“Feelings are real and legitimate.” -Unknown

One of the most frustrating things in the world is feeling something painful and having other people tell you that you shouldn’t be upset.

That it’s no big deal that relationship didn’t work out, or that opportunity didn’t pan out—that it’s all in your head, so you should let it go, suck it up, and move on.

A while back, a friend of mine got fired from a new job after her first day. We were out in a group when she got the call, and several of us watched her emotions slowly build to gut-wrenching tears.

Naturally, everyone wanted to console her, but that quickly turned into a rapid fire succession of reminders that it really was no big deal—no one died—and she shouldn’t feel so crushed.

I understand it can be helpful to put things in perspective, and I know there were good intentions behind those words, but I found myself wondering if it ever helps to tell someone that they should be feeling something else.

No matter what someone else thinks about our circumstances and how we should respond, our feelings are not imagined.

If you’re mourning a loss of any kind, you don’t have to pretend you’re not hurt. Know that your feelings are real and valid.

If you’re missing the way things were, you don’t have to pretend you’re not sad. Know that your feelings are real and valid.

If you’ve been betrayed, disrespected, or violated in any way, you don’t have to pretend you’re not angry. Know that your feelings are real and valid.

We are only human, and we are going to have times when we feel wounded, sometimes over events that would challenge anyone’s sense of composure, and sometimes over things that may seem insignificant to everyone but us.

In those moments, we may feel an overwhelming surge of emotion without really know the words to express it. Maybe the key is to simply feel it, without stressing about whether that’s right or wrong, and then give ourselves some time to understand what’s going on in our heads and our hearts.

We can either judge our emotions, telling ourselves we should be stronger, or accept them for what they are, and then allow ourselves space to recognize what we can think and do to feel stronger.

Photo by The Wandering Angel

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by An Bourmanne

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” ~Abraham Lincoln

I used to think that I would motivate myself to really live up to my full potential by reminding myself how much I wasn’t.

Well, that didn’t work.

Not that I didn’t get any results from chanting “You are so not living up to your full potential!” while getting out of bed, driving to work, doing the dishes, and combing my hair. Any time was a great time to remind myself. So I didn’t waste a second doing just that.

And I got results. Only not the ones I expected.

I became an expert on mindlessly browsing the web. I became an expert on constantly comparing myself to other people. I became an expert on feeling stuck. I became an expert on driving myself crazy with my non-stop “you are so stuck” chatter in my mind.

I felt drained, stuck, and low on energy; these were my daily companions.

So it shouldn’t be any wonder I grew less and less fond of my so-called motivational mantra that was doing anything but, well, motivating.

I’ve realized that living up to our full potential starts with eliminating three big lies:

Lie # 1. It’s productive to beat ourselves up about not living up to our full potential.

When we spend all our energy telling ourselves we’re not doing good enough, we have very little time and energy left to look inside.

Don’t get me wrong, I was very busy.

I was very busy searching for my full potential. I read tons of books. I completed lots of quizzes to find my true talents and the right job for me. I browsed the job section of newspapers. I looked at what other people were doing.

In short, I was looking everywhere—except inside.

I wasn’t paying attention to what gave me energy. I wasn’t paying attention to what fascinated me.  Instead I was writing the pros and cons for potential jobs, but reaching a dead end time and again as I failed to neatly add and subtract all the items from both columns into one overwhelmingly clear answer.

I’ve come to believe that we already know what it means to us to lead a rich, meaningful, purposeful life. It’s just a matter of paying attention.

And listening to ourselves.

And taking action and checking in with ourselves to discover what feels good, what energizes us, what feels bad, what drains us, and what fascinates us.

It’s a matter of allowing ourselves to explore and experiment, one tiny step at a time. And adjusting where needed, using our energy levels and our fascination as a compass to guide us in creating an energizing, brilliant life that inspires us.

Lie #2:  Living up to our full potential means living a life free of fear, failure, and sorrow.

I convinced myself that living to my full potential meant living happily ever after, in some kind of perpetual state of bliss.

I’ve come to believe that this is a myth.

Living up to our full potential means feeling the fear and doing it anyway. It means realizing we are living up to our full potential because of and thanks to the mistakes we make and what we learn from them.

Living up to our full potential means seeing things as they are, not the way we think they should be—and taking action from that place.

It means allowing ourselves to feel the way we do, not the way we think we should feel.

It means diving in and exploring why we are feeling the way we do.

And that’s when we find our answers. That’s when we reconnect with our full potential. That’s when we start tapping into our brilliance.

Lie #3: We’re not good enough.

When we tell ourselves “You are so not living up to your full potential!” we’re basically telling ourselves “You are not good enough the way you are right now.”

And that is such a disempowering lie.

I’ve learned that it is my choice whether or not to believe that lie. It is my job to let go of that lie and choose an empowering perspective instead.

I’ve learned that I can make that choice every minute of every single day.

So that’s what I did. I made that choice.  And that’s what I do, time and again.

I’m being the best me I can be, right here, right now.

I’ll be thriving tomorrow thanks to the mistakes I am willing to make today.

Living up to our full potential is not trying to avoid making mistakes. It’s giving it our all, wholeheartedly, with all we’ve got.

I am now reconnecting with my full potential through everything I do.

I choose to explore. I choose to explore me. I choose me.

Living up to my full potential is doing my thing, one tiny step at a time, at my pace, in my own fabulous, imperfect way.

Some will like it, some won’t. Living up to my full potential is being cool with that instead of trying to please everyone else.

I’m done living someone else’s life. Living up to my full potential is giving myself permission to be who I am, and tapping into my unique me.

I feel empowered, scared and excited, proud and determined, playful and inspired; these are just a few of my new daily companions on this long, fascinating, winding road that is living up to my full potential.

And they didn’t come into my life by accident. I choose to invite them in. One empowering thought at a time.

And so can you.

Photo by daveynin

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

I am writing this from a plane, much like a post I wrote last week. I’ve come to believe some of life’s most joyful moments happen when we least expected they would.

Just now one of the flight attendants came onto the loud speaker to announce there’s someone with a birthday today. After many of us sang to a man we couldn’t see, one guy yelled “Stand up!” and another hollered, “Speech!” And then we all started giggling, somehow conveying a Boston accent without uttering a single “R.”

It was a silly little moment, and yet it seemed kind of special. It was one of those rare occasions when a bunch of people who don’t know each other come together in good will and laughter.

I think it’s also the departure from normal conduct that makes a moment like this so engaging.

In school, whenever everyone was sitting quietly, reading, I felt this compulsion to stand up and start singing. I felt the same thing when everyone was quiet on a bus. In retrospect, I don’t think I was fantasizing about being annoying or distracting.

I was imagining what it would be like to break the mold of expected behavior and do something impulsively joyful. I was visualizing what it would be like to bust out of my little box, in a world where I am separate from everyone else, and create a moment that compels everyone around me to get out of their heads and smile.

It’s obviously not advisable to belt our show tunes during jury duty or in line at the DMV, but maybe there’s something to this idea of creating spontaneous joy.

It doesn’t require us to do anything but be present and accessible to the people around us.

It’s saying hello to someone else on the subway instead of avoiding eye contact. It’s offering a compliment to someone in line at the bank, instead of staring at our feet. It’s making a joke in a doctor’s waiting room instead of rehashing everything that could go wrong in our heads.

We spend so much of our lives rushing past each other, dreaming or stressing about where we’re going, and dwelling on where we’ve come from.

Maybe happiness is really being where we are, and choosing to smile with the people around us.

Photo by pelican

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Kylie Springman

“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” ~John De Paola

Pushing has always been the way I get things done.

Actually, I should be more specific: pushing myself harder has been the way I get things done.

I grew up believing that life was hard, and that the only way to survive was to give up indulgences, buckle down, and trudge forward. Uphill. Against the wind.

In my small, suburban high school, I spent hours after my classes ended wrestling with quadratic equations.

I had the overwhelmingly generous help of my teachers, who tutored me for free in their after-school time. I had the patience of an incredibly gifted best friend to accompany me at study sessions.

Still, I felt alone in it all. I cried (weekly, probably) over math and science. Other subjects came easily to me, but the black-topped tables of the science classroom consumed my experience of school. I still remember how smooth and cold they were under my elbows.

I continued on to college at one of the most expensive private schools in the U.S., sinking into student loan debt with every lecture. When depression swept me away during my first college semester and my grades suffered, the only solution I saw was to work harder, to sleep less.

The results weren’t good: I exited the school year with deepening depression and a blossoming eating disorder.

It seemed the harder I tried, the worse things got.

Over the next several years, things improved, though I still didn’t feel like I had much control over my life. Happily, I fell in love at first sight with the prettiest (and kindest) girl I’d ever seen, and she shone her light into many of my dark corners.

Following college, I didn’t have trouble finding work. I was able to pay my student loans consistently. I’d found love, which was more than a lot of people could say. But things still felt difficult.

Then, at very long last, I decided to undertake a project to be kinder to myself. I started sleeping more, and feeling better.

I began eating what I wanted to eat instead of what I was “supposed to” eat. I stopped going to the gym six days a week and instead went when I darn well felt like moving my body.

What happened then? Things blossomed. Life seemed easier, because I was consciously letting go of the urge to fight. Opportunities came to me.

I gradually began to notice that there was more good to be found in my life than bad—more ease than struggle.

I’m a little afraid that I’m making this sound like an overnight shift into ease, or like my life is all rainbows and gumdrops now. That’s not at all the case. I’d say it’s been at least seven years since the first inklings of change took root.

I’ve tried at least six different therapists. I’ve gone on and off antidepressants, and on again. I’ve deprived myself of sleep and remembered why it doesn’t work.

Then I’ve forgotten and done it again. I’ve pushed myself to work ever-harder in poor conditions, and I’ve gotten angry at my bosses. I’ve gotten angry at myself. I’ve wrestled with what ease could look like in my life.

Most noticeably, I’ve fought my own propensity to push myself to get somewhere else, and to get there sooner.

I’ve wanted to sacrifice the present moment for some imagined future, and I’ve stopped myself, hundreds of times, from doing so.

I’ve thought to myself, if I put every spare cent in my paycheck toward paying off student loans, maybe I could be done sooner. I’ve wanted to skimp on buying the foods that nourish me in order to cut corners.

I’ve wanted to stay up late and write another blog post, imagining the difference that midnight thrust might make in the future (a future that, as we all know, will never arrive, because by then I’ll be bulldozing on toward the next future).

Over and over again, I’ve reigned myself back. I’ve done what I can. I’ve gotten nine hours of sleep. I’ve eaten well and spent weekend afternoons in my pajamas watching Breaking Bad.

I haven’t regretted it.

Every time I hold myself back from indiscriminately pushing, I experience the unsettling openness of being right here, right now.

I become receptive to pleasure, nourishment, connection with other people, and connection with myself. In that moment, I accept my imperfections.

I begin to see everything that’s around me right now: the colorful people bustling down New York City sidewalks, the mosses peeking gently between stones, the light glinting off glass skyscrapers.

I take a second to fight the urge to push, and that second transforms my life.

If you can relate to that instinct to push yourself unnecessarily hard, you may want to try these simple guidelines to bring yourself back to the present:

• When you’re feeling the urge to push yourself harder, take a moment to pause before acting. Think about what you need most right now. Is it sleep? A nourishing meal? Connection with a friend? Whatever it is, do that.

• Close your eyes for a moment and pay attention to your body. Tune into where you feel tension, or anxiety, or where you just feel good. Take a few very deep breaths, into your belly. Ask yourself if you have any options right now that sound more appealing than pushing yourself harder. When you receive an answer, follow your instincts.

• Reach out to other people for help and input. Sometimes, we don’t see any options besides working harder. But other people, be they friends, therapists, coaches or mentors, can often see opportunities for self-kindness that we can’s see ourselves. You might be surprised by the insights other people have to share.

Most of all, I want to gently urge you to be aware of when you’re pushing yourself, and open up to the possibility that there truly are other, kinder, options.

Photo by Leans

“Enthusiasm is contagious. You can start an epidemic.” –Unknown

Do you ever downplay your passions and ambitions when someone asks you about your work?

Someone asked me if I do this a while back, and at first, I said that I don’t. To know me is to know Tiny Buddha—and to hear about it often.

I’ve recognized, however, that I can be somewhat reserved in describing what I do when I first someone new—especially if I meet them in a context that does not confirm they have an interest in personal development.

Of course, this means I’m making assumptions. Just because I meet someone at a wisdom conference that doesn’t guarantee they’re more interested in personal growth than someone I meet in a doctor’s office.

Still, it’s tempting to form this conclusion to avoid potential awkwardness, particularly because I write about topics that not everyone feels comfortable discussing.

This, I’ve found, is what sometimes causes me to water down my enthusiasm: I’m too concerned with how I assume someone might respond to open up and find out for myself.

Can you relate?

Have you ever assumed someone would be bored by your work without giving them the opportunity to decide for themselves? Have you ever imagined someone would find your aspirations silly instead of taking a chance and letting them in?

Or how about this: Have you ever held back when sharing your goals with someone who seems to be successful in their field in fear they won’t take you seriously because you’re not yet?

I suspect we do these things to maintain a sense of safety, whether it’s for ourselves or our dreams.

But we limit our potential to help and be helped, inspire and be inspired, when we minimize our interests and ambitions.

You never know when an enthusiastic exchange might lead to a life-changing conversation, introduction, or opportunity, for you or someone else.

We can all do a lot of good in this world we all share together, but we first we need to be willing to share the good we want to do.

Photo by {ind}yeah

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Andrea Wren

“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

When I bought my car, I visited only one showroom. I’d made the decision that this was the car for me in around one hour, and chose not to spend more hours or days of my time going from one place to another to check other deals and different cars.

If I hadn’t have found this car, I would have gone to another dealer. However, I’ll never know if I could have saved money by haggling elsewhere, and I don’t care.

I’ve had my trusty and reliable vehicle for over six years now and so far, I’ve never had to pay more than general maintenance and upkeep. So it was worth every penny.

You may be shocked that I made such a large and important purchase in this manner (and I’m not a wealthy person by any means). But I was confident it was a good deal when I found it and it’s never let me down.

I now make most of my purchases like this. I’ll give myself a single option (like shopping at just one store), or will limit them (such as browsing four vacation brochures instead of fifteen), and once I’m happy with the decision, I’ll stick with it.

Why? Because I think too much choice is stressful. And you can quite literally send yourself crazy with it, like I did.

Choice anxiety!

At one time, my need to “shop around” and my desire to keep options open before making decisions was bordering on obsessive. I dithered. I wore myself out. I got confused, and even anxious, when I needed to buy stuff, even if it was just a new winter coat.

If I was making a life decision, I’d go backward and forward in my mind, keeping myself awake at night. If I was shopping, I spent hours and days searching and comparing, until I was exhausted.

It wasn’t until I started working for myself I saw just how much energy it took up. Then, I no longer had the time available to give myself so many options.

Buying my car was a turning point for me because I realized that I could limit my choice and nothing bad would happen.

We’re bombarded with seemingly infinite choices in today’s consumer culture, whether it’s from dazzling offers at competing supermarkets, from blaring, intrusive commercials on TV, or from just having too many possibilities due the nature of societal change and globalization.

And it overloads our brains.

But once I discovered how much stress I was under because of choice overload, and once I started to embrace and impose limitations, it felt like liberation.

While I’m not suggesting you might want to go and buy your next car in the way I did, if you do want to limit choice in your life in order to reduce stress, I have some tips to share with you.

7 Tips to Limit Choice and Reduce Your Stress

1. Ask what you’ll really achieve if you keep your options as open as possible. By doing this, you can see that the time and stress invested to keep a wide range of choice isn’t likely to outweigh the benefit of possibly saving a few dollars.

2. Cast your net small and decide your limit on where you’ll shop/search/compare. If you’re buying insurance, choose one or two comparison websites at the most. If you’re finding a new gym, pick three in the locality to look at and leave it at that.

3. Unless your budget is extremely tight and every penny counts, stop worrying about saving just a small amount of money. It’s rarely going to be that much, or worth the stress you cause yourself in order to save it.

4. Once you’ve made your decision, stick with it. Don’t allow yourself a “safety net” of being able to take it back or swap just because you’ve changed your mind. Know that this is the right choice for you, right now.

5. Let the other “choices” go. Whether it was a possible other date for the evening, or a new sofa, don’t dwell on how wonderful the things you didn’t choose might have been. And don’t regret not choosing them.

6. Ask: do you really need it anyway? If you already own several pairs of boots, how will another pair affect your happiness? Focus on what adds meaning to your life, rather than material gain.

7. Trust yourself. You know what you really need, and what is right for you. Be happy with your choice when you’ve made it, and know that the world will not explode if, by the slightest chance, this was the wrong choice.

What helps you deal with choice overload?

Photo by Danboot

“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” -Theodore I. Rubin

There are times when things get complicated and it has nothing to do with the choices we’ve made.

Sometimes everyone around us needs us for different things, right as our work is becoming more challenging, and we’re feeling confused about what we actually want to do with our lives.

Sometimes we receive medical or psychiatric diagnoses—and possibly both at the same time—right after being laid off and losing our health insurance.

Sometimes we feel we’ve made headway with emotional wounds from the past, only to find ourselves feeling challenged by the smallest of triggers and uncertain if we’ve made any progress at all.

Try as we may to eliminate the debt, responsibility, unhealthy relationships, and anything else that may cause us stress, life may never be simple.

We may always have different challenges to address in our lives. But maybe simplicity isn’t eliminating problems; maybe it’s learning to embrace them, face them, and grow from them, instead of seeing them as something to resist.

Perhaps “simple” has nothing to do with the circumstances in our lives, and everything to do with the mindset we foster in accepting and responding to them.

There are certain problems that need solutions more quickly than others. There are certain events that may seem more overwhelming than others.

We can either approach these situations with a sense of dread and anxiety, assuming we have no choice but to respond this way; or we can find our center, take it all one step at a time, and recognize that whatever happens, we can handle it and learn from it.

We can’t change that life will be complex at times, but we can cause ourselves a lot less pain by accepting that, instead of fighting it, questioning it, and wishing we could change it.

Life will inevitably involve challenges; and sometimes they’ll work in our favor. Problems allow us to create, innovate, and stretch both ourselves and the world we know.

The question isn’t whether life will ever be simple; it’s whether we’ll recognize all the opportunities within the complexities and find the strength to seize them.

What problem will you embrace today?

Photo by Paralog

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jennifer Boykin

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

I am a member of a mercifully small subset of society. I am the mother of a dead child.

Twenty years ago, my daughter Grace—my first child, my only girl—was born prematurely and died 32-minutes later. As I write this, I am astonished that it has been twenty years since I met my daughter for the only time.

Time stopped for me when Grace took her last little breath. And I was certain that my life could never start again. 

I was wrong.

Here’s what made all the difference in my healing:

Over time, I learned to bless the thorns in my life. I began to see that the thorn and rose define one another. Since, one cannot exist without the other, we can only enjoy the rose when we embrace the thorn.

As a society, though, we make healing from loss very difficult. We unintentionally tell each other lies about suffering and the healing process.

One of those lies is that “Time heals all wounds.”

If time healed all wounds, why do so many people suffer their entire lives from things that happened decades ago?

As one of the bereavement experts I studied explained, it’s not “time” that heals all wounds. It’s hard work. And hard work takes time.

Here is some of the hard work of healing:

Choose to Heal

When great tragedy comes to your life, you have just one decision to make that will determine the whole of your remaining life:

Will you be bitter or better?

Your future happiness depends on the choice you make.

On the surface of it, this seems like a “no brainer” decision. I mean, why would you choose bitterness over joy?

Well, here’s one reason: When a child dies, your entire future dies—at least the future you envisioned for yourself. When that child is an infant, you believe your sorrow is the only tangible evidence of her brief life.

The choice to get better means making the choice to move past your sorrow.

As strange as it sounds, the loss of your sorrow can feel like an additional death. Worse, it feels like the final death, because it feels like you are choosing to deny your child’s entire existence.

(As it turns out, I was wrong about that. Lots of other tangible evidence came from Grace’s life—this piece, for example.) But those roses bloom at some future point, while your suffering is immediate.

Let no one say that healers lack courage.

Choosing to heal means letting go of the immediate reward of your suffering for the possible promise of future insight. 

It is a risk that all who heal take, and it is not an easy choice to make while you are in the hell of acute loss.

I urge you to make it nonetheless.

The Thorns Make Community Possible

Joy can be an individual experience. When you are joyful, I am happy for you. But I don’t necessarily feel enlightened by your happiness. When you let me see your sorrow, however, then I feel an affinity with you.

It is our shared suffering—our thorns—that make empathy possible.

It is our thorns that make us protective of one another. In this way, thorns are the pathway to community and peace.

Suffering Brings Wisdom—If You Choose to Heal

It used to bother me that people complimented me for my “wisdom” or “courage” after Grace died.  Somehow, it felt like the Spiritual Booby Prize. To this day, I would trade that wisdom for the return of my daughter. But I don’t have that choice.

If I refuse to celebrate and share that hard-won wisdom, I essentially cut the rose from the thorn bush. 

In my case, Grace would have been the rose I would have preferred. But that rose is not available to me. The rose of wisdom is.

I share that wisdom because it is a gift of grace. My Grace. The rose of my wisdom is made possible because of the thorn of my sorrow. Grace’s legacy is manifested when I share the wisdom she left me.

You Sorrow Makes You Free

Once the “worst thing” that can ever happen to you in life actually happens—once you decide to get better instead of bitter—then you get to live the entire rest of your life without feeling paralyzed by fear. After all what is left to fear?

But what if the worst thing hasn’t happened to you yet? Can you still live a life less controlled by fear?

Absolutely!

Here’s how: Remember that suffering makes community possible. That means that you can “borrow” my suffering and use it as a balm to heal your fears.

In my case, the suffering and death of a child would be the “worst thing” that could happen in life. What is your “worst thing”?

Whatever that thing is, I can assure you that some human being in the history of the planet has survived that thing.

And triumphed!

All you have to do to be break free from fear is determine that, if your “worst thing” ever happened, you would make a study of how others have triumphed over that thing.

Once you make that decision, you have a “worst case scenario” action plan in place. You are now free to live life without feeling weighed down by fear.

If you decide.

To get better.

Instead of bitter.

The tools of choice, celebration, community, and study are ways that I have learned to become a better mother to my daughter, Grace. Twenty years later, I see these to be the tangible manifestation of her 32-minute life.

The thorn of my loss illuminates the resplendent rose of Grace’s legacy—the message that “all healing is possible,” for myself and others.

Photo by Hamed Saber

“The grass is always greener where you water it.” –Unknown

The first time I heard the phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side,” I was 12 years old—and I heard it in song.

I didn’t know at the time that this was from the play Woman of the Year, because two women in my theater group sang it as part of a musical review. Still, it made a deep impression on me.

One of the characters is a housewife, and the other is a famous TV news personality—and yet they both feel certain they’re missing out on amazing experiences because of the lifestyle they’ve chosen.

The celebrity sings, “I can see you planning picnics. That’s wonderful!”

The housewife responds, “What’s so wonderful? Eating at the White House! That’s wonderful!”

And the song goes on like this, with two women comparing their lives, and assuming the other has it better.

Back then, I felt painfully envious of my sister, who frequently won starring roles and also had a boyfriend. It didn’t occur to me that focusing on everything she had wasn’t a proactive way to create the life I wanted.

Comparing my talent to hers didn’t help me land any roles. It just made me feel inadequate—which showed in my auditions. Comparing my looks to hers didn’t help me feel better about myself. It just made me feel unattractive—which showed in the way I carried myself.

I also didn’t realize her life wasn’t perfect, and she had plenty of her own challenges.

I’ve since learned that there is always going to be someone else who appears to have everything we want, especially in the digital age, where many of us narrate all the fun we’re having through updates, photos, and videos online.

But we tend to overestimate other people’s happiness and forget that in every life, there is a little sunshine and a little rain.

No matter how perfect someone else’s life seems, they still have their own struggles. And they still deal with the natural human instinct to wonder what else is out there, and if there’s something else they should be doing.

We can either focus on other people’s perceived good fortune, or focus our energy on recognizing and fostering our own.

We do that by planting tiny seeds for joy, and then watering them with our attention.

What seeds will you plant today?

Photo by onecog2many

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Akilah S. Richards

“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” ~John Petit-Senn

Yoga retreats in rural getaways nestled in tropical mountain spaces. Exploration trips for pleasure and business on the east and west coasts. Bike riding and people watching on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Recognition and sponsorship from leaders in my professional circle. Adventures with my husband and daughters in Jamaica.

Even with all these rich life experiences, still my focus was always the same: If I could just have more money, my life could finally get good.

The past year found me deep on a journey to discover the muted parts of my life.

Through meditation, exercise, candid conversations, and radical self-expression, I’ve learned so much about myself, the influence my past has had on my present, and the ways in which I’ve been hiding.

Some of these revelations have been stark, not the least of which is the realization that a good chunk of my mutedness is rooted in one five-letter word: money.

For most of us, it’s inarguable that we need money to cover our day-to-day lives. 

Even with my minimalist tendencies, I’m not one to give away the majority of all I own and take a vow of poverty. Truth is, I’m way too attached to shoes, obnoxiously loud colors of nail polish, and unconstructed blazers to fully adopt the less-is-more philosophy.

I can say though, that the more I release from my life (both physically and emotionally), the more access I gain to my Higher Self. 

This access opened my eyes to a finding that has already created significant changes in my relationship with the energy of money. I’ve made it one of my daily life chants:

While you design your best life,

don’t chase the money,

crave the experience.

I’ve always chased money. More specifically, I’ve always viewed my connection with money akin to patches of grass. I’d earn enough to cover a bit of ground, but never enough to cover a respectable-sized lawn. 

There was never enough, and my pattern was to always focus on covering a particular patch of ground, and chase opportunities to one day cover a larger patch. In all of this, I had learned to pretend that the chase was unavoidable, and engaging in it could somehow give me enough joy to overshadow the overall yellow and brown baldness of my lawn.

But I have learned that the chase is not where I can expect to find joy.

Instead, it is in the richness of my experiences, and my commitment to focusing on my needs, not my fears (bald lawns) that I find myself feeling real joy.

I‘ve long peppered the vast majority of my best experiences with “Even though I had no money, I still got to do stuff” seasoning.

It’s as if I wouldn’t (or couldn’t) explore, much less accept the idea that my life was happening in beautiful ways, despite my lack of a boast-worthy net worth.

No matter how incredible the experience, when I thought or talked about it, I’d still frame it by the parameters of my not-enoughness.

My refrains always followed the same pattern: this is so frikking cool, too bad I …

This island is amazing! This is so frikking cool, but too bad I can’t have the zip lining experience because I don’t have any money.

I can’t believe I’m in New York again this year! This is so frikking cool, but too bad I can’t buy nicer souvenirs for my daughters because I don’t have any money.

Wow, I’m speaking at a conference in Los Angeles! This is so frikking cool, but too bad I couldn’t bring Kris and our girls because I don’t have enough money.

I can’t believe they’re all waiting to do a workshop with me—here in Jamaica, nonetheless! This is so frikking cool, but too bad I couldn’t provide them with customized take-home journals because I don’t have any money.

Arghhh! I was stuck in bald-lawn mode, and no matter the richness of my harvest, I was tenacious about re-potting my seeds in “because I don’t have any money” soil.

Thankfully, I learned how to use that tenacity for something that better serves me.

I went inside myself, asked for guidance, and got curious about what life would be like if I simply accepted the experiences as rich in and of themselves, with no added expectations of dollar amounts, better souvenirs, or customized workshop materials.

As always, my Divine Ask led me to an uncomplicated and life-altering realization:

I was having those rich life experiences, in spite of my limiting beliefs. So if I could have those experiences while focusing on lack, imagine what I would accomplish if I focused on the experience?

Money never stopped me. My beliefs were just limiting my capacity to fully appreciate the true richness of my experiences. 

Money doesn’t equal a rich experience. Even with small bank statements, we can find ourselves in places and situations that provide infinite opportunities for joy, if we actively choose not to let them fall through the cracks.

Now, I choose to experience something different, and so can you.

I choose to be wide open to the vast richness of all the experiences I can have in this lifetime. I’m talking all 31,700 square miles of Lake Superior open, and I can already see sprouts of greenness fill those patches on my old lawn.

Can you think of some ways you’ve been hampering the richness of your life experiences? And how can you let go to experience them more fully—and joyfully?

Photo by thephotographymuse