5 Meditation “Mistakes” That Increase Our Suffering

“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

So many of us come to meditation through our suffering. Nearly everyone who has come to walk the spiritual path can spin a tale of sorrow, frustration, and often devastation. Through our life struggles and difficulties, we become conditioned into habitual patternings of mind that seem to offer us no escape, and often turn to meditation to find relief.

I always say that anxiety was my first spiritual teacher and it began teaching me at a very young age.

I spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to control my experience in order to limit my suffering. I’ve now come to see that the illusion of control is the root of anxiety, as our stresses are exacerbated by our inability to accept “not knowing” what will happen in life.

In my early forties life handed me a situation that would eventually overpower my ability to control life. Over a seven-year span, my son Mark struggled mightily, suffered deeply, and fought gallantly to try to fend off addiction and mental illness.

Lost within my own mental struggles, I attempted to meet his difficulties through my habitual need to control life. Anyone who has ever had a loved one suffering with addiction knows that we’re never in control of the situation. Nevertheless, I foolishly pressed forward and selfishly tried to control Mark’s experience.

I can remember the day Mark was diagnosed with schizophrenia. My inner controller had an “I can’t do this anymore” moment and finally came to the stark realization that there was no way for me to control his situation.

Something shifted within me, and I felt the “controller” release its grasp on me. There was nothing to control. There was just life moving, and life was just meant to be lived as it comes.

Tragically Mark lost his fight against addiction in 2017. I’ve come to see that Mark was my spiritual guru the entire time, teaching me about compassion, how to love unconditionally, and how to let go of the need to control life.

Mark opened the doorway to meditation for me by teaching my how to let go. He opened up my heart to accepting what is, as it is and taught me how to start shedding my mind’s old habitual patterns of conditioning.

I’ve been formally “sitting” for about four years, and although I feel very good about my practice now, I’ve made my fair share of “mistakes” along the way.

One of the biggest errors I made was trying to use meditation as a means to an end. I wanted to feel better and thought if I sat “well” enough then I would find peace. I initially failed to realize that this mind that was trying so hard to find relief from suffering was the same mind that had created my suffering.

I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels trying to find the right formula to quiet my mind. I thought if I concentrated hard enough, if I focused on the breath the right way, if I limited external noises and distractions… then my mind would quiet down and I would find truth. The mind was the one constantly looking for the right formula, the right path, the right insight.

It took me nearly two years to finally realize that no matter what the mind decided, if the method came from the mind, it would actually prevent me from relaxing into the silence beyond the mind.

This was just one of the many mistakes I’ve made. Putting too much emphasis on how long I sat in meditation, trying to recreate blissful feelings, trying to determine if I was enlightened or not, all contributed to perpetuating my monkey mind.

If you’ve had similar frustrations with your practice, don’t be discouraged. Don’t stop. There’s no wrong way to meditate, because all “mistakes” only serve to exacerbate our suffering, and therefore increase our earnestness to come back to try meditation again. Life is very good at putting in fail-safes against our own ineptness.

If you’ve started meditation and stopped, started and stopped, let years go by, started again and stopped, you’re in good company. Everyone gets frustrated and quits a few times before developing a good practice. In actuality, one must stop “attempting” to meditate before one actually begins to awaken to what meditation is all about.

So let’s go into a bit more detail on these mistakes we want to avoid…

1. Trying to quiet the mind

As I touched on earlier, the number one reason we sit in meditation is we desperately want to silence the inane chatter within our mind. Our monkey mind is quite relentless. It’s like the Terminator: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are…” spiritually awakened.

So why shouldn’t we try to quiet the mind?

The best way to answer this is to ask: Who is trying to silence the mind? Take your time and examine this. What you will find is that your mind is trying to quiet the mind. How could that which is the root cause of the problem also be the source of the solution? It can’t. It won’t listen to our desire to be freed. It’s only interested in furthering its continuity and increasing its own significance.

Our mind wanting to quiet our mind creates additional inner conflict. This inner conflict provides more fuel to the mind, and so our attempt to meditate and quiet the mind has only led to more struggles and frustration.

In order to circumvent this dilemma, we must “do nothing.” Just sit and observe whatever comes and goes. Patient, passive, non-reactive observation is your superpower. Whatever thoughts arise, let them come. Whatever thoughts go, let them go.

It might take a bit of time to settle into observer mode, but once we realize it’s possible to sit and observe the mind from a point of neutral awareness, the mind’s reign of terror is coming near to an end.

2. Sitting too long too soon

I think many of us sit down in meditation envisioning a transformation into a Zen Master on day one. We’ve heard that an hour of meditation is a really good meditation, so we decide to sit for an hour.

Within the first minute we’ve relived every embarrassing event in our life from preschool up until this current moment. We sit and wrestle with our thoughts like a chihuahua puppy tied to a firehose on full blast. We’re tossed around like a rag doll in this mental octagon by our own mind. Beaten to a bloody emotional pulp. Our will is broken…

We quit after five minutes and vow to never sit in meditation ever again.

Don’t do this to yourself. Start slow! Meditation is no different than lifting weights. If you try to do too much too soon, you will only end up hurting yourself.

Do one or two minutes for the first week or two. Add a minute or two every week after that and try to slowly work your way up to at least twenty minutes per day.

This is not a competition. You don’t get any awards for persevering through harsh conditions or adversity. Enjoy the journey. Take your time.

3. Quitting too soon

So we’ve worked our way up to twenty minutes a day. We’ve sat for twenty minutes for two days now and we feel… nothing. Everything feels the same. The mind is still wandering. The monkey mind is still in charge, still kicking us around, and we’re getting frustrated.

The mind is whispering that this is all a really big waste of time and you’ve fallen for it again! How long are you going to listen to that spiritual guru who is unemployed and has no money? Of course he is at peace. He doesn’t ever do anything…

Don’t give into the mind.

Meditation is like walking in fog. We don’t notice much of anything going on, and then we realize that we are soaking wet. If the mind begins to pressure us about sitting without seeing any results, then just observe those thoughts as well.

There is no set time frame for the mind to settle down, but if you are patient you will begin to experience “gaps” of silence in the mind. These small gaps are a good indication that the mind is getting tired of not getting a reaction out of us. So, be patient. Relax. Take up the attitude that you will sit until your last breath, and having no results is not going to deter you.

4. Trying to recreate meditative phenomena

The bliss! Give me some more of that bliss. Can never have enough bliss! Anyone who has come to experience the feeling of euphoric bliss in meditation has definitely tried to recreate it. If you say that you haven’t, you’re lying.

Anything that occurs within the meditation is phenomena. Bliss, lights, colors, auras, sounds, images, dreams, out-of-body experiences, clairvoyance, receiving messages, full-body orgasmic euphoria, alien contact, angels, numbers, time travel, space travel… It’s all just phenomena and it has no real significance in the grand scheme of awakening.

If you become infatuated with phenomena, this means that the mind has become infatuated with phenomena. The point of meditation is to relax into the awareness of life moving. Awareness of life moving includes awareness of mind moving. If we “fall into” the role of mind trying to recreate our meditative experience, then we’ve most likely fallen out of the neutral witness role.

A good rule to remember is to relax and allow whatever comes to come and allow whatever goes to go. Nothing needs to be created. Nothing needs to be removed. Just relax with what is.

5. Holding any expectations about your practice

It’s natural to begin a meditative practice because we want to feel better. Our mind is giving us trouble. Our relationships never work out. We are overworked, underpaid, and complete balls of stress. We are grieving over loss. We are tired. We sometimes just want to give up. It’s all too much.

Again, who wants to feel better? Who is holding this expectation that meditation is the cure all that we’ve been waiting for? The mind! The mind is interested in feeling better, so again, we are creating more inner conflict. The mind doesn’t like the way life is moving, it wants to make life better. We are playing tug of war with ourselves…

Any expectation of getting something out of meditation delays getting anything from meditation. If you don’t want anything, then you will get something. That something is peace of mind.

Peace of mind arises with the deepening of awareness of what is. When we sit in meditation without expectation, the mind’s inner conflict dissolves. There’s no fuel added to the mind when we don’t expect to get anything. Relaxation without expectation is how the mind begins to quiet down.

—

So, to summarize, even though we may make some or all of these five meditation mistakes, life will continue to use our suffering as a way to bring us back to our spiritual practice and back to meditation.

Don’t try to quiet your mind. Don’t try too much too soon. Don’t quit too soon. Don’t try to recreate a pleasurable meditation session. Don’t hold any expectations.

Just sit. Relax and be with what is.

About William Howells

William Howells is an avid writer and Spiritual advisor based in New Jersey who uses what he has learned through his own Spiritual Awakening to help transform the lives of others. He is extremely passionate about his pointings of the Heart and has a deep desire to help Spiritual Seekers Awaken to the Truth of this Existence. Follow his Twitter account https://twitter.com/TGinormous for daily quotes and inspiration.

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If You Think You’re Not Good Enough to Pursue Your Passion

“I think something people need to understand is that others disliking you is not a bad thing. When you are embodying your true authentic self, it creates fear in people who still operate from the ego. If you want to grow, heal, and evolve you have to let go of wanting to be liked.” ~Audrey Kitching

Since I was a child, I have always felt a huge need to express myself and let my inspiration flow. I was a creative and playful kid, with a vivid imagination and an enormous passion for writing.

As a teenager, I became interested in music and wanted to be a drummer. It was a spontaneous decision—my intuition suggested to me that, behind those rhythmic patterns that fascinated me, there was something more.

Something meaningful, spiritual, something that was calling me so strongly that my soul wanted to resonate with it.

Knowing that, I asked my parents to take drum lessons, but they eventually convinced me that I was dreaming too big. I began to think that it was too late to start, I would never be good at it, and that playing the drums was something that only privileged people, perhaps with a big soundproofed room, and the right amount of talent, could do.

I gave up on my aspiration and decided to follow my father’s suggestion to take guitar lessons, which would have been more practical and easier to afford.

I thought it could be an opportunity to learn how to play the songs I loved the most, but after a few months of early excitement, my interest started to decrease because I spent most of the time doing arpeggios and playing sheet music without feeling it.

After almost two years taking classes, I realized something astonishingly simple, yet powerful: I was following a path someone else had chosen for me! How could this have led me to joy and fulfillment?

Immediately after that, I gave up on the lessons. Since then, I have played sporadically, mostly alone. Thanks to video tutorials and the right amount of effort, I’ve managed to get a good technique and to play my favorite music. But, several times, a thought snuck into my mind.

You’re not good at music.

The cheerful kid had been replaced by an insecure teenager trapped in the painful process of growing up. I was pulled down by what the others were thinking about me.

For some years I was verbally bullied and mocked from peers and schoolmates, for no apparent reason—I was just trying to be myself. This created emotional and psychological pain and made me believe that I was different and didn’t fit with what others expected me to be.

I went through dark times and repressed my creativity, thinking that I couldn’t give birth to anything valuable or worth being enjoyed. I subconsciously believed that I would have never been as good as others.

With the support of the right people, and through a long and painful introspective journey, I eventually realized that what made me repress myself were sneaky and dangerous limiting thoughts.

More than ten years later, I had the first glimpse of what I could have become if I’d connected to my innermost passions.

After moving to live in Spain I met some guys who owned a rehearsal room. When I first entered the room, my instinct immediately led me to the drum kit. Before that night, I had played the drums only once, but the idea was still fascinating to me.

Soon after, a thought popped up. When I was twelve I really wanted to become a drummer, what became of that dream? After many years spent denying my passion, it was time to become the architect of my own life, as I knew that I’m the only one responsible for my happiness.

A few weeks later, I was able to find a teacher and start taking lessons. The first time I stepped into the classroom I was a bit nervous because an unpleasant dialogue was taking place in my mind.

“What if he notices that I don’t have a musical ear?”

“My level of Spanish is not that high. How could I understand him?”

“Will I ever be able to continue my lessons, or will I be kicked out on the first day because I am hopeless?”

As soon as I started playing, my fears simply dissolved. My heart felt light and joyful. When the lesson was over and the teacher smiled at me, the negative rush of thoughts was replaced by shining and optimistic affirmations.

“I may not have a good musical ear, but I have an amazing sense of rhythm.”

“I could understand everything he told me; my Spanish is good, after all.”

“I am not that bad, and I’m sure the next time will be better.”

That happened four years ago. Since then, I’ve never stopped drumming. Here are some of the most meaningful lessons I have learned in that time.

Talent is not something we are born with.

Better said, talent is something that very few people are born with.

My timid attempts at learning guitar made me believe that I should give up on music because it wasn’t my thing.

Similarly, when I decided to take drums lessons, I thought I could never improve, because it was too late. I was told that all the good drummers started learning when they were children, that becoming good at drums takes way too long to start when you’re an adult.

Time proved to me that my opinions were wrong. I spent the initial months practicing however I could, doing my homework on pillows, in the office, during my lunch breaks. A few months later, I was rewarded with one of the most amazing gifts I ever received—a friend of mine asked me to join a band.

Like many times in my life, the negative self-talk was about to tell me I was not talented enough to play with other people.

It was time to stop that destructive inner dialogue that had been pulling me down for a long time.

I was mature enough to understand that no one was restraining me but myself: I was creating boundaries that didn’t exist.

I joined the band for about five months and had a great time, mostly because, for the first time in my life, I was playing with other people.

Thanks to this opportunity, the idea of being bad at music was replaced by a genuine sense of self-confidence.

Learning doesn’t require us to be a specific age; we just have to be in the right mindset. The world is full of sprightly and passionate people who realize they have a huge enthusiasm for something later in life and want to enjoy this passion. They know they’d have regrets if they didn’t, so they just start doing it.

We tend to think that if someone is successful, it’s because they were born with a unique talent that we will be never able to develop.

We try to escape introspection, avoid analyzing our resistances, and justify our lack of attempts and passive behavior by thinking that we’re not as lucky as the successful people we admire. That might look like self-defense, but that’s actually self-sabotage. We have to be brave enough to understand and overcome whatever is pulling us down.

My negative self-talk was keeping me away from trying something new: I’m not talented. I will never learn how to play because I’m not able to recognize and sing the notes. I am not creative; I can’t make music.

Those limiting thoughts, coming from my past experience of being verbally abused, had been with me for a very long time, and I was almost convinced that they were true. I never considered the possibility that they were just thoughts.

At one point, I felt exhausted, my energy was drained, and I could not move forward.

I started observing my inner dialogue as if I was a spectator and my thoughts were part of a movie, together with sounds and people that surrounded me. I imagined them coming and going, like trains in a station. I finally came to realize that they didn’t define me—my thoughts are part of me, that’s for sure, but they don’t define me. The difference is huge.

Thanks to consistent practice, I became aware that my mind was tricking me. I was not less creative than others; I had just believed it was true.

To live in the present moment is to really live.

For many years, I struggled with anxiety and overthinking. My mind constantly wandered somewhere between my painful past and a scary future. Then I developed yoga and mindfulness practices, which helped me significantly. For the first time in my life, I was able to connect to my emotions and feel a peaceful relaxation of body and mind.

But it was when I first experienced a strong sense of aliveness and a deep awareness of the present moment that I realized that my whole life I’d been living on autopilot.

The first time this happened was during a jam session with my band. I was sweating, my hands were shaking, and my legs were tired, but my whole body was flooded with endorphins.

I was feeling good, my mind was focused and not involved in that hectic monkey dance that kept it busy all the time. My movements were fluid, gentle, and meaningful. And, the most surprising thing of all, I was not thinking any thoughts!

For a moment that could have lasted ten seconds, a minute, or even more, I felt eternal. I was not aware of time. I was simply living.

Sometimes, this wonderful sensation comes in unexpected ways—I never thought I would achieve this enlightened state in the middle of a jam session, with loud noise all around me!

This happened because my whole self wanted to be absorbed into the process of doing something it really resonated with.

If you are feeling lost or purposeless, take some time to talk gently to yourself. Listen to your soul and explore your most genuine passions and desires so you can connect with them, start doing what you love, and experience this enlightened sensation.

To me, this feeling is one of the things that make life worth living.

Follow your intuition, and this will lead you to happiness.

When I stepped into that rehearsal room, sat behind the drum kit, and started to play, I felt like I had been playing all my life.

My desire had been pawing behind the surface for a long time. When I finally became conscious of it, I couldn’t wait a second more. I had to give myself permission to be creative.

Playing music increased my self-confidence. I stopped comparing myself to others and began to get to know and love myself. We can’t express ourselves if we don’t know who we are. My raised inspiration led me to write more regularly, and with a higher purpose. My light started to shine so brightly and inspire the people around me.

Being a drummer made me cherish everything done with love, passion, and effort.

We all are unique, and the way to fully express ourselves is to open our hearts and souls and let creativity flow through our bodies.  

It could be through music, poetry, painting… anything. Don’t limit your creative process. Expand yourself. Express yourself.

If there’s something you have postponed for a long time, don’t wait any longer. Don’t let the fear of failing and judgment define you. Negative self-talk is an ego-driven process. Don’t trust it. Dig down below the surface, listen to your primal instinct, and practice positive thinking.

Be receptive, stay open to new experiences, and never say no to the opportunities that may develop your potential, as you never know which one could lead to an important turning point in your life.

Trust your intuition and follow your heart, and everything will flow in the direction of your happiness.

About Claudia Pecoraro

Claudia: traveler, blogger, lifelong learner. She dedicates her life and efforts to constantly inspire and motivate others by sharing positive news, inspirational stories, and little wisdom quotes. You can find her on Facebook or on her personal blog, where she combines her passion for writing with the things she loves the most: music, working with children, self-growth, spirituality.

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What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard

“It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” ~Marcus Aurelius

In 2016 I was about to graduate with high honors from a top university. I had mastered Mandarin. Eleven months before graduation, I had secured a job from a reputable accounting firm. I was in a stable relationship with one of the most gorgeous girls on campus. Life doesn’t get any better than this for an international student 1o,000 miles away from home.

Slowly, things began to change. Three months before graduation all three members of my family fell gravely ill. When I wasn’t awake talking on the phone with them, I was awake worrying myself into insomnia, anxiety, and stress.

Two months before my graduation, the recruiter who’d agreed to hire me wasn’t returning my calls nor replying to my emails. I started to entertain loads of self-deprecating thoughts. Little by little, I was descending into oblivion.

Finally, the big day had arrived. It was my graduation day. Pretending that everything was fine, I put on a big smile and went to the ceremony. Needless to say, there was a fire of frustration and anxiety raging inside. Soon I wouldn’t be able to conceal it any longer.

The atmosphere of the auditorium was filled with laughter and excitement from relatives, teachers, and students. Deservedly so. That day marked the end of countless sleepless nights, embarrassments, exams, and reports. To everyone, it was like the end of a forty-hour marathon in the Himalayas.

Paradoxically, the smile, chatter, and exhilaration of my classmates and their loved ones only added to my woes. I became more and more anxious with each minute that passed.

Suddenly, I was reminded of all the pains my mom had gone through to get me to where I was. When my dad left her because she didn’t agree to abort me, she took it upon herself to move forward with the pregnancy and raise me.

Without a proper job nor a stable source of income, she did everything in her power to ensure that I had a solid education. I would have given anything to have her celebrate such a happy moment with me.

Fearing that I may embarrass myself and spoil my classmates’ happy moments, I left in the middle of the ceremony and rushed back home. I locked myself in my room and cried my eyes out for hours on end.

I came to a point when I couldn’t eat, sleep, or enjoy any activity. For the first time, I was experiencing what psychologists call “anhedonia.” No beautiful movies, social gatherings, or sports appealed to me. As I isolated myself, I became more and more lonely.

On November 10, 2016, at 10pm, the only person that was around during those troubling times decided to put an end to our relationship. Normally, that would have been just another breakup. But to me, it was a breaking point!

Given the grief and pain I was enduring at that time, I had no mental steam to cope with another rejection. The pain that was already eating my soul became even more unbearable. That night and the seventeen days that followed, all I could think of was to simply end it all.

The Turning Point

Eighteen days later, on November 28, 2016, I decided to open up to a pastor and her wife. For the first time, I counted all my pain and griefs to this couple who gave me their undivided attention for three hours non-stop.

That night, I went home with a renewed sense of hope. It felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in eighteen days, life seemed to have more potential for joy than it ever did.

Back to my room in front of my computer, a video by Nick Vudijic on how to overcome hopelessness made its way through my screen as if by magic.

Halfway through the video, a feeling of resentment and shame was washing all over me.

How could someone without limbs have such a positive outlook on life? I understood that there must be more to happiness and peace of mind than the challenges of life.

I was determined to find out what I needed to do to help me navigate life’s difficulties without losing any sense of pleasure or hope. In the subsequent months, I would discover what it takes to turn disappointment into achievement, desperation into inspiration.

Focusing on Your Blessings

I’ve heard it said that counting your blessings is an effective way to deal with challenges of life. It sounded too good to be true to me—and incredibly difficult. How can someone count their blessings when they’re obviously in a total mess?

Still, I took a piece of paper and challenged myself to write ten things that I was grateful for. Within minutes I was all worked up writing positive aspects of my life that had previously eluded me. I may have been anxious, but I wasn’t hospitalized, I had a roof over my head, I had friends that cared for me. My mom may have been sick, but she was alive.

It became clear to me that my attitude toward my problems was clouding my judgments and preventing me from seeing the beauty of life. I realized that no matter what you are going through there are always a thousand reasons to be happy.

I’m not saying that feeling down or frustrated is unnatural, that you shouldn’t feel sad when you are going through hardships. Rather, regardless of how dark a situation is, there is always a silver lining. You simply have to search for it.

I don’t expect you to agree with me. All I’m asking is that you put this claim to test and prove me wrong. You have nothing to lose but a world of peace and relief to gain the minute you put pen to paper counting your blessings.

Put Your Problems in Perspective

As I continued to write my blessings first thing in the morning and before retiring at night, the happiness and peace of mind I experienced became contagious to anyone I came in contact with.

People from all walks of life became attracted to me in ways I never dreamed of before. They were looking for my advice on how to cope with their own life challenges.

Gradually, it dawned on me that some of these people were going through troubles that were way bigger in magnitude than my problems.

I will never forget how much pain one young student felt when she told me the story of her parents. At twenty-four, she found out that her parents had an open marriage and her mother was and seeing another man aside from her father. Neither of her parents dared to tell her until she found out herself.

People in Asia, where I live, are very conventional, and most families would not openly live this type of arrangement because of how it would be perceived by society. The shame and betrayal she felt were so disheartening that it affected her studies, her mood, and her sense of self. She was devastated!

As she counted the story, I got overtaken by emotions, lost all professional composure, and began to cry right in front of her. After this incident, it became clear to me: No matter what problems you are going through there are people with similarly painful or even bigger problems out there.

I decided to put my own realization to the test. In addition to counting my blessings, I began to experiment with two additional ways to put my problems in perspective.

First, whenever I feel overwhelmed by a problem, I put the problem I’m facing at number ten on a piece of paper. I then strive to find nine worse problems that I could be facing right now.

Similarly, when I’m facing a problem that feels insoluble, I put my problem at number ten on a piece of paper and strive to find nine others who are going through much bigger problems.

Looking at my problems in this light provided me an excellent and effective way to build a strong sense of humility. Yes, it is absolutely important to see the light that shines through the darkness, but it’s equally important to acknowledge that the darkness may not be as dark as you imagine it to be.

Putting your problems in perspective and realizing that you are not as unfortunate as your distorted thoughts make you believe, will be a valuable asset in helping you take constructive actions toward solving your problems.

The Power Question

As I developed a sense of gratitude and humility, I realized I needed to do more to come out stronger from those challenges. Counting blessings and putting problems in perspective may be effective in the mental plane, but they won’t make problems go away.

As I continued my journey reading, reflecting, and finding means to solve my problems, I came across a famous quote by Epicurus: “Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.” The depth of the meaning of this quote made an immediate and profound impact on me.

I became convinced that everyone must have a set of skills to respond to life’s challenges. I asked myself, “What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?”

Oftentimes, when the going gets tough, we ask ourselves blame questions such as: “Why me?” “Why is this happening to me?”

Or we may simply criticize ourselves by discounting our strengths. “I must be really stupid.” “I’m doomed.” “I’m never gonna make it…”

By asking yourself this power question, you change your perspective and find what it takes to help you out of the rut. You don’t blame, whine, or criticize—you get going!

Asking myself this simple question helped me understand that I could use my life stories to empower others, either in writing or through my speeches, workshops, and seminars.

At the time of this writing, I’m proud to have impacted the life of thousands of young people throughout Asia. I’ve witnessed students, new hires, and even managers develop a positive outlook on life as a result of those stories.

I never would have done any of this had I asked myself the power question.

No matter what you may be going through, I challenge you to ask yourself: What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?

Does this mean I’m problem-free right now? Absolutely not. Much like the clouds in the sky, problems come and go, but I’m no longer tossed around like a piece of wood on a stormy sea.

I’ve developed the mental maturity that allows me to bend without cracking, and to adjust my sails with the whirling wind of anxiety, worry, and stress.

Today, I’m living a life of meaning and boundless joy. I’ve regained my appetite for living. The most meaningful of all my gains is the utmost satisfaction I experience helping others awaken their inborn geniuses. Writing this article is a direct example of this commitment.

It took me three years of applying these principles before I could see any tangible results. Beware of the get-happy-quick scheme. Anything valuable takes time. Your happiness is no different. A combination of a willing heart, a bias for action, and patience are all you need to live your life of happiness and meaning.

If you count your blessings, put your problems in perspective, ask yourself the power question, and take consistent daily actions to strengthen your mind you will get results beyond your wildest imagination.

Who knows? Maybe next time, we will enjoy an article from you!

About Bachir Bastien

Bachir Bastien aspires to be the sparkle that will ignite the fire of possibilities in as many people as possible. Struggles from early childhood prompted him to use his stories to empower others. He currently lives in Taiwan, where he often conducts workshops, seminars, and 121 coaching aiming at helping people build resilience, courage, and confidence. Visit him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

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How to Audit Your Life by Asking the Right Questions

“Don’t let your fear paralyze you. The scariest paths often lead to the most exciting places.” ~Lori Deschene

I first learned about the concept of focus creating reality in 2004 when I was given William Whitecloud’s book The Magician’s Way.

The first chapter is about the main character having a magic golf lesson. He learns that when people play golf, most of them think about how to hold the golf club, how to stand, and how to move the club. He calls this the “swing circle” and recounts how golfers often get caught there, rather than just focusing on where they want the ball to go. By shifting their focus, they could shift their results.

What’s wonderful is that the process is entirely replicable for us all in any situation.

At the time, I was two years into being an investment property consultant and part of a team of fifteen consultants throughout Australia. I was driving all over the place seeing clients in their homes—mostly evenings—earning just enough to get by, but I certainly wasn’t thriving.

In fact, I was considered one of the poorest performers. I was working long hours and working hard, and while I believed in what we were doing, I wasn’t really enjoying it that much. So, having read The Magician’s Way, I started to use the ideas to improve my work life.

I visualized having better meetings with my clients; I imagined my clients going ahead with property solutions I proposed; and my results started to improve.

But I thought, there has to be more to this. I felt a very strong pull to study these ideas further. So, I decided to attend a course facilitated by The Magicians Way graduates where they taught clients to realize their dreams by connecting with their authentic selves and innate creative spirit.

One of the things I learned was that we are all intuitive beings. When we tune into our intuitive selves, we become powerful and expansive.

I discovered that when we give ourselves space to tap into our intuition about what we want, it comes through us from our higher selves. By shifting our focus to what would improve our lives and by using our intuition, we are infinitely more powerful and can create a life we love.

For the first time, I was truly creating space to see what I wanted in my life from my unlimited self. I realized that I could choose the direction of my future. That I was the creator of my life.

With this knowledge in hand, for the first time ever, I looked critically at all the different areas of my life to see where I was limiting myself and where I could change the story I had running through my head. I categorized my life into the following areas:

• Career & Business
• Finances
• Relationships
• Health & Well-being
• Home
• Possessions
• Travel & Adventures
• Social life
• Spirituality
• Giving Back

To create change, we first need to be aware of our starting point. In order to move forward we must be honest with ourselves about where we are and face into our current situation.

When I assessed my life I found that, other than my social life, none of the areas were in the shape I wanted them to be.

Usually, we don’t create change without a reason. Change typically takes place when dissatisfaction arises or when we become aware of wanting a solution to our current problem. Being really clear about what we want to change and understanding where we are in relation to that is crucial.

So how do we do that? How can we be objective about our current circumstances?

Most people don’t regularly evaluate all areas of their life and give themselves a reality check. It can be hard to own up to the mediocrity or negativity. But this kind of ‘life audit’ is vital to understanding your current situation so you can then assess how far you are from what it is you desire.

By creating space to see where each area of your life is, you are creating a starting point for change, for expansion and growth. You are allowing yourself to see what’s working, what isn’t working, and what could be improved.

This may be confronting to begin with, but the more you allow yourself to go through this process, the more you will create reason and momentum to move forward in creating the life you love.

A really powerful way to work through this process is to section off the different areas of your life and give yourself a rating out of ten for each—ten being amazing, you couldn’t get any better, and zero meaning that it is nonexistent or lacking.

Here is an opportunity to go deeper with each area of your life and give those areas an honest rating so you will have a starting point for change.

Relationships

Let’s use an example. You might have given your romantic relationship a low rating. Start with what you feel is lacking from your relationship and partner.

Some examples could be:

• We fight too much
• The passion is gone
• We don’t spend enough time together
• They don’t respect me
• I feel like I am being controlled
• We don’t have fun together

Then flip it around. What are you, or aren’t you, contributing to the relationship?

• I lose my patience with them
• I don’t give them respect
• I get angry with them
• I feel like I want to control them
• I don’t instigate quality time together

The more you can analyze how and if you value your relationship, the more you can take responsibility. So, the more you own up to where you are, the more you are able to create change. Focus on yourself first: How am I behaving? How am I responding? Then ask yourself: What can I do differently to help create the kind of relationship I want?

And since there are two people in your relationship, you’ll also need to ask yourself: What would I like my partner to do differently? How can I communicate that without attacking?

Finances

How do you rate your finances? Most of us have blocks around money and money flow, usually because of the beliefs our parents have instilled in us. Unless we are clear on where our finances currently are, how can we change it?

Ask yourself why you rated your finances as you did:

• Do I have enough money?
• Do I just make ends meet?
• I am in debt?
• Do I fight about money with my partner?

Knowing your numbers is crucial. Most people don’t have any idea what their financial position is. Remember, it’s impossible to move forward without knowing where you are right now. I review my full financial position three times a year—at the beginning of the calendar year, the end of financial year, and when I do my taxes.

After you get clear on your numbers, ask yourself the following questions to ascertain how you can improve your financial situation:

• Am I living beyond my means?
• Am I trying to fill an emotional void through buying things?
• What can I scale back on in order to save more money?
• How can I increase my earning potential, if not immediately, in the future?

Health & Well-Being

List out the reasons you rated your health and well-being as you did.

Maybe you are telling yourself:

• I’m unfit
• I feel overweight
• I am not exercising enough
• I eat junk food
• I drink too much

You might bring awareness to what you’re consuming each day. Are you conscious of what’s going into your body or are you unconsciously consuming food and drink? Now it’s time to consider your movement. Do you take regular walks? Are you going to the gym or participating in sports?

Career or Business

How do you rate this area of your life?

Consider these questions:

• Do you love what you do? If so, why? If not, why not?
• If you do love what you do, what areas are there for improvement?
• Are you clear on why you do what you do?
• What is the why?
• Do you feel energized by what you do, or does it deplete you of energy?
• Does your work align with your values?
• Do you enjoy working with your colleagues?
• Are you happy with your marketing and reach?
• How is your time management?

Most of our waking hours are at work, regardless of whether we work for someone else or ourselves. So, if you are not enjoying what you do, that means you are spending most of your waking hours doing what you don’t want to do.

Of course, it isn’t easy to change careers, but the first step is acknowledging your dissatisfaction and getting clear on what might be more fulfilling, and why.

Knowledge & Learning

Are you expanding? Are you learning new things and trying out new experiences?

Ask yourself:

• Am I closed off to new ideas?
• Do I have an open mind, or am I relying on what I already know?
• Do I proactively seek new knowledge for my career or business, or do I only seek new knowledge for fun?
• When was the last time I actively sought out a situation where I could learn something new and expand my horizons?

Travel & Adventures

Ask yourself:

• Am I giving myself space to travel, to see new things, and to have adventures?
• Do I even know what’s out there?
• When did I last go somewhere on a whim?
• If I can’t afford to travel, how could I be more adventurous in my daily live?
• How can I be a “tourist” in my own area—what could I see, do, and explore?

Home

Ask yourself:

• Do I love where I live?
• Is my house a home?
• Do I feel comfortable, safe, and happy in my home?
• Is my home a sanctuary?
• Do I love the city, the suburb, or even the country I live in?
• Do I enjoy inviting people to my home, or am I embarrassed by it?
• Do my friends and family feel comfortable in my home?

If you don’t love where you live, you may be able to change that easily, or you may need to work toward the long-term goal of moving somewhere new. But it might just be a matter of making changes in your environment—decluttering, infusing your home with your personality, or keeping work out of certain areas to make your home more relaxing.

Spirituality

How do you rate this part of your life? Did you even give it a rating? It’s an area that is often neglected. I know when I started my personal growth journey, I considered my spirituality non-existent.

Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean organized religion—it’s whatever it means for you. Simply take time to consider how your spirituality is being nurtured—or not—and what it could mean for you if you positively changed this aspect of your life. Ask yourself:

• Am I part of a spiritual community, and if not, would I like to be?
• Do I allow myself time to connect with nature?
• Do I make time for spiritual practices that renew my spirit?
• What does spiritual self-care mean to me?

Giving Back

Giving back isn’t just giving gifts or donating money or time, it’s also about how much you give yourself; how much you give in service to others, your community, or the environment. It’s also about how well you think of others, your community, or the environment as well as our actions.

Ask yourself:

• Do I give as much to myself as I give to others?
• Is there a balance of giving and receiving in my life?
• How am I serving my loved ones, my community, and the planet?
• How do I want to give back, and why?

Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve reviewed your current reality you might feel a little uncomfortable. This is a good thing and should be embraced. As I said, facing into where you are is so important, as it represents the starting point from which you can grow. It’s this truth that will set you free. Well done for going there.

You may also feel a little overwhelmed if you’ve recognized you’re dissatisfied with multiple areas of your life. That’s okay. You don’t need to change everything all at once, or even any time soon. You can start with the one area that feels most pressing and identify one tiny step to create positive change. Then from there, you can take another step. And another until you feel more satisfied in that area of your life and ready to focus on another.

When I first did this exercise, I realized I didn’t want to continue the way I was living and I wanted things to look different. I knew then that I had a choice. We are at choice all the time.

By owning up to where you are, you’re already moving forward into your vision. You can now begin to really shift your focus on what you want to change—and then start taking action.

About Jason Snaddon

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The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Micheal Jordan 

I believe that self-soothing is the key to accessing all happiness and success. All things being equal, when someone is able to self-soothe, they are more resourceful and more powerful than those who haven’t learned that skill yet. Here’s why.  

Great success (whether professional or personal) comes with a great deal of responsibility. That responsibility can potentially lead to stress and is often accompanied by failures along the way. Most of us are familiar with that famous Michael Jordan quote—it was even in a ’90s commercial.

Resilience is a great skill. In fact, that path is clearly recognizable to anyone who has achieved a lot. But it’s perspective that shows you that those failures aren’t “this is the end of everything and we’re all going to die” failures. Instead, they’re just medium or even small-sized stumbling blocks. 

When you’re not yet at the end of your career or life, how do you know? Well, you don’t. So how can you function when things don’t go your way? How do you stay calm and grounded when something unexpected and shocking happens?

The more “monodimensional” action-oriented side of resilience is to “power through” the hard times, sharpening your blade with your teeth. And while this might work sometimes, it takes a toll on your emotional well-being—can you feel that cortisol going through the roof?

It’s easy to miss that monodimensional, action-based resilience is actually very weak, and ultimately unsustainable, if it’s not supported by a strong and playful mind. And I believe that Jordan had such a mind and demonstrated it throughout his career. 

It’s not just persisting despite failures; it’s also how you feel every day, about your failures and in general. It’s about not allowing all the negative experiences to poison your daily well-being. 

So how do you make resilience more sustainable? There is a softer way to deal with stumbling blocks, one that hopefully doesn’t lead to too much stress or burnout. One that, when mastered, will keep the emotional well-being floodgates open.

One that you will want to teach to your friends, your kids, your parents, and your enemies too. This second dimension of resilience is self-soothing.

I was raised in the household of Ms. and Mr. Stress. Growing up, I watched them take deep dives into (probably unnecessary) pools of stress. There was always something that wasn’t okay, something that needed to be fixed, not enough money or not enough time.

Here’s a classic scene from my youth: When a piece of equipment, like the washing machine, would break, our whole family had to be part of the sorrow, anger, and anxiety associated with such an unfortunate event. But it wouldn’t be fixed right away (because it might… heal by itself, no?) When it would be absolutely clear that there was no hope for the poor washer, the focus would switch to panicking about the money needed to replace it.

Once the washing machine was replaced, the problem became that perhaps it won’t be as good as the previous one, or it might take up more space, or it’s louder. It was never possible to relax, for fear that everything wasn’t perfect. It was obligatory to look for potential problems, scanning every single detail with “Terminator vision.”

When we could finally be certain that everything was okay, we could then move onto the next thing that needed to be fixed.

I was exposed to chronic stress for most of my childhood and teenage years. I didn’t enjoy the environment, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t have words for it, and I didn’t have the concepts to understand it. I didn’t know that I could live differently. Or better yet, I knew other parents were more relaxed, but I just thought they were luckier individuals. 

When I moved out, aged twenty-two, I left the country and moved to Holland, to a tiny student city whose pretty canals were filled with swans and ducks, and where most family houses had cute and well-groomed front yards. I watched kids on tiny bikes ride with their parents to school, and people of all ages sit for coffee in wooden decorated cafes. It was nothing like the stress-filled metropolis I was used to, and people seemed to me to be so calm. 

I loved it instantly, and I felt the well-being flood me, but I didn’t know why. Over the course of the following years, I lived in other places too. For some segments of my life, I even went back to my childhood home.

It wasn’t until ten years after I first moved out that I was able to finally learn the names and the concepts that defined the emotional dichotomy I kept experiencing when I would go back and forth.

The understanding came in two steps. During my masters, when studying the brain, I learned how the pre-frontal cortex works as a simulator of experiences. We all, as humans, are capable of imagining in great detail something that hasn’t yet happened and make it just as real as something that happened the day before.

From psychologist Dan Gilbert, I learned that the brain is also capable of synthesizing happiness (or the cocktail of chemicals that we interpret as happiness). And a functioning brain will return you to a state of happiness withinmonths or within a year even after very traumatic events.

In a fascinating TED talk (The Surprising Science of Happiness), Gilbert presents data from two groups of people: people who won the lottery and people who lost the use of their legs. One year after the event, the level of happiness of the two groups is identical.

Very often, we hear people (or even our own selves) say how, with hindsight, some terrible event has revealed itself to be a kind of bliss. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what the cause of happiness was; if it feels like happiness, it is happiness.

The brain is capable of synthesizing happiness (or sadness, or stress, or panic, or even anger, for that matter) independently of the external conditions. This is not surprising. If you think about it, what we attempt to achieve through meditation is nothing but a firmer hold on the steadiness of the brain, which will then lead us (or keep us) in homeostasis, a state of physical balance. This is why meditation feels good, and also why it can be so hard to start meditating when your mind is all over the place if you don’t let yourself ease into it.

Once I grasped these concepts, I made my first leap into understanding emotional well-being. I saw people like my parents constantly training their minds to see faults and problems, rehearsing negative feelings, and therefore leaving completely to chance their effectiveness at reacting to more significant issues.

The second leap happened a few years later. I was done with my studies and was anxiously juggling the various areas of my life. 

Over the course of less than a year, I lost my job in academia. I didn’t manage to get a new one (failure one). I got kicked out of a house where I loved to live (failure two) by a person whom I considered a friend (failure three). The man I had a relationship with left to be someone else (failure four), and I injured myself in such a way that was unable to use my right arm for months (failure five). Forget typing—how was I going to apply to new jobs?

As soon as I could, I packed my stuff, moved back with my parents to be taken care of, and got the final part of the treatment for my arm.

This setback happened when I was thirty-three to thirty-four. After the first months feeling loss and mourning for my previous life, I realized I wasn’t making it easy for myself. I was lingering in anger, obsessing over every small thing that wasn’t just right, and being devastated by all the big ones that weren’t right at all.

Then it clicked. My situation was no different than worrying about broken domestic appliances, stressing over taxes, feeling insulted by bad books or movies, getting annoyed by politicians and by lost socks. 

I had to make it easier for myself. I had to find the irony in everything and spend more time thinking about what was working. 

I wanted to “detox” from the victim mentality. I started looking at my life as the blankest of slates. And felt exhilarated.

In fact, my life was even better than a blank slate. I had all my skills, my knowledge, and my health. I had no ties, no debt, no contracts, and no furniture stored somewhere. Ultimately, I had a very supportive family and a place to stay temporarily in Rome, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Today, this list of positives is easy to make and I could go on. Now it’s easy for me to see how previously I had made myself more miserable, focusing on all that was going wrong. But I can still vividly remember how overwhelming it all felt and how it seemed impossible to stop that snowball from rolling down and becoming more bitter.

From my new place of clarity, balance, and bliss, I decided I’d devise tricks to prevent myself from ever tumbling down into deep negativity again. If I took care of how I felt every day and developed practical techniques to deflect my attention from the small daily problems, maybe I’d develop enough of a muscle that I could use if and when big problems occurred.

So I took a “masterclass in myself.” I learned what it is that makes me laugh, what grabs my attention, what relaxes me. Knowing these things will help anyone to stop that negative snowball before it hijacks your thoughts completely. 

I have a great passion for comedy, and I figured out that, regardless of my mental state, listening to my favorite comedian will reset my mood 100 percent of the time. I know that nature documentaries (especially those about Space) will hypnotize me and make me slightly detached from my body, so when I’m sick or in pain, these are my go-to’s. I know that when I feel flustered or my mind feels scattered, walking and listening to certain music will bring me closer to calm.

Coming up with a list of ready-to-use resources like these ones, but tailored for you, is one of the greatest resources a person can have. And the more these resources are on autopilot, the easier juggling your life will become. For me, today, listening to comedy when I’m annoyed is as natural as drinking water if I’m thirsty. And every day, I’m still adding new practices to my arsenal.

There are two caveats to all this: Be aware of the cause of what makes you feel bad and watch out for escapism.

If you’re chronically depressed, I would never recommend watching comedy from morning until bed. If you have recurring anger issues, I wouldn’t recommend pumping them away at the gym. You need to seek professional help. Similarly, finding things that cheer you up is great, yet spending your whole day seeking ways to entertain yourself might not be the most constructive way to go about your life.

Self-regulation is one of those responsibilities that adults have, and it’s a great one to embrace. A rule of thumb is: If you’re still enjoying whatever it is you are self-soothing with, then great. If you’re neutral about it, it’s time to move on. And if you realize you’re not enjoying other things that you could have been enjoying, then your self-soothing has gotten out of hand. Don’t beat yourself up though; next time you’ll do better.

Generally, though, all it takes is to distract yourself sufficiently from the negative thought/memory of the event. Some other time you might want to consolidate some positivity to that memory. There are many ways (from NLP techniques to meditation techniques to hypnosis, and more), but for simple daily life, what I found works well for me is this three-step process:

 1) Allowing some time for my immediate reaction to express itself. I don’t want to suppress anything, but I don’t want that state of reaction to be the place where I now reside.

 2) I’ll go ahead with my self-soothing technique of choice and try to reduce the amount of time that my mind broadcasts thoughts about the problem.

 3) After a little time has passed, I’ll pick up the topic and briefly discuss it with a trusted friend. Someone who doesn’t have any stake in it, who won’t be triggered by it, and who can provide both constructive and positive comments.

If you master a basic self-soothing practice, you’ll notice an immediate improvement in how you can handle the small daily hiccups. And with a little time (really not much time at all), you’ll be able to handle bigger and more complex problems with a lot less effort. 

What’s wonderful about this skill is that it will continue to grow with you. As you add more pieces from your personal growth journey, they’ll strengthen this new skill as well.

A strong self-soothing practice will enable you to help and be compassionate with the people around you. It will also trickle down to your kids, providing them with one of the greatest resources they can receive from you.

About Marta Castella

Marta is an author, linguistic coach, teacher, and founder of Glorified Babysitters— an institute driven to raise the bar in early education, promote multilingualism, and give children the mindful environment and care they need to discover and appreciate the world. She earned her Ph.D. in formal Linguistics and worked as a researcher, widening her expertise in early childhood neuroscience, language, and education. Check her out on Instagram or read her childcare articles here.

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25 Greatest Daddy Yankee Quotes Of All Time

Which are your favorite Daddy Yankee quotes? Daddy Yankee is a singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and record producer who is one of the pioneering reggaetón artists who helped establish a mainstream market for the music style. From humble beginnings with independently released mixtapes that he himself produced, he went on to become the co-owner of […]

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25 Highly Motivational DMX Quotes

Which are your favorite DMX quotes? DMX is an American rapper and actor. He began rapping in the early 1990s, and released his debut album in 1998, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. In 1999 DMX released his best-selling album ‘And Then There Was X’, in 1999, which included the hit single […]

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30 Incredible Dana White Quotes

Which are your favorite Dana White quotes? Dana White is an American businessman and entrepreneur, and former amateur boxer. his best known as President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Which are the largest mixed martial arts (MMA). Under White’s leadership, the UFC has grown into a globally popular multibillion-dollar enterprise. Here’s a collection of […]

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30 Motivational Usain Bolt Quotes On Success

Which are your favorite Usain Bolt quotes? Usain Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter who is widely considered to be the fastest human on the planet and most loved Olympians of all time. Bolt retired from the track after the 2017 World Championships in August. He has won nine Olympic gold medals throughout his career. His […]

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What You Need to Do If You Feel Overwhelmed

“You are worth the quiet moment, you are worth the deeper breath. You are worth the time it takes to slow down, be still, and rest.” ~ Morgan Harper Nichols

I want to talk about overwhelm, which is something I suspect I’m not alone in dealing with, especially given our current global situation.

Even before the pandemic struck, I was on the edge of overwhelm. I live with two autoimmune conditions—rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia—both of which cause me to have health issues when I’m stressed out.

I started the year completely stressed out, thanks to a new health condition that reared its head: some irregular tissue was growing inside my duodenum, affecting my digestion. On my first visit to a specialist to try to remove it in February, it turned out to be far more extensive than expected, and I had to be rescheduled for a far more involved procedure.

Then COVID hit, and I was deferred for a bit. To say that I was struggling is an understatement: we were isolating at home, my health was in jeopardy, and while we believed that the tissue wasn’t malignant yet, it was definitely the sort of tissue that was trying to become cancer.

I found it difficult to do my usual tasks, and I was decidedly fatigued and somewhat short-tempered from adding all this additional stress and uncertainty into what was already a fraught situation.

Not knowing what else to do, I fell back on some serious self-care practices. I’m not talking about face masks and bubble baths, though I did increase the number of baths I took using Epsom salts, since they soothed the aches and pains that came with my increased stress levels.

I spent far less time than usual on social media, in order to avoid “doomscrolling”: that’s where you keep scrolling through social media to find the latest, most upsetting information on whatever catastrophes are occurring. To my husband’s consternation, it also meant that I stopped watching the nightly news with him; instead, I would read a book, or watch something light and happy on my laptop.

I made sure to get outside every day as long as the weather permitted, in order to allow nature to do its thing and make me feel better. I set and met a goal to exercise at least five days a week for twenty minutes or more, and I made sure to drink a lot of water and not skip meals.

I also returned to my meditation practice, which had lapsed in prior months, as it sometimes does, and established a bedtime routine to set me on a path to successful sleep

Here are my takeaways from that time period.

If you need time away from it all, take it.

If you need to establish boundaries with those around you in order to protect yourself, your emotions, your mental health, and/or your energy, it’s fine for you to do so. You cannot pour from an empty cup, so it’s important to take care of yourself.

Give yourself permission to step away from the noise of the world.

Specifically, you have permission to:

• Turn off the news, or reduce your intake
• Reduce your time on social media if it stresses you out
• Unfollow social media accounts that are too negative for you
• Reduce your contact with negative individuals in your life by setting boundaries
• Put yourself on time out if you need it
• Take a mental health day
• Say no to things you don’t want to do (even if you already said yes)

It is 100 percent okay for you to take a break. It is okay for you to need time out, or time off. It is okay for you to prioritize your self-care.

Prioritizing your mental health and your self-care are two of the best things you can do for yourself and the people around you, as I learned again this spring. With things the way they are in the world right now, many of us are shaken up and need to boost our physiological needs and shore up our feeling of security.

While I’m not a psychologist, I am familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is usually shown as a pyramid. At the base of the pyramid are basic human needs such as shelter, sleep, food, water, and exercise. The next tier, which is also pretty large, is safety and security, and it includes things like employment and health.

The pandemic has rocked our worlds in ways that have shaken that pyramid. It’s hard to work on any of the higher-tier stuff, like romance, dreams, and plans, and spiritual matters, when the foundation of our personal pyramids need shoring up.

That’s one of the reasons I returned to basic self-care for myself. Exercise, hydration, nutrition, and sleep were on my list. Those are all from the base level of the pyramid.

Turning down the noise from the outside world, while remaining informed in small snippets, allowed me to remain connected to what was going on without spinning myself into a stress ball.

Being on a more even keel allowed me to move through that time period without completely losing myself to stress and anxiety.

And as for that adenoma? I was operated on the day before my birthday, and though it turned out to be a bigger procedure than anticipated, the biopsies came back clear. One less worry to move forward with.

About Kelly Ramsdell

Kelly Ramsdell is the founder and CEO of Actually-I-Can Inc., which is dedicated to helping women fulfill their life vision through self-care, creativity and adventure. She considers decluttering to be an important self-care item, since it reduces stress. Actually-I-Can has a decluttering course opening in September, 2019.

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Awesome Quotes To Make Your Life Magnificent

Awesome… Mind-blowing. Splendor…

Have you ever heard these words for yourself? Have you ever addressed someone with these adjectives?

If not then start exploring these heart pleasing words in your life and please others with these mesmerizing words as well.

To fill the gaps that may come up in any relation, just use some amazing words of wisdom to make them complete. The gaps which may arise due to the shortage of appropriate words can be fulfilled by filling the appropriate word over there. You can search some of the most awesome words that will be a blessing in the life of all. This blessing is not less than any achievement.

To make someone happy, contented and overwhelmed one always searches for some astonishing words or lines that can make them feel and understand what we are truly sensing or feeling for them. And these words are like magic water, the more you pour the sweeter your relationships become. These magical words are very dear and close to the person who feels it. Without sensing the feelings behind those words the words remain mere just a word not a feeling.

Now when we talk about Awesome Quotes, they are not only inspiring but at the same time, they are very touching to the person who receives it. Sometimes we have millions of feelings in our hearts, but we often fall short of words. So to eliminate that gap we take the help of some inspirational words. These inspirational words or adjectives make butterflies fly around us and make us stand at the top of the world.

So let’s explore and make life complete with some truly Awesome Quote that will make your life magnificent.

Truly Awesome Quotes

“I am awesome and my life is full of blessings and love.”

“My life is completed with awesome people around me, who have awesome attitudes and are doing things just awesomely.”

“You are just awesome, just feel yourself and recognize your own capabilites.”

“Our life is our own game. We are the players, so play your part and that is just awesome.”

“My imperfections are a gift that craft me to make myself feel awesome.”

 

“We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.” — Frank Tibolt

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

 

“Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves — to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today.” — Stewart B. Johnson

“Security is an illusion. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.” — Helen Keller

 

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” — Ambrose Redmoon

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” — Thomas Jefferson

 

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” — Oprah Winfrey

 

“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” — Les Brown

 

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.” — Benjamin Disraeli

 

“The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” — Anais Nin

“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.” — Virgil Thomson

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” — Marcus Aurelius

 

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” — Clay P. Bedford

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” — Kahlil Gibran

 

Final Words:-

Awesome is an attribute that brings a feeling of ecstasy and joy on the face of the receiver. When you say my life is awesome, it simply means you are blessed with the abundance and blissful blessings of the almighty.

That awe-full feeling is really inspiring and makes life more motivational & happening just by the word itself. Daily recite to yourself that MY LIFE IS AWESOME & I AM REALLY AWESOME. This will make you feel special and delighted.

I hope now you must be really overwhelmed by these words of wisdom. So let’s make other’s life awesome as well by sharing out these amazing Awesome Quotes Images.

 

Additional Reading:-

• Never Give up Quotes To Survive In All Situations
• Positive Thinking Quotes To Help You Explore The Best
• Best Life Quotes That Will Make Your Life Beautiful Forever

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