Posts tagged with “wisdom”
How to Cope with a Toxic and Estranged Family Relationship
“Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be.” ~Unknown
You two are family. Maybe you grew up with them and were by their side for a huge chunk of their life. There was a lot of laughing, crying, and sharing. Some fighting too.
You know how their brain works probably better than anyone else. But sometimes, in adulthood, those closest to you can become unrecognizable—estranged, cold, and careless. For no apparent reason, you find yourself shut out of their life. Your peace-feelers are increasingly rejected. You’ve been left out in the cold.…
How Accepting That We’re Ordinary Opens Us Up to Love
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” ~C.S. Lewis
I was talking to a mentor of mine several months ago, and they cut me off midsentence and said, “Zach, it sounds like you’re trying to be extraordinary. How about you just work at being ordinary?”
I paused then promptly broke into tears. Yep. Tears. Not ashamed to admit that.
Tears because the meat of the conversation was about self-worth and being enough. In that moment my deepest childhood wound was tapped into, and ordinary sounded horrible to me.
Who wants to be ordinary? Not this guy.
My mentor …
How I Healed My Body and My Life by Embracing My Sensitivity
“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am.” ~Caitlin Japa
“You’re making people uncomfortable,” my mother would say. “Stop being so sensitive,” she would then quip.
I have always been sensitive for as long as I can remember. Now I understand there’s a name for it: highly sensitive person (HSP).
The scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). As it turns out, 15-20% of the population has this trait.
As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system filters less …
The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward
I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in the wind? Or better phrased, how do we live with …
Why Highly Sensitive People Make Amazing Life Partners
“Our relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves.” ~Iyanla Vanzant
Looking back at my life I see that all of my romantic relationships up until now suffered because I didn’t recognize or value my sensitivity.
For much of my life I thought there was something wrong with me. I was too quiet, too shy, not interesting enough in group settings, too easily hurt, too easily overwhelmed and stressed. I judged myself for being irritable when I didn’t feel rested. I was easily bored with surface conversation and craved deep intimacy, but thought maybe that was …
The Grief We Can’t Run from and Why We Should Embrace It
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Grief creeps up on you when you least expect it. It reminds you of the person you have lost when you’re out for coffee with friends, watching people hug their loved ones goodbye at the airport, and when you’re at home thinking about people you should call to check-in on.
Even when you think that enough time has passed for you to be over it, grief pulls at your heartstrings. You think about all the ways that life …
Afraid of What People Think? Free Yourself by Realizing How Unimportant You Are
“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s natural to think that we’re always in the spotlight.
We think that people care about the way we dress, but they don’t.
We think that people notice our nervous habits, when in reality, they’re worried about whether people are noticing their own.
We tend to go through life as if our every move is being watched, judged, and evaluated on a moment-to-moment basis by the people around us. Here’s a reality check—you’re not that important.
I don’t mean that …
Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness
“Lean into the discomfort of the work.” ~ Brené Brown
Anxiety was the core of my existence for decades.
When I look back at my life over that time, what comes to mind first is the constant tension in my chest, a knotted stomach, and a lump in my throat.
From the outside, my life looked great. I was college-educated, had a good job, was in a relationship; I lived in a nice place, had a decent car, and enough money to buy organic food and a gym membership.
But I was miserable.
Not only was I anxious all the …
Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear
“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.” ~Gary Zukav
I come from a family of runners. When I was a young girl, my father would rouse us out of bed on the weekends to run the three-mile par-course at the local park, competing with my siblings for who could do the most sit-ups at the stations along the route. We would end the event with a bunch of chocolate eclairs from the local 7-11 as a reward.
As benign as this story may be, it describes a pattern of …
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