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Search Results for "anxiety" — 1284 posts

5 Questions to Discover Who You Are and What Will Make You Happy

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“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

At twenty-five I was happily married and had a great career, many friends, and lots of money. During that time I also became deeply depressed, was put on medication for anxiety, and entered what would be a very long relationship with psychotherapy.

It was a real struggle for me to understand why I wasn’t happy when I had everything that I thought was important in life. Was I selfish? Were my expectations too high? I honestly couldn’t understand what was missing and …

How to Improve Your Relationships and Make a Kinder World

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“If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.” ~Buddha

I once attended a lecture given by a world-renowned expert on post-traumatic stress disorder. The lecture made two points that I have never forgotten. I call them “brain tricks.”

1. Given a choice, our primitive brain will naturally select for the negative. It’s a survival thing.

2. When in crisis, the part of our brain that conceptualizes time and space goes off line. In other words, our brain increases the urgency of the problem by making us think the crisis will never …

How to Embrace Your True Beauty (Not the Media’s Ideal)

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“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” ~Kahlil Gibran

A few years shy of my fiftieth birthday, I went on a road trip with one of my best friends from high school. We’d taken some version of this trip many times during our teens and twenties, but as we started raising young children, we didn’t have much time for getaways.

But on this occasion, our kids were old enough to fend for themselves, and we hit the road with same excitement and silliness that characterized all of our youthful adventures.

We spent the next …

How to Be Hurt Less by So-Called Evil People

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“Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

There were monsters in my closet—or so my five-year-old self believed. As soon as my mother kissed me goodnight and flipped the lights off, they would appear.

See, in my room, the sliding closet doors were kept open, and on the top three shelves, monsters would magically appear in the darkness. Their wide mouths closely resembled folded towels and their eyes looked like the buttons of my sweaters, but I was too scared to notice.

I could only see evil creatures staring at me, and after a …

Celebrate Your Strengths Instead of Pushing Yourself to Be Better

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“Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.” ~Epictetus

Performance reviews. Assessments. Evaluations. The dreaded annual review. Most of us have run into some kind of quality assurance technique while employed in the American workforce, or at least know someone who has.

Evaluations are a regular part of life at my place of employment and something that I am very used to by now. Typically I get good scores and the evaluation includes plenty of praise and positive acknowledgement, along with whatever constructive criticism is appropriate to the work that is …

Accepting Uncertainty: We Can Be Happy Without All the Answers

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“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with.” ~Tony Robbins

I’ve recently begun to feel as though I am at a crossroads in my career and, as a result, have been feeling very uncomfortable.

I love what I do, working with clients and mentoring new therapists; however, I’m also a mom to two little ones and am feeling the ache of the impermanence of their childhood. This has left me wanting to spend more time at home with them and, therefore, possibly working less.

If you would have asked …

6 Tips to Help You Free Yourself from Your Fearful Thoughts

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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

Here I am, huddled up close to the wood burner, my only source of heat, sitting on an old recliner chair that was given to me, in a rented apartment with windows soaked with condensation. Outside it is cold, wet, and dreary, a typical English winter’s day.

My business folded in July with substantial personal debt and I turned forty-four in August.

Perhaps not the most heart-warming start to a post, but rather some raw facts of how …

Enjoying Our Passions Instead of Focusing on Status and Approval

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“If your number one goal is to make sure that everyone likes and approves of you, then you risk sacrificing your uniqueness, and, therefore, your excellence.” ~Unknown

The year that I graduated from college with my undergraduate degree, I was beyond enthusiastic about being a teacher.

I was absolutely confident that I was a very gifted communicator and that I had a great deal to offer to the field of education. In reality, I had no idea how right I was, yet how different my path would be from what I expected.

For me, work was not just a “J-O-B”; …

When You’re at the End of Your Rope: 7 Tips to Help Yourself

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some people.

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagan

During my first year away at college, I struggled with depression and anxiety. I felt broken, hopeless, and lost, and I didn’t know how to cope.

At times, I thought about jumping out of my fourth floor dorm room window.

Thankfully, I didn’t.

It all began on the day I moved into my dorm in August of 2008. My parents took me …

Let Yourself Be Instead of Pushing to Get Things Done

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“When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing. Sometimes you just need to relax, breathe, let go and live in the moment.” ~Unknown

Recently I went to an annual fall retreat for my graduate program. This was exactly what my heart was longing for up until this point. I felt overworked by school and overwhelmed by the busyness of the city and suburban life. I needed something different, something that would help me feel more grounded and at ease.

We went out to Middle-of-no-where-on-top-a-mountain, California, where the only sign of civilization was the four-way highway down below. I’m originally …

3 Things to Do When a Friendship Starts to Fade

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“When we can no longer change a situation, we must change ourselves.” ~Victor Frankl

There are a million reasons why a friendship may change over time. You grow older, relocate for a job, have a fight, or start having kids.

It is an inevitable fact that life takes people in new directions; growing apart from old friends becomes a part of our lives. But, somehow I thought that I was immune, that this was someone else’s story.

My friends would be there with me forever.

We celebrated every single New Year’s together. We survived college, breakups—you name it.  Our bond …

The Difference Between Setting Boundaries and Shutting People Out

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“The most important distinction anyone can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others.” ~Anne Linden

After growing up in a household with extremely loose emotional boundaries, I soon learned the importance of establishing my own personal boundaries as quickly and clearly as possible. And, in recent years, I have even managed to become more eloquent about when and how to set them.

I grew up in a home with my grandmother, mother, and older sister. Grandmother was an immigrant from Hungary who came to America right after WWI. Her …

Building Confidence to Face a Fear Instead of Hiding from It

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“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I was very shy growing up, especially in lower and middle school. I moved from the US to London when I was five. Although I don’t remember a lot of my experience in lower school in London, I do know that when I first started I refused to speak or read aloud.

I was in a completely new environment. I was confused and anxious, and it made me afraid of new situations.

As the year progressed I settled in pretty well. I made friends and would not have …

The Power of Surrendering: Let Go of Control to Be Peaceful and Free

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“The reality is that tomorrow is most certainly uncertain and no matter how many expectations we form, tomorrow will come, tomorrow will go, and it will be what it will be.” ~Lori Deschene

I have never known how to surrender to just about anything. Surrendering is giving up control, and this is something I have never been good at doing.

From an early age I coped with tension and negativity by trying to will things to be different. This caused me a great deal of anxiety because trying to will anything to go your way is not only exhausting, …

How to Activate the Life Purpose That’s Right Under Your Nose

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“Our obligation is to give meaning to life, and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.” ~Elie Wiesel

After surveying 3,000 people, psychologist Cynthia Kersey discovered that 94% had no clue as to their purpose in life—94%!

As painful as this statistic is, it’s even more painful in light of how relatively simple it is to discover a worthy and fulfilling life purpose.

For most of us, a meaningful purpose lurks just beneath the surface of conscious awareness and can be discovered in a few minutes.

This is the easy part. What happens after you discover your life …

You’re Not Behind; You’re Just on Your Own Path

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“To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.” ~Sven Goran Eriksson

Endlessly comparing ourselves to others and idealizing their best qualities while underestimating our own are self-defeating behaviors, and they hurt our self-esteem. Yet in the competitive nature of our world, many of us do this.

As a result of my own self-defeating thoughts, throughout my life, I’ve repeatedly felt like I was five years behind where I “should” be.

After high school graduation, many of my peers went away to school and into a new wave of social experiences.

I stayed home, worked, and …

The Labels We Take On: How They Limit Our Potential

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“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

We live in a society of labels. Everyone will try to label you, including yourself. It’s been happening since the beginning. It takes some honesty and objective reflection to see it, but take a moment or two and really think about it.

Eventually, we each begin to subconsciously believe those labels and we start to feel as though to be whole, to be someone in this world, we need to appease our egos and the voices around us by “fitting-in somewhere,” …

We Have the Strength to Move Through Pain and Uncertainty

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“Suffering is not caused by pain but by resisting pain.” ~Unknown

Earlier this year our beloved puppy got sick. Not just a poorly tummy kind of sick, but proper, life-threatening, blood transfusion-requiring sick. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. She was at death’s door.

The vet was talking to us in quiet and kindly tones. Using words like “grave.”

Her illness was apparently unusual in a dog her age. Her prognosis was uncertain. She would require months of treatment that may or may not work. We were to watch her for signs of deterioration. Note changes in her appetite and energy levels.

And then …

4 Tips to Help You Keep Going When You’re Filled with Doubt

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“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake.” ~Francis Bacon Sr.

“Just research, research, research. That’s what grad school is.”

It seemed as though that was all I was hearing from my professors, and it wasn’t helpful.

Since returning to school to get my master’s degree, I had maintained a 4.0 average, but I also hadn’t taken more than two classes at a time. Until now.

When I enrolled for the fall semester, I chose to take twelve …

A Simple but Powerful Way to Kick the Worry Habit

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“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.” ~Swedish proverb

I’m a worrier by nature, and I come by it honestly.

My mother was afraid to cross bridges and ride in elevators, boats, and airplanes. Her mother died of cancer at the age of forty, and my mother spent many years—including those of my childhood—thinking every sniffle, fever, or headache might be the start of something fatal.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, growing up with a steady dose of anxiety, like an invisible intravenous drip, had its effect on my developing mind.

I was an introverted, …