Recently I added a new book to my current rotation, which immediately introduced me to the Law of Attraction, which I am not convinced isn’t a bunch of phooey (no, it’s not The Secret). Basically, the Law of Attraction is centered around the belief that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results. For example, if you believe and envision yourself as fat and lazy, chances are that’s exactly what you are going to be no matter how much you wish otherwise. Your thoughts attract the reality. It really makes sense. It is safe to say that there is great power in a positive attitude and we have all witnessed how detrimental a negative one can be. Where I am skeptical is the notion that I will find money or win a trip to Hawaii simply for believing and envisioning that I will. But I digress…

As I was reading about the Law of Attraction, it was suggested I look at photos of my loved ones and direct positive thoughts and energy toward them, too, which I thought was a very lovely idea. It was like giving a little, free gift, not unlike saying a prayer for someone, and it made me feel good. But rather than ask that they be watched over and blessed, I envisioned them feeling the warmth of the sun on their face, peace in their hearts, hassle-free days; things like that. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt.

A few days later, I was having a really off day. My mind was busy. I felt anxious and depressed and everything seemed unstable. I wanted comfort and distraction; to dive headfirst into the pitfalls of my bad habits and embrace my bed and sleep for twelve hours, or get a bunch of junk food and zone out to movies, numbing all the pain I was feeling in the process.

The realization of how far I have come that I was actually aware of how I was feeling shed enough light through the crack that I knew I couldn’t give in and pull the shades on the sun shining through. I practiced meditation to abate my unquiet mind and pacing body. It was a futile attempt. With nothing to focus on and being completely unable to focus on nothing, I went to a coffee shop and wrote.

The very next day, switching gears, I went back to another book I have been reading. On the very page that my bookmark casually leaned against as if waiting patiently for my return, I learned about Metta Meditation. Metta means loving-kindness, and the goal is to help you reverse your programming so you can open your heart, rather than close it. It involves four steps:

1. Send loving-kindness to yourself
2. Send loving-kindness to someone you love
3. Send loving-kindness to someone you are neutral about, like a colleague or acquaintance
4. Send loving-kindness to someone you dislike or feel resentment toward

The similarities between the two concepts couldn’t be denied and I realized the universe was speaking to me. Furthermore, I also just found a solution to my shoddy meditation practice. Rather than try to focus on nothing, I would focus all my attention on sending loving-kindness to myself and others while practicing letting go and positive thinking.

But I also sensed something was coming. The universe was preparing me.

The very next day, someone I strongly dislike really ticked me off. I was irritated and wanted to confront her although I knew it would only exacerbate things. Anger can eat at me for some time and I hated thinking such negative thoughts. Again, I was failing to be compassionate and gentle – I was closing my heart. After a short while, I remembered Metta Meditation and smiled. Thanks, universe. It was a foreign, yet incredible thing to sit and think loving-kind thoughts to someone I really can’t stand. It wasn’t even as hard as I thought it would be, because the universe had sent me another little gift that morning by means of the below photo in my Pinterest feed:

How true that is.

If only that was the end to putting knowledge into practice for one week.

Most unfortunately, over the past three days, I have quite unexpectedly felt profound disappointment and great hurt at the hands of two people I love. I have felt agonizing helplessness, as well as great sadness. With no opportunity to communicate or resolve, there was literally nothing I could say or do except feel my feelings, try to process them and allow them to close down my heart until they diminished and I would be able to let them go. That was until I remembered that I had been prepared for this. I knew what I had to do, and it involved opening my heart.

First, I sent myself loving-kindness. Then, one at a time, I sent loving-kindness to the people who hurt me. It wasn’t elaborate; there was no incense or music. These things are unnecessary and procuring them can be a form of procrastination. Right where you are this very minute you can shut the door if you’re alone, or go in the bathroom if you have to, take a deep breath, lower your eyes, and begin sending loving-kindness. Not sure what to say? Say this: I send loving-kindness to ________. My wish is that he/she experiences only love and happiness in his/her life.

I still feel sadness and disappointment, but rather than anger toward these people, I feel love. I do not wish bad things because they hurt me. I do not feel the need to convey my feelings to them nor do I desire an apology. I will simply continue to send loving-kindness, just like I did from my bed this morning when I woke up.

Being hurt, yet feeling love is incredible. Next time you are angry at yourself or someone else, I do hope you will try it. Whatever you wish to call it, you are opening your heart, and it is a wonderful thing.

Peace.

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Heatherash Amara says in “Warrior Goddess Training” that we commit to who we think we should be, rather than committing to meeting ourselves where we are. That is absolutely true in my case. As I have explained, a lot of my suffering has stemmed from my attachment to my desires and expectations; who I want myself and others to be, and finding myself often terribly disappointed. I know I’m not alone in this.

On one particularly tough day several months ago, all I wanted was a long hot soak in the tub. That’s what women do after a long, hard day, right? It sounded so relaxing. I imagined myself in my pristine tub, soaking in bubbles up to my neck, breathing in the scent of pumpkin spice, a soft gentle smile on my face as I sighed the nonsense of the day away, completely at peace.

When I got home, I headed for the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. Since I wasn’t expecting company, the tub definitely needed cleaning before I soaked naked inside of it. Looking down at the grime, I remembered the awkward truth that I barely even fit in my tub. I don’t even own bubble bath!

My entire image was a bullshit creation of who I thought I should be. I wouldn’t be a peaceful woman soaking elegantly in bubbles with a smile. I would just be an angry woman squeezed into a tub with a face full of discomfort and disappointment.

So instead, I got changed, put on my sneakers, and ran as fast as I could for as long as I could. And then the stresses of the day fell away and I felt better. That’s who I was that day. Learning who you are on any given day takes trial and error. I know I don’t want to be the angry person in the tub, so I’ll continue to practice being flexible and remembering that who I want to be might not be who I actually am at the time. Let’s all commit to meeting ourselves where we are.

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One moment I was making a sandwich, the next I struggled to catch my breath. Heart pounding, I gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles white against the cream laminate, vision blurred by fat tears that streaked my fresh eye make-up. It was a random morning and I was getting ready for work. Preparing my lunch, anxiety struck. Thankfully, I’ve since learned how to mange my anxiety.

Anxiety wasn’t an unusual thing. Anxiety attacks have brought me to my knees, seemingly out of nowhere. All I could manage was to wrap my arms around myself, rock gently and cry until it passed, whispering to myself, “sshhh, it’s okay.”

Understanding Why I Was So Anxious

The thing is though, my anxiety attacks didn’t come out of nowhere. I know now that they were invited by my stress and imagination; created by my overactive mind that worried incessantly about the future.

That morning in my kitchen, a thought burst through the chaos in my brain, loud and clear.

All you have to do right now is make a sandwich. Just make the sandwich, sweetie.

I took a deep breath, looked down at my partially made sandwich and continued its assembly, letting my tears do the seasoning as I grew calmer. I made my way back to the present.

Managing My Anxiety

I haven’t had an anxiety attack since I made that sandwich. Not because my problems have gone away – far from it. But because I know that no life decisions need to be made at 7 am on a weekday; that the conversations I have in my head never turn out in real life the way I imagine them; because I cannot tell the future; because I am learning to trust that things happen when they are meant to; that they have a way of working out in the end, for better or for worse and no amount of mental agony on my part is going to change that.

Life happens one thing at a time.

My dear friend, Kathy shared with me that one morning she was helping her three year-old go potty when he got very upset and sobbed that he didn’t want to go to school. “Right now,” she said, “we’re just going potty. That’s all.” He immediately calmed down.

I still worry and feel anxious sometimes. But now I have the tools to not let it get out of hand to the point that I am not in control of my body. I catch myself getting worked up and I say to myself, “Just make the sandwich.”

One thing at a time. Whether you’re making a sandwich, or just going potty, that is all that requires your attention at that moment.

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“You seem happier since you’ve been writing again.”

That’s what a friend said to me recently. I smiled and thought about it for a moment. Yes, I did feel happier.

So much of this journey is to do with me learning me and coming to a place of self-understanding. I believe writing has helped me to feel happier because I am finally creating again.

To create something is to bring it into existence as a result of one’s own actions. There is a wonderful sense of accomplishment and joy in that; in expressing feeling and urge and for those emotions to result in a tangible creation that formerly did not exist. In some ways it is like giving birth. Be it writing, crafts, art, a classic car, even meal planning; you nurture something with your attention and ideas and imagination. It takes shape then joins the world and you’ve gotten it out of you.

For far too long my life was filled with “have to” projects and not “want to” projects. The freedom to write and create what I want, when I want is something I have no intention of taking for granted ever again. I have felt like a child in a candy store that went years without the taste of sweetness on their tongue. What else have I been missing, I wondered. What else did I love that I had forgotten?

As soon as I decided to make a happiness jar for 2015, I knew it just had to be decoupaged. A child-like excitement coursed through me. Collage! I had forgotten how much I used to absolutely love sitting with a stack of magazines cutting out letters and pictures and phrases and arranging them in beautiful collages. Doing exactly that was my New Year’s Day gift to myself and I relished the experience of flipping through magazines, searching for the right letters and photos that resonated with me, cutting and trimming and spelling out words.

Me, Cooper, and my collaged & decoupaged 2015 Happiness Jar. My very first entry for 1/1/15: “Creating this jar.”

I have always been creative. This is who I am. I am certain that the suppression of that nature contributed to my frustrations the past two years. And now that I know this, I am learning to say “no” more often to things that will limit my time to be creative. It is a wonderful thing.

Is there something you used to love doing and just haven’t made the time for? Scrapbooking, maybe? Baking? Writing poetry or water coloring? Dig out that easel from the basement or take a trip to the crafts store and allow yourself to be inspired again. Creating is a wonderful thing.

The Holidays are a tough time of year for most due to the high level of expectations and inevitable disappointments. It is almost impossible not to compare, with all the television commercials and catalogs assaulting us with images of what Christmas is supposed to look like. Roaring fires, bountiful buffets gorgeously garnished, caroling families, perfect gifts in perfect wrappings, lovers cuddling by the tree watching the snow fall, hot beverages dusted with freshly shaven chocolate in their hands.

This is an illusion carefully crafted to set the bar so high that we will spend great sums of money in order to try to achieve it. Even if the catalog Christmas does exist in some homes, the perfection is more than likely only on the surface. Forget to use a coaster and the mom of the house is sneaking away, unhinging her gritted teeth only long enough to slug some blackberry brandy and pop a Xanax.

For most of us, Christmas is chaos. It’s a race to get everything decorated, purchased, wrapped, mailed, and baked in time. The day itself involves obligations, lots of traveling, and enduring people you really rather not spend such a special day with. It is smiling at sarcastic comments clearly stemming from passive aggression, eating food that isn’t very good, adorning your best fake smile and exclaiming that yes, you really do like the [hideous] sweater.

The calmest and happiest are those who don’t sweat it. They take joy in their favorite traditions and rituals, and monitor their expectations. They seek out the good stuff, like a good chat in the corner with that awesome cousin they haven’t seen in a year, they know to bring their own craft beer, and they smile and endure the bullshit, because they know the secret of Christmas. And that is: Christmas is just a day. It is a day to make the best of, and to practice patience and love and compassion in the spirit of the season.

Over the years, I have lowered my expectations of Christmas to all-time lows and somehow still found myself being profoundly disappointed. I think the disappointment was worse because my expectations were so low that I couldn’t get my head around why they weren’t met. It was incredibly saddening and left me with a gauntlet of emotions to work my way through.

When my negative emotions I feel about the holiday season were being triggered back in October, I realized something had to change. And that ‘something’ was the only thing I actually had any control over. Me.

In a moment of wonderful clarity, I decided to expect nothing good or bad this Christmas and to relinquish all attachments regarding what I think Christmas should be. Like a snowy winter night, calm came over me.

With zero expectations, I cannot be disappointed on Christmas. Neither am I bracing myself for negativity and poor behavior. If I feel sad about it, I am living in the past. If I am worried about it, I am living in the future. My vision of this Christmas is only a blank canvas that will be painted as each moment unfolds.

And in the spirit of compassion, I think it’s important we all remember that everyone is going through something on Christmas; missing a deceased loved one, wishing they were somewhere else or with someone else, wondering if their estranged parent or sibling is thinking about them. I know that my mom tries so hard every year to make up for past years that she literally falls apart under the pressure and carries so much guilt that she can barely function come Christmas. This will be the year that her daughter will not be disappointed in her. I will not give her, or anyone else, the gift of additional suffering. And I will not be accepting that gift from anyone, either.

And if you need a few extra glasses of nog or another bottle of wine to keep a smile on your face, go for it! I hear calories don’t count on Christmas.

Thank you for reading.I wish you a very Merry Christmas, full of peace in your heart.

All of our bodies have a weight at which it is most comfortable. This is called a set-point weight. We may not be comfortable at that weight and want to gain or lose some, but our body has adapted to life at that weight so it wants to stay there. It likes what it knows. The same goes for happiness. We all have a baseline level of happiness that fluctuates depending on our experiences. Eventually though, that level of happiness finds its way back to where it is most comfortable. To change either of these baselines takes consistency, discipline, and patience.

There are weeks when I exercise nearly every day, eat nothing but the right foods in the right quantities, and lose weight. Then I go out to dinner and splurge a little and like a rubber band, my weight stretches right back to its set-point weight, to the ounce. I am so used to seeing this particular number digitally displayed on the scale when I weigh myself on Friday mornings that I find myself shouting, “of course!” I’m not above giving it a swift kick either.

Happiness, on the other hand, is determined by one’s state of mind more than by external events. Pleasures like sex or enjoying a double bacon cheeseburger, or successes like promotions or completing a project, result in temporary feelings of elation, just like tragedies send us into periods of depression. But these emotions are outliers and sooner or later we all return to our overall baseline level of happiness; where we are most comfortable.

Psychologists call this process adaptation, and it is at work in our lives every day. An argument with a friend may send us into a foul mood, and a special gift may put us in a great mood, but within a few days, our spirits rebound up or down to our customary level of happiness. Research shows that this is the case even for lottery winners or terminal cancer patients, after an appropriate adjustment period.

Changing our weight is hard, sometimes really hard, but we know that it can be done. According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, there are steps we can take to work with the “mind factor” to enhance our feelings of happiness. This is because our moment-to-moment happiness is largely determined by our outlook. Whether we are feeling happy or unhappy has little to do with our absolute conditions, but rather it is a function of how we perceive our situation and how satisfied we are with what we have.

Our feelings of contentment are strongly influenced by our tendency to compare. We compare our current situations to past situations, we compare ourselves to others, our current salary to what we think having a larger one would be like. Constant comparison with those who we think are smarter, thinner, or wealthier breeds envy, frustration and unhappiness. But we can use this principle in a positive way and increase our feeling of life satisfaction by comparing ourselves to those who are less fortunate than us and by reflecting on all the things we have.

Using my weight as an example, I do compare myself to women who are thinner and feel envious over the clothes they can wear that I can’t. Using comparison in a positive way, I can alleviate my frustrations and envy while working toward my weight loss goals by remembering that all over the world there are people who are starving. My weight indicates that I have access to an abundance of food, and the means to purchase it. That is a blessing.

Like changing your set point weight, changing your baseline level of happiness requires going out of your comfort zone, literally. It requires a change in thinking. An end to thinking about what we don’t have, and the start of focusing on what we do; an end to thinking about those who have more than us, and the start of thinking of those who have less.

This change in thinking will result in many positives, including an overall greater happiness.

Heatherash Amara writes that we all carry the seeds of self-sabotage within our minds in the form of two negative voices; siblings of the same parents, fear and self-rejection. One voice is the judge. The other is the victim.

The voice of the judge looks for what you or others aren’t doing right. My judge is a loud-mouth, the dominant voice in my head. The volume stems from the incredibly high level of my expectations, which branch from my strong attachments to how I think things should be. My judge doesn’t have high standards; it has impossible standards, of myself and others. It is this dominant voice that has kept me in a near-constant cycle of comparison, disappointment and frustration – with myself and others.

The victim, on the other hand, looks for validation, which it never gets. The victim’s voice is the broken record repeating you-can’t-do-it-you’re-not-enough. The victim looks to an internal or external judge to prove its unworthiness. For example, my judge never fails to do just that when speaking to my mom’s victim, her dominant voice. When listening to the voice of the victim, you spend your days feeling powerless and hopeless.

Have you ever known someone who experienced a trauma and blames it for the depression they suffer as a result? Have you ever thought they should get over it or were seeking attention? This is a very simple example of your judge, and the person’s victim at work. Chances are, you have also been on the reverse of this in some way. We all judge. We have all been judged.

The soothing voice of compassion is what can quiet these two bickering children. We need to stop viewing ourselves as victims; broken, misunderstood, not loveable and not good enough. We need to stop judging ourselves and others. The judge and victim are siblings because remember, when we are judging others, it is because we see something in them that we don’t like in ourselves.

I have believed for a very long time that heaven may be comprised of many levels, and that we make our way up through those levels the more compassionate we become. To do so, we are reincarnated over and over until we experience everything: being male, female, animal, poor, wealthy, straight, homosexual, murdered, the murderer, raped, the rapist, and so on and so on. Only through these experiences can we be truly compassionate to all living beings on earth, never judge, and finally rest in peace in the highest level of heaven.

Whether that sounds crazy to you or not, we do know that empathy and compassion lead to patience and understanding. Rather than judging, we can seek out the best in one another, which somehow seems to bring out the best in ourselves.

And if finding the best in someone seems damn near impossible, we can shift our judgment to discernment. Judgment results in messes caused by blame and rejection. Discernment does not stem from emotion, but from clarity. So using the example of my mother, rather than judging her shortcomings and acting out in frustration and ultimately making her feel even more powerless and hopeless, I can try to quiet the voice of my judge and choose instead to remember that the voice of her victim is speaking. This would be an act of discernment and compassion. And maybe over time, the voice of her victim won’t speak so loudly, at least when she is speaking to me.

“The root of suffering is attachment.” – The Buddha

My mom has been depressed and ill most of my life. The little girl that spent her childhood waiting and hoping and expecting her mom to be something more still lives inside of me, and she is still waiting and hoping.

Heatherash Amara explains in “Warrior Goddess Training” that whenever we have an expectation for how people, things, or events should be, that we are forming an attachment. “The stronger the expectation, the deeper the attachment, and the more we suffer when it is not met…” (xxiii). My attachment to who I want my mom to be has led to a lifetime of disappointment. I am only beginning to understand that I want her to be someone that she might just be incapable of being.

The fault is all mine. I have been unable to accept her for who she is, limitations and all.

Detachment, gentleness and compassion on my part is the silver bullet to put an end to my constant disappointment and resentments. But it’s so damn hard, because the little girl inside of me still just wants a mom, and the adult in me struggles so much to understand and be patient with her.

I have to learn to release this expectation of what I want my mom to be, this vision that I am so attached to, for both our sakes, and accept her for who she is. I have the tools and the knowledge, but the little girl inside of me is still longing for a mother…

For most of my life I have taken my suffering out on others, mainly the ones who love me most, like my mother for a very long time, and then my husband, as well. We hurt the people closest to us; they are the only ones who tend to take it. I didn’t really know this until this past year. Only recently have I become aware just how much I have made others suffer for my emotional turmoil.

Just because I became aware of this doesn’t mean I stopped doing it, regrettably. However, I did become more aware of the aftermath; it was exhausting. The hurt feelings, the damaging words, the guilt and shame, followed by regret. I was feeling more and more like a monster, and not at all like the gentle woman that I longed to be. But I couldn’t seem to help myself. That was until I read the following sentence by Byron Katie:

Your suffering is never caused by the person you’re blaming.

I let that sit with me for a moment, then cried tears of shame, regret and sadness for how I had made my husband and mother suffer for so many things that they were in no way responsible for. I realized I had been blaming or taking out my pain on them for 90% of my suffering, when in reality they were responsible for far less.

The statement stayed with me and I spent more time thinking about the true causes of my suffering, which is a difficult thing to do. Then one day I was really upset; I was feeling great sadness and fear and confusion and I couldn’t stop crying. My husband wrapped his arms around me and this would usually be the moment I would lash out at him. Even in that moment, I pinpointed it; I felt the heat rise within me and tasted the tinge of insults on my tongue. But instead of blaming and attacking him; instead of projecting my pain onto him, I let him hold me and I cried into his chest and let my body wrack with sobs.

When my sobs subsided and I felt all cried out and tired, I sat down on my bed. I had a private moment and I realized that for perhaps the very first time I had owned my suffering.

I wasn’t left sitting there feeling the need to apologize for hurtful words, or feeling guilty, or left with an angry husband in the other room. There was no hurricane of rage and therefore no aftermath. I owned my pain, and I actually felt better having owned it and cried it out. It was a tremendous empowering, enlightening moment.

But change is slow, and these things take practice. It is amazing when you can see that practice pay off little by little. Already, my world is a more peaceful place at times, since I am learning to keep the storm contained within and not blame others for my suffering.

Welcome to my journey of self-discovery and healing.

After years of keeping busy, living in a near constant state of fight or flight, operating on cortisol and adrenaline, things have slowed down. I finally graduated college in May, the book I spent a year co-editing was published in late September, and I do not foresee another work promotion anytime soon, amongst other stressful and time-consuming things.

After years of obligations and stresses, I took inventory of my life. A lot has suffered the past several years, and I see now it was because I was suffering. I thought I was overwhelmed and exhausted. That’s what everyone told me, anyway, along with “you take on too much.” There was so much going on, so I blamed my anger, frustration and fatigue on all of it.

Once the deadlines, suffocating workload and other variables were eliminated, I felt worse. Without the constant stream of distractions, I contemplated how I was feeling. I questioned why. This was a difficult thing to do. Unbeknownst to me, I started on a journey as soon as I looked inward. It was a startling and heartbreaking realization when I came to the conclusion that I had been profoundly unhappy for a very long time.

As all of my attention and energy was elsewhere these past few years, something was happening to me. A hard, cold, rough shell grew around me, comprised of a multitude of layers of pain and suffering. It protected me in the sense that I didn’t really feel anything. All my emotions lay deep inside of me. But I realize now that I used this shell not in defense, but in attack, hiding behind a strong exterior and launching all my explosive anger and pain outwardly.

Inside, I was completely vulnerable; an emotional mess of complicated feelings.

Outside, I was a hard-working professional and student; a commencement speaker with a 3.98 GPA.

Inside, I was growing weaker day by day under the weight of my sorrow.

Outside, I was taking pleasure in the joys of life and my achievements only on an extrinsic level.

Inside I suffered, as if there was a dead, rotted seed deep within me.

This realization resulted in the creation of a deep chasm within me. There was no dead, rotted seed within me. I was the dead, rotted seed within a nut of my own making. This fracture inside of me was so intense that it created the first minuscule crack in my exterior.

Once I cracked the nut of my suffering, the tiniest sliver of light permeated my soul and it shined on the realization that I didn’t like myself or my behavior, and that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I began to think hard about who that person was that I wanted to become. This journey became not a quest for self-fulfillment, but of self-discovery. Because we can’t be anything until we first understand who we are. And we cannot even begin to understand who we are until we crack the nut on our suffering. I have been sad and angry for a long time. I am only beginning to comprehend what the sources of these emotions are, and discover and learn the tools to manage them.

In the book “The Art of Happiness,” Howard Cutler quotes His Holiness The Dalai Lama who believes that our underlying or fundamental nature is gentleness. If human ability and intelligence develops in an unbalanced way without being properly counterbalanced with compassion, it can become destructive and can lead to disaster. Aggression and negativity is not innate; but influenced by a variety of biological, social, situational and environmental factors.

I am not rotten at my core. My conflicts are a result of those factors and my human intellect – misuse of an unbalanced intellect and imaginative faculty. Knowing this brings me a tremendous sense of relief and hope; hope that I may be able to find my way back to my underlying human nature, that I may someday be the person I want to be.

This is my journey. A journey of self-understanding as I continue to crack the nut on my suffering and work toward reclaiming my innate state of happiness; returning to my basic nature; which is gentle and compassionate.

I invite you to share this journey with me as I continue to learn and use my newly discovered tools to grow and work to end my suffering.