"You are a beautiful, intelligent, kind, caring, wonderful, amazing person and I am so blessed to have you in my life. I hope to hug you very very soon!
I love you!"
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Sound Healing Changed My Life & Why It Can Change Yours
A few weeks ago, I went with a group of friends on an adventure to the desert. It all started because two very talented friends, Rufus Wainwright and his sister Lucy, were playing a show at Pappy and Harriets in Pioneertown, California.
One quality that really struck me while I was on the road with Rufus was his natural ability to create adventure wherever he goes. It's a beautiful gift which comes from his sense of wonder and openness to exploring the world.
Rufus had arranged a visit to a domed building called the Integratron. But first, we all hiked out to a gigantic boulder known (surprisingly) as Big Rock. This was the birthplace of the Integratron back in the 1950s.
According to the story, a guy named George Van Tassel was meditating under Big Rock one night when he was visited by aliens. George was an aeronautical engineer who said the aliens gave him instructions on how to create an age-defying machine. He worked on it for 17 years, never managing to complete it before he died suddenly in 1978. The instructions mysteriously vanished.
Eventually, the Integratron was turned into a chamber for sound healing. So, after our visit to Big Rock we went there for a session. If you’ve never participated in a sound healing session, crystal bowls of varying size are placed next to each other and played by circling the outside rim, which causes a sound vibration. Some say this sound vibration has special healing properties, and the environment of the Integratron is said to heighten the healing effect.
We all lay in a circular formation with our heads towards the center of the dome while the sound bounced off the walls in interesting and disorienting ways. The vibrations were as intense as sitting on top of a bass amp. You could feel it through your whole body! The session lasted about 45 minutes.
I can’t speak to the truth of any claims about the Integratron or even about sound healing. But, as a meditation trainer, I could immediately see the value in the experience. You may be familiar with the Buddhist term "impermanence." In the practice of meditation, the flow of impermanence is more than just an intellectual understanding that change happens in your life. It’s experiential, right now in this moment. We begin to discover ourselves and our world as being in a constant state of flux.
For many meditators, this is detectable in the body as a deeply pleasant tingly, wavy or bubbly flow of energy. This flow of energy is pointing us toward our true nature. When we know the flow of impermanence completely, we experience the absence of separation between ourselves and the world, even between being and non-being. We experience change as the only true constant. We recognize nothingness, pregnant with the possibility of all things, as being our true nature. This realization liberates us from the constricting, yet familiar, habit of having a limited identity. The meditative path is about recognizing our true nature over and over, with greater and greater awareness.
But for many of us, the path from our ordinary mindset to liberation can seem like a daunting journey. So, from my perspective, the true value of an experience like sound healing is its ability to heighten your awareness of impermanence. When your whole body vibrates in response to sound waves, you're sensitive to the flow of impermanence. You are experiencing yourself as porous and resonant.
A sound healing session is ceremonial, treating sound in a novel and sacred way. If your goal is liberation, the key is to use the sound waves as a path to greater insight. Rather than viewing the experience as conditional, or placing the experience outside yourself, you can treat sound healing as a unique opportunity to discover your true, formless nature. Then the sound is healing on the deepest level.
What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Your Health
Here are 9 tips to strengthen your immune system:
1. Eat alkalizing foods.
Eat more fresh, raw organic vegetables.
2. Stop eating acid-producing foods.
Cut out sugar! Stop eating wheat. Stop eating grains. Stop drinking coffee and alcohol. All of these are highly acidic.
3. Eat superfoods.
These are potent foods rich in nutrients. Have a superfood smoothie everyday. (I like The Rainbow Superfood Smoothie Mix from Bright Earth Foods.)
4. Get your daily dose of coconut oil.
It's one of the cleanest sources of fuel for your body. It is an essential fat, which means essential for life. Coconut oil anti-bacterial and anti-viral. Great in smoothies and to protect your skin.

5. Expose your skin to sunlight.
Vitamin D from the sun is crucial for immune system function. There is no substitute for natural sunlight! All you need is 15 to 20 minutes every few days as Vitamin D is stored in the body.
6. Sleep more.
Most people are sleep deprived. Sleep restores hormone and cortisol levels (and so much more!) so your body can cope with stress and heal itself. Cellular repair happens during sleep. Optimal is 8 to 10 hours.
7. Stay hydrated.
Drink 1 ounce of water for every 2 pounds of body weight each day.
8. Salt your food to taste!
You cannot stay hydrated without salt! Use only whole Himalayan Sea Salt. NEVER eat white table salt!
9. Reduce stress.
Meditate daily for 5 to 30 minutes. Breathe deep and relax your mind. Tune into your body. Feel and listen. Let your thoughts flow, without engaging with them. Notice how each thought makes your body feel inside. Then, return your attention to your breath.
1. Eat alkalizing foods.
Eat more fresh, raw organic vegetables.
2. Stop eating acid-producing foods.
Cut out sugar! Stop eating wheat. Stop eating grains. Stop drinking coffee and alcohol. All of these are highly acidic.
3. Eat superfoods.
These are potent foods rich in nutrients. Have a superfood smoothie everyday. (I like The Rainbow Superfood Smoothie Mix from Bright Earth Foods.)
4. Get your daily dose of coconut oil.
It's one of the cleanest sources of fuel for your body. It is an essential fat, which means essential for life. Coconut oil anti-bacterial and anti-viral. Great in smoothies and to protect your skin.

5. Expose your skin to sunlight.
Vitamin D from the sun is crucial for immune system function. There is no substitute for natural sunlight! All you need is 15 to 20 minutes every few days as Vitamin D is stored in the body.
6. Sleep more.
Most people are sleep deprived. Sleep restores hormone and cortisol levels (and so much more!) so your body can cope with stress and heal itself. Cellular repair happens during sleep. Optimal is 8 to 10 hours.
7. Stay hydrated.
Drink 1 ounce of water for every 2 pounds of body weight each day.
8. Salt your food to taste!
You cannot stay hydrated without salt! Use only whole Himalayan Sea Salt. NEVER eat white table salt!
9. Reduce stress.
Meditate daily for 5 to 30 minutes. Breathe deep and relax your mind. Tune into your body. Feel and listen. Let your thoughts flow, without engaging with them. Notice how each thought makes your body feel inside. Then, return your attention to your breath.
7 Ways To Stop Negativity And Boost Self-Worth
1. Practice yoga.
No surprise here, but my daily practice of yoga is a grounding force in my life that keeps me centred and calm in an otherwise often turbulent storm. Find a studio and give it a try — if you don’t fall in love immediately, try a new teacher or class.
2. Meditate.
Find an intro course in whatever style or technique of meditation you choose, then practice every day. I wake up early in order to give myself the gift of a clearer mind. I'm then able to begin each day with purpose, clarity and a level of calm that you won’t have without this centering practice.
3. Eat well.
Eat local, organic, raw, whole foods as much as possible. Feed your body with the fuel it needs for optimal health and development. Before you eat anything, ask yourself, "Is this something my body will use to build health or dis-ease? Am I craving this or do I truly feel hungry and need nourishment? Will I feel better or worse after eating this?"
4. Plan.
Set aside a bit of time each week to plan your meals, your physical activity and your self-care for the week ahead. Just as many of us create a strategic plan for our work life, the same thing needs to be applied to our entire life.
5. Journal.
Keep track of what triggers your ups and downs — keep a food journal and include anything that comes up for you physically, emotionally and mentally throughout the day. This will help you to discover possible food sensitivities, emotional triggers to eating habits and what foods help you feel truly energized.
6. Find your passion and pursue it.
Explore and discover what makes you feel purposeful and alive, then find ways to do more of it! Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day or an hour a week to begin with, if you find the time for your passions, the universe will conspire to help you find more and more time.
7. Seek out positive, like-minded people.
Like attracts like; if you're feeling crappy and focusing on the crappiness, then crappiness is what you are going to see and crappy is how you will continue to feel. I've been called a Pollyanna — and somehow this is supposed to be a bad thing?!
Ask yourself where you'll be in 75 years. Most likely dead, yes? Me too… so, between now and the inevitable then, I would much rather spend my time thinking positively and surrounding myself with positive thinkers than focusing on what seems to be not working and holding onto crap from the past that no longer exists.
Enjoy the journey with a light, playful and non-judgmental frame of mind… I look forward to seeing what else you have to add to this list!
No surprise here, but my daily practice of yoga is a grounding force in my life that keeps me centred and calm in an otherwise often turbulent storm. Find a studio and give it a try — if you don’t fall in love immediately, try a new teacher or class.
2. Meditate.
Find an intro course in whatever style or technique of meditation you choose, then practice every day. I wake up early in order to give myself the gift of a clearer mind. I'm then able to begin each day with purpose, clarity and a level of calm that you won’t have without this centering practice.
3. Eat well.
Eat local, organic, raw, whole foods as much as possible. Feed your body with the fuel it needs for optimal health and development. Before you eat anything, ask yourself, "Is this something my body will use to build health or dis-ease? Am I craving this or do I truly feel hungry and need nourishment? Will I feel better or worse after eating this?"
4. Plan.
Set aside a bit of time each week to plan your meals, your physical activity and your self-care for the week ahead. Just as many of us create a strategic plan for our work life, the same thing needs to be applied to our entire life.
5. Journal.
Keep track of what triggers your ups and downs — keep a food journal and include anything that comes up for you physically, emotionally and mentally throughout the day. This will help you to discover possible food sensitivities, emotional triggers to eating habits and what foods help you feel truly energized.
6. Find your passion and pursue it.
Explore and discover what makes you feel purposeful and alive, then find ways to do more of it! Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day or an hour a week to begin with, if you find the time for your passions, the universe will conspire to help you find more and more time.
7. Seek out positive, like-minded people.
Like attracts like; if you're feeling crappy and focusing on the crappiness, then crappiness is what you are going to see and crappy is how you will continue to feel. I've been called a Pollyanna — and somehow this is supposed to be a bad thing?!
Ask yourself where you'll be in 75 years. Most likely dead, yes? Me too… so, between now and the inevitable then, I would much rather spend my time thinking positively and surrounding myself with positive thinkers than focusing on what seems to be not working and holding onto crap from the past that no longer exists.
Enjoy the journey with a light, playful and non-judgmental frame of mind… I look forward to seeing what else you have to add to this list!
10 Instant Energy Boosts To Help You Beat Stress
1. Breathe deeply.
Sit down and close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and out of your nostrils. If you follow your breath with your attention, you can slow your thoughts and mind down. Breathing deeply brings more oxygen into your cells, flushing your brain and body with instant energy. Think of this as a simple, yet very powerful and effective form of meditation.
2. Stretch yourself happy.
Stretch your body slowly with gentleness, kindness and love. With each stretching movement you make, celebrate your body: Notice your wrists, your arms, your neck, your spine, your legs, your ankles and your knees. Bring attention to your neck by dropping your left ear towards your left shoulder, then releasing your right ear towards your right shoulder until you find space opening up in your neck and upper shoulder area. Repeat the stretch a few times then drop your chin down to your chest.
3. Treat yourself with self-massage.
When you're mentally and emotionally stressed, that stress is also being held in your physical body. It can be helpful to release this tightness using self-massage. Begin by gently massaging your body with your fingertips and hands. Typically the body parts most affected by stress are the back, shoulders, legs, arms, face, eyes and jaw. Start massaging these parts of your body to help you identify where stress lives in your body.
4. Smile a big smile.
Start with a tiny smile, then let your smile spread widely across your face. Smile the biggest smile you can! Notice how your body responds. Feel your eyes smiling and all the muscles in your face smiling. Breathe this big happy smile all the way into your center. Close your eyes and drink in this new state: the relaxed, happy and peaceful feeling. Feel yourself feeling happy, grounded and centered.
5. Give yourself a vitamin D boost.
Get a natural vitamin D injection by sitting in the sunshine for a few minutes. Feel the warmth of the sunshine, naturally dissolving away stress, tension and tightness in your body and in your life.
6. Inspire yourself.
An easy way to inspire yourself is to surround yourself with positive support, inspiration and motivation. Watch an inspiring video, read an uplifting story or listen to a motivating speech. Another idea is to reconnect with a positive person who inspires you. Notice that it's very hard (if not impossible!) to feel stressed and inspired both at the same time. So, keep yourself tuned in to your inspirational stories, videos and audios until the stress releases.
7. Play your favorite music.
When you listen to your favorite music, something magical happens. Let yourself move and sing to your favorite songs. Music has an amazing ability to help reconnect you back to yourself, allowing healing to happen easily, naturally and effortlessly. Get into a nice comfortable place, perhaps sitting or lying down, and put on your favorite music and just Imagine your stress melting away, just melting, melting, melting.
8. Do some circle work.
Slowly, with intention, roll your shoulders back and down in a slow, circular motion. Slow everything down and notice how your breath deepens naturally. Feel the spaciousness in your body expand, particularly around your shoulders, chest and heart area as you do this. Consciously imagine opening up even more into this area of your body. Bring your shoulders back into a neutral place, then repeat another five times (more if you have the time and desire). With each shoulder circle that you do, imagine your stress just releasing naturally out of your body.
9. Laugh out loud.
When you laugh out loud, good vibes are able to move through your body, flushing away old energy blocks, along with feelings of stress and frustrations. Your inner child likes nothing more than having fun, so this is a perfect excuse to watch that comedy you've been wanting to see or get together with a good friend who makes you laugh. With each time that you laugh, just imagine laughing at your stress and sending it far, far away. Let the healing vibrations of your laughter move fluidly through your body, transforming stress into pure joy, positivity and optimism.
10. Make your favorite smoothie.
And, if you’ve tried all of these ideas and are still looking for more inspiration to feel better, there's nothing like getting in the kitchen and creating a delicious and healthy smoothie. This is a surefire way to relieve stress and make yourself feel good again! Here’s one of my favorite smoothie recipes: In a high-speed blender, blend 1-2 frozen bananas, 1 1/2 cups chilled, non-dairy milk (or equivalent freshly squeezed juice/water), a generous handful of frozen berries and 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon and pure vanilla essence. Blend together and when thoroughly mixed, pour into a lush cocktail glass and decorate with fresh berries on top. Sip and enjoy ... Mmm!
It's possible to relieve stress naturally. Stress really can be an energy thief, one that robs you of your precious life force, but you don’t have to let it be so.
Connecting with your inner wisdom and strength will help you to naturally transform your stress into new energy, courage and confidence so that you can feel better instantly!
Sit down and close your eyes. Take a deep breath in and out of your nostrils. If you follow your breath with your attention, you can slow your thoughts and mind down. Breathing deeply brings more oxygen into your cells, flushing your brain and body with instant energy. Think of this as a simple, yet very powerful and effective form of meditation.
2. Stretch yourself happy.
Stretch your body slowly with gentleness, kindness and love. With each stretching movement you make, celebrate your body: Notice your wrists, your arms, your neck, your spine, your legs, your ankles and your knees. Bring attention to your neck by dropping your left ear towards your left shoulder, then releasing your right ear towards your right shoulder until you find space opening up in your neck and upper shoulder area. Repeat the stretch a few times then drop your chin down to your chest.
3. Treat yourself with self-massage.
When you're mentally and emotionally stressed, that stress is also being held in your physical body. It can be helpful to release this tightness using self-massage. Begin by gently massaging your body with your fingertips and hands. Typically the body parts most affected by stress are the back, shoulders, legs, arms, face, eyes and jaw. Start massaging these parts of your body to help you identify where stress lives in your body.
4. Smile a big smile.
Start with a tiny smile, then let your smile spread widely across your face. Smile the biggest smile you can! Notice how your body responds. Feel your eyes smiling and all the muscles in your face smiling. Breathe this big happy smile all the way into your center. Close your eyes and drink in this new state: the relaxed, happy and peaceful feeling. Feel yourself feeling happy, grounded and centered.
5. Give yourself a vitamin D boost.
Get a natural vitamin D injection by sitting in the sunshine for a few minutes. Feel the warmth of the sunshine, naturally dissolving away stress, tension and tightness in your body and in your life.
6. Inspire yourself.
An easy way to inspire yourself is to surround yourself with positive support, inspiration and motivation. Watch an inspiring video, read an uplifting story or listen to a motivating speech. Another idea is to reconnect with a positive person who inspires you. Notice that it's very hard (if not impossible!) to feel stressed and inspired both at the same time. So, keep yourself tuned in to your inspirational stories, videos and audios until the stress releases.
7. Play your favorite music.
When you listen to your favorite music, something magical happens. Let yourself move and sing to your favorite songs. Music has an amazing ability to help reconnect you back to yourself, allowing healing to happen easily, naturally and effortlessly. Get into a nice comfortable place, perhaps sitting or lying down, and put on your favorite music and just Imagine your stress melting away, just melting, melting, melting.
8. Do some circle work.
Slowly, with intention, roll your shoulders back and down in a slow, circular motion. Slow everything down and notice how your breath deepens naturally. Feel the spaciousness in your body expand, particularly around your shoulders, chest and heart area as you do this. Consciously imagine opening up even more into this area of your body. Bring your shoulders back into a neutral place, then repeat another five times (more if you have the time and desire). With each shoulder circle that you do, imagine your stress just releasing naturally out of your body.
9. Laugh out loud.
When you laugh out loud, good vibes are able to move through your body, flushing away old energy blocks, along with feelings of stress and frustrations. Your inner child likes nothing more than having fun, so this is a perfect excuse to watch that comedy you've been wanting to see or get together with a good friend who makes you laugh. With each time that you laugh, just imagine laughing at your stress and sending it far, far away. Let the healing vibrations of your laughter move fluidly through your body, transforming stress into pure joy, positivity and optimism.
10. Make your favorite smoothie.
And, if you’ve tried all of these ideas and are still looking for more inspiration to feel better, there's nothing like getting in the kitchen and creating a delicious and healthy smoothie. This is a surefire way to relieve stress and make yourself feel good again! Here’s one of my favorite smoothie recipes: In a high-speed blender, blend 1-2 frozen bananas, 1 1/2 cups chilled, non-dairy milk (or equivalent freshly squeezed juice/water), a generous handful of frozen berries and 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon and pure vanilla essence. Blend together and when thoroughly mixed, pour into a lush cocktail glass and decorate with fresh berries on top. Sip and enjoy ... Mmm!
It's possible to relieve stress naturally. Stress really can be an energy thief, one that robs you of your precious life force, but you don’t have to let it be so.
Connecting with your inner wisdom and strength will help you to naturally transform your stress into new energy, courage and confidence so that you can feel better instantly!
8 Tips To Relax And Feel Healthy
1. Make “me-time” a priority.
Carve out 30 minutes to an hour daily. Schedule it. Use this down time to take a nice hot bath with dead sea salts, essentials oils and your favorite natural bath products. Light candles and play soothing music. Give yourself a massage with coconut oil. Give yourself a facial. Finish off with a mani-pedi. This isn’t just for the ladies. Guys, you can do this too.
2. Say no to others and say yes to yourself.
Overextending yourself is the fastest way to accrue stress. Saying no doesn’t mean you aren’t helping others. It means you're saying YES to yourself and respecting your own needs. If an invitation comes up that makes you say, “meh,” skip it. If someone requests something from you that feels too heavy, not aligned with your present focus or doesn’t make you feel resourceful, pass on it. As an added bonus, this frees up time to do things you actually enjoy.
3. Allow nature to re-energize you.
Spend some time in the sun’s healing rays. Ground yourself by walking barefoot on grass or sand. Spend some time in ocean water. Get plenty of fresh air and breathe deeply. Spend some time stargazing or watching the clouds. Hug a tree. Plant a flower garden. Grow your own food.
4. Do something fun and adventurous every day.
Even with a busy schedule, you can find 30 minutes to do something fun. Be creative with your time. Create a bucket list while you’re on the toilet or in between calls at work. Begin checking off those items each day as you try new things. When time is more available, do the bigger things you wish to accomplish.
5. Ask for help.
If you need help with any of your daily tasks such as cooking or laundry, ask. If there’s a project at work that’s causing frustration, see who you can enlist to speed up the project. If you're bored or lonely, ask friends or family to spend time with you. If your back hurts, ask for a massage. It’s not that others aren’t willing to support you; you simply haven’t articulated your needs.
6. Let your plate heal you.
Plant-based food has natural healing components. Eat more plants and less meat. Use food as medicine and eat foods that reduce illness. Reduce or eliminate caffeine, sugar, gluten, alcohol, dairy, and soy, which are often the biggest culprits of diet-based stress. Swap out coffee for herbal tea. Try almond or coconut milk. Instead of sugar, try stevia, raw honey or medjool dates to sweeten.
7. Slow down.
Meditate for at least 20 minutes per day. Take several deep breaths. Close your eyes for a few minutes every hour. Resist the urge to tightly pack your schedule. Practice gentle and slow paced forms of exercise such as yoga, qigong and tai chi.
8. Reduce your time with energy vampires.
This includes people and technology. Identify people who drain your energy and distance yourself from them. Have one “unplugged” day every week with no television, phone, video games or internet. Reduce the amount of time you spend texting, emailing, working, updating your Facebook status message, and tweeting.
Happy healing!
Carve out 30 minutes to an hour daily. Schedule it. Use this down time to take a nice hot bath with dead sea salts, essentials oils and your favorite natural bath products. Light candles and play soothing music. Give yourself a massage with coconut oil. Give yourself a facial. Finish off with a mani-pedi. This isn’t just for the ladies. Guys, you can do this too.
2. Say no to others and say yes to yourself.
Overextending yourself is the fastest way to accrue stress. Saying no doesn’t mean you aren’t helping others. It means you're saying YES to yourself and respecting your own needs. If an invitation comes up that makes you say, “meh,” skip it. If someone requests something from you that feels too heavy, not aligned with your present focus or doesn’t make you feel resourceful, pass on it. As an added bonus, this frees up time to do things you actually enjoy.
3. Allow nature to re-energize you.
Spend some time in the sun’s healing rays. Ground yourself by walking barefoot on grass or sand. Spend some time in ocean water. Get plenty of fresh air and breathe deeply. Spend some time stargazing or watching the clouds. Hug a tree. Plant a flower garden. Grow your own food.
4. Do something fun and adventurous every day.
Even with a busy schedule, you can find 30 minutes to do something fun. Be creative with your time. Create a bucket list while you’re on the toilet or in between calls at work. Begin checking off those items each day as you try new things. When time is more available, do the bigger things you wish to accomplish.
5. Ask for help.
If you need help with any of your daily tasks such as cooking or laundry, ask. If there’s a project at work that’s causing frustration, see who you can enlist to speed up the project. If you're bored or lonely, ask friends or family to spend time with you. If your back hurts, ask for a massage. It’s not that others aren’t willing to support you; you simply haven’t articulated your needs.
6. Let your plate heal you.
Plant-based food has natural healing components. Eat more plants and less meat. Use food as medicine and eat foods that reduce illness. Reduce or eliminate caffeine, sugar, gluten, alcohol, dairy, and soy, which are often the biggest culprits of diet-based stress. Swap out coffee for herbal tea. Try almond or coconut milk. Instead of sugar, try stevia, raw honey or medjool dates to sweeten.
7. Slow down.
Meditate for at least 20 minutes per day. Take several deep breaths. Close your eyes for a few minutes every hour. Resist the urge to tightly pack your schedule. Practice gentle and slow paced forms of exercise such as yoga, qigong and tai chi.
8. Reduce your time with energy vampires.
This includes people and technology. Identify people who drain your energy and distance yourself from them. Have one “unplugged” day every week with no television, phone, video games or internet. Reduce the amount of time you spend texting, emailing, working, updating your Facebook status message, and tweeting.
Happy healing!
Hack Your Brain to Wake Up Early & Effortlessly Every Day with the 3 Step Pavlov Method
America’s standard wake up method sucks. Ugly air raid alarms that slap you in the face can ruin every single morning for the rest of your life. Hitting the snooze for ten minutes only puts you through the mental scarring all over again.
If you can take 45 minutes to plan out a sleep method that pleasantly wakes you up when you want then spend thirty minutes setting it up, you could make every single morning for the rest of your life incredibly better. So you should. Take a Saturday and plan it out.
A place to start is my method. I created it based on what we know about the neuroscience of habit formation and the bits of information science has discovered about circadian rhythms and biological clocks. It’s not the absolute healthiest method of controlling sleep, but it’s the best way I know to sleep effectively and still live in a 9 to 5 work hard and play hard society.
The Pavlov Waking System
Step 1: Decide a reasonable time you could wake up every single day, even on weekends.
Most people immediately shoot for 4:30 am, but make sure you’re willing to go to sleep early enough to get 8 hours of sleep at least 4-5 nights of the week. I go with 7:30am.
Step 2: Pick a no-calorie cold drink you enjoy and leave it on your nightstand every night. Iced coffee, iced tea, and water all work great.
Step 3: Start setting your alarm for the same specific time every single day. When you get up on time, get up and chug down the beverage you left by your bed. If you hit the snooze, don't chug the drink. Since you’ve been sleeping you haven’t had anything to drink, and drinking a big amount of anything when your thirsty will give you a rush of endorphins.
This pleasure rush will lay the groundwork for a subconscious habit. After doing this for a week or two, your body will learn that pleasure is synonymous with waking up at 7:30, not sleeping in. You won’t have to fight yourself to get up any more, you may even have to fight yourself to sleep in.
When you get your “I want to accomplish everything” brain and your “I want to do everything that feels good right this second with no attention to consequences” brain going in the same direction, life gets a lot easier, and often a lot more awesome.
Steroids for the Pavlov Method (make it work faster, better, and stronger)
1. Train yourself outside of your regular sleep schedule. This will speed up the process and allow you to engineer the emotions and fine points of your waking habit more intentionally.
I did this initially to reinforce my habit and leave less room for failure. When you have some spare time during the day and you feel thirsty, you can take ten minutes to reinforce your waking habit. Recreate the environment in your bedroom as much as possible to when you wake up. Put on sleep clothes, turn off lights, get in bed, and set your alarm for three minutes. Close your eyes and rest, when the alarm goes off jump out of bed mimicking the type of mood (keep it realistic) you’d like to have every morning, and chug down your drink. The more you expose yourself to the sensory triggers of the morning, repeat the muscle movements of waking up, and then produce a chemical reward, the stronger and more subconscious your habit will become. Waking up with beaming hope and energy for the day will eventually be like backing your car out of the driveway. Happiness will be on autopilot and your set default.
To boost the chemical reward, fake a beaming smile right after you chug your drink, genuinely congratulate yourself (out loud if your brave enough), and massage your own shoulders and forearms for ten seconds.
2. Make your alarm pleasant and distinct from all other sounds.
Use your cell phone and get a customizable alarm app. There are tons that are all basically the same. I use “Alarm Clock Xtreme Free” for Android. You want several key functionalities. The first is to customize the sound of your alarm. Make it a recording of your mother yelling at you about getting your prostate checked, or the sound of a koala purring, it doesn’t matter as long as you never hear it regularly throughout the day. Making it the same as your ringtone or a song you enjoy or as an alarm you use for other things throughout the day will screw up the Pavlov Method.
You may also want to look for the functionality of gradually increasing volume. I use this feature to wake me up more gently. Most full featured apps have the ability to slowly increase your volume from nothing to full blast over the course of a set period of time. I use 1 ½ minutes. This will wake me up more gently, but also not allow me to stay in bed for more than twenty seconds after I wake up.
3. Every single night, set your alarm far enough away from your bed so that your forced to get up to turn it off.
When you wake up in the morning, especially if you didn’t get enough sleep, your lizard brain is in control. Set yourself up with safeguards like these so that you can stick to your plans even if your half asleep and don’t understand the meaning of anything except crushing your alarm and going back to bed. (If I drink too much or stay up too late, I have this problem in a major way. My girlfriend has watched me get up out of bed, with only one eye half open, walk across the room to turn off my alarm, not understand how buttons work as a half asleep zombie, and just start pounding the phone against the wall until it stops, and then stumbling back into bed and going back to sleep. Set yourself up the night before like the person your waking up is not you. They definitely won’t be in the same motivated rationale mindset as you are in the moment.
4. Acknowledge that you’re not Superman and you need sleep.
Waking up at the same time everyday helps you manage your sleep much better if you do it responsibly. On nights that you only get four hours of sleep, you can still wake up on time, not screw up your work schedule or miss appointments, and then either take a nap or go to bed earlier the next night to make up for it. Perfect system. But if you start only getting four hours of sleep every night you’ll crash quickly. Don’t let your hubris allow you to believe you can still get things done without ample sleep. It’s as important to your brain in many ways as food and water. You lose intelligence, decision-making ability, mood control, and impulse control the longer your sleep deprived.
http://superhumanhappiness.blogspot.com/2013/04/hack-your-brain-to-wake-up-early.html
If you can take 45 minutes to plan out a sleep method that pleasantly wakes you up when you want then spend thirty minutes setting it up, you could make every single morning for the rest of your life incredibly better. So you should. Take a Saturday and plan it out.
A place to start is my method. I created it based on what we know about the neuroscience of habit formation and the bits of information science has discovered about circadian rhythms and biological clocks. It’s not the absolute healthiest method of controlling sleep, but it’s the best way I know to sleep effectively and still live in a 9 to 5 work hard and play hard society.
The Pavlov Waking System
Step 1: Decide a reasonable time you could wake up every single day, even on weekends.
Most people immediately shoot for 4:30 am, but make sure you’re willing to go to sleep early enough to get 8 hours of sleep at least 4-5 nights of the week. I go with 7:30am.
Step 2: Pick a no-calorie cold drink you enjoy and leave it on your nightstand every night. Iced coffee, iced tea, and water all work great.
Step 3: Start setting your alarm for the same specific time every single day. When you get up on time, get up and chug down the beverage you left by your bed. If you hit the snooze, don't chug the drink. Since you’ve been sleeping you haven’t had anything to drink, and drinking a big amount of anything when your thirsty will give you a rush of endorphins.
This pleasure rush will lay the groundwork for a subconscious habit. After doing this for a week or two, your body will learn that pleasure is synonymous with waking up at 7:30, not sleeping in. You won’t have to fight yourself to get up any more, you may even have to fight yourself to sleep in.
When you get your “I want to accomplish everything” brain and your “I want to do everything that feels good right this second with no attention to consequences” brain going in the same direction, life gets a lot easier, and often a lot more awesome.
Steroids for the Pavlov Method (make it work faster, better, and stronger)
1. Train yourself outside of your regular sleep schedule. This will speed up the process and allow you to engineer the emotions and fine points of your waking habit more intentionally.
I did this initially to reinforce my habit and leave less room for failure. When you have some spare time during the day and you feel thirsty, you can take ten minutes to reinforce your waking habit. Recreate the environment in your bedroom as much as possible to when you wake up. Put on sleep clothes, turn off lights, get in bed, and set your alarm for three minutes. Close your eyes and rest, when the alarm goes off jump out of bed mimicking the type of mood (keep it realistic) you’d like to have every morning, and chug down your drink. The more you expose yourself to the sensory triggers of the morning, repeat the muscle movements of waking up, and then produce a chemical reward, the stronger and more subconscious your habit will become. Waking up with beaming hope and energy for the day will eventually be like backing your car out of the driveway. Happiness will be on autopilot and your set default.
To boost the chemical reward, fake a beaming smile right after you chug your drink, genuinely congratulate yourself (out loud if your brave enough), and massage your own shoulders and forearms for ten seconds.
2. Make your alarm pleasant and distinct from all other sounds.
Use your cell phone and get a customizable alarm app. There are tons that are all basically the same. I use “Alarm Clock Xtreme Free” for Android. You want several key functionalities. The first is to customize the sound of your alarm. Make it a recording of your mother yelling at you about getting your prostate checked, or the sound of a koala purring, it doesn’t matter as long as you never hear it regularly throughout the day. Making it the same as your ringtone or a song you enjoy or as an alarm you use for other things throughout the day will screw up the Pavlov Method.
You may also want to look for the functionality of gradually increasing volume. I use this feature to wake me up more gently. Most full featured apps have the ability to slowly increase your volume from nothing to full blast over the course of a set period of time. I use 1 ½ minutes. This will wake me up more gently, but also not allow me to stay in bed for more than twenty seconds after I wake up.
3. Every single night, set your alarm far enough away from your bed so that your forced to get up to turn it off.
When you wake up in the morning, especially if you didn’t get enough sleep, your lizard brain is in control. Set yourself up with safeguards like these so that you can stick to your plans even if your half asleep and don’t understand the meaning of anything except crushing your alarm and going back to bed. (If I drink too much or stay up too late, I have this problem in a major way. My girlfriend has watched me get up out of bed, with only one eye half open, walk across the room to turn off my alarm, not understand how buttons work as a half asleep zombie, and just start pounding the phone against the wall until it stops, and then stumbling back into bed and going back to sleep. Set yourself up the night before like the person your waking up is not you. They definitely won’t be in the same motivated rationale mindset as you are in the moment.
4. Acknowledge that you’re not Superman and you need sleep.
Waking up at the same time everyday helps you manage your sleep much better if you do it responsibly. On nights that you only get four hours of sleep, you can still wake up on time, not screw up your work schedule or miss appointments, and then either take a nap or go to bed earlier the next night to make up for it. Perfect system. But if you start only getting four hours of sleep every night you’ll crash quickly. Don’t let your hubris allow you to believe you can still get things done without ample sleep. It’s as important to your brain in many ways as food and water. You lose intelligence, decision-making ability, mood control, and impulse control the longer your sleep deprived.
http://superhumanhappiness.blogspot.com/2013/04/hack-your-brain-to-wake-up-early.html
Involve your heart in all that you do and people won't be able to take their eyes off you.
Make a commitment right now to embody your soul – to be the most irresistible version of you. Center, feel grateful, live your truth and love your heart out, and you will, without a shadow of a doubt, become a magnet to everyone who has the privilege of basking in your light.
Make a commitment right now to embody your soul – to be the most irresistible version of you. Center, feel grateful, live your truth and love your heart out, and you will, without a shadow of a doubt, become a magnet to everyone who has the privilege of basking in your light.
How To Make Your Anxiety Work For You
I have a client-centered confession: I prefer working with anxious people.
I know, it's like saying, "I prefer my son over my daughters," but I can't help it.
I've been a psychotherapist for over a decade and that's long enough to know with whom I excel, in my clinical book.
It's not that anxiety is easy to be in the room with — on the contrary, sometimes clients are so unfocused, overwhelmed and tense that gaining control of the session is a challenge.
But here's the thing: At the end of the (stressed-out) day, anxious people get the job done.
I totally get it. I wasn't exactly raised in the most calm, cool and collected environment. Nobody taught me the importance of getting in touch with my body in order to relax. I knew the phrase, "Stop being anxious!?" didn't help, but I wasn't sure exactly why.
Maybe you can relate. But the beauty of anxiety is that there are simple actions you can do today to bring more peace, Zen and productivity to your environment.
In addition to lifestyle imperatives like getting adequate sleep, reducing caffeine, and exercising for at least 30 minutes per day, the following tips will help you make the most of your active mind:
1. Breathe to soothe your nerves.
Shallow breathing is a typical stress response. Hyperventilation can prolong anxiety and stress. Remember, it's your response to anxiety that is helpful or hurtful.
Because your senses are heightened, you can tap into body awareness more easily than some. When you recognize the nervous cues such as heart palpitations, headaches, and shortness of breath, take a time out to get your body back on track.
Abdominal breathing techniques calm the nervous system and reduce blood pressure. A few simple belly breaths can get you from anxiety to Zen:
Sit comfortably and raise your ribcage to expand your chest. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Notice your upper chest and abdomen move while you breath.
Concentrate on your breath and try to breathe in and out gently through the nose. Your upper chest and stomach should be still, allowing the diaphragm to work with your abdomen and less with your chest.
With each breath, allow any tension to slip away. Once you are breathing slowly with your abdomen, sit quietly and enjoy the sensation of physical relaxation.
2. Meditate the nervousness away.
Anxious people often live one step ahead or one step behind themselves. You may find yourself doing one thing, but thinking about what you will do later. Then later, you might worry about what you missed from before. Recognize this tendency and focus on the here-and-now.
Meditation's quietness offers a way to bring everything together again.
Practice the Just Standing Meditation:
Take a moment out of the day to pause and stand still. The arms can rest comfortably at the sides. In this moment, there's nothing else but two feet on the ground and an upright body.
Allow a natural alignment with gravity where standing is effortless. Don't think about anything; just stand. If thoughts race ahead or behind, bring them back gently to standing.
Sense the quality of this experience and let it sink in. When possible, return to the just standing mediation.
3. Let go of the fear of anxiety.
A common contributor to panic attacks is the fear of having another panic attack. Think of anxiety as a playground bully who needs you to be afraid so s/he can taunt you and make you cry.
Take the wind out of anxiety's sails by refusing to let the racing thoughts and knots in your stomach get the best of you.
4. Accept your anxiety.
Part of the struggle is when you try and control your emotions. Why not let go?
Acceptance requires little effort because you're not focused on trying to fix yourself, nor are you looking for a solution. Repeat a phrase such as, "I have a busy mind, and that's ok," to get you back on track.
The fact is we all have something. Your thing is anxiety, and you may as well put it to good use. You can't go back in time and rewire your nervous system, but you can go forward and practice techniques to bring more calm to your day.
The future begins now.
May you experience more internal peace to accept and embrace your anxiety as a strength.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-9096/how-to-make-your-anxiety-work-for-you.html
I know, it's like saying, "I prefer my son over my daughters," but I can't help it.
I've been a psychotherapist for over a decade and that's long enough to know with whom I excel, in my clinical book.
It's not that anxiety is easy to be in the room with — on the contrary, sometimes clients are so unfocused, overwhelmed and tense that gaining control of the session is a challenge.
But here's the thing: At the end of the (stressed-out) day, anxious people get the job done.
I totally get it. I wasn't exactly raised in the most calm, cool and collected environment. Nobody taught me the importance of getting in touch with my body in order to relax. I knew the phrase, "Stop being anxious!?" didn't help, but I wasn't sure exactly why.
Maybe you can relate. But the beauty of anxiety is that there are simple actions you can do today to bring more peace, Zen and productivity to your environment.
In addition to lifestyle imperatives like getting adequate sleep, reducing caffeine, and exercising for at least 30 minutes per day, the following tips will help you make the most of your active mind:
1. Breathe to soothe your nerves.
Shallow breathing is a typical stress response. Hyperventilation can prolong anxiety and stress. Remember, it's your response to anxiety that is helpful or hurtful.
Because your senses are heightened, you can tap into body awareness more easily than some. When you recognize the nervous cues such as heart palpitations, headaches, and shortness of breath, take a time out to get your body back on track.
Abdominal breathing techniques calm the nervous system and reduce blood pressure. A few simple belly breaths can get you from anxiety to Zen:
Sit comfortably and raise your ribcage to expand your chest. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Notice your upper chest and abdomen move while you breath.
Concentrate on your breath and try to breathe in and out gently through the nose. Your upper chest and stomach should be still, allowing the diaphragm to work with your abdomen and less with your chest.
With each breath, allow any tension to slip away. Once you are breathing slowly with your abdomen, sit quietly and enjoy the sensation of physical relaxation.
2. Meditate the nervousness away.
Anxious people often live one step ahead or one step behind themselves. You may find yourself doing one thing, but thinking about what you will do later. Then later, you might worry about what you missed from before. Recognize this tendency and focus on the here-and-now.
Meditation's quietness offers a way to bring everything together again.
Practice the Just Standing Meditation:
Take a moment out of the day to pause and stand still. The arms can rest comfortably at the sides. In this moment, there's nothing else but two feet on the ground and an upright body.
Allow a natural alignment with gravity where standing is effortless. Don't think about anything; just stand. If thoughts race ahead or behind, bring them back gently to standing.
Sense the quality of this experience and let it sink in. When possible, return to the just standing mediation.
3. Let go of the fear of anxiety.
A common contributor to panic attacks is the fear of having another panic attack. Think of anxiety as a playground bully who needs you to be afraid so s/he can taunt you and make you cry.
Take the wind out of anxiety's sails by refusing to let the racing thoughts and knots in your stomach get the best of you.
4. Accept your anxiety.
Part of the struggle is when you try and control your emotions. Why not let go?
Acceptance requires little effort because you're not focused on trying to fix yourself, nor are you looking for a solution. Repeat a phrase such as, "I have a busy mind, and that's ok," to get you back on track.
The fact is we all have something. Your thing is anxiety, and you may as well put it to good use. You can't go back in time and rewire your nervous system, but you can go forward and practice techniques to bring more calm to your day.
The future begins now.
May you experience more internal peace to accept and embrace your anxiety as a strength.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-9096/how-to-make-your-anxiety-work-for-you.html
My All-Time Favorite Tip For Dealing With Stress
As a Reiki practitioner and teacher, hypnotist, and reflexologist, I sometimes feel like I should have my stress levels under control by now. In fact, I’ve made huge strides in this department over the years, but recently came to some realizations about room for improvement, and wanted share my all-time favorite tip.
Here are three of those realizations:
Your body doesn’t differentiate between big stresses and little ones.
You think it would, right? When we’re stressed, our bodies are ramped up in sympathetic nervous system mode (fight-or-flight) and we respond the same whether it’s the overwhelm of an inbox full of emails that need responses asap, a huge deadline, or a hungry tiger.
The body is not hardwired to differentiate among stressors—all it knows is that it needs to react, fast.
Ideally, our body is supposed to shift out of this sympathetic mode to the parasympathetic nervous system (otherwise known as rest- and-digest mode) once the crisis is over. A body that's highly stressed forgets how to do this on its own. Which leads me to my second realization…
One stress management technique that doesn’t work: Bingeing and purging. (And no, I’m not talking about eating!)
What do I mean by bingeing and purging with stress? In other words: it’s when we stress out all day and then try to recover and make up for it at the end of the day or on the weekends by taking a yoga class, going to the gym, or getting a Reiki session or a massage, etc. OK, hold on, I’m not saying throw out your yoga mats and stop getting bodywork! These things work in conjunction with the solution I propose below.
One stress management technique that does work: Interrupt stress. Constantly.
I’ve built my wellness practice around this core principle because I believe so strongly in it. The best way to reduce stress is to find ways to interrupt it throughout the day so it doesn’t accumulate.
A good metaphor: think of stress filling a bucket throughout the day—maybe with a few drops for smaller stresses (e.g. missing the train, getting cut off in traffic) and more drops for bigger stresses (e.g. a fight with a partner or friend, a chronic illness). If you don’t empty the bucket, it overflows. Interrupting stress throughout the day is a good way to empty that bucket.
How do you interrupt stress? Personalize this for you. What stress-relief techniques do you already know that take less than a minute to do?
I love showing people self-hypnosis techniques that take less than a minute. I’m a huge fan of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and teach this to almost every client I see. (And yes, I have done it walking down the street!) Another favorite is the Heart Breathing Technique.
When you do the Heart Breathing Technique your heart and brain synchronize and get in balance. It only takes a minute, and creates positive changes in your heart rhythms, sending powerful signals to the brain that can improve how you’re feeling. It's a great technique to use when you're feeling stressed.
Try This
Here's a simplified version you can do on your own:
Drop your awareness down to your heart. Imagine the breath passing in and out of the heart. Think of someone or some place you love and imagine breathing this love into your heart. You'll notice a shift as you do this.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8940/my-all-time-favorite-tip-for-dealing-with-stress.html
Here are three of those realizations:
Your body doesn’t differentiate between big stresses and little ones.
You think it would, right? When we’re stressed, our bodies are ramped up in sympathetic nervous system mode (fight-or-flight) and we respond the same whether it’s the overwhelm of an inbox full of emails that need responses asap, a huge deadline, or a hungry tiger.
The body is not hardwired to differentiate among stressors—all it knows is that it needs to react, fast.
Ideally, our body is supposed to shift out of this sympathetic mode to the parasympathetic nervous system (otherwise known as rest- and-digest mode) once the crisis is over. A body that's highly stressed forgets how to do this on its own. Which leads me to my second realization…
One stress management technique that doesn’t work: Bingeing and purging. (And no, I’m not talking about eating!)
What do I mean by bingeing and purging with stress? In other words: it’s when we stress out all day and then try to recover and make up for it at the end of the day or on the weekends by taking a yoga class, going to the gym, or getting a Reiki session or a massage, etc. OK, hold on, I’m not saying throw out your yoga mats and stop getting bodywork! These things work in conjunction with the solution I propose below.
One stress management technique that does work: Interrupt stress. Constantly.
I’ve built my wellness practice around this core principle because I believe so strongly in it. The best way to reduce stress is to find ways to interrupt it throughout the day so it doesn’t accumulate.
A good metaphor: think of stress filling a bucket throughout the day—maybe with a few drops for smaller stresses (e.g. missing the train, getting cut off in traffic) and more drops for bigger stresses (e.g. a fight with a partner or friend, a chronic illness). If you don’t empty the bucket, it overflows. Interrupting stress throughout the day is a good way to empty that bucket.
How do you interrupt stress? Personalize this for you. What stress-relief techniques do you already know that take less than a minute to do?
I love showing people self-hypnosis techniques that take less than a minute. I’m a huge fan of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and teach this to almost every client I see. (And yes, I have done it walking down the street!) Another favorite is the Heart Breathing Technique.
When you do the Heart Breathing Technique your heart and brain synchronize and get in balance. It only takes a minute, and creates positive changes in your heart rhythms, sending powerful signals to the brain that can improve how you’re feeling. It's a great technique to use when you're feeling stressed.
Try This
Here's a simplified version you can do on your own:
Drop your awareness down to your heart. Imagine the breath passing in and out of the heart. Think of someone or some place you love and imagine breathing this love into your heart. You'll notice a shift as you do this.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8940/my-all-time-favorite-tip-for-dealing-with-stress.html
How Yoga Became My Religion
I learned to breathe through both the easy and difficult.
Here's the deal with life: everyone experiences their own form of “good” and “bad," even if those experiences aren't someone else’s “good” or “bad.” But the point of religion – and for me yoga – is to learn to remain calm and centered through both the good and bad. To breathe the same no matter what is happening to you or around you means that you remain closer to your core vibration, have more mental clarity, and have space to let your authentic emotion guide you to an answer that will be the best for you.
Saying “om” to connect to the universe is one thing, but learning that yoga is as much a meditation as it is a physical challenge is the key to unlocking your own spirituality and perhaps making yoga your religion as well.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8950/how-yoga-became-my-religion.html
Here's the deal with life: everyone experiences their own form of “good” and “bad," even if those experiences aren't someone else’s “good” or “bad.” But the point of religion – and for me yoga – is to learn to remain calm and centered through both the good and bad. To breathe the same no matter what is happening to you or around you means that you remain closer to your core vibration, have more mental clarity, and have space to let your authentic emotion guide you to an answer that will be the best for you.
Saying “om” to connect to the universe is one thing, but learning that yoga is as much a meditation as it is a physical challenge is the key to unlocking your own spirituality and perhaps making yoga your religion as well.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8950/how-yoga-became-my-religion.html
How To Cope During A Crisis
1. Talk about it.
Everyone reacts to a trauma differently, either a national one or a personal one. Talking about our experiences as witnesses with each other can help us to come to a place of presence with it. We can offer and ask for support from friends and family.
2. Give and take space.
Everyone is going through something. When you offer an ear to someone who isn’t ready, know that the offer is enough and respect people’s need for space. That includes your own. Take whatever time and space you need from crowds, from the telephone and from the news. Once a news cycle has made it’s way through and you are watching the same thing over and over, take a break.
3. Add structure: Times of trauma can be helped with structure and support. Making and sticking to a schedule in a disorienting emotional time can provide a kind of strength that we can find comforting when everything around us feels totally insane.
4. Reassure kids.
This is an especially terrifying time for children. Talk to them about safety and security, and offer affection and warmth in times of great fear. Use your relationship with children to build an honest connection in times of great crisis.
5. Exercise.
No matter what, exercise is the number one prescription for anxiety. While we have an assortment of narratives attached to our feelings, the truth is that feelings actually reside in our BODIES. Keeping our bodies engaged and raising our heart rates moves these feelings through our bodies in a healthy way. Exercise helps to keep us present and balanced, giving us an enormous advantage when dealing with trauma and stress.
6. Meditation or relaxation.
It can be so difficult to find relaxation or any sense of grounding and calm in a time of chaos. A breathing practice or a long hot bath can be just the space we need to access some release.
May we all get through this together and do the best we can to choose the healthiest options we have on hand. Reach out. Keep loving. Keep breathing. Take care.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8955/how-to-cope-during-a-crisis.html
Everyone reacts to a trauma differently, either a national one or a personal one. Talking about our experiences as witnesses with each other can help us to come to a place of presence with it. We can offer and ask for support from friends and family.
2. Give and take space.
Everyone is going through something. When you offer an ear to someone who isn’t ready, know that the offer is enough and respect people’s need for space. That includes your own. Take whatever time and space you need from crowds, from the telephone and from the news. Once a news cycle has made it’s way through and you are watching the same thing over and over, take a break.
3. Add structure: Times of trauma can be helped with structure and support. Making and sticking to a schedule in a disorienting emotional time can provide a kind of strength that we can find comforting when everything around us feels totally insane.
4. Reassure kids.
This is an especially terrifying time for children. Talk to them about safety and security, and offer affection and warmth in times of great fear. Use your relationship with children to build an honest connection in times of great crisis.
5. Exercise.
No matter what, exercise is the number one prescription for anxiety. While we have an assortment of narratives attached to our feelings, the truth is that feelings actually reside in our BODIES. Keeping our bodies engaged and raising our heart rates moves these feelings through our bodies in a healthy way. Exercise helps to keep us present and balanced, giving us an enormous advantage when dealing with trauma and stress.
6. Meditation or relaxation.
It can be so difficult to find relaxation or any sense of grounding and calm in a time of chaos. A breathing practice or a long hot bath can be just the space we need to access some release.
May we all get through this together and do the best we can to choose the healthiest options we have on hand. Reach out. Keep loving. Keep breathing. Take care.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8955/how-to-cope-during-a-crisis.html
3 Tips For Relaxation
1. Practice abdominal breathing.
Start by first lying comfortably on your back. Control and slow your breathing to an easy rhythm. Place one hand on the abdomen, close to the belly button. As you breathe, try to keep the chest wall still and pull air into the lungs by expanding the abdominal muscles. Your hand should rise and fall with each breath. Breathing should be done through the nose, not through the mouth. Inhalations and exhalations should be equal.
2. Learn to slow your breath.
Using abdominal breathing, try to extend your breath for as long as possible without holding your breath. Inspiration and expiration should be equal. On your first attempts, your inspiration and expiration will be about 5-7 seconds each, but your goal is to extend each to 15 seconds, resulting in only 2 complete breaths in one minute. Don’t strain. Make it easy and comfortable. Work up to 15 seconds slowly. You can practice this one anywhere, even at a stoplight.
3. Count to 10:
Another simple breathing exercise is sequential count-to-10. Using abdominal breathing of normal length, begin counting each breath. Count first to up to 2 and then start over, 1-2-3. Continue with 1-2-3-4, and so forth, up to the sequence 1-10. It takes more concentration than you can imagine. Completion of two sequences of 10 often results in deep relaxation with lowered pulse rate and normalized blood pressure. This is also a great exercise to improve focus.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8863/so-how-do-you-just-breathe-3-tips-for-relaxation.html
Start by first lying comfortably on your back. Control and slow your breathing to an easy rhythm. Place one hand on the abdomen, close to the belly button. As you breathe, try to keep the chest wall still and pull air into the lungs by expanding the abdominal muscles. Your hand should rise and fall with each breath. Breathing should be done through the nose, not through the mouth. Inhalations and exhalations should be equal.
2. Learn to slow your breath.
Using abdominal breathing, try to extend your breath for as long as possible without holding your breath. Inspiration and expiration should be equal. On your first attempts, your inspiration and expiration will be about 5-7 seconds each, but your goal is to extend each to 15 seconds, resulting in only 2 complete breaths in one minute. Don’t strain. Make it easy and comfortable. Work up to 15 seconds slowly. You can practice this one anywhere, even at a stoplight.
3. Count to 10:
Another simple breathing exercise is sequential count-to-10. Using abdominal breathing of normal length, begin counting each breath. Count first to up to 2 and then start over, 1-2-3. Continue with 1-2-3-4, and so forth, up to the sequence 1-10. It takes more concentration than you can imagine. Completion of two sequences of 10 often results in deep relaxation with lowered pulse rate and normalized blood pressure. This is also a great exercise to improve focus.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8863/so-how-do-you-just-breathe-3-tips-for-relaxation.html
Mind-Body Detox
Our bodies remember everything: every physical, mental, and emotional moment we have experienced.When those moments are unpleasant or overwhelming, we often fail to process them thoroughly; we gloss over, repress, or disregard and keep on trucking away. This disconnect between the mind, body, and spirit can often manifest as physical pain, chronic stress or illness, fatigue, emotional distress, and even behavioral “bad habits”.Yoga therapy and other mind-body healing practices can release and reintegrate any experiences that may be “stuck” and getting in the way of feeling balanced. With the guide of a trained practioner, you can clear out a lot old subconscious junk and make some space for new possibilities to arise.
Our bodies remember everything: every physical, mental, and emotional moment we have experienced.When those moments are unpleasant or overwhelming, we often fail to process them thoroughly; we gloss over, repress, or disregard and keep on trucking away. This disconnect between the mind, body, and spirit can often manifest as physical pain, chronic stress or illness, fatigue, emotional distress, and even behavioral “bad habits”.Yoga therapy and other mind-body healing practices can release and reintegrate any experiences that may be “stuck” and getting in the way of feeling balanced. With the guide of a trained practioner, you can clear out a lot old subconscious junk and make some space for new possibilities to arise.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Learn about love languages.
What the hell is a Love Language? Simply put, we feel loved when someone speaks our language of love. This could be expressed when your partner says, "I love you," or it could be expressed as a hug or holding hands. You may be a person who feels loved when your partner does things for you, like drawing you a bath. Maybe you feel loved simply by spending time together. It may even be that you feel the greatest love when they buy you a gift.
People feel love via:
•Words of Affirmation
•Physical Touch
•Acts of Service
•Quality Time
•Receiving Gifts
Imagine learning the language your partner receives Love and then expressing your feelings to them in their language. Don't stress if you don't quite get it right; it's the fun of learning about the person you are in love with! That's how you grow to understand your relationship, right?
Tips:
•Make it a game to work out what your partner's love language is. Test each one out and see what happens!
•Ask your partner whether they feel most loved when you use a love language.
•Do a love language test! Go to www.5lovelanguages.com and do the free test.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8752/need-to-spice-up-a-relationship-try-these-3-tips.html
What the hell is a Love Language? Simply put, we feel loved when someone speaks our language of love. This could be expressed when your partner says, "I love you," or it could be expressed as a hug or holding hands. You may be a person who feels loved when your partner does things for you, like drawing you a bath. Maybe you feel loved simply by spending time together. It may even be that you feel the greatest love when they buy you a gift.
People feel love via:
•Words of Affirmation
•Physical Touch
•Acts of Service
•Quality Time
•Receiving Gifts
Imagine learning the language your partner receives Love and then expressing your feelings to them in their language. Don't stress if you don't quite get it right; it's the fun of learning about the person you are in love with! That's how you grow to understand your relationship, right?
Tips:
•Make it a game to work out what your partner's love language is. Test each one out and see what happens!
•Ask your partner whether they feel most loved when you use a love language.
•Do a love language test! Go to www.5lovelanguages.com and do the free test.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-8752/need-to-spice-up-a-relationship-try-these-3-tips.html
**Eat, Smoke, Meditate: Why Your Brain Cares How You Cope**
Last year, a Harvard study confirmed that there’s a clear connection between mind wandering and unhappiness. Not only did the study find that if you’re awake, your mind is wandering almost half the time, it also found that this wandering is linked to a less happy state. (You can actually use the iPhone app used in the study to track your own happiness.) This is not surprising, since when your mind is wandering, it’s not generally to the sweet things in your life: More likely, it’s to thoughts like why your electric bill was so high, why your boss was rude to you today, or why your ex-husband is being so difficult.
Another study found that mind wandering is linked to activation of network of brain cells called the default mode network (DMN), which is active not when we’re doing high-level processing, but when we’re drifting about in “self-referential” thoughts
Meditation is an interesting method for increasing one’s sense of happiness because not only has it stood the test of time, but it’s also been tested quite extensively in the lab. Part of the effect of mindfulness meditation is to quiet the mind by acknowledging non-judgmentally and then relinquishing (rather than obsessing about) unhappy or stress-inducing thoughts.
New research by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD and his group at Yale University has found that experienced meditators not only report less mind wandering during meditation, but actually have markedly decreased activity in their DMN. Earlier research had shown that meditators have less activity in regions governing thoughts about the self, like the medial prefrontal cortex: Brewer says that what’s likely going on in experienced meditators is that these “‘me’ centers of the brain are being deactivated.”
They also found that when the brain’s “me” centers were activated, meditators also co-activated areas important in self-monitoring and cognitive control, which may indicate that they are on the constant lookout for “me” thoughts or mind-wandering – and when their minds do wander, they bring them back to the present moment. Even better, meditators not only did this during meditation, but when not being told to do anything in particular. This suggests that they may have formed a new default mode: one that is more present-centered (and less “me”-centered), no matter what they are doing.
So is being happy all about shifting our tendency away from focus on ourselves? Research in other areas, like neurotheology (literally the neurology of religion), suggests that there may be something to this. Andy Newberg, MD at the University of Pennsylvania has found that both in meditating monks and in praying nuns, areas of the brain important in concentration and attention were activated, while areas that govern how a person relates to the external world were deactivated. These findings may suggest that for people who practice meditation or prayer, the focus becomes less on the self as a distinct entity from the external world, and more on connection between the two. This reflects the idea discussed earlier where shifting attention from inside to outside is at least part of what quells unhappiness.
What about using other tools like cigarettes, food, or alcohol, as a method for finding pleasure and calming the mind? Don’t these things take a person outside of him or herself, and move the focus from the inner world of stressful thoughts to something outside, or “other”? Looking forward to the next hit of caffeine, nicotine, or coke might seem like a valid method of moving attention from the inside to the outside, but if you look closer, it actually intensifies the unpleasantness.
Brewer uses the example of smoking to illustrate why addiction fuels negative thoughts rather than abates them. In addition to the pleasurable associations, smoking actually creates a negative feedback loop, where you are linking stress and craving with the oh-so-good act of smoking. So whenever you experience a negative emotion, craving returns and intensifies over time, so that you are actually even less happy than before. A cigarette may quiet the mind temporarily – during the act of smoking – but in between cigarettes is where things get bad, because craving creeps in. Though we’re using craving as the example, unhappiness, self-referential thoughts, or everyday worries can all be substituted in.
Substituting a carrot stick or other behavior for your actual craving (or other form of unhappiness) is a typical method of treatment, but it doesn’t often work, says Brewer, because the feedback loop is still there. Addressing the process itself with other methods (like meditation), which allow you to ride out the craving/unhappiness by attending to it and accepting it, and then letting it go, has been more successful, because it actually breaks the cycle rather than masks it.
So if you’re dealing with unhappiness of any kind, whether it’s every day worries, or more severe depression or anxiety, the method you choose for coping matters. Finding one that solves the problem – breaking the cycle, rather than masking it – is crucial.
What type of coping method do you use?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/09/21/eat-smoke-meditate-why-your-brain-cares-how-you-cope/
Another study found that mind wandering is linked to activation of network of brain cells called the default mode network (DMN), which is active not when we’re doing high-level processing, but when we’re drifting about in “self-referential” thoughts
Meditation is an interesting method for increasing one’s sense of happiness because not only has it stood the test of time, but it’s also been tested quite extensively in the lab. Part of the effect of mindfulness meditation is to quiet the mind by acknowledging non-judgmentally and then relinquishing (rather than obsessing about) unhappy or stress-inducing thoughts.
New research by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD and his group at Yale University has found that experienced meditators not only report less mind wandering during meditation, but actually have markedly decreased activity in their DMN. Earlier research had shown that meditators have less activity in regions governing thoughts about the self, like the medial prefrontal cortex: Brewer says that what’s likely going on in experienced meditators is that these “‘me’ centers of the brain are being deactivated.”
They also found that when the brain’s “me” centers were activated, meditators also co-activated areas important in self-monitoring and cognitive control, which may indicate that they are on the constant lookout for “me” thoughts or mind-wandering – and when their minds do wander, they bring them back to the present moment. Even better, meditators not only did this during meditation, but when not being told to do anything in particular. This suggests that they may have formed a new default mode: one that is more present-centered (and less “me”-centered), no matter what they are doing.
So is being happy all about shifting our tendency away from focus on ourselves? Research in other areas, like neurotheology (literally the neurology of religion), suggests that there may be something to this. Andy Newberg, MD at the University of Pennsylvania has found that both in meditating monks and in praying nuns, areas of the brain important in concentration and attention were activated, while areas that govern how a person relates to the external world were deactivated. These findings may suggest that for people who practice meditation or prayer, the focus becomes less on the self as a distinct entity from the external world, and more on connection between the two. This reflects the idea discussed earlier where shifting attention from inside to outside is at least part of what quells unhappiness.
What about using other tools like cigarettes, food, or alcohol, as a method for finding pleasure and calming the mind? Don’t these things take a person outside of him or herself, and move the focus from the inner world of stressful thoughts to something outside, or “other”? Looking forward to the next hit of caffeine, nicotine, or coke might seem like a valid method of moving attention from the inside to the outside, but if you look closer, it actually intensifies the unpleasantness.
Brewer uses the example of smoking to illustrate why addiction fuels negative thoughts rather than abates them. In addition to the pleasurable associations, smoking actually creates a negative feedback loop, where you are linking stress and craving with the oh-so-good act of smoking. So whenever you experience a negative emotion, craving returns and intensifies over time, so that you are actually even less happy than before. A cigarette may quiet the mind temporarily – during the act of smoking – but in between cigarettes is where things get bad, because craving creeps in. Though we’re using craving as the example, unhappiness, self-referential thoughts, or everyday worries can all be substituted in.
Substituting a carrot stick or other behavior for your actual craving (or other form of unhappiness) is a typical method of treatment, but it doesn’t often work, says Brewer, because the feedback loop is still there. Addressing the process itself with other methods (like meditation), which allow you to ride out the craving/unhappiness by attending to it and accepting it, and then letting it go, has been more successful, because it actually breaks the cycle rather than masks it.
So if you’re dealing with unhappiness of any kind, whether it’s every day worries, or more severe depression or anxiety, the method you choose for coping matters. Finding one that solves the problem – breaking the cycle, rather than masking it – is crucial.
What type of coping method do you use?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/09/21/eat-smoke-meditate-why-your-brain-cares-how-you-cope/
Monday Kick-Butt Quote
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” ― Erma Bombeck
So, what are yours, Jesskah? Your dream lives in your head, yes. But, even just telling one person gives your dream power. I invite you today to tell one person about it. Just one!
So, what are yours, Jesskah? Your dream lives in your head, yes. But, even just telling one person gives your dream power. I invite you today to tell one person about it. Just one!
Joy Junkie Monday Motivation
Egged.
"If egg is broken by outside force, life ends. If broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from the inside."
~Jim Kwik
So... stop searching outside of yourself for all the answers. It's not in the job. The baby. The relationship. The whatever. It starts internally. Allow yourself to still want what you want. But know that your self-worth doesn't have to be defined by what you attain in life. What it's defined by is up to you. How 'bout it's defined by who you ARE. How you show up. Yeah... that feels better.
"If egg is broken by outside force, life ends. If broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from the inside."
~Jim Kwik
So... stop searching outside of yourself for all the answers. It's not in the job. The baby. The relationship. The whatever. It starts internally. Allow yourself to still want what you want. But know that your self-worth doesn't have to be defined by what you attain in life. What it's defined by is up to you. How 'bout it's defined by who you ARE. How you show up. Yeah... that feels better.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
4 Crucial Steps to Make Your Dream Come True By Lori Deschene
“Don’t be pushed by your problems; be led by your dreams.” ~Unknown
A little over forty-eight hours from now, I’ll be on a plane to Europe where I plan to spend three months traveling (and working) with my boyfriend.
Saturday is the first day of a dream I’ve held for well over a decade.
It was my second year in college when I did my semester abroad, staying in a castle my school owns in The Netherlands.
I was one of less than seventy students there, part of an intimate group that traveled together on three weekend trips to Paris, Amsterdam, and Koln.
Aside from those group excursions, we all had three-day weekends and two full weeks off to travel.
I visited Italy and Spain during my weeks off, but spent most weekends on site, largely due to financial constraints. Still, a weekend doing nothing at a castle in Europe is, in itself, an adventure.
After returning home, I spent the next year working 40+ hour weeks as a hostess at an upscale Boston restaurant (while also studying full-time) to pay off my charged travel expenses.
My schedule was tight and my job, not all that exciting, but the experience felt worth every uncomfortable moment in that itchy polyester blazer.
I had started seeing the world. I had gotten a chance to experience dorm life—something I didn’t know much about, being a commuter—and I did it in a castle with a mote, a tower, and historical significance.
It wasn’t the most emotionally stable time in my life, so I brought a healthy dose of drama overseas, but now, fourteen years later, what I remember most are the excitement of possibility and the pride I felt in working to provide that for myself.
And it’s those same two things that most energize me now. I’ve dreamed of this. I’ve planned for it. I’ve worked for it. And now it’s happening.
If you have a dream, something that excites you, inspires you, and maybe even keeps you up at night, I have some advice for you:
1. Believe that it’s possible.
So often we think of dreams as things most people don’t get to do—luxuries reserved for people who are privileged, wealthy, or well connected.
It’s true that some people have more advantages than others. What takes one person five years of planning and saving may require another to do little more than sell a stock and make a call.
It’s also true that the second person may have worked incredibly hard for said stock. The point is: We’re all starting from different places, for different reasons, with different levels of work required to get from A to B.
If your dream is something you’re physically incapable of doing, it may be improbable (but not impossible—we’ve come a long way with technology!) And there’s no denying that certain dreams are more difficult to achieve than others.
But most of the things we dream about are things we could do if we were willing to work toward it, align our choices to support it, and stay flexible in terms of fulfilling it.
You don’t need to believe it will be easy, or it will happen quickly, or it will look exactly like you visualized it. You just need to believe in the possibility, which really means you need to believe in yourself.
2. Take tiny steps to work toward it.
Working toward it entails aligning with the right people, disregarding discouragement from people who don’t support your growth, and taking tiny steps each day to move toward your vision.
“The right people” are those who help you, support you, encourage you, believe in you, and guide you on your way to this dream. It may include people who’ve done what you want to do, people who also want to do it, and even people who just plain find it cool.
Share your enthusiasm and progress with them. They’ll keep you excited and help you stick to your plan.
As for those people who don’t support your growth, there will be many of them, and they most likely won’t be malicious. They’ll be well-meaning people who aren’t able to do step one for themselves, and, therefore, think they’re doing you a favor by discouraging you. Politely decline that favor.
Their words may seem to keep you down, but it’s how you internalize them that holds you back.
And as for taking consistent steps, they really can be tiny. It may not seem like much to make a call, bookmark a site, or send an email, but the little things add up over time—and because they’re easily doable, each one may inspire you to do more.
3. Make choices that support it.
Much of our experience stems from our choices. Not all of it; there are some things that we can’t control.
This isn’t a suggestion that if we make all the “right” choices, everything will line up and magically work out. It’s just that we have more power than we often realize—and our power lies in our choices.
Whatever your dream, the first choice is to prioritize it. As you’re able, dedicate time to it, money to it, attention to it, love to it. Give what you can, as you can, and back that giving with belief, passion, and enthusiasm.
The other side of this coin is realizing which choices don’t support your dream—when you’re doing too much or pursuing other dreams that conflict, for example.
For me, that’s meant pushing off some other equally exciting milestones with my boyfriend, like buying a house.
4. Stay flexible about how you’ll fulfill it.
It’s tempting to be rigid about a dream—when it needs to happen, how it needs to happen, and who it needs to include. But sometimes when we’re too busy clinging to a specific vision, we miss an opportunity to experience it in different shades.
This isn’t meant to discourage you from reaching for the stars. It’s just a reminder that there are a lot more of them than you may realize, some far closer than others.
Being a singer may include a jazz club, not a fan-packed stadium. Writing a book may entail self-publishing, not a six-figure advance. And traveling may include teaching abroad or a string of budget bed-and-breakfasts—I know because this time around, I’ve booked several!
They may not be the ultimate dream, but they are, in fact, reflections of it.
And in that moment when you’re doing something inspired, passionate, and in line with your deepest intentions, you’ll feel two things that you may not have realized weren’t exclusive to one specific vision:
You’ll feel alive. And proud.
And now, two final thoughts on making dreams come true: know that no dream is better than any other, and stay open to the possibility that your dream may change.
Regarding the first part, your dream may not seem big or romantic. It doesn’t need to be. It’s an extension of your unique values and priorities, and all that matters is that it matters to you.
As for the second part, sometimes we attach to dreams simply because we’ve held them for so long. It’s the sunk-cost principle: After you’ve invested a lot of time, energy, or money, it’s hard to consider walking away.
But if your priorities have changed, you may no longer want it. Accepting this isn’t a sign of weakness or defeat. It’s growth, and the wisdom to enable it.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that your dream may have changed in a smaller way.
This weekend when I leave for Rome, my parents, my siblings, and my boyfriend’s parents will also be en route for a short family trip.
My dream wasn’t just to go back. It was to go with the people I love. And after much conceptualizing, convincing, and coordinating, it’s now coming true.
What’s your dream, do you believe you can fulfill it, and what tiny step can you take today to start (or continue) working toward it?
A little over forty-eight hours from now, I’ll be on a plane to Europe where I plan to spend three months traveling (and working) with my boyfriend.
Saturday is the first day of a dream I’ve held for well over a decade.
It was my second year in college when I did my semester abroad, staying in a castle my school owns in The Netherlands.
I was one of less than seventy students there, part of an intimate group that traveled together on three weekend trips to Paris, Amsterdam, and Koln.
Aside from those group excursions, we all had three-day weekends and two full weeks off to travel.
I visited Italy and Spain during my weeks off, but spent most weekends on site, largely due to financial constraints. Still, a weekend doing nothing at a castle in Europe is, in itself, an adventure.
After returning home, I spent the next year working 40+ hour weeks as a hostess at an upscale Boston restaurant (while also studying full-time) to pay off my charged travel expenses.
My schedule was tight and my job, not all that exciting, but the experience felt worth every uncomfortable moment in that itchy polyester blazer.
I had started seeing the world. I had gotten a chance to experience dorm life—something I didn’t know much about, being a commuter—and I did it in a castle with a mote, a tower, and historical significance.
It wasn’t the most emotionally stable time in my life, so I brought a healthy dose of drama overseas, but now, fourteen years later, what I remember most are the excitement of possibility and the pride I felt in working to provide that for myself.
And it’s those same two things that most energize me now. I’ve dreamed of this. I’ve planned for it. I’ve worked for it. And now it’s happening.
If you have a dream, something that excites you, inspires you, and maybe even keeps you up at night, I have some advice for you:
1. Believe that it’s possible.
So often we think of dreams as things most people don’t get to do—luxuries reserved for people who are privileged, wealthy, or well connected.
It’s true that some people have more advantages than others. What takes one person five years of planning and saving may require another to do little more than sell a stock and make a call.
It’s also true that the second person may have worked incredibly hard for said stock. The point is: We’re all starting from different places, for different reasons, with different levels of work required to get from A to B.
If your dream is something you’re physically incapable of doing, it may be improbable (but not impossible—we’ve come a long way with technology!) And there’s no denying that certain dreams are more difficult to achieve than others.
But most of the things we dream about are things we could do if we were willing to work toward it, align our choices to support it, and stay flexible in terms of fulfilling it.
You don’t need to believe it will be easy, or it will happen quickly, or it will look exactly like you visualized it. You just need to believe in the possibility, which really means you need to believe in yourself.
2. Take tiny steps to work toward it.
Working toward it entails aligning with the right people, disregarding discouragement from people who don’t support your growth, and taking tiny steps each day to move toward your vision.
“The right people” are those who help you, support you, encourage you, believe in you, and guide you on your way to this dream. It may include people who’ve done what you want to do, people who also want to do it, and even people who just plain find it cool.
Share your enthusiasm and progress with them. They’ll keep you excited and help you stick to your plan.
As for those people who don’t support your growth, there will be many of them, and they most likely won’t be malicious. They’ll be well-meaning people who aren’t able to do step one for themselves, and, therefore, think they’re doing you a favor by discouraging you. Politely decline that favor.
Their words may seem to keep you down, but it’s how you internalize them that holds you back.
And as for taking consistent steps, they really can be tiny. It may not seem like much to make a call, bookmark a site, or send an email, but the little things add up over time—and because they’re easily doable, each one may inspire you to do more.
3. Make choices that support it.
Much of our experience stems from our choices. Not all of it; there are some things that we can’t control.
This isn’t a suggestion that if we make all the “right” choices, everything will line up and magically work out. It’s just that we have more power than we often realize—and our power lies in our choices.
Whatever your dream, the first choice is to prioritize it. As you’re able, dedicate time to it, money to it, attention to it, love to it. Give what you can, as you can, and back that giving with belief, passion, and enthusiasm.
The other side of this coin is realizing which choices don’t support your dream—when you’re doing too much or pursuing other dreams that conflict, for example.
For me, that’s meant pushing off some other equally exciting milestones with my boyfriend, like buying a house.
4. Stay flexible about how you’ll fulfill it.
It’s tempting to be rigid about a dream—when it needs to happen, how it needs to happen, and who it needs to include. But sometimes when we’re too busy clinging to a specific vision, we miss an opportunity to experience it in different shades.
This isn’t meant to discourage you from reaching for the stars. It’s just a reminder that there are a lot more of them than you may realize, some far closer than others.
Being a singer may include a jazz club, not a fan-packed stadium. Writing a book may entail self-publishing, not a six-figure advance. And traveling may include teaching abroad or a string of budget bed-and-breakfasts—I know because this time around, I’ve booked several!
They may not be the ultimate dream, but they are, in fact, reflections of it.
And in that moment when you’re doing something inspired, passionate, and in line with your deepest intentions, you’ll feel two things that you may not have realized weren’t exclusive to one specific vision:
You’ll feel alive. And proud.
And now, two final thoughts on making dreams come true: know that no dream is better than any other, and stay open to the possibility that your dream may change.
Regarding the first part, your dream may not seem big or romantic. It doesn’t need to be. It’s an extension of your unique values and priorities, and all that matters is that it matters to you.
As for the second part, sometimes we attach to dreams simply because we’ve held them for so long. It’s the sunk-cost principle: After you’ve invested a lot of time, energy, or money, it’s hard to consider walking away.
But if your priorities have changed, you may no longer want it. Accepting this isn’t a sign of weakness or defeat. It’s growth, and the wisdom to enable it.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that your dream may have changed in a smaller way.
This weekend when I leave for Rome, my parents, my siblings, and my boyfriend’s parents will also be en route for a short family trip.
My dream wasn’t just to go back. It was to go with the people I love. And after much conceptualizing, convincing, and coordinating, it’s now coming true.
What’s your dream, do you believe you can fulfill it, and what tiny step can you take today to start (or continue) working toward it?
** thank you for speaking to me today **
Being true to yourself is what completes you.
These messages about what we're "supposed to do" create a ton of anxiety for us because they make us to believe we're doing something wrong! We've missed the boat if we don't follow the path, or if we follow it and aren't happy. Either way, we're screwed.
Luckily, this isn't the ultimate reality.
Happiness is listening to your truth and following through. It's saying "F-it!" to The Path, and deciding to make your own road. Happiness is definitely a little renegade. It's not always what others want for you; it's not always the most popular route.
But hear this: it is the ONLY route.
You can't find happiness by living someone else's dream. Including the general dream of society. Happiness is finding your own dream.
Seek your own version of happiness. Drop into your heart, listen to what it has to say, be brave, and go for it. You'll find your way. I promise.
These messages about what we're "supposed to do" create a ton of anxiety for us because they make us to believe we're doing something wrong! We've missed the boat if we don't follow the path, or if we follow it and aren't happy. Either way, we're screwed.
Luckily, this isn't the ultimate reality.
Happiness is listening to your truth and following through. It's saying "F-it!" to The Path, and deciding to make your own road. Happiness is definitely a little renegade. It's not always what others want for you; it's not always the most popular route.
But hear this: it is the ONLY route.
You can't find happiness by living someone else's dream. Including the general dream of society. Happiness is finding your own dream.
Seek your own version of happiness. Drop into your heart, listen to what it has to say, be brave, and go for it. You'll find your way. I promise.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
How to Bounce Back from a Hard Time and Come Out Stronger
“How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember, form the most personal map of our individuality.” ~Christina Baldwin
Look in the mirror. Who returns your gaze?
Is the face looking back at you a fulfilled being, or a mere shell of longing for something better?
If you would’ve asked me these questions a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.
Fresh out of college and on a mission to convince my ego of its importance, I began down a path that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would teach me more about myself than I’d ever committed to learning before.
It taught me who I am.
As I suffered through recovery from a brain tumor, the wild emotional rollercoaster of becoming a tech entrepreneur, social insecurities, and the straining of interpersonal relationships, my ego assumed the form of a beaten and battered soldier, pushed to the brink of surrender.
And that’s when the magic happened.
Three things occurred in this process. If you’re going through a hard time, these may help you come out the other side better and stronger.
1. Understand your limitations.
Before my tumor diagnosis and the ensuing melee between my thoughts and the reality of the outside world, I had never really needed to push myself. Success came easily.
Sure, I worked hard, but nothing like the excruciating mental work and rapid maturation of emotional intelligence required to successfully trudge through to the other side of those trying years.
I had no need to test my limits before I was actually challenged.
But amidst the storm, I learned that I’d just begun to push. There was still a lot of room to grow—and nothing to be afraid of.
So I decided to perform another form of slow torture on myself.
I started a company.
Eighteen months later, I was broke. Like “barely pay the rent, eat only oatmeal, and do laundry once a month” broke. Things didn’t work out financially, to say the least. But on the flip side, starting that company was the most incredible, educational thing I’ve ever done.
I spent eighteen months pushing myself to the brink of what I considered possible—doing things that I never could’ve foreseen myself doing.
Yet I did them, all in a short amount of time. At times the impossible became possible. Or it was just outside my reach. But I saw it.
It was as if the mere act of doing opened my eyes to an invisible line that I could not cross, but I could push back—further and further until eventually I was in new, uncharted territory.
We all have a line like that—our limit. It awaits acknowledgement, and it becomes an opportunity.
2. Understand your value.
Before pushing my limits, I never had a grasp on how much value I bring to the table.
For example, I’ve always been good at science—heck, I’ve got a degree in neuroscience—so I allowed myself to be grouped into a certain categorization, one that I wasn’t particularly content with.
Because I’m also an artist. With engineer tendencies. And Asperger focus. And I love business, innovation, and technology. And writing about issues as seemingly mundane as fitness by reaching in and pulling them out by the heart, Temple of Doom style.
I didn’t understand my value before because I had never taken the time to give it away. You cannot give that which you don’t have.
Taking the time to push boundaries and dive headfirst into things that scared the heck out of me—voluntarily or involuntarily—forced me to reassess just how valuable I actually am.
I can do a lot of things! And I’m sure you can too.
Many people fall into the trap of not knowing what their gifts are, or what value they can bring to others.
And they never actually take any action in terms of seeing just how much they have to give.
Sitting in a room thinking about what gifts you may have will not help anyone. Going out into the world and succeeding or failing at something will. A gift is meant to be given. How can you know your gifts until you try to give something, anything, to someone else?
Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your worth.
It is far better to overestimate yourself and fail, to take that learning experience and recalibrate your direction, than to underestimate your potential and miss out on opportunities in the process.
When I finally accepted my gifts and embraced the idea that I could use them to not only make a living, but also to create a meaningful life—a congruent existence that mattered—I was instantly free to explore.
Free to pursue. To create. To add value.
Will I continue to overreach? Fall flat on my face? Fail?
Of course; only a fool would expect not to. But at least I can rest easy knowing that I’ll never again under-reach. I’ll never regret a chance untaken.
Because heck, I’m going for it, and you should too!
3. Surrender yourself.
Life is a journey.
And when, after climbing mountains and enduring valleys, you’ve come to that point in the trail where you’re weathered and beaten, your feet pulse from the incessant pounding, and your mind screams to please stop, you realize that you’ll never reach the end of this journey alone.
That alone, you’re too insignificant to go on.
That’s when you surrender yourself.
You don’t quit, no. Instead, you acknowledge your role in the big picture. That’s when you learn your place in relation to all other things. And you can relate your purpose to the plans of that kingdom.
So when I fully absorbed the fact that I am here to serve others, to use my gifts selflessly, and in turn reap the goodwill I sow, well, I gained a purpose.
For the first time ever, life became so overwhelming that I realized I couldn’t go through it alone, like I had been. Growing up, I barely talked to anyone, including my parents. I began reaching back out to them, finally asking for help, and a strong bond resulted.
I also always focused on my gifts as something to be cherished and cultivated for my own purposes—so I could be outstanding or excellent at something. But this was leaving out a key ingredient to true success: context.
Without someone else to receive it, a gift is nothing more than a selfish toy. Something we use to amuse ourselves.
To truly find your relation to other things, you must first surrender your self. Start relying on other people for help and support. Start giving freely of your gifts. Define a religious purpose. Self-discovery is a long, arduous process, but the alternative, complacency, is fatal.
We already have far too many ill-defined shells of individuals floating through life, not making a difference, not making an impact, and, quite frankly, not even living.
Ghosts.
What we need is more warm bodies.
More passionately congruent, ambitiously purposeful individuals—people who know that what they do matters.
People who understand their value and limitations, and have not only brushed up against their dreams, but embraced them.
So from here I breathe my challenge to you: Will you realize that you matter?
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-bounce-back-from-a-hard-time-and-come-out-stronger/
Look in the mirror. Who returns your gaze?
Is the face looking back at you a fulfilled being, or a mere shell of longing for something better?
If you would’ve asked me these questions a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.
Fresh out of college and on a mission to convince my ego of its importance, I began down a path that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would teach me more about myself than I’d ever committed to learning before.
It taught me who I am.
As I suffered through recovery from a brain tumor, the wild emotional rollercoaster of becoming a tech entrepreneur, social insecurities, and the straining of interpersonal relationships, my ego assumed the form of a beaten and battered soldier, pushed to the brink of surrender.
And that’s when the magic happened.
Three things occurred in this process. If you’re going through a hard time, these may help you come out the other side better and stronger.
1. Understand your limitations.
Before my tumor diagnosis and the ensuing melee between my thoughts and the reality of the outside world, I had never really needed to push myself. Success came easily.
Sure, I worked hard, but nothing like the excruciating mental work and rapid maturation of emotional intelligence required to successfully trudge through to the other side of those trying years.
I had no need to test my limits before I was actually challenged.
But amidst the storm, I learned that I’d just begun to push. There was still a lot of room to grow—and nothing to be afraid of.
So I decided to perform another form of slow torture on myself.
I started a company.
Eighteen months later, I was broke. Like “barely pay the rent, eat only oatmeal, and do laundry once a month” broke. Things didn’t work out financially, to say the least. But on the flip side, starting that company was the most incredible, educational thing I’ve ever done.
I spent eighteen months pushing myself to the brink of what I considered possible—doing things that I never could’ve foreseen myself doing.
Yet I did them, all in a short amount of time. At times the impossible became possible. Or it was just outside my reach. But I saw it.
It was as if the mere act of doing opened my eyes to an invisible line that I could not cross, but I could push back—further and further until eventually I was in new, uncharted territory.
We all have a line like that—our limit. It awaits acknowledgement, and it becomes an opportunity.
2. Understand your value.
Before pushing my limits, I never had a grasp on how much value I bring to the table.
For example, I’ve always been good at science—heck, I’ve got a degree in neuroscience—so I allowed myself to be grouped into a certain categorization, one that I wasn’t particularly content with.
Because I’m also an artist. With engineer tendencies. And Asperger focus. And I love business, innovation, and technology. And writing about issues as seemingly mundane as fitness by reaching in and pulling them out by the heart, Temple of Doom style.
I didn’t understand my value before because I had never taken the time to give it away. You cannot give that which you don’t have.
Taking the time to push boundaries and dive headfirst into things that scared the heck out of me—voluntarily or involuntarily—forced me to reassess just how valuable I actually am.
I can do a lot of things! And I’m sure you can too.
Many people fall into the trap of not knowing what their gifts are, or what value they can bring to others.
And they never actually take any action in terms of seeing just how much they have to give.
Sitting in a room thinking about what gifts you may have will not help anyone. Going out into the world and succeeding or failing at something will. A gift is meant to be given. How can you know your gifts until you try to give something, anything, to someone else?
Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your worth.
It is far better to overestimate yourself and fail, to take that learning experience and recalibrate your direction, than to underestimate your potential and miss out on opportunities in the process.
When I finally accepted my gifts and embraced the idea that I could use them to not only make a living, but also to create a meaningful life—a congruent existence that mattered—I was instantly free to explore.
Free to pursue. To create. To add value.
Will I continue to overreach? Fall flat on my face? Fail?
Of course; only a fool would expect not to. But at least I can rest easy knowing that I’ll never again under-reach. I’ll never regret a chance untaken.
Because heck, I’m going for it, and you should too!
3. Surrender yourself.
Life is a journey.
And when, after climbing mountains and enduring valleys, you’ve come to that point in the trail where you’re weathered and beaten, your feet pulse from the incessant pounding, and your mind screams to please stop, you realize that you’ll never reach the end of this journey alone.
That alone, you’re too insignificant to go on.
That’s when you surrender yourself.
You don’t quit, no. Instead, you acknowledge your role in the big picture. That’s when you learn your place in relation to all other things. And you can relate your purpose to the plans of that kingdom.
So when I fully absorbed the fact that I am here to serve others, to use my gifts selflessly, and in turn reap the goodwill I sow, well, I gained a purpose.
For the first time ever, life became so overwhelming that I realized I couldn’t go through it alone, like I had been. Growing up, I barely talked to anyone, including my parents. I began reaching back out to them, finally asking for help, and a strong bond resulted.
I also always focused on my gifts as something to be cherished and cultivated for my own purposes—so I could be outstanding or excellent at something. But this was leaving out a key ingredient to true success: context.
Without someone else to receive it, a gift is nothing more than a selfish toy. Something we use to amuse ourselves.
To truly find your relation to other things, you must first surrender your self. Start relying on other people for help and support. Start giving freely of your gifts. Define a religious purpose. Self-discovery is a long, arduous process, but the alternative, complacency, is fatal.
We already have far too many ill-defined shells of individuals floating through life, not making a difference, not making an impact, and, quite frankly, not even living.
Ghosts.
What we need is more warm bodies.
More passionately congruent, ambitiously purposeful individuals—people who know that what they do matters.
People who understand their value and limitations, and have not only brushed up against their dreams, but embraced them.
So from here I breathe my challenge to you: Will you realize that you matter?
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-bounce-back-from-a-hard-time-and-come-out-stronger/
8 Ways to Stop Living in Crisis Mode
1. Find a neutral advocate.
Objective outside support is crucial during a crisis period. Friends and family can often recommend a life coach, therapist, or spiritual advisor with whom they have worked. If you are reluctant to talk with friends, you can use social networking tools like LinkedIn to see if someone in your network is connected to an individual who can help.
2. Practice mindfulness.
There’s value in focusing on our breath to quiet the turmoil in our minds. Look for a meditation or spiritual center that offers a basic class in meditation, mindfulness, or prayer. Even ten minutes each day in quiet reflection will improve your focus, resiliency, and peace of mind.
3. Replenish yourself.
You might be depleted from years of constant vigilance and striving. Commit to leave at the end of your workday, at least a few days a week, even if everything isn’t done. Reconnect with parts of yourself that you haven’t seen for a while by watching a favorite movie or surrounding yourself with your favorite color.
4. Try another perspective.
Most people are doing their best but are primarily caught up in the storyline of their own lives. Even thirty seconds of viewing a situation from another’s point of view can diffuse your negative inner dialogue about a person or situation.
5. Know your limits.
When you are feeling pressured or negative, check to see if you are tired, hungry, or otherwise not feeling well. Avoid pushing through these feelings and stop your activity. Return to your situation later when you are feeling more refreshed.
6. Make something.
Many of us lose touch with our creative self as work and family commitments take more of our energy. Working with our hands can effectively pull us out of a mental rut and create pride in our own abilities. Handcrafts like sewing, knitting, embroidery, as well as woodworking, cooking, pottery making, and home improvement projects are all satisfying ways to feel purposeful.
7. Look for like-minded folks.
Connect with new friends and old acquaintances that are calm, self-aware, and in touch with their own unique humanity. Finding others to share interests and a good laugh provides a balance to the more stressful aspects of life.
8. Reconnect with your love.
Create opportunities to deepen your conversations beyond the rushed and sometimes business-like communication of daily life. Increasing conversational intimacy will strengthen intimacy throughout your relationship.
After a long day, when you’re tired and have slipped back into old patterns and reactions, remember that these techniques are like muscles that get stronger each time you use them.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/let-go-and-experience-life-8-ways-to-stop-living-in-crisis-mode/
Objective outside support is crucial during a crisis period. Friends and family can often recommend a life coach, therapist, or spiritual advisor with whom they have worked. If you are reluctant to talk with friends, you can use social networking tools like LinkedIn to see if someone in your network is connected to an individual who can help.
2. Practice mindfulness.
There’s value in focusing on our breath to quiet the turmoil in our minds. Look for a meditation or spiritual center that offers a basic class in meditation, mindfulness, or prayer. Even ten minutes each day in quiet reflection will improve your focus, resiliency, and peace of mind.
3. Replenish yourself.
You might be depleted from years of constant vigilance and striving. Commit to leave at the end of your workday, at least a few days a week, even if everything isn’t done. Reconnect with parts of yourself that you haven’t seen for a while by watching a favorite movie or surrounding yourself with your favorite color.
4. Try another perspective.
Most people are doing their best but are primarily caught up in the storyline of their own lives. Even thirty seconds of viewing a situation from another’s point of view can diffuse your negative inner dialogue about a person or situation.
5. Know your limits.
When you are feeling pressured or negative, check to see if you are tired, hungry, or otherwise not feeling well. Avoid pushing through these feelings and stop your activity. Return to your situation later when you are feeling more refreshed.
6. Make something.
Many of us lose touch with our creative self as work and family commitments take more of our energy. Working with our hands can effectively pull us out of a mental rut and create pride in our own abilities. Handcrafts like sewing, knitting, embroidery, as well as woodworking, cooking, pottery making, and home improvement projects are all satisfying ways to feel purposeful.
7. Look for like-minded folks.
Connect with new friends and old acquaintances that are calm, self-aware, and in touch with their own unique humanity. Finding others to share interests and a good laugh provides a balance to the more stressful aspects of life.
8. Reconnect with your love.
Create opportunities to deepen your conversations beyond the rushed and sometimes business-like communication of daily life. Increasing conversational intimacy will strengthen intimacy throughout your relationship.
After a long day, when you’re tired and have slipped back into old patterns and reactions, remember that these techniques are like muscles that get stronger each time you use them.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/let-go-and-experience-life-8-ways-to-stop-living-in-crisis-mode/
Friday, April 26, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Why You Aren’t Living Your Dreams and What to Do About It
“Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe.” ~Mark Victor Hansen
Screech!
The car engine’s loud revving got quiet. The tires came to a screeching halt.
This towering, slender, intimidating man, with a beard like the skin of a shaved porcupine, shut the driver side door behind him and approached me with thunder.
“Is this what you’re doing?!” he demanded. “On the corner—with a girl?”
It wasn’t her fault, but his expression almost made me turn around and look at her with utter disgust.
Instead, I was too busy quieting the butterflies in my stomach, looking up everywhere into his chiseled face except his eyes. His head blocked the sun like a solar eclipse on that urban street while his eyes burned a hole in my forehead.
“You’re going to throw away the championship for this.”
Never explicitly saying out loud what I did wrong, as he put me to shame, it made the unspoken truth stab my heart like a dagger, over and over, especially because I had deep admiration for this man.
As he walked away from the sidewalk concrete and drove off, I caught a glimpse of his long hairy calves in my peripheral vision and stared into the black pavement in deep contemplation.
Yanking my arm away from the hot girl next to me, like an annoyed child from an overprotective parent, I walked up the block and took the bus home.
I was 16 when my tennis coach, this amazing man, taught me my first lesson in what it really meant to walk away from a grand vision you have in life—and the price you pay on your personal growth when doing so.
My sin: I had stopped showing up for tennis practice with two weeks left to a championship game that depended on my performance.
But why did I do that? And why do so many of us fail to do the things we want to do, resort to our old ways, and ignore our glorious vision in life?
Luck
A study by Janssen and Carton demonstrated how what scientists call the “locus of control” affects how timely we do things.
No, locus of control is not that awesome pose at yoga class! It’s our perspective on what’s really responsible for the outcome of things.
Do we take personal responsibility for things that happen in our lives, and have an inner locus of control? Or, do we blame it all on luck and circumstance, otherwise known as having an external locus of control?
They gave 42 students a homework assignment and found that students who had an inner locus of control started and returned assignments sooner, while those with an external locus of control started and returned assignments later.
We procrastinate more when we blame luck and circumstance for the results we get, and avoid taking personal responsibility for what we want to achieve.
That’s what I did.
I hung out with my new girlfriend instead of going to practice so that I could retrospectively blame her in the event that I lost the championship. I have a girlfriend now and she’s taking up my time. That’s why I’ll lose. It’s not because I didn’t take full personal responsibility. It’s her fault.
My tennis coach was trying to teach me the locus of control at the time, when the locus of other “things” controlled me more.
Fear and Limiting Beliefs
Research suggests a variety of reasons on why we fail to do things we want to do, but two stand out.
1. Fear of the unknown.
We can’t predict the outcome and the consequences it will have on our self-esteem. We do what we usually do to prevent our self-esteem from getting damaged.
2. The belief that we’ll perform better at a later date when we’re “more prepared,” which will likely never come.
This causes us to engage in indecision—on purpose, to validate our stalling.
In my case, I dated a new girl and stopped practicing to avoid feeling bad in the event that I lost the championship. I knew that I would win the girl, but wasn’t sure about the game, so I focused on the easy win.
Our human tendency to want to be right, certain, and safe can overshadow doing the hard work, breaking bad habits, and getting something we desperately want.
Old Conditioning
On Psychology Today, Ray Williams suggests that the brain is protective over its current habitual patterns. Achieving something new will require new behavior, and the brain will try to resist new patterns to protect its old conditioning.
The brain is also wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and fear.
“When fear of failure creeps into the mind…it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns,” he writes.
Before you set out on a journey to achieve something, you must pay attention to the triggers that will happen in your mind, because your mind could derail you.
The most important factor in overcoming your mind’s tendency to keep you in your comfort zone is awareness.
The more aware you are of how your brain is conditioned and the lifestyle it’s trying to protect, the better equipped you’ll be to take action.
When my brain tries to make me curl back to comfort, I whisper to it, “Stop it! We must do this! Think about what we could gain in the long run.”
Awareness
While many “gurus” might tell people to wake up earlier, set priorities, and plan better in order to work toward their dreams, these tactics alone do not always help.
Why? Because it’s our mental conditioning that’s holding us back, and that’s what we need to change. It’s our fear of the future, and often, our lack of personal responsibility that keeps us from taking action, not the failure to create to-do lists and wake up at a specified time.
Keep a vigilant watch at how your mind will try to take you back to your old ways. This is the only way to change your conditioning.
Changing your mind and spirit first, letting go of fear of outcomes, and challenging your old conditioning may revolutionize the way you live so that you own up to what you want to do—and then do it.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-you-arent-living-your-dreams-and-what-to-do-about-it/
Screech!
The car engine’s loud revving got quiet. The tires came to a screeching halt.
This towering, slender, intimidating man, with a beard like the skin of a shaved porcupine, shut the driver side door behind him and approached me with thunder.
“Is this what you’re doing?!” he demanded. “On the corner—with a girl?”
It wasn’t her fault, but his expression almost made me turn around and look at her with utter disgust.
Instead, I was too busy quieting the butterflies in my stomach, looking up everywhere into his chiseled face except his eyes. His head blocked the sun like a solar eclipse on that urban street while his eyes burned a hole in my forehead.
“You’re going to throw away the championship for this.”
Never explicitly saying out loud what I did wrong, as he put me to shame, it made the unspoken truth stab my heart like a dagger, over and over, especially because I had deep admiration for this man.
As he walked away from the sidewalk concrete and drove off, I caught a glimpse of his long hairy calves in my peripheral vision and stared into the black pavement in deep contemplation.
Yanking my arm away from the hot girl next to me, like an annoyed child from an overprotective parent, I walked up the block and took the bus home.
I was 16 when my tennis coach, this amazing man, taught me my first lesson in what it really meant to walk away from a grand vision you have in life—and the price you pay on your personal growth when doing so.
My sin: I had stopped showing up for tennis practice with two weeks left to a championship game that depended on my performance.
But why did I do that? And why do so many of us fail to do the things we want to do, resort to our old ways, and ignore our glorious vision in life?
Luck
A study by Janssen and Carton demonstrated how what scientists call the “locus of control” affects how timely we do things.
No, locus of control is not that awesome pose at yoga class! It’s our perspective on what’s really responsible for the outcome of things.
Do we take personal responsibility for things that happen in our lives, and have an inner locus of control? Or, do we blame it all on luck and circumstance, otherwise known as having an external locus of control?
They gave 42 students a homework assignment and found that students who had an inner locus of control started and returned assignments sooner, while those with an external locus of control started and returned assignments later.
We procrastinate more when we blame luck and circumstance for the results we get, and avoid taking personal responsibility for what we want to achieve.
That’s what I did.
I hung out with my new girlfriend instead of going to practice so that I could retrospectively blame her in the event that I lost the championship. I have a girlfriend now and she’s taking up my time. That’s why I’ll lose. It’s not because I didn’t take full personal responsibility. It’s her fault.
My tennis coach was trying to teach me the locus of control at the time, when the locus of other “things” controlled me more.
Fear and Limiting Beliefs
Research suggests a variety of reasons on why we fail to do things we want to do, but two stand out.
1. Fear of the unknown.
We can’t predict the outcome and the consequences it will have on our self-esteem. We do what we usually do to prevent our self-esteem from getting damaged.
2. The belief that we’ll perform better at a later date when we’re “more prepared,” which will likely never come.
This causes us to engage in indecision—on purpose, to validate our stalling.
In my case, I dated a new girl and stopped practicing to avoid feeling bad in the event that I lost the championship. I knew that I would win the girl, but wasn’t sure about the game, so I focused on the easy win.
Our human tendency to want to be right, certain, and safe can overshadow doing the hard work, breaking bad habits, and getting something we desperately want.
Old Conditioning
On Psychology Today, Ray Williams suggests that the brain is protective over its current habitual patterns. Achieving something new will require new behavior, and the brain will try to resist new patterns to protect its old conditioning.
The brain is also wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and fear.
“When fear of failure creeps into the mind…it commences a de-motivator with a desire to return to known, comfortable behavior and thought patterns,” he writes.
Before you set out on a journey to achieve something, you must pay attention to the triggers that will happen in your mind, because your mind could derail you.
The most important factor in overcoming your mind’s tendency to keep you in your comfort zone is awareness.
The more aware you are of how your brain is conditioned and the lifestyle it’s trying to protect, the better equipped you’ll be to take action.
When my brain tries to make me curl back to comfort, I whisper to it, “Stop it! We must do this! Think about what we could gain in the long run.”
Awareness
While many “gurus” might tell people to wake up earlier, set priorities, and plan better in order to work toward their dreams, these tactics alone do not always help.
Why? Because it’s our mental conditioning that’s holding us back, and that’s what we need to change. It’s our fear of the future, and often, our lack of personal responsibility that keeps us from taking action, not the failure to create to-do lists and wake up at a specified time.
Keep a vigilant watch at how your mind will try to take you back to your old ways. This is the only way to change your conditioning.
Changing your mind and spirit first, letting go of fear of outcomes, and challenging your old conditioning may revolutionize the way you live so that you own up to what you want to do—and then do it.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-you-arent-living-your-dreams-and-what-to-do-about-it/
society these days.
“This is where we are at right now, as a whole. No one is left out of the loop. We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions. A world where greed is our God and wisdom is sin, where division is key and unity is fantasy, where the ego-driven cleverness of the mind is praised, rather than the intelligence of the heart.”
~ Bill Hicks
~ Bill Hicks
What I believe College should be about
1) Making sense of your life, experiences, and history - getting to know and love yourself
2) Better understanding the world
3) Becoming prepared for the working world
3) In-depth knowledge about the focus of your degree
4) Getting a degree
5) Having confidence in your field
2) Better understanding the world
3) Becoming prepared for the working world
3) In-depth knowledge about the focus of your degree
4) Getting a degree
5) Having confidence in your field
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
To do:
1) Know when to have heart open
2) Know when to have walls up in the heart
3) Know when not to internalize
4) Know when to internalize
2) Know when to have walls up in the heart
3) Know when not to internalize
4) Know when to internalize
Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper
“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.”
On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.
There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.
Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.
I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.
I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.
Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.
Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.
Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.
Pain strengthens you.
In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.
Pain refines you.
It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.
Pain lightens the load.
Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”
Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.
Pain qualifies you.
Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.
Pain connects you.
One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.
Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.
Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.
On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.
There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.
Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.
I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.
I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.
Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.
Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.
Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.
Pain strengthens you.
In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.
Pain refines you.
It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.
Pain lightens the load.
Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”
Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.
Pain qualifies you.
Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.
Pain connects you.
One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.
Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.
Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.
What Gifts Have You Gained from the Pains of Your Past?
And interestingly, I am left with the same conclusion. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.
Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.
A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.
These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.
Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.
So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.
I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.
I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.
The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.
For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.
What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.
Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.
There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.
I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.
This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”
But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”
I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/
I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.
Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.
A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.
These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.
Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.
So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.
I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.
I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.
The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.
For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.
What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.
Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.
There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.
I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.
This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”
But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”
I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Life is what we make it. If you want to see the sun, look for it. It doesn't matter if clouds are blocking the sun. Just because its cloudy or rainy doesn't mean the sun doesn't exist beyond what meets the eye. Visualize where the sun would be and choose to see it. You can do it. Your mind is your greatest tool.
~Living Happy
~Living Happy
Use Your Heart as a Wall: Make It Stronger Instead of Shutting Down
“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown
In Your Own Defense
That sense of an empty heart is something all of us are familiar with.
When we are hurt, we immediately want to protect ourselves. We change some behavior to act as a defense mechanism for the “next time.” These mechanisms compound to build a thicker and thicker wall “protecting” our heart.
For me, it took forever. The pain began to have breaks, yet came back with the same intensity. After more forever, the breaks became longer until the pain began to be only spikes during memories. Finally, the pain began to slowly subside in intensity.
Leaving only emptiness.
What About the Emptiness?
It turns out that emptiness is atrophy. When there is no love in the heart, it is like a precisely tuned machine with nothing to produce. It just sits there and begins to rust.
So, I, as do many of us, waited for the pain to subside behind the walls built from heartbreak. All the while, my heart sat rusting.
Hmmm. Now I’ve got a rusted heart and a bunch of walls to break through.
There’s got to be a better way…and there is.
A Different Kind of Wall
It is said that there are two ways to deal with pain. One is to shut your heart off so it won’t be hurt; the other is to open it bigger to allow more love to find it.
These are odd phrases, you know? Your heart is a muscle. It has inherent strength that can be made stronger, like every other muscle, by using it.
Choose to use your heart as the wall to protect you.
Even when hurt, continue to build the heart muscle from use. Yes, it’s weakened by the sting, but it’s still capable of all the strength it had before.
A strong, loving heart is more prepared to absorb hurtful blows than weak attempts to hide it from the world. Even a broken heart continues to feed the body.
Grow your heart by learning from the pain and continuing on. Continue on as before, loving as deeply as you can. The more you love, the more strength your heart retains and builds.
Love. Learn. Love more.
Imagine your heart as a castle. When something approaches, let it in just as a castle’s drawbridge lets in its guests. Let your still loving heart’s strength protect you from emotional attacks, catapulting letdowns, and poisonous relationships, like the stone walls of those castles.
You see, walls are built stone by stone. Let your stones be loving acts both given and received, instead of compounding defense mechanisms. Give and be grateful for receiving each piece of strength to your wall, knowing there’s still a drawbridge.
Un-loving Is Impossible
I loved “her” dearly, you know? No matter how much it hurt, though, I couldn’t un-know that love. The pain subsided, but the love was just as strong—just still there.
Those that I meet now that approach my castle are greeted and welcomed with the love I learned from her. Sure, some may aim to hurt, or do so unintentionally, but they have no idea the strength they’re up against.
Love after love, my heart becomes stronger. With each loss, a new layer of muscle rebuilds over the last. With a stronger a heart, a stronger love, and a new, different, more beautiful cycle is born.
Of Nothing
So, what was the point of the defense mechanism walls? Nothing. They only served to contain, block, and otherwise stifle the beautiful strength the heart could build.
The more you compound your defenses, the more you stifle your heart. The longer you wait to love, the more your heart rusts. Conversely, the more you simply love, the stronger your heart-wall becomes and the more able you are to absorb the hurt and build again.
Crazy In Love
The pain still comes, soft and far between. My eyes still tear. But now, it’s for the memory of that time we shared, the gratitude for the biggest lesson, for the little piece of my heart that tells her it’s okay when she’s staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night.
Crazy, isn’t it? I left a piece of my heart with her. My heart shouldn’t be as strong as it was, let alone stronger.
But it is, because the heart, like any other muscle, gets strong with use.
Build your heart. Love with every opportunity. Be readily prepared to open that left ventricle when the charming knight or beautiful princess arrives.
Or even the pizza guy.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/use-your-heart-as-a-wall-make-it-stronger-instead-of-shutting-down/
3 Ways to Feel Good When Things Seem Bad
“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron
Here are 3 insights that helped during those “you’ve got to be freaking kidding me” times:
1. There’s a healing side to pain.
When a challenging event happens—a break-up, a sickness, or having your leopard pink car seat covers stolen—the human mind, being what it is, thinks this is why you feel badly.
You hear it all the time: “Oh, you poor thing for losing your car seat covers.” Or, “She’s such a rat to do this to you.”
The truth is, it’s your perception of the situation that makes you feel bad. This means that no matter how crumpled-in and dysfunctional you feel, you’re not. It’s just your thoughts that are a bit wonky. And actually, your thoughts on this were always wonky; the situation just exposed them.
Take my situation. Everything I’d based my self-esteem on was gone: work, grades, friends, boyfriend, the ability to sit up straight for more than half an hour.
I thought I was upset because I was sick, when the truth is, my situation had triggered every negative belief I had about myself. Things like:
“I’m only lovable if people like me.” “I’m only worthwhile if I’m busy doing things.”
I so strongly identified with all the things I did that when you took them away, I felt miserable. I’d been given the opportunity to see what I really thought about myself.
Someone could have told me “you’re worthy and lovable,” and I might have intellectually known this, but I didn’t feel it.
What I began to realize was that behind the pain, over time, my faulty beliefs were shifting. My sense of self-worth was beginning to heal by itself.
The pain is the faulty belief system being ripped out by its roots. You feel like you’re losing something dear. The trick is to understand that it’s just a faulty belief going away. And beneath it lays a pocket of self-love that you haven’t previously been able to access.
As poet Kahlil Gibran says: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
2. Pain fades when we let go of expectations.
Most of us live in an intellectual way. We make plans for our life and then we try and follow them through. We think we know the best way for our life to proceed.
The truth is, a large part of our pain is caused by an attachment to our expectations.
For example, one of the reasons I felt so bone achingly sorry for myself was because I had a plan for how to have a good life—and it didn’t include Dr. Quinn.
I thought success came from going to college, getting a good job, and having a family. No one said anything about spending all this time in bed. But actually, it was the best thing for me.
To illustrate you how powerful your expectations are, try this exercise:
First, imagine you’re me.
Now, imagine you’d grown up thinking the best way to have an awesome life was to spend five years in bed cross-stitching cushions. That it was something everyone did.
“Oh yeah,” you’d say to your friend, “I’m just off to do my five-years-in-bed years.”
And they’d be like, “Oh cool. I hear you learn such amazing things, like how to feel self-assured, and you get clarity on your life direction, and you start to feel that inner calm we’re always reading about. “
Seriously.
Now think about your current situation and imagine that for your whole life, you believed that what is happening to you was going to happen. And not only that, but it’s the absolute best thing to happen.
So much of the pain we feel is because we can’t let go of how we think life should look. Your mind thinks it knows the best way for your life to work out—but simply put, it doesn’t; the plan it had was flawed in the first place.
Your mind can only see your life as it’s showing up right now. There is a bigger picture.
3. You’re doing fine.
Learning about personal awareness and healing can be such a helpful thing, but remember, there’s no right or wrong way to feel.
Feeling grateful and “being positive” and so on is perfectly fine, and sure, it can be helpful, but if you don’t feel like it all the time, don’t worry about it.
Instead of attaching a judgment to how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, try just noticing it.
I believe the act of simply noticing and accepting how things are, right now—no matter how messy and dysfunctional they seem—is the most powerful, healing thing you can do.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/3-ways-to-feel-good-when-things-seem-bad/
Here are 3 insights that helped during those “you’ve got to be freaking kidding me” times:
1. There’s a healing side to pain.
When a challenging event happens—a break-up, a sickness, or having your leopard pink car seat covers stolen—the human mind, being what it is, thinks this is why you feel badly.
You hear it all the time: “Oh, you poor thing for losing your car seat covers.” Or, “She’s such a rat to do this to you.”
The truth is, it’s your perception of the situation that makes you feel bad. This means that no matter how crumpled-in and dysfunctional you feel, you’re not. It’s just your thoughts that are a bit wonky. And actually, your thoughts on this were always wonky; the situation just exposed them.
Take my situation. Everything I’d based my self-esteem on was gone: work, grades, friends, boyfriend, the ability to sit up straight for more than half an hour.
I thought I was upset because I was sick, when the truth is, my situation had triggered every negative belief I had about myself. Things like:
“I’m only lovable if people like me.” “I’m only worthwhile if I’m busy doing things.”
I so strongly identified with all the things I did that when you took them away, I felt miserable. I’d been given the opportunity to see what I really thought about myself.
Someone could have told me “you’re worthy and lovable,” and I might have intellectually known this, but I didn’t feel it.
What I began to realize was that behind the pain, over time, my faulty beliefs were shifting. My sense of self-worth was beginning to heal by itself.
The pain is the faulty belief system being ripped out by its roots. You feel like you’re losing something dear. The trick is to understand that it’s just a faulty belief going away. And beneath it lays a pocket of self-love that you haven’t previously been able to access.
As poet Kahlil Gibran says: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
2. Pain fades when we let go of expectations.
Most of us live in an intellectual way. We make plans for our life and then we try and follow them through. We think we know the best way for our life to proceed.
The truth is, a large part of our pain is caused by an attachment to our expectations.
For example, one of the reasons I felt so bone achingly sorry for myself was because I had a plan for how to have a good life—and it didn’t include Dr. Quinn.
I thought success came from going to college, getting a good job, and having a family. No one said anything about spending all this time in bed. But actually, it was the best thing for me.
To illustrate you how powerful your expectations are, try this exercise:
First, imagine you’re me.
Now, imagine you’d grown up thinking the best way to have an awesome life was to spend five years in bed cross-stitching cushions. That it was something everyone did.
“Oh yeah,” you’d say to your friend, “I’m just off to do my five-years-in-bed years.”
And they’d be like, “Oh cool. I hear you learn such amazing things, like how to feel self-assured, and you get clarity on your life direction, and you start to feel that inner calm we’re always reading about. “
Seriously.
Now think about your current situation and imagine that for your whole life, you believed that what is happening to you was going to happen. And not only that, but it’s the absolute best thing to happen.
So much of the pain we feel is because we can’t let go of how we think life should look. Your mind thinks it knows the best way for your life to work out—but simply put, it doesn’t; the plan it had was flawed in the first place.
Your mind can only see your life as it’s showing up right now. There is a bigger picture.
3. You’re doing fine.
Learning about personal awareness and healing can be such a helpful thing, but remember, there’s no right or wrong way to feel.
Feeling grateful and “being positive” and so on is perfectly fine, and sure, it can be helpful, but if you don’t feel like it all the time, don’t worry about it.
Instead of attaching a judgment to how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, try just noticing it.
I believe the act of simply noticing and accepting how things are, right now—no matter how messy and dysfunctional they seem—is the most powerful, healing thing you can do.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/3-ways-to-feel-good-when-things-seem-bad/
Monday, April 22, 2013
4/22/13
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
It's so easy to fall into the "whoa-is-me" trap. Look at all this shit happening TO me. Successful people aren't those who never have hardship. Successful people see that hardship as an obstacle... something to surmount... not something that defines who they are. You circumstances will come and go... but who do you want to BE in the process? Rain or shine, shitty or amazing... who do you consciously choose to BE?
-Joy Junkie
~ George Bernard Shaw
It's so easy to fall into the "whoa-is-me" trap. Look at all this shit happening TO me. Successful people aren't those who never have hardship. Successful people see that hardship as an obstacle... something to surmount... not something that defines who they are. You circumstances will come and go... but who do you want to BE in the process? Rain or shine, shitty or amazing... who do you consciously choose to BE?
-Joy Junkie
4/22/13
"Decide that wherever you are is the right place to be." -Mama Gena
Happy, crappy, or anywhere in between. You hold the power of decision here, Jessica.
Happy, crappy, or anywhere in between. You hold the power of decision here, Jessica.
Motivate Yourself Without Pushing Yourself: Tips for Self-Compassion
“Our sorrows and wounds are only healed when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha
My tips to create more self-compassion include:
1. Be aware if you are being hard on yourself and recognize where this shows up for you.
It can be subtle. Look at all life areas, including your health, finances, and relationships, at work and in your family.
2. Challenge your beliefs and fears.
Do you have a belief that if you are gentle with yourself you will somehow not be motivated enough or not all you can be? Recognize that this doesn’t have to be true. Also, notice if you feel that being compassionate toward yourself will lead you to feel self-indulgent or selfish.
3. Treat yourself kindly, without judgment.
Picture your best friend and how you treat them. Now apply this same love and kindness to yourself. You should be your own best friend after all!
4. Be mindful of when you slip out of compassion and start to treat yourself harshly again.
Forgive yourself and understand that you are human and this is part of the human game.
5. Feel the pain of others around you.
Listen to their stories and feel what it must be like to be them. This will make you automatically feel compassion and be softer on yourself as you connect with their common humanity.
We all have issues and problems that cause us pain, but suffering through them is optional. Self-compassion provides another option.
My tips to create more self-compassion include:
1. Be aware if you are being hard on yourself and recognize where this shows up for you.
It can be subtle. Look at all life areas, including your health, finances, and relationships, at work and in your family.
2. Challenge your beliefs and fears.
Do you have a belief that if you are gentle with yourself you will somehow not be motivated enough or not all you can be? Recognize that this doesn’t have to be true. Also, notice if you feel that being compassionate toward yourself will lead you to feel self-indulgent or selfish.
3. Treat yourself kindly, without judgment.
Picture your best friend and how you treat them. Now apply this same love and kindness to yourself. You should be your own best friend after all!
4. Be mindful of when you slip out of compassion and start to treat yourself harshly again.
Forgive yourself and understand that you are human and this is part of the human game.
5. Feel the pain of others around you.
Listen to their stories and feel what it must be like to be them. This will make you automatically feel compassion and be softer on yourself as you connect with their common humanity.
We all have issues and problems that cause us pain, but suffering through them is optional. Self-compassion provides another option.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
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