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by Melodi Cowan

“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” ~Buddha

A teacher of mine once said, “Don’t show up as the person you think you are. Show up as the person you want to be.”

A powerful statement, but I didn’t know who I wanted to be. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.

I knew who I didn’t want to be: self-critical, self-conscious and always focusing on my shortcomings. I wanted to learn how to get out of my own way.

For a long time, I thought improving my external situation by becoming richer, thinner, and smarter meant that I was learning. Not to say that accomplishing those things isn’t learning. However, in that cycle I wasn’t learning, but repeating the same story.

I kept trying to get from A to Z by pushing myself and always expected my results to meet my expectations. And the vicious cycle continued. I thought I’m not good enough; I’m pathetic and I’ll never get it right.

Ironically, my desire to learn continued to work against me.

It only brought me further from what I wanted. I now realize how necessary it was for me to relinquish control and create space for something other than my neurosis.

Today, I’m learning about integral awareness—taking in information on all levels, mind, body and spirit. Not resisting, not expecting, not judging, but allowing; removing previous ideas about who I am. I have come to realize that true learning is unlearning.

Another word I associate with learning is deprogramming.

In other words, one must begin by emptying one’s cup.

Bruce Lee once said, “Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.” By emptying my cup, I am making room for new experiences in my life instead of allowing myself to repeat toxic patterns.

In the process of unlearning and letting go, I have experienced some dramatic changes in several areas:

1. My relationships have become healthier.

In the past, I measured the success of my relationships by how well I could control their outcomes. I was often distraught because I continued to attract uncooperative, uncaring and unsupportive situations.

These days, if I attract someone who doesn’t want to operate from an open, supportive and compassionate place then I am okay with letting it fall away. I am learning to walk away, loosen my grip, and look within to understand my experience of what took place.

I recognize that I cannot look to others to heal what is broken in me. I acknowledge that I have the power to heal myself—to shift my awareness.

I push myself to stop complaining and get to work. My new mantra: the victim reacts; the warrior responds. The ego judges; the spirit absolves.

2. My relationship to my body is also experiencing a shift.

By delving deeper into meditation and other mind-body therapies I’ve developed a healthier relationship with body. Previously, I was caught up in my appearance but not so concerned with the negative emotions and toxic substances I was stuffing myself with.

I kept telling myself, “If I look good now, I can just deal with the other stuff later.” Operating this way, I wasn’t in touch with my body. I had to unlearn a completely unhealthy approach, dominated by a feeling of separateness from everyone and everything around me.

3. I notice beauty in things I used to take for granted.

A recent experience that stood out was during a mural walk in San Francisco. I’ll never forget standing there in awe of the Mission District. I drank in the colors, symbolism, beauty, vastness and sacredness of the images.

Connecting to what was actually going on around me I had a deeper experience of sounds, smells, feelings, and even sensations in my body. I silenced my mind, and was rewarded with the ecstatic merging of my inner self and the outer world.

Feet on Ground. Smile on face. Gratitude. Bliss. Peace. Sounds. Sensations. Light and Energy. No purchase necessary. I was truly alive, breathing, in the moment, a drug-free heightened state of awareness. Something a lot easier to achieve than I realized.

4. Writing is no longer a huge source of anxiety.

If “it’s the silence between the notes that makes the music” then it’s pretty much the same with writing. Until recently, I had a difficult relationship with writing. I had so much to say, but lacked the self-worth to actually sit down and get it on paper.

I’m no longer attached to the end result, and I actually enjoy the process. Having “unlearned” my original anxiety-driven approach has provided me with a sense of freedom and movement in my writing.

I am learning how to bring together disparate elements and expertly fuse them into a polished stone. The fear and anxiety isn’t as strong. I’m opening up to exploration and possibilities; thus, leaving my former toxic relationship with words by the wayside.

5. I am finally greeting myself at my own door.

No longer so concerned with the person I want to be, my true self is being revealed through the unlearning and removal of what no longer serves me. I am emptying my cup of fear, doubt and frustration, and am finally looking forward to raising a toast to life.

by Srinivas Rao

“You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind.” -Remez Sasson

What’s the first thought that goes through your head when you wake up in the morning? Is it deliberate or is it the default “Oh shi#$, it’s 6am!”?

If that’s how you start your day, then it’s likely your day will be filled with anxiety and stress. It’s not exactly the most productive mechanism for getting things done.

In the last week or two, I’ve been experimenting with something that has really changed how I feel about everything. I’ve talked about morning power questions in the past and have suggested you should ask yourself before anything “What’s the best that Could Happen?”. Questions are quite powerful if used in the right way.

How to Use Morning Power Questions

When you wake up in the morning you are always asking yourself questions whether you realize it or not. As you brush your teeth, drink your coffee or eat your breakfast thoughts are running through your head. You might be thinking “why am I so I tired, why didn’t I sleep earlier, what am I going to eat, etc, etc.”

These things generally don’t serve any useful purpose and in some cases as you can see are even hurting you. The idea behind using questions is to take conscious control of the direction of your day. So, let me give you a few examples of things that you could ask yourself first thing in the morning:

• What do I have to look forward to today?
• What’s absolutely perfect about my life?
• How can I make today absolutely awesome?
• What’s the best thing that could happen today?

By asking yourself these kinds of questions you start to shift the focus of your mind towards all of the things you want to have happen. One interesting thing to note is that your questions don’t need to have any basis in reality because your brain will answer anything you ask it quite literally. So if you’re going to be delusional, you might as well make your delusions extremely empowering.

The key to using this effectively however is to do it for 30 days in a row. What happens when you do this is that your brain will create a link, known as a neuro-association, between the empowering states you create with your questions and being awake in the morning.

One Question to Ask Yourself Every Morning

For about two weeks now, I’ve been asking myself one question from the moment I wake up. “What am I grateful for?.” You’ve heard before that you should start every single day with an attitude of gratitude. This is probably the simplest way to actually do that.

If you ask yourself that question enough days in a row you will wake up feeling on top of the world every single day. As you start to view your life and the world around you as full of things to be grateful for, you’re going to bring more and more of that into your life.

We all have lots to be grateful for, but we often get caught up in all the things that are wrong with our lives. Hopefully this will enable you shift your focus.

Ways to Change Your Morning Routine

I want you to give some consideration to changing up how you start your day. In addition to power questions I encourage you to start your day in a more peaceful, quiet way then you have in the past. I think you’ll find that the impact this will have on you both physically and mentally will quite powerful.

1. Don’t Turn on the Computer or TV

As a blogger, for the last year or so the first thing I would do every single morning is turn on the computer. Even if you are not a blogger you may have a tendency to turn on the computer right when you wake up. Starting your brain off with so much information overload right when you wake up can’t possibly be healthy.

I encourage you to just enjoy your coffee or breakfast for about 20 minutes. Turning on the TV is one of the most insidious things you can do. The news can have such a negative impact on you that you might not even realize it. The news is generally about everything that’s wrong in the world and this is the first thing you become exposed to in the morning.

One thing that we know from years of self help is that our minds tend to be extremely receptive in the morning. That’s why I encourage you not to turn on the TV if you’ve been doing it.

2. Listen to Music/Something Uplifting

I love listening to music and when possible I even use an alarm that actually plays music. I try to find really uplifting songs or even songs that have really peaceful melodies. One of the best times to listen to a self-help tape or program is right when you wake up. Think about how the effect this will have on you if you do this for about 30 days.

If you listen to inspirational/uplifting material right when you wake up then you will eventually condition that message into your mind and connect it with waking up in the morning.

3. Meditate

I think one of the most challenging things about meditating is to free yourself from thought. As somebody with a mind that moves at what feels like a million miles a minute, this isn’t something I’m great at myself. Early in the morning your mind is in a fairly quiet state and even 5-10 minutes of deep centered relaxation/meditation can make a huge difference in your day.

How do you start your morning routine? Is there anything else you’d add to this list?

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by Lori Deschene

“Don’t wait for people to be friendly. Show them how.” ~Unknown

When I was a teenager—right around the time I knew everything—my mother used to tell me I only remembered the bad things.

When I told stories about my family, they didn’t revolve around family beach trips, barbecues, and vacations; the focused on my parents’ fights and all the ways they “ruined my life.”

The same applied to friends and milestones in my life. I chronically remembered and rehashed the worst experiences.

In fact, straight through college I followed up every introductory handshake with a dramatic retelling of my life story, focusing on a laundry list of grievances about people who had done me wrong.

It was as if I was competing for most royally screwed over in life, like there was some kind of prize for being the most tragic and victimized. (Full disclosure: I hoped that prize was compassion cum unconditional love. It was more like discomfort and avoidance).

Not everyone is as negative or needy as woe-is-me-younger Lori was, but I’ve noticed that many of us have something in common with my misguided past self: we focus on how we’ve been hurt far more than how we’ve been helped.

Psychologists suggest that to some degree we complain because we’re looking to connect with people who can relate to the universal struggles we all face (though in some cases, complaining is a constructive way to find solutions to problems as opposed to a chronic need to vent negativity). I think there’s more to it, though.

When we complain about everything that’s gone wrong, or everyone who has done us wrong, we’re drowning in our self-involvement.

It’s an epidemic in an individualistic culture where self-reliance, autonomy and the pursuit of personal gain can leave us feeling isolated and pressured to succeed. This may not be true for everyone, but I know when I get caught up complaining, nine out of ten times what I need to do is stop obsessing about the circumstances of my life.

It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve learned we don’t need to live life in a constant state of reaction to things that seem difficult or unfair. We don’t have to be the victims of bad coming at us. Our lives don’t have to be the sum of our problems—not if we take responsibility for putting good into the world.

That starts by fostering a greater appreciation for our interdependence. We are not alone. The world is not against us, and we don’t have to be against each other. We don’t have to let our fears, insecurities and wants boil over inside us until we’re all a bunch of incompatible toxic chemicals waiting to explode the second we collide.

You can always find a negative story to tell—some situation when another person was insensitive, selfish, uncaring, unfair, or just plain wrong. You can also find an underlying struggle that doesn’t justify but might explain their behavior.

If you absolutely can’t channel that compassion and patience, you can always find at least one good thing someone did in your day.

When that stranger held the elevator open, when your coworker let you take the lead in your meeting, when your mother called just to say she loves you; they’re all reminders people are looking out for you—maybe not all of them, and maybe not all the time, but probably more than you notice.

An even better way to honor our interconnection: be someone else’s positive story. Be the kindness that reminds someone else the world is not against them. Give them an anchor of positivity to find later if their circumstances seem overwhelming.

If you’ve ever ended a stressful day with a long hug—the type that’s so needed and loving it’s near impossible not to relax and receive—you know the power of a simple gesture.

Need some ideas for simple kindnesses? I recommend checking out the Tiny Buddha Facebook page, where I recently asked friends, “What’s the kindest thing you can do for someone else?”

Some of my favorite suggestions (out of 158) include:

1. Try to accept people with an open mind and refrain from making judgments, which are often wrong anyway. (Brandon Hartford)
2. Let them know how much you appreciate them. (Florence Leedy)
3. Any deed done for someone else is a kind one when you don’t expect something in return. (Courtney Olsen)
4. Do little things like hold doors open or let folk go in or out first. Little things can make a big difference for someone who’s not having a great day. (Elke Wallace)
5. Accept them for who they are and who they strive to be. (Dylan Clauson)
6. Let them know they’ve made you smile. (Monika Sylvestre)
7. Be with them when they need you. For the rest of the time, let them be free. (Rohin Khanna)
8. Tell them the truth. (Krista Hale)
9. Tell them why they make a difference in your life that no one else could possibly make—why their particular brand of “special” makes the world a better place for everyone they meet in it. (Jennifer Hudson Green)
10. Help them help themselves and be independent. (Frantz Art Glass)
11. Believe in them and give them hope. (Melessia Todd)
12. Give a simple well meaning smile. (Jennie McCluskey)
13. The kindest thing you can do for someone else is to take good care of your own mind, body and soul. This enables kindness in all things. (Shyloh Robinson)
14. Spend time listening with the intent of learning. I joined an art guild that is mostly made up of elderly artists who have the most amazing life stories and the best tips and trick for creating artwork. I feel like I get so much more in return for doing nothing more than enjoying their company! (Suzi Ra)
15. The best thing my parents ever taught me—the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you! (Tracy Bruce Laughlin)
16. Be there for them when they fall and not say I told you so. (Ana Stuckart)
17. Give them the space to be. (Natassia Callista Alicia)
18. Lend your shoulder to cry on. (Bryan Tankersley)
19. Thank them for being themselves. (Jen Ghrist)
20. Take a moment to send someone a note thanking them for something they have done for you in the past. For example, a good teacher or a good manager, or someone who was a mentor or role model. (Dave Hughes)
21. Treat each person with respect for his or her individuality. (Shirley Wright)
22. Offer encouragement after a failure. Acceptance of even the weirdest things they possess. A tap for a job well done. A “thank you” to every simple yet life-changing encounter. (Ako Ang Uso)
23. Forgive. (Ivan Kl)
24. Pay attention to them. From the clerk at the store to your kids at home, most people just want to be heard and acknowledged. Understanding comes later, but everyone can pay attention now. (Angela Birt)
25. Listen to someone without trying to fix their problem. (Jane Lynahan Karklin)

Before you head on your merry way to distribute kindness into the world, check out the Tiny Buddha Book page if you haven’t already. In my first book, through publisher Red Wheel/Weiser, I’ve set out to answer life’s hardest questions, incorporating insights from Tiny Buddha readers.

The book will be in stores across the country next fall—and I’d love to include your wisdom and a link to your site so readers can learn more from you.

by Sonya Derian

“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I don’t know about anyone else, but sometimes I can be a prisoner to my own thoughts, and forget that I have the freedom to choose. Choose a different thought. Choose a different experience. Choose a different interpretation.

I remember having a coach that used to listen to me rant. I would be sure I was the victim of something that was happening to me, and I would tell her all about it expecting sympathy.

She would listen patiently and then say, “Yeah? And what’s another way you could look at it?” I would pause to come up with some different interpretation. And then she would say, “Good. And what’s another way you could look at it?”

I would really have to stretch, because I was sure that the first way I told her was the only way it happened.

Her point, of course was that there are a number of ways you can interpret things. And we have to watch our stores—the stories we tell ourselves.

How many of us our prisoners of our own thoughts, our own stories?

This week I found myself going into a tail spin about something. And even though the situation justified my being upset or at the very least feeling taken advantage of, I could have still looked at it in another way.

If I did—if I was able to catch myself sooner—my experience about it would have changed.

But I didn’t.

I was pissed off for a week. And it clouded my judgment about everything else and made me feel wronged, upset and irritable. I finally decided by Thursday, as I took myself on a road trip (my form of meditation), to change my perspective.

Because it always comes down to this, when I have to make the choice for myself:

Who is controlling my life, anyway: me or my thoughts?

Sometimes my thoughts are just well practiced habitual ways of thinking. But that doesn’t always mean they are right.

I have been at times, a prisoner to my thoughts. But I’ve garnered enough awareness to know if what I am thinking is serving me or not. And when I get to this place, I have a decision to make:

Which thought feels better? What interpretation serves me the best?

Because honestly: “Things always work out for me” and “I just got screwed” can be equally true.

But which thought serves us better? Which one puts out the kind of energy we want to embrace in the world? Everything can be a jumping off point for something new, if we are willing to choose the best interpretation and move forward.

If “I just got screwed,” it means someone else takes dominion over my life, and that is a stance that is not empowering. But if, “things always work out for me”, then I dictate my life because I know my future holds a different experience.

To come to this juncture where we can choose—where we have enough awareness to recognize that our thoughts do not run our life; that we can choose differently—this is freedom.

Freedom of interpretation, freedom to dictate our own lives, freedom to choose thoughts that work for us can liberate us from our own limiting self-made constructs.

The other day, I got a call at 4:30 in the morning from a woman on the east coast. We’d been emailing. She was going to be speaking at an event with me, and I happened to be awake. She called me to go over details instead of going back and forth with email.

After we were done, she asked if she could give me a session (she’s a healer) so I could experience her work on a personal level.

Yes, I said. Of course. Why not?

The session was short, 15 minutes, but we got to the conversation that followed that had her talking about Locus of Control. She said:

“If anyone wants to be successful, they have to maintain their locus of control. Bill Clinton maintains his locus of control. Donald Trump maintains his locus of control. Oprah Winfrey has maintains her locus of control.”

She didn’t have to elaborate. I knew what she was talking about. You can call it self-containment, or self-direction. It’s the ability to work with what has been handed to us and turn it into something else.

We have the freedom to decide what we do with information, how we interpret our life, how we dictate our future, change our minds or make new decisions.

All of it is a choice. Our choice.

And in choosing, we find freedom.

One of my very first teachers used to tell me, when I would be stuck in a rut, interpreting something, getting in my own way, she’d tell me: “Change your mind.”

It was such a novel concept. Change my mind. You mean there’s another way to see this? Invariably, when I changed my mind, I had a new purview and in that, a new experience. One of my own choosing.

And I realized, I could do this in every area of my life and come out ahead.

This is freedom.

This is your freedom.

Editor’s Note: Want to be part of the Tiny Buddha Book, available next fall in book stores across the country? Answer one of life’s 20 hardest questions; and your response and URL may be featured in the book! Learn about contributing to the Tiny Buddha book and start sharing your wisdom.

by Beth Lyons

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” ~Lao Tzu

If you’d asked me about money five years ago, I would’ve said “Oh I’m never going to have money.” On the surface this sentiment didn’t bother me. I have a job I love and a great marriage, so who needs money?

Over the years I’ve realized, however, that everyone needs money. You have to have a place to live, food, clothes and a chance to have fun.

So one day I decided that just enough wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted more money, but I’d always thought of myself as a poor person. How do poor people get money? I didn’t want to change jobs or start a new career or move to a different city.

I looked at the amount of money that I make right now. Could that amount of money be more than enough?

To answer that question I first had to know how much money I was spending each month. I sat down with all of my monthly bills and expenses and added up the columns. I found out what I already knew: I was spending more money than I make.

It was no wonder that I was in debt. So I took a two-pronged approach to the problem. First I was going to erase debt and second I was going to have more money in my life.

Erasing credit card debt is not as hard as some people believe, but it’s also not a quick and easy process. As you might expect, it may take almost as long to erase credit card debt as it did to build up. If you’re drowning in credit card debt, you might consider a step like bankruptcy because that is the way to legally erase debt.

My situation wasn’t that bad and I wanted to feel the pain of paying back the debt dollar by dollar. I knew that would be the only way that I would learn to manage my money better. I needed to take the journey of becoming debt free, step by step.

For me the first step in eliminating debt was actually facing how much it was.  I knew I was spending money and that I was spending money that I didn’t have, but if I never actually looked at those credit card statements somehow that made it okay. Or at least that’s what I told myself.

So when I sat down with my monthly bills, I took a hard look at those credit card statements. I tried to remember what all the charges were for and I couldn’t do it. Why had I spent $49.87 at Macy’s? No idea.

Once I actually knew how much money I owed to the credit card companies, I made a list of all of my credit card debt. I arranged it in order of the smallest debt to the largest. That’s how I was going to pay these off—from the smallest amount of money to the largest amount of money.

I read about a concept called the debt snowball, and I thought this would help me. It’s a simple concept: you look at your budget, your bills, and your monthly expenses and see where you can scrape together an extra $50 or $100. That money becomes the start of your snowball.

You pay the minimum payment on that small credit card balance but in addition you add that extra $50 or $100. Every single month on that one credit card, you put that extra money towards the balance.

When that credit card is paid off, you take the full amount that you are sending to pay for that credit card and you apply it to the next minimum balance on the next smallest credit card balance.

So for instance, maybe now your debt snowball is $150 thanks to the original hundred dollars and the $50 minimum payment that you are making on that first credit card. Every single month you apply the debt snowball amount to the credit card and it just slowly eats away at that credit card balance.

That’s the first part of the solution. The second part is to actually have more money in your life. For me this was as simple (or it became simple over time) as paying attention to where every single dollar goes.

I had never been a conscious spender before. Money flowed through my fingers all too easily. My new money consciousness said that I needed to pay attention, and literally name every dollar in my bank account. So I sat down and created a written budget for the first time in my life.

I knew how much money I was spending on rent. I know how much money I was spending on groceries, on utilities and other bills. I created a budget and even with the debt snowball, I was saving an extra $65 a month.

That doesn’t sound like much but very quickly I had a little cushion of savings. And after a few months of living with this budget, I realized that I could cut a few other things and have a little bit more money in savings.

By living mindfully in this way, I find that I feel rich for the first time in my life. I have money in the bank. My spending is under control. I am almost free of credit card debt. And most importantly, I don’t use credit cards anymore at all.

I pay cash for the things that I need and the things that I want. I do not feel deprived in the least. When I need something, I buy it and more importantly, when I want something I buy it. I find, however, that I don’t want things in the same way that I used to.

I used to use things to make me feel better about the problems in my life. But now that I have my life under control, I don’t need those things, not in the same way. I think that’s been the greatest gift that this journey has brought me—learning to live simply and loving it. For the first time in my life I have more than enough. I am truly blessed.

by Lori Deschene

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Last night I did something I rarely do. Drum roll please…

…last night I cooked.

OK, to be fair, I more prepped than cooked. But my willingness to participate in this domestic ritual with my boyfriend at the helm was certainly not the norm. Neurotic as I may be with organizing and cleaning, cooking has never been my thing.

For starters, I’m cheap with food. I’d rather spend money on books and pedicures than saffron and truffles. I realize I could channel my inner Rachael Ray and learn to make budget-friendly meals, but an even easier approach is to make full use of my Subway rewards card.

It’s not just my aversion to spending on consumables that attracts me to cheap take-out and cereal. It’s also a matter of priorities. I look at the day as blocks of time—much like Hugh Grant in About a Boy. Left to my own devices, I fill those blocks with tried-and-tested activities, like writing, reading, watching movies, and practicing yoga. Suffice it to say cooking isn’t on my list.

I know I enjoy my world better when I make little changes to my routine—when I take alternative routes to familiar places or make spontaneous plans with old friends, for example. But sometimes I need reminders to do things differently.

Tonight’s reminder brought me to the cutting board, and I must admit I enjoyed it far more than I would have imagined.

As I cut onions and tomatoes into perfect little cubes for pico de gallo, humming and falling into a staccato rhythm, I remembered something my dad said the day prior. He asked me to leave the dishes for him because he’d come to enjoy washing them since losing his job.

He didn’t have the words to explain his new-found fondness for Palmolive, but he didn’t really have to expand. I knew exactly what he meant: simple household rituals can be calming and even gratifying when you throw yourself into them completely.

After an hour of cutting—my boyfriend planned an ambitious Mexican meal for my family, who we’re visiting—I felt almost as relaxed as I do after yoga. OK, so the mid-prep margarita may have contributed to my mellow state, but I’m convinced the chopping had a lot to do with it.

I’ve decided to get more deliberate with my household tasks; to actually schedule them, instead of squeezing them between things I want or need to do. Mindfully completing a simple household task can be like skipping a pebble on a pond, sending ripples of Zen into the day.

If you’re also interested in forming a mindfulness practice in your home, I recommend the following:

1. Let your bed set the tone for the day.

Making the bed is sort of a no-brainer for me. Leaving it unmade feels as unnatural as leaving my house without pants. However, I know it can be tempting to leave the sheets and blankets crumpled to jump into the day a few moments sooner.

Deliberately making your bed in the morning sets the pace for the day. It says you’ll take your time transitioning from one activity to the next without scrambling or rushing just to get things done. Because really, when you’re moving that fast, how much of your day do you fully experience and enjoy?

2. Wash the dishes slowly.

As my father knows, doing the dishes can be both satisfying and grounding. Feel the warm water on your hands; let yourself enjoy the experience of making something dirty clean again. Don’t think about finishing or what you’ll do when you’re finished. Focus solely on the doing.

Thich Nhat Hanh explained it well in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness:

“To my mind, the idea that doing dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you aren’t doing them…I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands.  I know that if I hurry in order to eat dessert sooner, the time of washing dishes will be unpleasant and not worth living.  That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle.”

3. Use cleaning as an exercise in acceptance.

How often in life do we fight ourselves on things we don’t want to do? We procrastinate, we complain, we outsource—a viable option if you can swing it. For the most part, though, we’d benefit from accepting that we have to do things we don’t like on occasion, and then doing them instead of using energy to avoid them.

Cleaning the toilet is right up there with root canals on my fun list, but it won’t clean itself. In accepting this and then doing it—when it needs to be done and no later—I prepare myself to carry this same acceptance outside my house. To stop judging things as good and bad to soften the nagging inner monologue that keeps me divorced from the present.

4. Let your senses take over in the shower.

You’ve probably experienced a meditative shower at least a few times in your life. It’s easy to let go of all other thoughts when you’re standing under a stream of water, set to the perfect temperature for you.

Take this time to tune into your senses. Choose a soap you love so that the scent is intoxicating. Enjoy the sensation of the water on your skin, and feel it drip down your back, your calves, and your heels. My favorite part is when the water first hits my head. It reminds me of getting my hair washed at the salon—a perfect massage as the stylist kneads my head beneath the firm water pressure.

A meditative morning ritual takes you into the day with a clear, focused mind.

5. Turn a boring activity into the noticing game.

“The noticing game” is not a technical term; I’m sure a monk has described this same idea much more eloquently, but humor me if you will.

Here is an example of the noticing game in action: On my flight from California to Massachusetts last month, I encountered the perfect storm of difficult plane circumstances. I felt wired and couldn’t sleep; my TV was broken; and I couldn’t turn on my light to read lest I wake up the baby right next to me.

There was nothing to do to pass the time. I was tempted to break my first rule of flying home and pull out the credit card for an overpriced in-flight drink. Instead, I decided to notice everything in my environment.

I people-watched, identified interesting items of clothing, paid attention to things I heard, and noticed the different smells around me (luckily, not coming from the baby). This allowed me to sink into the present moment instead of searching for ways to avoid it.

You can do the same thing when vacuuming, dusting, or ironing. Notice things about your furniture you may not have seen before—textures, colors, or shapes. Notice patterns on your clothes.

When you focus on being in your environment, it’s easier to appreciate the moment for what it is instead of wishing you were somewhere else.

I don’t know about you, but that’s one skill I’ve yet to master. I work on it, one shower, one dish, one tomato at a time. And in doing, I am happy.

by Sonya Derian

“After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies.” ~Samuel Rutherford

I was talking to someone this week about his feeling that things weren’t happening fast enough. That with all he was doing, intending and putting out there, that more should be happening—and faster.

My question to him was, “Really? Should things really be happening faster? Or are you exactly where you’re supposed to be?”

There is a tendency, sometimes, to think we have it all figured out. When it should happen, how it should happen, who it should happen with—and before it’s “too late.”

We are powerful creators in life, but the truth is, we’re not in this alone. There are other forces at play, and for the most part, to our benefit.

Have you ever had something occur in your life that you had wished for years earlier, only to realize that now was the perfect timing? That in fact, you wouldn’t have been ready for it any earlier? That in retrospect, everything was leading up to the perfect moment of this unfolding?

We want to feel in charge of our lives. It makes us feel safe knowing that we have control. And to some extent, we have complete control in dictating our desires, in stating our ambitions, and in following our well laid plans.

But sometimes life has a way of throwing us curve balls. There is a delay in an outcome we are hoping to produce, or the timing doesn’t work out as we planned. We’re not where we think we should be, financially, socially, professionally, creatively, or romantically.

And yet even in this, there is perfection.

In other words, for those of you who think your time has passed, or it’s too late, or there is not enough time, I ask you: How do you know this? How do you know that in this moment, right now, you are not exactly where you are supposed to be?

That things are not working out for you, despite appearances?

I had a teacher who used to pose the question: “If everything is perfect exactly as it is, what is it that you are not seeing?”

In other words, what are you gaining from this situation that is perfect for your unfolding, right now; and how is this preparing you for the thing you desire?

We are always afraid our ship is not going to come in, or if it does, it did already and left without us. Our ship may come and go, but there will be another one and another one and another one. And another one.

We are coming into our own in the timing we need. For each of us it will be different, but for each of us, it will also be perfect.

Inspirational leader Mary Morrissey talks about Chinese Bamboo and how it is a very slow-growing and fragile plant. She says that if the bamboo is cared for, watched over and nurtured, in one year it grows two inches, in the next year it grows two inches, in the next year it grows two inches, in the next year it grows two inches, and then in the fifth year, it grows 80 feet!

This is how it is with our development. We intend. We make incremental changes. We show up for our success in whatever way we can. Over time, everything comes to fruition, harmonizing all aspects in such a creative way that if we were to look back on it, we would marvel at the perfection of it all.

We would know that we were making strides all along.

Trust in the perfection of your life and let yourself be fully where you are in the moment. Trust that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Know that what you have to look forward to is greater than what you are leaving behind.

And trust that you will “arrive” in time and on time, not a minute sooner.

by Lori Deschene

“If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.” ~Bob Basso

A couple weeks back, my boyfriend and I went to our local county fair. I love—love—fairs.

Forget for a minute that adult-me now gets vertigo just looking at a roller coaster; and that my 30-year old digestive track nearly explodes when I catch a whiff of carnie food. When you factor in my increasing interest in crafts and farm animals, it somewhat evens out.

If you’re the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, thrill-seeker type, that might sound as exciting as watching paint dry. But I really do love petting furry little creatures and thinking about things I can make.

Standing in the petting zoo, surrounded by llamas, sheep, goats, and even a wallaby, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. I hopped around to spend equal time with everyone; didn’t want the donkey to feel slighted. I played, I frolicked, I may even have skipped a little.

Truthfully, I would have been equally psyched just to sit back and be a farm voyeur. Just watching the animals scamper and seeing kids’ faces light up as they fed them, I felt happy and peaceful. I didn’t even mind when the goat bit my pant leg. He could have gnawed a hole into my favorite Seven jeans and I still would have found it charming.

Sunny little giggles, that rustic barn smell, the feeling of disconnection from chaotic urban life—everything about that moment appealed to me. I was having fun.

As my boyfriend dragged me out of the petting zoo to see an Eddie Money concert—his brand of fun—I wondered when I’d last felt so happy and free. I did plenty of things I enjoyed in the weeks prior. But none of it was exactly the same. Something was missing. Or perhaps more accurately, something was there most of the time.

That thing was the voice in my head. It sounded a little something like this:

“You quit your job. Are you getting too old for these kinds of risks? Is it really smart to not have insurance? What if you get in an accident and you still don’t have insurance? Did you renew the car insurance?  Should you sell the car? You don’t really drive it any way…”

And so on and so on. With so many changes in my life and so much on my plate these days, that little voice had been getting louder, and oftentimes it felt productive to indulge it. It wasn’t. That type of incessant thinking takes away far more than it gives.

It’s hard to be fully present and have fun when a part of you is getting lost in a mental maze.

Doing something you enjoy while judging, analyzing, worrying, fearing, or regretting in your head is like experiencing the world from inside a plastic bubble. You can see and hear everything, but it’s all diluted.

I don’t believe it’s possible to completely silence the nagging inner voice that constantly interprets and judges. That little mental hamster wheel will spin on occasion all throughout our lives.

But I do think it’s possible to slow it down and even stop it for lengths of time. It’s possible to bottle that farm experience (or whatever does it for you) to make presence, peace, and fun the norm and not the rarity.

It’s actually quite simple. Silencing the inner voice and experiencing more joy comes down to these three things:

1. Practice mental quiet.

2. Incorporate things you enjoy into your day—and practice mental quiet while you experience them.

3. Find things to enjoy in the things you don’t—and practice mental quiet while you experience them.

Let’s break it down:

1. Practice mental quiet.

The mind is like a muscle. If you want it to perform for you in a certain way, you have to train it in advance.

Proponents of meditation recommend meditating 30 minutes in both the morning and evening to produce a clearer mind. I’ll be honest with you: I’ve never done that, and I suspect I never will. But I do enjoy yoga.

A class is usually 60–90 minutes, which allows for at least an hour of moving meditation. Depending on what type of yoga you practice, you can even take a silent class.

If neither of those appeals to you, you could try one of these ideas:

• Once a day, find a quiet place to do something that doesn’t require much thought: knitting, crocheting, or building model ships, for example. Focus solely on the activity, and the sensations of doing it. Commit to breathing deeply and remaining silent throughout the whole experience and your brain will eventually slow down.

• Once daily, sit in nature and simply observe. If your mind starts wandering, notice where it’s headed and then come back to your focus. At first you may feel tempted to get up or at least be mentally productive. With consistent practice, that will fade.

Just be sure to remove all distractions, especially distractions of the tech variety.

2. Incorporate things you enjoy in your day—and practice mental quiet while you experience them.

This may seem somewhat obvious, but if my experience is any indication, it bears saying. Sure, I do things I love, but there are a lot of things I love that I don’t do often, like spending time around animals.

I wondered about that while a lamb nuzzled up against my shin. Why didn’t I have some type of hobby that allowed me to be around animals? And what about the other things that I love so much that I easily get in the zone? Why when things get busy do I sacrifice yoga?

Sometimes we get so caught up in the things we think we should do or need to do that we forget to make joy a priority. Then when we do find pockets of time to do the things we love, oftentimes we’re somewhere else mentally, thinking about everything else.

The best way to challenge this is to create a list of things you love so much they have the potential to melt everything else away. Commit to doing some of these a little every day. Then when you’re doing them, observe your thoughts.

If you start judging, fearing, stressing, or analyzing, notice it and bring yourself back to the present moment. When my mind starts wandering, I tell myself a little something like this:

Stop. Put those thoughts aside. You can think them later if you want to. The most effective thing you can do right now is let yourself enjoy the moment. This moment—this joy—is what you work for. If you can’t enjoy it, the work is pointless.

3. Find things to enjoy in the things you don’t—and practice mental quiet while you experience them.

There are plenty of things you’ll have to do in life that won’t seem fun in any way. I once had a doctor that was chronically a half-hour behind. I hated the time in his waiting room because I felt he was wasting my time. For years I’d show up and sit there seething, thinking all kinds of negative thoughts as if I was spiting him with my unspoken hostility.

It took me a long time to realize that open-ended downtime could be a gift. I could bring music, magazines, whatever, and use the time to recharge before the rest of the day. Since I was on someone else’s time, I could also use it to practice acceptance and mindfulness.

When I thought of it that way, the time seemed both more useful and more fun. I’d like to say that I was always a ray of sunshine in that waiting room, leading scores of once frustrated patients in rounds of Kumbaya. But that’s a lie. Sometimes I drifted back to annoyance, which quickly snowballed into other annoyances.

It’s all too easy for one little grievance to turn into a laundry list of judgments and problems, hence the second part of the equation: practice mental quiet.

When you’re in that situation that’s not quite so fun, it might take work to come back to your peace of mind. It’s worth it to make the effort. It may seem like we have an endless supply of moments in life but the truth is they are finite.

Every one counts if we make it count. Why not make it count?

–

When we were kids, fun was a priority. We always did the things we loved simply because we loved doing them. We didn’t stress about homework at the park because play time was for playing. A boring waiting room wasn’t an obstacle—it was where we played doctor (the G-rated kind).

There’s a whole lot of thinking that can get in the way of mindfulness and presence. The simple point of this somewhat long post: we can choose to quiet those thoughts, and get better at it with practice.

by Genny Ross-Barons

“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” ~Unknown

I celebrated an anniversary recently. It was the night I experienced my first, and hopefully last, earthquake.

My husband and I had retired for the evening as usual—said our goodnights and went to sleep. I was jarred awake at 2:30 AM by him trying to pull me from our bed. At the same moment I heard the most deafening roar. Could a freight train be barrelling through our loft?

Our attempts to escape the upper level were hampered by the violent shaking. As we stepped forward we were propelled side-to-side.  We were being tossed like rag-dolls as we scrambled down the stairs, only to be greeted by the sound of glass objects smashing from below.

Skirting around the shards of broken stemware, we fumbled with the house keys and made our escape to the front porch. The same instant that we arrived outside, the 7.3 earthquake stopped as abruptly as it had started.

We were fortunate that our home did not collapse on top of us, that in our community there was no loss of life, and the tsunami that we were warned about never materialized.

Although we were lucky and it only lasted sixty seconds, I put earthquakes at the top of my list of things I never want to experience again.

So why celebrate the anniversary of such an event?

One minute your life is normal. You carry on not giving a thought to what may be. You are the master of your destiny. Then something beyond your control happens—your world gets all shook up.

You have no control over the event specific to you, but you do have the power to decide how to deal with it. The following six things you can control when dealing with an earthshaking event.

1. Offer help to others.

When you focus on someone else’s emotional or physical needs, instead of dwelling on what has happened to you, you’re too busy to think about what happened; and you feel a sense of accomplishment instead of hopelessness.

Perhaps your earthshaking event is your company closing, leaving all its employees jobless. You are rightfully devastated by the news, but you know you’re capable of updating your resume to pursue a new job.

What about the person who works beside you and has never written a resume before? Why not suggest you work together to prepare both resumes? Arrange to do mock interviews for each other. A trial run can help alleviate the nervousness, fine tune your own skills, and could just outright make you laugh when you are at a time in your life when you need it most.

2. Look at the event as a not so gentle reminder.

It is so easy to take your life and people you love for granted. When something shakes up your world, it might just be the reminder you need to appreciate everyone, including yourself.

It is easy to perceive there are more important things to do rather than spend time with your loved ones. You don’t have time to go for a walk, or sit together and talk. You have to get the kids somewhere, or perhaps finish that report.

And what about for yourself, when is the last time you took even a few minutes just for you. There’s always tomorrow—right?

When an earthshaking event happens, be grateful for the reminder that you can’t count on there being a tomorrow. Find the time for the people that matter to you, including yourself right now!

Looking for the silver lining like this goes a long way toward helping you deal with it and returns a sense of control in a situation that you didn’t initiate.

3. Respect and accept the strength of forces larger than yourself.

The smartest people in the world, with the best resources, could never stop an earthquake from happening. Sometimes you need to accept that there are forces larger than you at play. Accepting that you simply cannot control everything is an integral part of dealing with difficulties.

4. Appreciate twists in the adventure.

Limiting yourself in fear of what you can’t control will do you no good. Appreciate the adventure of not knowing what might happen next.

Roller-coasters, bungee-jumping, sky-diving and many other man-made attractions are put in place to give people an adrenaline rush, a sensation that while it is happening, you are out of control and terrified. The pay-off is when it is over! Your heart is racing, your palms are sweating and perhaps you are even feeling nauseous—but you did it!

During the earthquake and after, I felt all those emotions and physical sensations.  For days I was paralyzed with the fear of it happening again. The more I gave in to that, the more out of control I felt.

My ability to carry out normal daily tasks was being hindered. With every aftershock I would become instantly sick to my stomach. I would tense every muscle in my body and experience a headache that would further limit my ability to function.

I’d been told the aftershocks could continue for a month or more. I needed to find a way to deal with them to gain back a sense of control.

When the next aftershock hit, I envisioned that I was on a roller-coaster. I relaxed into the motion instead of trying to fight it. While not 100 percent effective the first time, at least I avoided a headache and losing hours of my day. By using this technique I got to the point that I could make it through an aftershock without any problem. It became an adventure—a game.

By considering your earth-shattering event an adventure, you become a contender, no longer a victim holding yourself back. You regain control and are better prepared to find ways to get through it.

5. Consider how it helps you grow.

Every experience is a life lesson. You will be wiser, emotionally stronger, and perhaps have some newfound knowledge or skill in an area you knew nothing about before.

You and your family used to eat out all the time. But now, loss of a job means you no longer can afford to do that. At times you’re not sure how you can even afford to make a meal at home. Out of necessity you get creative. You seek out recipes that are most economical, invent a few of your own. You discover a passion for cooking.

You were considering going back to school for retraining—but had no idea what you would study. Maybe now you do. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs achieved their status from having to deal with a situation they had no control over.

6. Be proud of yourself.

As you work through an earthshaking event, give yourself credit for every step forward. By acknowledging your achievements no matter how small, you regain trust in your ability to fix what you didn’t break. You empower yourself to take the next step. Besides, the situation is beating you up enough—don’t help it!

–

Earthshaking events will continue to happen in our lives; we have no control over that. But we do have the ability to control how we respond. While in the midst of such an event it may seem hopeless and unbeatable but you can do it.

***

Genny Ross-Barons lives on the tropical Island of Roatan, Honduras. Originally from Canada, she spends her days in this idyllic setting on the Caribbean Sea, writing about day-to-day life on Roatan – When not Independently Wealthy or Old Enough to Retire, at http://roatanvortex.com and as DJ Genevieve, on http://roatanradio.com sharing Roatan with the world. Photos here and here.

by Ramaa Sharma

“All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” ~Proverb

Practice and patience are like inseparable twins that have the capacity to bring us great joy when in harmony—and great angst when they are not.

Consider the phrase: “Practice and all is coming….”

I didn’t realize the depth of this statement when I first read it in my Ashtanga yoga manual several years ago.

Sri K Pattabhi Jois was the Yogi who said it repeatedly to all his students. And it is perfectly reasonable for one to assume he was referring to the daily practice of yoga.

But one morning during my writing practice (my daily moving meditation) I realized the true essence of his statement.

For as long as I can remember I have strived to know peace—that is peace while living in the ‘real’ world and freedom from my cluttered mind.

We all do, don’t we? And I’m guessing that we all have some idea, whether through books or people of how we are supposed to achieve this. Self awareness, detachment, letting go of failure, hurt, pain, being present—the list goes on and on.

Despite being fundamentally aware of what we need to do, why do we often fail to apply? Why are we all not at peace?

At times we might achieve small bouts of contentment—and I believe as we get older we get better at it—but why should this be the case if we know now what we’re supposed to be doing?

So here’s the realization, in all its simplicity:

Practice and patience.

Even peace of mind comes with daily practice and patience.

Just realizing this will improve our daily state of mind, regardless of how old we are.

We don’t need to think hard for examples to labor the point. To become great cooks we have to practice cooking—we have to master the recipes. Great athletes dedicate their lives to their sport. Yogis practice postures, singers exercise their voices. The same is true with what goes on in our heads.

We have to constantly remind ourselves to let go of the pain, hurt, failure, whatever it might be that is causing distress and cluttering our minds.

I say identify, resolve and let go constantly. Repeatedly. Daily.

This is what I now do every day and particularly when stress, sadness or frustration comes knocking at my door.

Let these random thoughts pass and if something needs to be done, do it. Otherwise, plan when you will get it done and deal with it at that necessary point. Then let it go. Let go of the thought and also the result and expectation tied to it.

Do this with everything that causes you stress and don’t punish yourself when you can’t or struggle to process—patience, remember?

I know it’s hard, but we can get better over time.

Practice the art of peace daily and have patience with it—all is coming.