While therapy may be what’s needed for some, many can benefit from beginning a mindfulness practice to learn how to manage living in our current environment.

I recently read a great article about this by Lachlan Brown at HackSpirit.  With his permission, I have republished the infographic below.  I would encourage you to read his entire article by clicking on the infographic and sharing it with your friends.

“Ms. A is also a slightly neurotic workaholic who feels like she is always running around.  She is single, lives on her own, and doesn’t know her neighbors.  She also doesn’t have time to go out with friends and often feels lonely.  She doesn’t volunteer, and if you were to ask her about the purpose of her life she would be lost for an answer.  On the other hand, our cookie-loving Ms. B leads a very socially engaged life.  She has two very close friends and a loving husband and often pops over to her neighbors’ for a chat.  She volunteers at a local charity and is very committed to its cause.  She sings in a choir and does shopping for her elderly aunt once a week.  She likes to sit on her porch enjoying sunsets.

“Who will live longer?  Of course, no one can ever predict the longevity of any particular person.  But research that compares the effects of healthy eating and exercise on longevity to those brought by healthy social lifestyles shows that the lonely fitness freak Ms. A and the junk-food crazed yet very social Ms. B probably have a similar shot at becoming centenarians.”

This scenario is the premise for a book I recently read: Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 by Marta Zaraska.  It piqued my interest because I’m tired of the barrage of books and articles about how a certain food or group of foods is suddenly evil and should be avoided by everyone at all costs (carbs, lectins, fats, etc.).  These books cover the effects of these foods in isolation, as if in a controlled lab, instead of with real people living their lives with all of their biological and environmental variations.  This isn’t how life and health actually work.  Growing Young takes a more holistic approach and shows that having a solid social life and healthy mental health are actually more important to our longevity that what we eat.

Working in the mental health world, I know that diet and exercise can only take a person so far, although diet can have a dramatic impact on mental health (check out Grain Brain by David Perlmutter, MD).  Emotions also play a critical role in our mental and physical health.  When emotions aren’t resolved and end up buried in our bodies, they create physical dis-ease.  And our emotions are critically linked to how we see ourselves and interact with the people around us thus affecting our social life.

A Healthy Social Life Matters

Every one of us is unique in our biological makeup and our emotional temperament.  As humans, we’re social beings.  Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert like me, it’s important to have social contact in ways that work for you.

Diet and exercise may improve the results of your blood tests, but if you’re lonely and disconnected, these things won’t do anything for your happiness.  And who wants to live a longer yet unhappy life?

In the first section of Growing Young, the author shows how science has proven that boosting social connections is critically important to living a longer, happier life.  Doing any of the following can dramatically improve your life:

• Find a dedicated romantic partner or work on your current relationship
• Volunteer
• Keep diverse friendships
• Give and get lots of hugs (read the book to learn more about “cuddleries”)
• Kiss your partner more often
• Hold hands with your kids
• Treat yourself to a massage
• Look others in the eye to raise oxytocin levels for both of you (even if it’s your dog)

In the second section, she shows how your relationships and your mind can extend your life.  As a science journalist, Marta uses a wide variety of research performed by experts to prove her points.  For example, regular exercise can improve your mortality risk by 23% to 33% while a happy marriage can improve it by 49%.  Eating at least six servings of fruit and vegetables a day improves your longevity by 26% and a large social network can improve it by 45%.

On the detrimental side, grade 2 or 3 obesity can decrease your mortality by 29% and loneliness can decrease it by 26% with pessimism, unhappiness, and neuroticism decreasing it by 14% each.

Regular exercise can improve your mortality risk by 23% to 33% while a happy marriage can improve it by 49%.
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Connection is Key

Finding ways to connect with others on a regular basis is critically important.  Connection includes growing your empathy, checking your attachment style, and doing things in synchrony with others (singing, walking, dancing).

Finding ways to support others can help develop empathy and connection.  Donating to charity, caring for others, volunteering for causes you believe in, talking to your neighbors, and engaging in random acts of kindness all help you see things through someone else’s eyes to better understand how you can contribute.

Connecting with others can also help you find your purpose.  Your purpose gives you your “why.”  Your “why” tells you why it’s important to do whatever it is you choose to do.  The more you live in alignment with your purpose, the happier you’ll be.

Mindfulness for Relationships

The book includes an entire chapter on how meditation and mindfulness boost health.  Mindful breathing can help lower stress and anxiety.  A regular mindfulness practice can reduce worry and rumination.  Mindfulness can help you grow acceptance which allows you to better manage anger and cynicism.

Jon Kabat-Zinn developed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in the 70’s to help hospital patients heal faster.  Over the past five decades, it has been developed into a formal program and has been proven to improve overall health on many levels.

“Mindfulness interventions make people more aware of their feelings and more collected in their responses – instead of blowing up at your partner about the car not being fixed, you might just say that you are upset after work and need time to yourself.  The fight is averted.”

“Another mechanism through which mindfulness-based stress reduction may improve relationships is related to the key ingredients of mindfulness: non-judgment and acceptance.  By honing acceptance skills during meditation, partners may become more tolerant of their loved ones’ shortcomings and imperfections.  Instead of dwelling on the dirty socks left in the middle of the room, you just breathe deeply and let it go.  Studies confirm that greater levels of mindfulness correlate to greater satisfaction in romantic relationships.”

This chapter makes the case that practices like mindfulness, meditation and yoga may not directly improve your longevity (although research continues), these practices do allow you to have better relationships, help reduce feelings of loneliness, and reduce nicotine cravings.  They change the way you see and interpret yourself and your world allowing you to feel happier, even when nothing has changed.  You learn how to enjoy the simple things in life.

If you’re tired of feeling like you have to follow special diet and exercise protocols to be healthy, this is a book for you.  You’ll learn the power of living a simple, mindful life in alignment with your purpose, having good relationships, and helping others can all help you live longer.  The book is full of simple steps to a happier life.

Marta Zaraska is a Canadian-Polish science journalist.  She has written about nutrition and psychology for the Washington Post, Scientific American, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, and New Scientist, among others.  She is the author of Meathooked:  The History and Science of Our 2.5 Million-Year Obsession with Meat.

This uncertainty can create anxiety because we have seemingly lost our ability to control many aspects of our lives.  Having a sense of control helps us feel better about ourselves.  But, why?

A false sense of control

There is actually very little that we can control, global chaos or not.  While we may exert our wishes on the world, we can’t control how the world – including other people – will respond.  We can only control our responses to our environment.

“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.” ~ Steve Maraboli

If someone says something mean to you, you have many choices in how to respond.  You can ignore them.  You can feel compassion for them because they might be having a particularly bad day.  You can take it personally, get mad and let it eat at you for a long time.  You could be angry at the other person and say something mean back, potentially regretting your action later.

You have many choices in how you will respond, but you have no ability to control the other person.  You can’t make them take back their unhelpful comment.  You can’t make them apologize.  You can’t make them do anything.

Focus on what you can control.
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The choices you make are based on your unique lifetime of experiences and the related beliefs you hold about how things are supposed to be.  Know that you are the only person in the world with your unique history of experiences and beliefs so your opinion of what “should” happen may be very different from another person’s opinion.

Detach from the outcome

Because you have no control of what will happen as a result of your actions, the next logical step is to detach from the outcome.

You really want something to happen so you take a series of actions and hope for the best.  You set expectations that things will work out the way you wanted.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous article: Expectations are the root of all negative emotions.  Things don’t work out quite as you expected so you’re upset.  You are frustrated and angry that people and circumstances didn’t adhere to your will.

Now you’re so caught up in what went wrong, it’s difficult to focus on your next steps.  Because you were attached to a certain outcome, your world is rocked when things didn’t work out as you wanted.  How often are all of your expectations met?  How often does your desired outcome happen exactly as you planned?  If you’re like most of us, it’s not very often.

“The reason many people in our society are miserable, sick, and highly stressed is because of an unhealthy attachment to things they have no control over.” ~ Steve Maraboli

The key to avoiding this swirl of negative emotions is to release your attachment to the outcome and accept whatever happens without dwelling on it.  This doesn’t mean you’re a push-over.  There’s more to it.  Here’s an excerpt from my book, The Mindful Guide to the Law of Attraction that helps to explain:

Non-striving

We all want to be happy. Unfortunately, most feel, “I’ll be happy when …” The concept of non-striving can be described as, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” It’s much easier to practice mindfulness and be happy if we’re focused objectively on the here and now and not solely focused on what we’re striving for—that thing that we think will make us happy (yet rarely does). Striving keeps us focused on what we lack. It keeps us focused on the future. It creates blinders to the beauty of the present moment and blocks acceptance of who we are. To live a life of non-striving is not to give up your hopes and dreams. Instead, non-striving can help you appreciate the present in a way that naturally guides you to the place you want to go.

Acceptance

Acceptance means finding peace in the way things are—and it’s very closely tied to awareness. How can we accept our current situation if we aren’t aware of the abundance that’s already there? The opposite of acceptance is resistance. Instead of lamenting about how things “should” be, try asking yourself how you can immerse yourself in the moment. When you begin to notice feelings of anxiety, frustration, and anger, realize that you have a choice to not feel that way. You can choose to accept what you’re frustrated about, see the positive side (which you may conveniently ignore in the moment), and make new choices. It’s from the point of acceptance that change is possible. Acceptance doesn’t mean apathy, naiveté, or false hope. It means dropping resistance and being open to what potential may come. It’s saying, “Okay, this is the way things are. Now what am I going to do about it—and what might be the silver lining?”

Being upset about how things are is focusing on what’s wrong.  With a quick change in focus, you can see the same situation and choose to focus on what’s right about it.  What you focus on grows.

Gratitude unlocks the door

Focusing on the good is the first step in a gratitude practice.  Gratitude is the key to seeing the abundance that you already have.  Even when things aren’t going the way you wanted, it’s possible to see how what is happening is good.  For example, while there are definitely negatives related to the current global crisis, I’m incredibly grateful for the changes it has brought in how the world operates.  My family spends more quality time together, and, as a result, we’ve become even closer.  Working from home (something I’ve done and have been a huge proponent of for over the past twenty years) is now a new norm.  We’ll probably all get fewer colds and cases of flu going forward with the increased awareness around spreading germs.  I could think of much more to be grateful for.  How about you?

Below is the Happiness Meditation from my book, The Mindful Guide to the Law of Attraction. It can help you find your happiness when you’re attached to an outcome that may not have come to fruition.

The only constant is change.  Accepting that is one of the keys to happiness.
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Because we can’t control the world we live in, the monkey screeches and increases our levels of stress and anxiety.  It makes us feel like we’re in control when, in reality, all we can control is our response to what’s happening in the world around us.

Mindfulness can help you pause to notice the responses you’re choosing, even if they’re not conscious choices.  I don’t know about you, but anxiety and depression are not responses that I would consciously choose.  Focusing on what I’m going to do (what I can control) given what’s happening (what I can’t control), I can feel better knowing that I can empower myself and do things that support me.  If I focus on what’s happening around me, it seems that feelings of helplessness, anxiety or depression are inevitable.

Being at home more than usual lately has given me time to revisit the works of some of the masters of mindfulness: Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of what we know when the world seems so uncertain.  Getting back to the basics by listening to their classic works has helped me to reconnect with myself and slow the world down for a bit – like finally exhaling fully after holding my breath for too long.

Recently, I discovered a company called BetterListen! that has cultivated the best of the best in personal development to help its customers lead “a more mindful, happy and engaged life.”  What follows are my reviews of some of their books and programs that I have enjoyed.  Because I believe in BetterListen!, I have become an affiliate of theirs, so if you purchase any of these works, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.  The following works have been truly helpful for me, especially in these crazy times.

Guided Mindfulness Practices by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn started his work in the late 1970’s at the University of Massachusetts Medical School experimenting with the effectiveness of mindfulness practices on the healing process.  He led voluntary groups of patients through a variety of meditation and hatha yoga practices as part of their healing process.  He saw considerable improvements in those participating in the program and expanded and formalized the program into the Stress Reduction Clinic and later the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

These recordings are Kabat-Zinn taking you through all of the practices that are part of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and are more fully described in his classic book, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, which would be a great companion to these recordings.  His soothing voice helped to calm and ground me quickly before and during each practice.

I looked up these recordings on Amazon and saw that they’re normally sold in three separate series.  BetterListen! has bundled the three series into one and added a video of Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking about his life’s work: The Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts where he started the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that is used around the world today.

In many interviews that I’ve seen with Kabat-Zinn (including this video), he speaks about Henry David Thoreau’s experiences at Walden Pond as he wrote the classic, Walden.  Kabat-Zinn makes it clear how much hasn’t changed in human nature as he quotes Thoreau expounding on his need to escape the craziness of the world and get back in touch with what is truly important – in 1845.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Mindfulness is the essence of “living” as Thoreau defined it – being in the present moment as much as possible to enjoy and learn from life as it presents itself.  These recordings create the opportunity to develop a practice of your own to live more mindfully.

“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Mindfulness in the Digital Age with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Steve Stein

In this online program, Steve Stein, founder of BetterListen!, interviews Jon in an informal, online video format covering far-ranging topics such as:

• A digital Sabbath
• What does it even mean for any of us to “do the right thing?”
• The science of mindfulness
• Mindful parenting
• Coping with nitty-gritty everyday challenges to living mindfully in this world of perpetual digital distraction.

Toward the end, Jon leads the viewer in a 10 minute guided mindfulness practice.

I found it interesting to see how Kabat-Zinn has evolved – and stayed the same – over the 20 years between his recording of the mindfulness practices in the previous program and this interview.  He’s still quoting Thoreau but has dropped mentions of faxes being a reason for our busyness and distraction.

All of his teachings remain as relevant today as they were over forty years ago.  The more things change, the more they stay the same requiring us to get back to the basics of our practices.

Healing Oneself, Healing the World with Thich Nhat Hanh

This audio program is 12 hours of material recorded in 2013 when Thich Nhat Hanh presented at the Magnolia Grove Monastery during a 6-day retreat on the theme of Healing Ourselves, Healing the World.

As with Kabat-Zinn’s presentations, listening to Thich Nhat Hanh calmed my senses and helped me to focus on the present moment (after noticing in the first minute or two that my mind was saying, “Can we pick up the pace here??”  I’m human too.).

Some of the concepts that he covers are:

• Conditions of happiness
• Deep looking – insight can release the tension and bring healing
• Mindfulness is a method to insight using our in-breath and out-breath
• Sutra on Full Awareness of Breathing
• Four domains – body, feelings, mind, objects of mind
• Sangha – the power of collective energy (Sangha is a Buddhist community of monks, nuns, novices, and laity)
• The art of happiness and the art of suffering
• The Four Noble Truths
• The Four Kinds of Nutriments

Given the theme of “Healing Ourselves, Healing the World,” he discusses how we can use mindfulness and compassion to heal ourselves and the world.  Being open to our not knowing how to heal ourselves and open within a safe community like a sangha, we can be vulnerable to learn and receive the healing energies from ourselves and others.

Like his other works (Being Peace is one of my favorites), this program shows how simple living mindfully can be if we allow it.

I have been very grateful for the extra time at home alone and with my family that the latest global crisis has afforded me.  It has helped me to see how attached I can become to work and how easy it can be to let go of that to focus on what is truly important – being present for myself and those who are most important to me.

If you’re looking for some great programs to re-center yourself, reduce stress and grow your mindfulness practice, check out my Recommended Resources page.

Click here to download “5 Ways to De-Stress in Less Than 2 Minutes”

And because this is generally happening all day and part of the night, we see it as our norm and generally don’t notice its effect on our minds and bodies.  Then we wonder why we feel anxious and stressed much of the time because we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be truly unplugged.

When we do unplug, we feel agitated and uncomfortable because we don’t have a screen in front of us offering an endless diversion from the quiet inside us that we strive to avoid.

To quell these heightened feelings of stress and anxiety, there are endless numbers of apps that promise to help.  It seems ironic that we would use these same electronic devices that create the anxiety to calm ourselves down.

Most of these apps rely on auditory types of supports such as chimes to remind you to pause and be in the moment and guided meditations that talk you through a relaxation process.  Others offer soothing music or sounds.  Personally, these auditory tools further distract me from being present.  When I meditate, I prefer silence.

When I sit in silence, my mind has a moment to slow down and process all the inputs it’s been receiving.  As a long-time meditator, I still find it difficult to get my mind to completely chill.  But it does get a chance to slow down.  For me, that’s when the magic happens.  Ideas for things that had been bubbling in my subconscious come to light.  Answers to problems suddenly become clear.  My mind and body calm down.  But that’s me and the way my mind works.  You’re probably different.

The Three Learning Styles

Everyone has a preferred way of learning and interacting with the world (and meditating): auditory, visual and kinesthetic.  These are considered the three styles of learning.  For me, listening to someone speak about a subject or describe something isn’t as effective as seeing pictures that portray the concept because I’m more visual.  My husband is a cross between auditory and kinesthetic.  He needs to talk things through to process the concepts and learns better by physically doing things.  I’m sure you can see how this might create challenges when one of us is trying to explain something to the other. 🙂

Visual

I tend to be more visual with sounds feeling like a distraction. When I meditate, I visualize things.  For me, sitting outside and observing nature is incredibly relaxing.  In the spring and summer, I like to take my meditation practice outside where I can feel the breeze blowing across my face and the warmth of the sun on me.

While some like to close their eyes when meditating, others find softly gazing at an object like a candle help them focus.  Observing an object mindfully, noticing its nuances on a detailed level can help to calm the mind.

Using visualizations when you’re in a relaxed and focused state (like when you’re meditating) is a powerful way to show your subconscious that something is real.  If you can see it and feel it emotionally, your subconscious can’t tell the difference between your thoughts and reality.  This is how top athletes can improve without physically working out.  It’s also how the law of attraction works.

Kinesthetic

Those who are more kinesthetic are driven by touch and movement.  A walking meditation likely appeals more to this group.  In a walking meditation, you walk slowly, feeling each part of your foot touch the floor as your weight shifts through one foot to the other.  If you prefer movement and touch but don’t have the opportunity (or space) to walk, holding something (preferably made of natural materials) while you meditate has been proven to help bring you from your thoughts back into the present moment.

We spend so much of our days touching plastic – computers and their mice, phones, cars and other forms of transportation.  Take a moment to ponder the ratio of plastic things you touch over the course of a day versus wooden, stone, or other natural objects.  Our human roots can tell the difference when we deprive ourselves of connections with the natural world.

I’ve seen a variety of products made of natural materials whose sole purpose is to bring your attention back to the present and ground you.  They’re made of wood, stone, natural fabrics, and metals and are meant to be held in your hand to help direct your attention back to the present.  While these aren’t as exciting as the plastic, spinning, fidgety devices that are meant to distract you, the point is to do the opposite: ground and center you in order to calm your mind.

Auditory

Auditory learners understand and process things better through sound, whether that’s spoken words, music or other sounds.  For this group, guided meditations can be a powerful way to ground and focus the mind on the words of the person narrating the meditation.   Calming music or nature sounds can provide the same benefits.  Playing music while you work can help auditory learners focus while it’s a major distraction for others.

Most of the mindfulness and meditation apps available like Calm, Simple Habit, Headspace and Breethe use primarily guided meditations focused on a specific purpose (getting to sleep, dealing with an anxious moment, commutes to and from work, etc.) to focus and ground you in the present moment.  For many, these are quite powerful and help to create an oasis in the midst of a crazy day.

Singing bowls produce beautiful music that invokes deep meditative and peaceful states. They are often used in yoga, reiki, music therapy, and sound healing. The rich harmonies produced by singing bowls help balance the body’s chakras, eliminate stress, and promote holistic healing.

Listening to the sounds of nature in the background can also produce a calming effect.  I have found some wonderful free apps that were intended to work with hearing devices to help those with tinnitus that offer a variety of nature tracks.  With the sounds of the forest, crashing waves of the ocean, birds singing, the wind rustling in the trees, or the crackling sounds of a campfire, I find it easier to block out more annoying background noises so I can focus.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Experiment with a combination of the ideas I’ve described here to find what works best for you.  Also, understand that each day is different.  What works for you one day may completely annoy you the next.  Be flexible and flow with what your heart is telling you.

As you experiment, notice whether these tools are truly helping you to calm and focus or whether they’re merely distracting you from what your heart is trying to tell you.  One of the healing powers of mindfulness and meditation is the ability to help you listen to your heart so you can learn how to heal whatever may be broken.  Distractions take you further away from the healing process.

Experimentation can also help you see that there are many ways to meditate.  There is no one “right” way.  What works for one doesn’t for others.  Meditation does not mean sitting in a lotus position and having a blank slate in your mind (unless that works for you).

Meditation can happen when you’re sitting, standing, walking, or lying down.  While the methods of focusing that I’ve described can help you slow your mind chatter, nothing can stop it.  You’re human.  You can’t turn off your brain.  Meditation can help you to more objectively observe what’s going through your mind so that you can detach from it.  You are not your thoughts, and meditation can help you understand that.

To support you in your experimentation process, on my Recommended Resources page I’ve gathered a variety of books, courses, and products that either I or people I know and trust have created.  I update this page as I learn about and experiment with new things myself.  My hope is that something there can help you on your journey.

After reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne years ago, the main concept that stuck with me was the idea of focusing my thoughts on what I wanted.  I thought that if I just thought about what I wanted (over and over), it would magically appear in my life.  Needless to say, it didn’t happen.  There’s a lot more to the law of attraction than that.  Feeling frustrated, I dug deeper.

The Power of Your Thoughts

My analytical mind had a hard time incorporating the other aspects of the law of attraction that were necessary to manifest what I wanted.  Feelings. Vibrations. Belief.  I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I had to figure out how to use these to complete the picture.

[Quotes in this article are from my book, The Mindful Guide to the Law of Attraction.]

“What is the law of attraction? At its core, it’s a universal law that connects awareness to outcome: what we choose to focus on and believe, in turn, becomes our reality. Perhaps you have heard of “like attracts like” or “energy goes where attention flows.” These are common sayings that get at the truth of this law, that where we put our attention affects the realities we experience in our everyday lives.

The challenge that most of us face is that we aren’t aware of our own thought patterns and habits and how these might contribute to unwanted results. Both the beauty and the challenge of the law of attraction is that it’s always in a state of creation. For better and for worse, you can’t turn “off” your thoughts. The question then becomes: What will you do with them with awareness that they’re always “on?” This is the basis of the saying (and the title of one of Wayne Dyer’s books) “Change your thoughts. Change your life.””

Beliefs and Affirmations

One of the reasons that affirmations don’t work for so many is that there’s usually a lack of belief in the affirmation that you keep repeating.  “I’m happy.”  “I’m rich.”  It’s hard to believe things like that when you’re depressed and poor.

It wasn’t until I started combining what I learned about mindfulness with what I learned about the law of attraction that it started to come together for me.  Mindfulness helped me to notice what was really going on in my head – what my monkey mind was screeching that was so unhelpful.  So often, the problem is that we believe what our monkeys are screeching at us, then we try to placate that with positive affirmations.  We forget that the monkey isn’t us.  Our True Self has the ability to watch the monkey’s antics, wait for him to calm down, then get on with our lives, focusing on what’s best for us.

It’s our True Self that knows what’s best for us, not the monkey.  When we understand that the monkey (that we all have) is a diversion, we can use the law of attraction to focus our true intentions and feelings on what we want.  With that focus and intention, we start to believe that we can achieve what we want.  It’s the monkey that casts doubt and tells us that we’re not worthy, that we’ll never get what we want.

When you know that you (your True Self) are not your monkey, the magic begins.

“This brings us deeper into the connection between the law of attraction and mindfulness. You might already know that mindfulness is the process of noticing without judgment. It is a moment-by-moment awareness available to everyone about what is happening within and around us, right now. And now. And now. This often goes against our habitual, lifelong patterns of judging what we see and experience. Yet, mindfulness creates openings to pause and objectively witness what is, without having to have an opinion or desire to change anything. It is in this witnessing that we can pause and make choices about how to give energy to the thoughts and beliefs that will serve us.

Practicing mindfulness brings awareness to negative or scattered thought patterns. By observing these habits (or rabbit holes), we can better examine the source of the life we’ve created. Whether conscious or subconscious, daily or a single moment, we’re constantly using our minds to manifest new outcomes. Mindfulness opens the door to making the changes necessary to achieve more of what we want.”

What You Focus on Grows

With an understanding of how you may have allowed your monkey to create your life so far, it’s time to focus on what you can do to shift things and put your True Self in the driver’s seat.

“You may not have realized it, but you’ve been using the law of attraction your entire life. Whatever you have focused on with your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings has become the reality you are living today. You might say, “But this isn’t what I wanted!” or “That was out of my control!” Mindfulness can help you objectively examine your present situation to become aware of what you were focusing on in the past that might have played a role in creating your present (a deep dive into the things you can control). You can then apply this practice to today, examining what you are currently focusing on to better understand what your future will hold. Yesterday’s actions created today’s outcome. Today’s actions create your future. No matter what platitude you stick to, the same principle remains: Your thoughts shape your reality.”

Simple Steps

Spend some time journaling about your habitual thoughts.  What do you regularly tell yourself?  What thoughts constantly spin in your head?  How are you making little choices throughout your day, every day, based on these thoughts?  How would your choices change if your thoughts changed?  How would your reality change if your choices changed?

What if you believed that you were enough?  What if you asked for what you truly wanted without worrying about what others (or your monkey mind) might think?  What if you acted, with confidence, like your True Self?  What if you chose with your heart instead of your head or your fears?

“It takes three core elements—desire, attention, and permission—to begin to actualize the law of attraction. More specifically, it follows these steps:

1. 1. Identify what you desire in as much detail as possible. Visualize it and feel what it’s like to already have it.
   2. Focus your positive attention on achieving it. Look for opportunities that you can exploit to move you closer to your desire, and act on them.
   3. Give yourself permission to receive it. This is where negative self-talk can prevent you from manifesting what you want. Know that you are worthy of receiving what you desire.”

While the law of attraction has certainly been sensationalized, it’s a timeless law that can be used to create the life you want.  Using the principles of mindfulness to better understand where you’re focusing your energy, you can use the law of attraction to bring more of what you want into your life.

The Mindful Guide

In my book, The Mindful Guide to the Law of Attraction, I explain the aspects of mindfulness and the concepts behind the law of attraction, removing any sense of “woo woo,” and presenting it all in a practical framework that can be used by anyone to improve their life.

The book includes a collection of 45 meditations and exercises that help you get clear on what you want, ensuring that your energies are focused on what is right for you so you can attract more of what you want into your life.

The biggest secret I have learned throughout my own personal development journey is that the power to change our outcomes, to find a sense of inner peace, is inside of us right now.  My goal in writing this book is to give you the tools to shine a light on what has been hidden inside you so that you can achieve what you have been seeking. The meditations ground the tough work of your inner practice, and in the end, help you experience new realities in health, wealth, and matters of the heart. You can initiate change from the inside out.

You can find this book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Indigo.

Please do me a little favor and share this article with others, for there’s a good chance that it will help them as well.

But how does one go about seeking such help?  What are the steps?  What can you expect?

Then there’s the stigma that’s wrapped around needing help.  By asking for help it’s as if you’re saying, “There’s something wrong with me.”  And wrapped around that are all kinds of negative labels that our society doles out.

When I was a kid, my mother asked me if I wanted to see a therapist.  She could tell that I wasn’t feeling right but didn’t know how to help.  My initial reaction was, “There’s nothing wrong with me.”  She never explained how a therapist could help, even if it was just someone safe to talk to.

I didn’t see my first therapist until things had gotten bad enough in my second marriage, and I knew something had to change.  I was tired of feeling depressed and repeating all my old patterns.  I didn’t know how to make my life – me – different.

My first therapist helped me with all this.  She helped me to get back on my feet and gave me new ways of seeing myself and my relationships which helped immensely.

A few years later I needed help again and found a new therapist.  Working with her for a few months helped me to move further along toward better understanding myself and how I contribute to how my life plays out.

Now that I’ve worked through some bigger issues with the help of some great therapists, I have many more tools to help myself when things go awry (which I write about and share with you here).  Even with that, I still sometimes need an objective person to bounce things off whose job it is to help me see where I’m off and what I can do to get back on track.  It’s like getting a tune-up.

These days I’m the head of finance of a large community behavioral health center.  Basically, I’m in the therapy business not as a therapist but as an administrator who helps to ensure that people get the help they need.

The Marriage of Mental and Physical Health

Most insurance companies in America try to match everyone they insure with a PCP (primary care physician) whose job it is to monitor the physical health of their patients.  I think the system is missing half the picture.  Everyone should be matched with both a therapist and a PCP to ensure that they have someone they can call, regardless of whether their needs are physical or emotional.

I’ve written a few articles (here, here and here) about how emotional issues create or contribute to physical issues.  Healthcare costs along with lots of time and emotional energy could be saved if people worked with a therapist while working with their doctor to address their overall health issues.

At the medical clinic that’s part of the behavioral health center where I work, people can come in for their physical health needs.  If the doctor they see senses that there might be other issues going on (i.e. depression, anxiety, substance abuse, etc.), the doctor can call in one of the behavioral health specialists (aka – therapist) to address that issue on the spot.  It’s amazing how much this helps people in their overall health and happiness.

Why is it that people have no problem sharing their physical ailments with everyone around them but don’t feel the same about emotional issues?  People will share that they’re going to the doctor for a checkup, procedure or consultation but won’t share that they’re seeing a therapist about anything.

This double standard needs to end, and I recently discovered a therapist who is doing her part to end the stigma around getting the help you need.

Are u ok?

Her name is Kati Morton and she recently released a book called Are u ok? A Guide to Caring for Your Mental Health: How to Know if You Need Help & Where to Find It which I highly recommend if you’re not sure about the whole therapy thing, if you’ve had a bad experience with it, if you’re just curious, or you know someone who could benefit from therapy.

Kati is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) who has built a global mental health online community and YouTube channel.  Here’s more from the book’s back cover:

Everyone struggles with mental health issues from time to time, but the greatest level of misunderstanding comes from knowing the difference between mental health and mental illness, figuring out whether we need professional help and, if so, how to find it.  Are u ok? walks readers through the most commonly asked questions about mental health and the process of getting help.  From finding the best therapist to navigating harmful and toxic relationships and everything in between, Kati clarifies and de-stigmatizes the struggles so many of us go through and encourages readers to reach out for help.  What are the red flags of a mental health issue?  How do you go about making a first therapy appointment?  How do you know if your therapist is a good fit for you?  What are the best ways of talking about mental health with your family, friends, and colleagues?  There are so many questions and concerns, and in the down-to-earth, friendly tone that makes Kati Morton so popular on YouTube, Are u ok? informs and remind us that we can get through the difficult times and we are never alone.

If you think that less-than-optimal mental health isn’t common, consider that 20% (one in five) of all children and adults are affected by mental illness.  Whether it affects us or someone we know, it’s much more common than you think.  And this statistic is only from reported cases.  It doesn’t consider the multitudes that suffer in silence, too scared or embarrassed to get the help they desperately need.

I love this quote from the book which addresses what I was saying about the differences between seeing a physical health doctor and a therapist:

Why, in real life, when we trip and fall do we get back up so quickly, yet when we emotionally fall down, we allow ourselves to lie on the ground for weeks, possibly years?

Anxiety

Here’s an excerpt that shows how intertwined physical and mental health issues can be as it relates to anxiety:

Anxiety can stop us from eating, sleeping, and concentrating.  Anxiety symptoms can vary from person to person, even expressing themselves physically like they do for Alice:

First, I start breathing harder and get panicky, and then I feel angry, and I just lie on my bed wanting to cry or scream.  I’m also very irritable recently, yet I know I shouldn’t yell at anyone, so I bottle it all up inside.  Is this all part of my anxiety?

The truth is, yes, all those symptoms can be part of our anxiety, but since many of these symptoms mimic those of a physical illness, people with anxiety are three to five times more likely to wind up at their doctor’s office or hospital.

And I’ve seen this with people I’ve personally known who swear they’re having a heart attack or other physical problem.  When taken to the emergency room, the doctors declare them perfectly healthy physically but emotionally, they’re having an anxiety attack.  Their anxiety makes them feel like they’re dying.

Depression

Kati’s descriptions of depression are also very accurate (as I’ve dealt with depression through much of my life):

Something to remember about depression is that it’s episodic, meaning it comes and goes.  We can have episodes of depression that last for a few weeks up to months, and then they go away like they were never there.  I believe it’s because of these episodes that people don’t reach out for help.  All of those terrible “I can’t get out of bed” feelings go away, and we think maybe we were making it all up, or it’s really not that bad and we work through it on our own.  Then they come back, and we go through the same cycle all over again, possibly not getting help for years.

That was me for decades.  Until I got tired of the cycle happening over and over again and decided that I actually needed help.

The truth is that depression doesn’t always show itself in the way we expect.  It can be quiet, sneaky, and shift over time.  Some of the most common symptoms I have seen, which are not listed on any diagnostic criteria, follow:

• • Feeling like you are walking through water: everything is harder, and you feel like you’re moving so much slower.
  • Reading and rereading the same thing. Concentration is very hard to come by.
  • Everyone around you is just so freaking irritating!
  • You can’t help but replay everything you have ever done wrong in your life.

I know these symptoms may seem too vague or as if they can be applied to many illnesses, but it’s important to highlight just how varied depression can feel.  It’s not always about feeling sad or struggling to sleep; it can look and feel very different person to person.  Just remember that however you feel, if you don’t feel like yourself and find that you are less and less interested in things you used to like, please get help.

The lack of energy that comes along with depression is always my largest concern. Many people who come into my office or reach out online tell me they just couldn’t muster up the energy to reach out any sooner.

That’s why depression can hold people hostage for so long.  When we have the energy to get up and out of the house, we don’t think we feel bad enough to need any help or treatment.

By the time we actually do feel bad enough and believe we need to get some help, we physically and mentally can’t.  This is why we need to not only to do our best to check in on our own mental health, but also to have supportive people in our lives who can help us when we can’t help ourselves.  This could be having that friend make the call to see a therapist or driving us to our appointment and waiting with us.  However we can make it happen, it’s important that we have a plan to get back up and keep fighting.

Other Reasons to Read Are u ok?

In addition to helping you identify if or when you should seek professional help, the book also covers:

• • The difference between different mental health professionals (i.e. what’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?)
  • Preparing for your first appointment
  • Figuring out if your therapist is a good fit (hint: You might have to try out a few before you find one that works for you.)
  • What are toxic relationships and ways to get out of them?
  • Communication: The key to a happy, healthy life
  • Avoiding common mistakes and healing broken relationships at home, work and in life
  • How to get more help if you’re in therapy and still struggling

Whether you think you need this book or not, I recommend it.  If you’re one of the few not struggling with anxiety, depression, addiction, or some other issue that’s preventing you from living your best life, I’m sure you know someone who is and who could benefit from the information in Are u ok?.

Therapy truly is for everyone, just as support with physical health is.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you reach out for help.  911 isn’t only for physical emergencies.

But I Can’t Afford Therapy

If you don’t have insurance, there are many ways to find a therapist online, most of which run from $10 to $80 per week.  Below is a list and here is a great article at eCounseling.com that compared many options and reviews their top choices.

• TalkSpace offers email and text therapy for a monthly fee.
• BetterHelp.com offers messaging, chat, phone and video therapy.
• If your company offers an EAP program, take advantage of it.
• Teledoc, one of the best online sources of medical advice, also offers online therapy.
• This link and this link summarize some of the top online therapy resources currently available.

If you’re looking for a support group, check out 7Chairs.  They provide online, professionally facilitated support groups on a variety of topics including anxiety/depression, cancer, grief, psoriasis, divorce, infertility, and more. Each small group (up to 7 members) meeting occurs at a specific time and day and lasts for several weeks. The groups are facilitated by a licensed mental health professional and are designed to provide emotional support for those dealing with major emotional or physical health issues or life crises.

Many therapists offer sliding scale fees based on how much money you earn.  Most areas have community-based resources that are available for free.  In Colorado, where I live, the state offers a free crisis line where people can call or text to get the help they need for free.  Do some online searches to see what’s available in your area.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a mental health issue, which includes substance use issues, help is available and it’s probably closer and cheaper than you think.

If you’ve had good experiences with therapy and can offer helpful advice and encouragement to others, please leave a comment below.

While it’s “common knowledge” that we all need eight hours of sleep a night, there are plenty of articles and programs out there that will tell you that this is a myth and you really only need four or five hours.  From my personal experience, that doesn’t work so well.  I need seven or eight hours, but I know others who thrive with four or five.

Over time, I’ve applied mindfulness to the process to see what kind of impact I can make on my own sleep habits.  The biggest lesson I’ve learned (which applies to just about everything in life) is that one size does not fit all.  Even if you find your “size,” it doesn’t continue to fit over time.  Things are always changing.

With that in mind, I’m going to cover some of the contributors to a better night’s sleep as seen through a mindful eye.

How Much Sleep Do I Need?

While the average of the bell curve of how much “everyone” needs is around eight hours, many aren’t at the peak of that bell curve.  Some need much more and some much less.  Environment, age, health, and other factors play a part in how much sleep you need.

Instead of beating yourself up for not getting eight hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep (which might be possible for about 5% of the population), experiment with what feels right for you.

Hundreds of years ago, people weren’t writing about their sleep habits so we don’t really know how long people slept for.  There are theories that people went to bed when the sun went down and woke at sunrise. That’s a long time to sleep, especially in the winter.

More research has been done that shows that pre-Industrial Revolution people slept in two shifts:  going to bed just after darkness fell, waking for a couple hours around midnight and making pleasant use of the time, then going back to sleep until morning.

I sleep straight through the night about three nights a year.  The rest of the time, I wake up sometime between midnight and 2am. Sometimes I can fall back to sleep and other times I can’t.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I used to set my alarm for 4am soI had time to do yoga, meditate and have some alone time.  After a while, that toasted me, and I couldn’t sustain it, so I went back to getting up around 6am. Lately, I’ve been voluntarily waking up a little after 4am, unable to get back to sleep.  Age, hormones and who knows what have changed my natural sleep habits.

Now I’m naturally up before 5am and ready for the day.  As I get older, my environment changes (I’m no longer chasing young children around and tending to babies which takes tons of energy) so my sleep patterns are adjusting. I need to be mindful of these changes and not insist on being the same all the time (which can create a lot of self-induced stress).

Listen to your body.  There are no “should’s.”  There’s only what’s right for you here and now. And what’s right for you now will change over time.  Every now and then, check in with yourself to see if your current habits are serving you. If they’re not, change them. Experiment.

Getting Ready for Bed

You’ve probably read about all the steps you can take to induce better sleep.  But how many have you implemented into your daily sleep habits? Go through the following list and pick one new practice to implement tonight.  Stick with it for at least one month to see how it works for you. Anything less won’t be long enough for you to feel an impact.  Your body needs time to adjust to any changes.

After the first month, pick another practice to implement.  Keep the first one you tried or drop it depending on how much it helped you.

1. Turn off all screens two hours before bedtime.

I know, I know.  This one seems almost impossible for everyone. Whether it’s TV, computers, phones or whatever, everyone seems tied to a screen from the time our eyes open in the morning to the time they close at night.

Feeling that FOMO (fear of missing out) 24/7 keeps your brain wired and tired.  It’s extremely unlikely that some bit of social media, email, text or whatever that will change your life will be missed if you shut off your devices a couple hours before bedtime (and while you sleep).

Take the opportunity to spend some focused, uninterrupted, quality time with your partner, kids or yourself.  It will help to reduce your anxiety, depression, and general feelings of disconnection.

While most people sleep with their phone next to their bed to use it as an alarm clock or “just in case,” leave your phone out of the bedroom.  Period.  Charge it in your kitchen, office or living room.

There’s a very cool handmade product called Bagby that supports keeping your phone out of the bedroom. I’ve tried them and love them. Check them out here.

2. Make your bedroom as dark and quiet as possible.

It’s not rocket science that you need dark and quiet to sleep.  Turn off the TV and phone (remember step 1?) and anything else that emits sounds.  Turn off all the lights.  Even a little night light can mess with your sleep.

If you live in a populated area, pull the curtains or blinds to keep out light from the streets. Depending on your existing curtains or blinds, you might want to invest in room-darkening curtains that are like what you see in hotels.  They have a special layer that doesn’t allow any light through.

3. Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed.

Depending on your sensitivity to these substances, you may need to cut them out sooner than some recommendations call for.  Use mindfulness to notice how these things affect you.

Both are stimulants.  While alcohol may help you relax initially, it converts to sugar in your body as it’s metabolized which causes you to wake up later on.

If I drink coffee after 1pm, it messes with me all night.  My husband has a much higher tolerance.  We’re exactly the opposite when it comes to alcohol.  We both know how our bodies react to different things so, when we don’t follow what’s right for us, there’s no one to blame but ourselves.

4. Exercise during the day.

You don’t have to spend an hour at the gym or run for miles for exercise to help your sleep.  Take a ten-minute walk in the middle of the day.  I have a standing desk and a stationary stepper so I can “take a walk” while I’m working (that’s about the extent of my multi-tasking).

Spend some time gardening, playing with your kids or grandkids, walk to a friend’s house or coffee shop for a visit.  Spend some time connecting with the people in your life who support you (without screens). This helps mind, body, and soul.

5. Have a regular bedtime.

Your body needs cues to anticipate when it’s time to shut down.  Little kids thrive on this.  So do adults.

Create a bedtime routine. Take a warm bath, sip some tea, meditate, journal, read a paper book.  Do things you enjoy that help you relax and release the stress of the day.

If some worry is running around in your head, journal about it.  Write out what you’ll do tomorrow to address it.  Get it all out so it won’t keep you up at night.

To handle those thoughts that pop into your head in the middle of the night, I’ve found that a pad of paper and a pen with a blue light in it (like this one) next to the bed work wonders.  When you think of something, write it down quickly while you’re still in bed without turning on the room lights.  The blue light in the pen keeps your eyes in “night vision.”  You don’t have to stay awake hoping you remember your bit of wisdom until the morning (which you won’t).

6. Make your bed as comfortable as possible.

This is something I’ve spent a lot of time on.  Sheets, pillows, mattresses, blankets.  They’re all very important parts of the equation.  You spend about a third of your life in bed, make the investment in high-quality bedding.  If you don’t, you’ll be paying for it during your waking hours with pains in your back, hips, and shoulders and general crankiness because you didn’t sleep well.

Many years ago, I researched “healthy beds” and found that most mattresses are filled with toxic chemicals.  Who wants to sleep face down in a bed of carcinogens?

So I invested in an organic rubber mattress and wool-filled pillows from Lifekind.  At the time, this was the only option for an organic bed (that I could find).  It feels like memory foam without any bounce and offers plenty of support (almost a bit too hard since I’m a side-sleeper).

I would rather have purchased an organic innerspring mattress, but couldn’t find one back then. Things have changed and a company called Saatva answered my call.  They have organic innerspring mattresses that are adjustable and made in the US of high-quality materials.  They’re very reasonably priced given the high quality you get.

Saatva also has pillows and sheets that are completely organic.  When my pillows and sheets arrived, it was like they were gift-wrapped just for me.  The sheets (all organic) are super-soft, almost like Egyptian cotton.  I love curling up in them at night (or for daytime naps).

The pillows are so-very-soft yet are firm enough to support my head (as I mentioned, I’m a side-sleeper).  They don’t flatten out like the other wool pillows I had (which couldn’t be re-fluffed) and don’t immediately go flat like down pillows.

Combine all that with a great down comforter (make sure you get one with the “warmth” level that’s right for you) and you’ll never want to get out of bed.

If you’re sleeping on old, flat pillows or that bargain mattress that you bought ten years ago, give yourself the gift of a better night’s sleep for years to come by investing in better bedding.  You’re worth it.

Which of these ideas will you implement tonight?  And which will you implement next month?  Take some time to reflect on how any changes, regardless of how subtle, affect you. Keep what works and drop what doesn’t. Keep experimenting.  Everyone is different and will find unique sleep times and routines that work for them. Like I said earlier, there’s no “one size fits all.”  Experiment to find your size and don’t judge what does or doesn’t work.  That’s mindful sleeping.

Every time you achieve your next goal, you’re happy for a bit then the happiness bubble pops, and you’re on the path to another goal that you’re sure will make you happy.  But the happiness never lasts.  What’s wrong?  You may ask: “What’s wrong with me?  I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do but I never get “there.”  I feel like I need to keep moving, searching, striving, achieving.  It’s killing me!  When will it end?!?!”

I know exactly how you feel.  I’ve spent most of my life doing this.  Nothing was ever good enough (for who, I never quite knew).

I got good grades, degree, and jobs that were never enough.  I got certifications that I judged to be “what’s required” instead of achievements.  When I was in relationships or friendships, I was either consciously or subconsciously looking for someone better.

This treadmill guarantees that you’ll never be happy.  As long as you look for happiness outside of yourself, nothing will feel like the kind of lasting joy that you’re looking for.

When you compare yourself to others with the goals you achieve, how you appear on social media, the friends you surround yourself with or the jobs that you have, you’ll always come up “not good enough” and certainly (in your mind) not as happy as all those other people who have what you want.

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”  ~Jim Carrey

Choosing Happiness

I’ve said before that happiness is a choice, not a destination.  Anyone can choose to be happy regardless of their circumstances.

I think gratitude has everything to do with the choice to be happy.  When you can pause and mindfully notice all the amazing things in your life right here, right now, you can’t help but feel happy (or “happyful” as the leader at Right Here, Right Now notes).  Not that giddy “happiness bubble” kind of happy (although that’s definitely possible), but a happy, peaceful contentment that says, “Life is good.”

What you focus on grows.  When you focus on what you’re grateful for, you’ll find more things to be grateful for.  At first, this might seem difficult.  It’s a practice that grows and slowly reveals its magic the more you practice it, like meditation or yoga.  Do it for a bit and it will feel nice.  Do it every day and, over time, it will transform you in ways you couldn’t have imagined.

When I started my gratitude practice many years ago, I was challenged to write three things I was grateful for each day.  I was so used to seeing the negative and feeling depressed that coming up with three different things to be grateful for every day was one of the hardest things I had done.

Over time it became easier.  Within a year, I was going through gratitude notebooks, filling up a couple pages each day.  Some days it was hard to stop.

I started noticing that I was feeling a bit happier.  My negative thought patterns were changing.  I wasn’t blaming others for what was wrong in my life as much.  I started noticing the great things about others that I hadn’t previously seen through my veil of negativity.  And my depression was lifting.

I started to realize that I had a choice in how I saw the world.  I noticed that the stories I had made up about myself, others and my world weren’t helping me, so I started to change them.  If I could see people differently, then my presumptions about them could also change.

A whole new world that I couldn’t have imagined opened up to me.  All from this simple daily practice practiced over time.

In this transformation, I noticed that “enough” didn’t matter as much.  Instead of constantly striving to be more, better, enough, comparing myself to others and judging myself harshly, I was looking at others to see what was great about them that I could be grateful for.  This helped to squelch the comparison monster.

Instead of feeling bad about myself and the stories I made up in my comparisons, I felt good.  And the better I felt, the more I looked for the good in others and anything to be grateful for.  Which continues to make me feel good every day.

The better I feel, the more effectively I can support others and be a better person, a better example.  There are entirely too many negative role models in our day-to-day lives.  I like to be the example that says it’s possible to be in a good mood, to have more good days than bad – to be happy.

Simple Steps

Find the awesomeness in every day with a daily gratitude practice.

1. Notice your recurring thoughts.

To help you see your progress, start by journaling about your daily recurring thoughts.

• What do you tell yourself about you?
• How do you judge yourself?
• How do you compare yourself to others?
• Who are you comparing yourself to?
• How does all this make you feel?

2. Start a gratitude journal.

The next step is to begin your gratitude journal.  You can do this electronically, but it tends to have a better effect if you put pen to paper.  I’ve used both over time and find that physically writing it on paper helps to reinforce the underlying emotions more effectively.

Every day, preferably at the same time each day to create a habit, write three, five or ten things you’re grateful for.  The challenge is to not repeat what you write each day.

Go deep with what you write.  For example, don’t just write, “I’m grateful for my partner.”  Each day you could instead dedicate your list to a certain aspect of your partner like their physical appearance, how their little actions help you feel better, how they’ve helped you to be a better person, how they express their unique selves in the world.

Along with each item on your gratitude list, write why you’re grateful for it and how that makes you feel.  This is probably the most powerful part of the practice.

Things in life have meaning from the meaning you give them.  Meaning creates emotions.  Feelings and emotions determine how you feel and how you act.

Once this practice becomes a habit, you’ll find yourself looking for things to be grateful for throughout your day.  You’ll subconsciously note things that you can add to your next list.

You’ll be looking for and focusing on the good around you.  Because what you focus on grows, the good in your life will grow.  Things that you used to take for granted will shine in a new light as you see how lucky you are to have all that greatness in your life.

3. Reflect on the changes your gratitude practice has created.

After maintaining this practice for a month or two, go back and read what you wrote when you started.  I find it helpful to write the date above my daily list so I can get a sense of when I was writing what I wrote.

Take some time to reflect on the subtle changes that have occurred in how you see yourself and your world.  Journal about that.

Your gratitude practice helps you to see that what makes you happy isn’t “out there.”  It isn’t a goal to achieve.  It isn’t a “better you” to become.

Happiness is how you choose to see yourself and your world.  It’s not a light switch that you can suddenly turn on.  It’s a process of learning that your choices, what you focus on and the stories you tell yourself can be changed to bring you that lasting happiness that everyone wants.

What are you grateful for today?

But how often do you act the way you think other people want you to act, stifling your True Self?  How often do you later regret what you did or said because it wasn’t coming from your heart, it was coming from your desire to please?

Two of the top regrets of the dying are:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I had let myself be happier.

It’s amazing how unhappy you can make yourself in an effort to make others happy.  And I emphasize “in an effort to” because, as hard as you may try, it’s not in your power to make someone else happy.  If they’re hell-bent on being unhappy, nothing you do can change it.

Being happy is an inside job.  It’s a decision you make about how you see yourself and the world.  Your happiness is dictated by the stories you make up about the things that happen to you and others.

We Are Storytellers

Everyone is making up their own stories, their own reality.  For this reason, there can be no one reality because, as quantum physics has proven, what appears real is affected by the observer.  It’s how two people can describe completely different “facts” after witnessing the same crime.

The stories you tell yourself have a variety of labels:

• Beliefs
• Family traditions
• Interpretations of past events
• Societal norms

How many of yours help you to be happier?  Which ones are keeping you from experiencing happiness?  Just because your family or friends believe something or “that’s the way it’s always been” doesn’t make it right or true for you.

I spent much of my life being mildly to moderately depressed.  Following my parents’ ways of dealing with things, I looked outside of myself and regularly found others to blame for my woes which only damaged my relationships with those people and kept me depressed.

I was a bit of a control freak, trying to make other people be and act like I wanted them to because I thought that would make me happier.  You can probably guess how well that worked.

After beating my head against the wall long enough because I wasn’t getting the results I wanted, I stopped.  I began to see how I was repeating the same negative patterns with different people in my life and never getting what I was looking for.

The Healing Begins

Noticing that I was repeating these patterns was the first step in changing them.  At first, I didn’t know what to do differently.  I started journaling to see what was in my head and my heart.  I started to uncover all the stories I held to be true and question them.

I realized that a big part of my unhappiness was that my heart felt stifled.  I was doing what I thought others expected of me which wasn’t necessarily what was in my heart.  That had created anger and resentment in me that I hadn’t realized was there.

As a child, it wasn’t safe for me to express my emotions, so I learned how to bury them very early on.  It took me years to begin to understand all that I had buried, not letting myself feel whatever was there.

Like a volcano, all that pressure builds until something blows.  I didn’t want a big explosion, so I learned how to begin to release the pressure slowly with therapy, journaling, and mindfulness.

While I would like to say that everything got better in a few months, that’s not how things work.  This work has taken years to peel back the layers of stories and beliefs I’ve held to be true in order to find my True Self – to find my happiness.

The more I allow myself to do and think differently, regardless of what others might think, the closer I get to my happiness.  The less I censor myself for fear of ridicule, the better I feel.

What’s Wrong With Being Happy?

Why is it so hard to simply express happiness for fear that others will wonder what’s wrong with you?  For example, when someone asks, “How’s it going?” and the most socially acceptable response is, “Oh my gosh!  I’m so busy!” which implies that there’s so much to do that I can’t possibly relax and enjoy myself.  Somehow, being happy comes across as being selfish, so we just complain about something instead, like how there’s too much to do and too little time to do it and we’re a victim to the whole mess.

People look at you like you have two heads if you say something like, “Things are going great and I’m really happy.”  To this, the other person would probably think, “Really?  How is that possible?”  with an imperceptible notion of, “How do you have the right to be happy when I’m so unhappy?”

This brings us back to the second regret of the dying: I wish I had let myself be happier.

It’s as if there’s only so much happiness to go around and if I take too much of it, I’m stealing someone else’s piece of the pie.  Like we’re all only allowed a certain amount of happiness (which isn’t much) and others will be angry at us if we look or act too happy because life is supposed to be hard.

Yes, life can be challenging at times, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer through it.  Again, it’s all about the stories you tell yourself about it.

Instead of “Life is challenging now and this sucks” you could reframe it as “Life is challenging now because I need to learn something.  What have I missed that I can learn now to make my life better going forward?”

You could also incorporate the second regret into your questioning: How can I have the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me?

What part of yourself have you been subduing that needs to see the light of day?  How can you use that aspect of yourself to brighten someone’s day or make the world a little better?  Or how can you express that aspect of yourself to feel a little happier?

The more often you express your true happiness, the more you give others the permission to do the same.  Others have no problem complaining and expressing their unhappiness because society reinforces how normal this is.  What if we all worked together to change this?

Ultimately, societal norms support this because taking responsibility for your own life and happiness without blaming others is harder to do.  Just like zipping through the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant is easier than making a healthy meal at home, the easy option will leave you feeling sick and unhappy in the long term.  Repeated on a daily basis, the fast food will land you in the hospital and the negative, victim thinking will keep you unhappy.

Both options (healthy and unhealthy) can easily become habits.  Your daily habits create your life.  Short-term pain leads to long-term gain.  What seems difficult today can easily become a new healthy habit.  This applies to exercise and diet as well as your internal thoughts and how you express yourself.

You are what you think and do every day.  You are the result of your habits.
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“Happiness is a habit…cultivate it.” ~Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915, Writer, Publisher, and Artist

Simple Steps

At the end of each day or throughout each day for one week, write down the tiny choices you made throughout the day that created either (or both) of the two regrets of the dying.

What small changes can you make tomorrow to allow you to be your True Self and be a little happier?

Mindfully notice how the subtle (or not-so-subtle) changes you make lead to different results.

Experiment.  There’s no such thing as failure.  Notice and learn from each experiment.  Keep what works and change what doesn’t.

The process never ends.  You’re not going to wake up one day and feel like you’re done.

After years of this myself, I was journaling one day and realized how much happier I was than I used to be.  I realized that being happy didn’t mean I was giddy and skipping around (although that’s fun to do; you should try it!).  It’s more a serene sense of contentment most of the time.

Ultimately, I had to learn how to be happy with myself and accept myself and my circumstances, no matter what.  The happier I became with myself (which led me to stop trying to control others so they could “make” me happy), the easier it became to express my True Self without worrying about what others might think.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ~ Oscar Wilde

It’s your job to find your True Self, your authentic self, and express it in everything you do and think.  That’s your gift to the world.