing, Zumba—all help drain the anxiety from my body. As the sweat glistens on my skin, the anxiety has no place to be. My heartbeat increases, my blood flows freely, and my focus is on finishing the workout. My body feels cared for.

    I feed my body foods it needs to thrive. I’ve cut back on coffee and leaned more on tea. Fruits and vegetables find their way into every meal and snack. Sugar is limited, although to ban it altogether would go against what is good for my soul.

    My soul begs for me to feed my own inner energy. I engage in activities I enjoy, even when I don’t think there are enough hours in the day. I nurture myself.

    Through writing, I find great solace. It’s meditative and brings me a joy I cannot find elsewhere. Sentences and stories flow through my head, often taking the place of the anxious ones. Just like anxiety, I was born this way. Since childhood, I’ve liked storytelling. The more time I schedule for writing, the less time anxiety can claim.

    I cook. Providing nutritious meals for my family is a privilege. When engaged in new recipes, my focus shifts to one of worry about the future to one of creating something to enjoy.

    I even find time to watch my favorite television shows. When my daughter is at school, and my husband is in the office working, I take my lunch to the couch and turn on Netflix. I often find the comedies. When something can make me laugh when I’m alone, I know it’s the distraction from the tough parts of life that I need.

    I am a work in progress. Some days, anxiety sneaks up on me. Panic can be overwhelming. Instead of criticizing myself for being weak, I allow the feelings to come. I try to slow down. I accept that in that moment, I feel overwhelmed. It will pass.

    Now, when I drive my daughter to daycare, I don’t cry. I sing. I no longer worry about what the driver next to me will think when he sees my mouth moving and hands tapping.

    My daughter and I say “hi” to the busses on the road. We pretend her stuffed Elmo is driving, and we laugh at her silly jokes. She tells me to go “this way” and points the wrong direction to which I respond, “no, this way.” That banter always makes her giggle. We talk about which friends will be at school and what she’ll play outside.

    Through it all, she smiles. And now, so do I.