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Category “letting go”

Accepting Things for What They Are Instead of Resisting Change

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“What we see is mainly what we look for.” ~Unknown

Years ago I was fortunate enough to travel on a Mediterranean cruise. I had just graduated from college and was in that difficult transition stage where I didn’t know what would come next. I was looking to relax, but also hoping that some soul searching would lead to clarity, epiphanies, and answers.

One day I thought I found them on the island of Santorini, Greece.

Between the blinding whites, the sapphire blues, the sun-kissed streets, and the black-sand beaches, I felt like I had been dropped in a utopia.

There, …

Letting Go of the Attachments That Keep You Unhappy

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“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

My father died when I was fifteen, so I learned right away that life was too short. At the time, the only meaning I could grasp from his death was that my life needs to mean something.

I vowed to make something great out of myself.

I went to college determined to become a police officer. I had a strange gut feeling going in, something telling me that it was wrong, but I just assumed it was because I had a hearing loss, and …

How to Find Yourself By Losing Yourself

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“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

Growing up in a small town in Western Canada, I was known as the kid who accomplished things.

I was the well-mannered and conscientious child who skipped grade two, was at the top of her class, played three musical instruments, took ballet lessons, French lessons, swimming lessons, and any other lesson in which I expressed an interest.

While this might sound like the calendar of an over-scheduled kid, it actually never felt that way. …

3 Ways to Let Go Of Control and Relax Into The Flow

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“You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

Sometimes I try really hard to control things.

I run two businesses so, in many ways, control gives me a sense of peace of mind.

When my team is doing what they are supposed to be doing, I can relax. When business is booming, I can relax. When I am getting what I want, I can relax.

This control freak-ness doesn’t just apply for me in just business. I used to be this way about my body, and I notice these tendencies …

Can You Make Your Brain Fall Out of Love?

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“Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter.” ~Unknown

A long time ago now, but once I was in a relationship that was full of great passion and hot desire, but it was also addictive, distracting, and destructive.

When I noticed that it was ultimately bad for me, I knew I had to “get out.” So, I went cold turkey, as they say, and broke up, thinking I would be able to handle it.

Unfortunately, it was much harder than I thought it would be. Every morning I woke up and found myself in the …

How to Turn Worries About the Future Into Action Right Now

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

After years and years of living with anxiety, I can’t tell you exactly what I have been anxious about.

Is it a pervasive thought about how my life will end? Is it a constant worry about my financial security? Is it simply that I’m nervous to give a speech in front of people? Or a combination of all of them?

Even thinking about anxiety causes more anxiety. Ahhh!

Anxiety is also really hard to define. It’s so subjective.

I don’t think my anxiety will ever truly …

Doing Your Best Without the Stress of Perfectionism

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“Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.” ~Robert H. Schuller

Have you ever been stopped in your tracks by perfectionism? Would you rather not do something if you can’t be sure it will be perfect? Although this kind of thinking doesn’t make much sense, I understand it, because I’ve been there.

I’d like to share with you some insights that helped me overcome my own deeply ingrained perfectionism and the unhappiness and stagnation it caused me.

Avoiding perfectionism doesn’t mean avoiding quality work and high achievement.

I am someone who loves making sure that even the …

Some Things Take Time: Slow Down and Stop Pushing

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

As life speeds up, as we check our phones and Twitter feeds for instant gratification, as we seek out another spiritual practice in the promise of evolving even faster, we have lost sight of something quite fundamental.

Some things just take time. This can apply to relationships, business, and, in my experience, it especially applies to spiritual awakening.

Yes, our practices such as meditation, dance, service, and energy work can support us on our soul journey. But rushing our development can even result in us taking one step forward and two steps …

When You’re Frustrated by a Delay: 8 Reasons to Appreciate It

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“All great achievements require time.” ~Maya Angelou

We all have a picture of what we want in our heads.

We get attached to a timeline for achieving it. We fantasize about the results and how it will bring us happiness.

We begin to work hard to attain it.

But when we don’t get it right away, we get frustrated. We want things to move as quickly as possible.

If we want a relationship, we want to find our perfect partner as soon as we can. If we’re building a career or a business, we want success in months. If we …

How to Let Go of the Fear of Being Hurt Again

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“Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence, and face your future without fear.” ~Unknown 

My pet fish died today. Red-striped fins as beautiful as always, he was swimming around in his tank only four weeks ago. First he became less active. Next he refused to eat. Then he was gone.

As I buried him in the yard, my first thought was, I don’t want to have a pet fish ever again. Awareness kicked in, and I realized that my thought was triggered by fear to experience an unpleasant circumstance such as this again.

This is how …

You Are More Than Your Past and Your Pain

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“We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree—deeply rooted to withstand all life’s upheavals.” ~Dodinsky

I began struggling with anorexia and bulimia in high school, a development that, in part, stemmed from sexual abuse.

I internalized my struggles and made them a part of me, leaving me with feelings of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and despair. I had completely lost connection with my authentic self and instead, took on the roles of “ruined,” “broken,” and “worthless.”

If you had asked me who I was three years ago, I would …

How to Be Who You Really Are, Beyond Your Ego and Fears

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“Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.”~ Eckhart Tolle

For much of my life, I was ashamed of how my classmates perceived me in my youth.

My chagrin and regret began in the spring of my senior year in high school when I opened our yearbook for the first time.

The seniors got center stage in the yearbook, as usual, with a big picture of each of us along with a four-year list of our activities and awards. I was proud of my list of five sports, especially my letters in wrestling and …

4 Simple Steps to Freedom

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

Once upon a time my mind was filled with negative talk and self-doubt. Those thoughts were so loud I could not hear my authentic self shine through. On a deeper level I knew she existed, but I didn’t how to connect with her.

I believed I would have to work at it, change myself, somehow be good enough so I could be free to be myself. I believed the key to happiness was figuring out how to fix everything that was wrong with me…

Releasing the Need for Certainty and Trusting Our Decisions

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“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

If you’re like me, you’re hard on yourself—and I mean hard.

You analyze your decisions and try to somehow calculate the results of your actions to feel a sense of certainty. Little did you know that searching for the certainty causes all of your insides to do flips and only causes more uneasiness.

What I always wonder is where did the need to know come from? I remember being a free spirit with no worries as a child (as …

The Stage of Grief You’ve Never Heard of But May Be Stuck In

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“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

Since I was a little girl I have believed in the power of wishes. I’ve never missed a first star, a dandelion plume, or load of hay (load of hay, load of hay, make a wish and turn away) to express to the universe my deepest desires.

When I was fifteen and my dad was at the end stages of cancer, I …

How to Stop Hurting When You Feel Like You’ve Been Wronged

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“At any given moment, you have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end.” ~Christine Mason Miller

Several months ago my partner’s father (we’ll call him D) verbally attacked me. A couple weeks later it happened again, except this time it was more aggressive and more personal.

When I calmly told him that his behavior was unacceptable, he became angry and spent the next several months using every tool in his vast arsenal to put space between my partner and me.

And for a while it worked.

Suddenly I found myself constantly obsessed over …

How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

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“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

I was planning a seminar event with one of my good friends. (Let’s call her “Randi.”) It was a great match; she had event planning and design expertise, and great energy in front of an audience. I understood the structure of such an event, and I authored much of the content.

It was a powerful presentation and we were going to be a great team bringing the material to life. We spent months putting the seminar together: rehearsing, setting the date, booking the …

How to Create a Happy Future by Accepting the Present

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“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Imagine if every night you wrote the script for your tomorrow.

You’d tuck it under your pillow and when you woke up, it would begin unfolding just like you envisioned.

The man or woman of your dreams would appear in the Whole Foods aisle you were perusing.

A check for a million dollars would show up in your mailbox, with a note reading “have fun.”

Your friends and family would call you to tell you how great life …

Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

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“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide

I have walked on water.

The frozen wasteland known as Chicago had kept me inside, wary of the intense cold that was breaking records that particularly frigid winter. But after interminable snow days, I began to feel like a caged animal that needed to break free.

I woke early one morning, overcome with the urgent need to connect to something living, something wild. I wrapped myself in countless layers like the kid in The Christmas Story and ventured out into the …

The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

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“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha

I always felt invisible whenever my husband and I got together with a certain couple.

Every time we saw them, it triggered feelings of rejection because they would go on and on about themselves and never ask about how I was doing or feeling. I went home feeling ignored and sad every time.

Finally, after putting up with this non-reciprocal relationship for a number of years, I decided that it was best for us to break free from it. 

For the longest time I couldn’t figure …