Safe Spaces
Standing Up for Yourself Doesn’t Make You Any Less Kind
“Being a good person doesn’t mean being a doormat… You can be kind, giving, and full of love, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept disrespect or allow your boundaries to be crossed.” ~Unknown
I can still vividly remember sitting in my seventh-grade classroom, forcing a laugh as my classmates made jokes at my expense. My cheeks would burn red, but I’d smile along, desperately wanting to belong. For years, I mistook my silence for kindness, my nervous laughter for good nature. I didn’t realize that by laughing at myself, I was slowly chipping away at my own self-worth.…
Awareness and Self-Compassion: Two Powerful Tools for Chronic Pain
“Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the tangle of emotional resistance against what is already happening.” ~Tara Brach
The wooden meditation hall creaked softly as sixty people shifted in their seats, trying to find comfort in the silence. Outside, winter rain tapped against the windows, a gentle metronome marking time. I sat cross-legged on my black cushion, watching sweat trickle down my temple despite the cool air. My legs burned as if I’d been running for hours, though I hadn’t moved in forty-five minutes.
It was day three of my first six-day silent meditation retreat, and …
How to Escape Cycles of Panic, Overwhelm and Dread
“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.” ~
It’s early morning, and I wake with an intense sensation of foreboding. I say wake up, but really, it’s just coming fully into consciousness, as I’ve been semi-conscious all night. Fitfully tossing and turning, a deep anxiety gnawing at my chest.
My mind has been flipping back and forth—across different subjects, even different times, collecting insurmountable evidence that my life is going …
How My Dog Became an Unexpected Source of Healing
“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.” ~Cheryl Strayed
My memories of my sister are much hazier than they used to be—somehow less crisp and colorful than before. But time has a way of doing that. Images of her that used to show up in bold, bright colors in my mind’s eye have slowly faded to black and white, with various shades of gray and …
What I Learned When My Brain and Body Shut Down
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” ~Anne Lamott
I used to believe that success meant always being available. Always saying yes. Always responding immediately to emails, Slack pings, texts, whatever was thrown my way. Because if I stopped—even for a second—I might fall behind. And if I wasn’t working harder than everyone else, was I even working hard enough?
For years, that mindset worked. Or so I thought. Every win, every promotion, every new milestone felt like adding fuel to the fire. The more I ‘succeeded’ by society’s standards—the title, …
How to Develop True Self-Confidence Amid Life’s Uncertainty
“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” ~Peter T. McIntyre
I used to think of confidence as something external, something that people exuded in their body language, in the way they spoke, or in the certainty of their decisions.
To me, a confident person had a poker face and a strong, grounded posture. I thought confidence was something you cultivated through endless practice—training yourself to speak with assertiveness and decisiveness, to project certainty even when you didn’t feel it inside.
But I’ve come to understand that true self-confidence is something that comes from …
Get Happier Meditation’s FREE Mindful Menopause Guide
Honestly, it’s hard to believe I’m at the age for perimenopause. I feel young in many ways, despite the exhaustion of parenting two young kids. And I’ve always felt somewhat eternal, doing whatever I want to do at any age, without regard for what other people think or believe.
But here I am—forty-five, dealing with all kinds of hormone-related symptoms, including brain fog, mood swings, and most recently, anemia from heavy bleeding.
I haven’t yet experienced most of the physical issues that plague many women at midlife, like hot flashes (fun!), sleep disturbances, and weight gain. But I’m deep enough …
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