What a Trip!

a wooden table topped with lots of plates and bowls.

I haven’t written in a while, but I’ve certainly had some things in mind to share; and I’m grateful to have that opportunity now. As some of you know, I spent a couple of weeks away this month on a visit to Morocco and Spain. It was my first time in Morocco, and though it was a wedding in Marrakech that brought me there, I got a chance to experience a few other parts of the country and enjoy some of the many riches it has to offer. I had few expectations going into the trip; and I’m glad for that, because nothing could have prepared me for the journey it turned out to be. While I was there, and since coming home, I’ve done a lot of reflecting on what I experienced and what all of it had to teach me.

From the moment my flight touched down in Marrakech, I was overcome by the energy of this new place. My senses were overloaded, and it took effort to stay centered. There was so much to take in, so many things around me demanding my attention, something unexpected at every turn. I felt completely scattered, yet totally present. Time flew by while somehow seeming to drag on forever. It was a dizzying experience that, oddly enough, led me to feel more grounded than ever.

Getting immersed in a new place requires a certain degree of surrender, a releasing of patterned ways of thinking and being. But the truth is, we don’t need to stamp our passports to get this experience. We always have this choice—to let go of what isn’t serving us and live into new possibilities; to shed old skin and grow into something new. For me, this trip was a humbling reminder of how much there is in this world, this Life, to be discovered. When we allow ourselves to move outside our context, our culture, our comfort zones, our customary ways of being in the world, we get rewarded and expanded. We move a little closer to the essence of Life, catching a glimpse of its vastness through the small pieces of it we get to savor. It’s a choice we get to make every day—stay small, or expand; close ourselves off, or open ourselves up with curiosity. Remembering that we have this choice isn’t always easy, and sometimes we have to shake things up to realize it again. But when we do, we get to grow.

One of the biggest treasures of this experience was the sense of connection I felt with the people I met in Morocco. Through the brief but significant encounters I had with them, I got reminded of how transcendent human connection can be. We have the ability to communicate with people in powerful ways that go far beyond the words we speak. This awareness came most penetratingly to me through an encounter with a practical stranger that I doubt I’ll ever forget. We didn’t share a language—save for a few words of Arabic and English that both of us could understand—but, in our brief exchange, I experienced trust, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and love. We connected and communicated in a way that transcended language, culture, or any other seeming differences between us. It served as a reminder and affirmation that true connection isn’t about the surface stuff. It’s about presence, awareness, attunement, patience, and a mutual willingness to understand. To really connect, we’ve got to slow down and pay attention. We’ve got to hold ourselves in the space to give and receive. Our connections with each other open us up to new worlds; they reveal new insights and understandings; they help us resolve our differences and discover our sameness; they affirm that we’re all having this curious and wondrous human experience together.

For me, this trip was a teacher. It humbled me, expanded me, and got me present to some things I believe wholeheartedly—that new experience is a transformative tool, and human connections are powerful medicine. After two weeks of traveling, I was eager to return home; but I promised myself that I’d hold on to all the lessons I learned while I was away. And now I get to share them with you. Thank you for being the space to receive them. I hope they resonate with a part of you and, in some way, contribute to your own beautiful journey.

Meditation for Trauma Healing

a woman sitting on a dock in front of a body of water.

Sometimes, when people ask me what I do for a living and I’m in the right kind of mood, I tell them I’m a tour guide through the realm of emotional pain. This is a sassy and, perhaps, slightly macabre way of describing myself and my work, but it’s an honest one. As a mindfulness-based psychotherapist and self-aware wounded healer, I know that keeping people company while they make contact with their own wounds is the most significant part of what I do. And it’s something I do with great reverence for the people who choose me to take the journey with them.

These people, my beloved clients, often seek me out in the midst of great suffering. Many of them have gone through dramatic and traumatic life experiences that interrupt their lives and negatively impact their functioning. When they arrive to their first session, many of them fight to hold back tears; they make visible efforts to hold themselves together, showing just how much life energy they’ve been expending to avoid falling apart. Once they know it’s safe to surrender, they allow themselves to reveal the pain they’ve been holding—and it’s heavy. In this beautiful clearing, they allow me to join with them and begin the healing process.

Often, clients come to see me because they know I incorporate mindfulness and meditation in the therapeutic process. Some of them have heard about meditation or been encouraged to try it, and they arrive eager to access anything that will give them some relief. Naturally, they assume that meditation will help them clear their minds and get free from the internal chaos that’s causing them so much anguish. This heartens me, as I know the abundant healing potential meditation holds. But in almost every case, I bookmark that chapter of our work together until a later time. Here’s why.

Meditation can be a remarkably effective tool that aids in the healing process. A regular practice has been found to calm the sympathetic nervous system, thus reducing the fight-or-flight response associated with trauma and post-traumatic stress. It’s also been shown to produce structural and functional brain changes that support healing. But it isn’t always advisable for survivors of trauma to hop onto the cushion right away. In fact, practicing without attending to other things first can actually interfere with and complicate the healing process.

If you practice meditation, you know that the notion of the mind getting quiet is a complete fallacy. Our brains simply aren’t wired to go silent whenever we want them to—if they could, traumas could be resolved pretty rapidly, and a whole lot of human suffering would be eliminated. Instead, what tends to happen when we enter the practice is that we become even more aware of what’s swirling around inside us. For people who’ve experienced traumas, this can be terrifying. Thoughts, emotions, and memories that are already troubling under normal circumstances can become overwhelming in the silent space that meditation opens.

The experience of trauma is characterized by intense fear that comes from a real or perceived direct threat to our survival. This kicks our nervous system into high gear and has a lasting psychological and emotional impact. After the initial event, trauma survivors often experience severe anxiety, intrusive thoughts, unpleasant physiological symptoms, emotional detachment, and unwanted flashbacks of the initial event. Without a proper foundation in place, meditation can amplify these experiences instead of alleviating them.

Here’s where that thing I said earlier about being a tour guide comes into play. It isn’t always safe to turn inward unaccompanied until we’ve done some work on being able to settle into ourselves. Research supports that meditation can be an integral part of the trauma healing process when accompanied or preceded by talk therapy or other forms of intentional interpersonal support. By consciously addressing the trauma, survivors learn how to revisit the traumatic event without become re-traumatized by it. They learn a variety of tools that help them cope with daily life and reestablish a sense of safety and security. While therapy isn’t a panacea for trauma, it provides a solid foundation that can be built upon and bolstered by practices like meditation.

Having had more than one traumatic experience in my own life, I can say that meditation is something I was able to adopt and embrace only after I did some conscious sorting out of my internal material. Through therapy and other more deliberate and directive healing modalities, I prepared myself to sit in silence, be present to my experience, and make direct contact with my thoughts and emotions. This is the space I aim to co-create and hold for my clients. Once they’ve walked through the pain and gotten familiar with the landscape, they can access the power and potential of meditation, cultivating serenity and taking their healing to new depths.

When we’ve done the work of acknowledging and addressing our traumas, meditation and mindfulness can help us get back into our bodies. These practices can serve as a profound form of empowerment, revealing to us the capacity we have for healing ourselves and learning to thrive again. They invite us to begin shining light over the parts of ourselves that were cast into darkness; they allow us to reclaim those parts and become whole again.

Serving as a means of retraining our brains and deepening our connection to ourselves, meditation offers significant benefits for anyone who’s experienced trauma. It helps us safely self-monitor, notice our thoughts, soothe ourselves, anchor our attention, breathe into discomfort, confidently encounter strong emotions, and securely inhabit our bodies and minds. Through a combination of therapy and meditation, I’ve seen countless clients move from victimhood to empowerment. I’ve seen chronic drug users who’d do anything to numb the pain release their attachments to substances and learn to comfortably live in their own skin. I’ve seen suffering transformed through the power of the practice, wielded by individuals who know they’re ready to turn the gaze inward.

Meditation holds the promise of opening our hearts and transmuting our pain into loving awareness and a deepened sense of compassion for ourselves and others. Through the practice, we learn to make space for the traumatic events we’ve endured and integrate them into our story. We learn to accommodate every aspect of that story. Because the truth is, our lives are richly complex experiences; they contain darkness as well as light, sorrow as well as joy. And when we learn to accept this fundamental truth, that life is everything, we can release our attachments and access our freedom.

It’s a Long and Winding Road

a train track with trees in the background.

I had a startling encounter with myself recently that came at an unexpected time, with unanticipated intensity. During a heated argument with someone I love, I found myself in dark yet familiar territory: The Shadow Land, as I’ve come to call it. This is a place I’ve known all my life—one that I decided years ago to travel far, far away from but that somehow has a way of calling me back from time to time. In the midst of this particularly painful exchange, I found myself there again and felt all those old emotions that I swore to myself (much more than once) I’d never feel again. I was out of my depth; I felt out of control. As the awful words tumbled out of my mouth and the dark emotions surged through me, I disconnected from the purest parts of myself and went completely into shadow mode. I didn’t like who I was being or where I was going in that moment, but I was compelled to keep spiraling deeper into it. What a painful experience. What an awful, well-worn path to tread. It’s tough to admit this—especially given the pressure placed on people in my position to act as if we’ve got it all together all the time— but if owning up to it makes any sort of contribution to anyone else’s process, it’s well worth it.

As someone doing the kind of work I do, I have the benefit of getting an insider’s view of the painful insecurities and disowned shadowy bits that plague most people. If we’re willing to look closely, all of us can find parts of ourselves we’re unwilling to own; parts of our stories we’re unwilling to forgive; parts of our lives we’re unwilling to accept. Some of us are at war with ourselves, unable to live comfortably in our own skin. Others—perhaps those who have ventured into the territory of healing and made the brave and radical decision to shine love and acceptance where there has been darkness—know the pain and disappointment of realizing that the work isn’t done. This was my experience as I found myself losing touch with my light. This is the experience of owning the unfortunate yet inevitable truth—that self-acceptance and self-love are a lifelong project.

We’re living in interesting times, where self-improvement is in style, and everywhere we look, someone’s offering a quick and easy solution to peace everlasting. But let’s be honest: human nature is more complex than we’ll ever understand, and the road to total self-acceptance is a long and winding one. Books, seminars, coaching, and therapy can give us direction and equip us with the tools we need to find our way; but Life, as always, remains in charge, finding myriad ways to put us in touch with the unacknowledged, unforgiven, disowned parts of ourselves. The dark matter, as it turns out, runs deep—and so does the work of shining our light there.

After spending some time battling my demons and forgetting everything I’ve ever known—or taught—about self-acceptance and self-love, I found my breath and allowed myself to re-align. I called upon my courage and committed to doing some exploring of everything that was unearthed when this person so close to me triggered something I had no idea was lurking beneath the surface. But first, I did some serious ugly crying, jotted some notes in my journal, gave myself a big hug, and got back to the business of living. Because this is what we self-helpers tend to gloss over: sometimes, we can’t just Namaste the pain away and bathe ourselves in blissful self-love. Sometimes, pulling ourselves together and wearily declaring a truce is all we can manage. The process, as I said, is a deep one, and the journey toward boundless self-love might be never-ending. So sometimes, the best we can do is stay with the process and sit with the pain of what hasn’t yet healed, trusting that shining the light of our awareness into the darkness is its own powerful form of progress.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that if only we read enough, meditate enough, go to enough yoga classes, or repeat enough mantras, we’ll be healed forever. I mean, how appealing is it to believe that we can free ourselves, once and for all, from the shackles of insecurity, self-doubt, and self-loathing? But the truth is, when we buy into the notion that the self-love project is one we can conquer swiftly and completely, we only add to our own suffering. Maybe instead, we can let ourselves settle into the lifelong journey and appreciate the process of learning as we go. Maybe we can brace ourselves for those dark nights of the soul, trusting that they’ll usually wind up being the greatest contributions to our growth.

Listen, I’ll be the first to tell you: personal development work is not for the faint of heart. It’s gruesome to face down the self-limiting beliefs and unresolved emotional drama living inside us. But despite what any late-night infomercial or well-funded Facebook ad might try to sell you on, it’s the only way transformation can happen. We’ve got to face it and feel it to heal it; and we’ve got to be ready for the lifelong project of self-growth, self-love, self-acceptance, and self-improvement. But though the journey is long and the work deep, I, for one, take great comfort in knowing that we’re in this together. All of us breathing and learning and healing and growing, side by side—all of us contributing to and gaining from one another’s beautiful journeys.

Superego, Take a Seat

The field of psychology has come quite a long way since the time of Sigmund Freud. And though a great deal has changed over time, some of his ideas about human psychology have proved timeless. Take, for example, his model of the human psyche, which consists of three components. First there’s the id, the most primal aspect of ourselves, which contains our most basic instincts. Then there’s the superego, which serves as a moral conscience and operates from a rigid set of constructs about how we should conduct ourselves. Finally, there’s the ego, the reality-based part of ourselves that mediates between the id and superego’s extremes.

While the id is all about fulfilling pleasures and satisfying impulses, the superego drives us toward becoming the most idealized version of ourselves. Our superego is like a strict and rigid parental figure living inside our consciousness; its job is to use morality, pressure, and guilt to get us as close to perfect as possible. And all the while, the ego toggles between the two, trying to create harmony and guide us through life.

I’ve always appreciated the framework Freud laid out; it gives us a way to understand the seemingly disparate parts of ourselves. I, for one, find it incredibly useful to remember that my occasional impulse to dive headfirst into a chocolate cake is not a reflection of who I am, but rather a function of the id that constitutes just one part of me. Similarly, I take great comfort in reminding myself that I don’t need to follow all the demands of my relentless superego. Just as it wouldn’t be socially acceptable (or even safe) to follow the id’s every whim, it also wouldn’t be prudent to put the superego squarely in charge.

See, the superego operates according to a strict set of rules and expectations—a binary set of rights and wrongs, if you will. It deals in extremes and sees things in black and white terms, as either completely good or completely bad. Some of its most commonly used words include should, shouldn’t, must, and can’t. It’s nearly impossible to please. And though it serves a worthy purpose—to maintain our moral nature and keep us working toward a perfected version of ourselves—it can keep us rigid, restricted, and mired in guilt if we aren’t careful.

If you’ve ever worked with me in therapy, you know I’m always on the lookout for the superego’s traps. I commonly catch my clients in superego-driven rigidity and invite them to be more reasonable with themselves. This is not only vital to the therapeutic process, creating valuable space for us to be more flexible and forgiving, it’s also essential to our general wellbeing. It’s unreasonable—and often downright harmful—for us to hold ourselves to an inflexible metric of right and wrong. For starters, there’s ultimately no such thing as right or wrong. Reality is a wholly subjective experience, and each of us defines it differently. We all judge reality, including the rightness and wrongness of things, according to our own personal standards. What for some is acceptable, others find reprehensible.

The superego’s idea that there’s a perfect way to do things is simply unrealistic. More than that, it’s damaging. It sets us up to judge ourselves according to impossible standards and always feel like we’re falling short.

We spend our lives letting our superegos tell us what we should and shouldn’t do; we constantly make ourselves (and others, no doubt) right or wrong about everything. This takes a heavy toll on us. It keeps us from having a clear sense of what we want, since it’s hard to hear the voice of our true selves over the din of the superego’s demands. It prevents us from recognizing how free we are. With the guidance of the thoughtful, integrating ego, we can determine new standards for our behavior. We can think openly and flexibly about how we want to show up in the world, and give ourselves permission to be imperfect.

You can create a lot of powerful change in your life by developing a new relationship with your superego. Whenever you notice it dictating what you should think, say, or do, pause and take a moment to consider other possibilities. For example, if you’re facing a choice between two things, don’t let your superego decide which is right and which is wrong. Instead, explore other standards, and ask yourself different questions. Will what you choose be helpful or unhelpful? Will it have you in or out of alignment with your highest self? Will it be productive or unproductive? Will it promote freedom or constraint for you and the people around you?  Instead of letting your superego dictate what you should or shouldn’t do, ask yourself other, more useful questions. How will doing it make you feel?  How will it affect the people around you? Will it move you closer or further away from the life you most desire?

The more mindful and intentional we are, the more harmony we can create among the various parts of ourselves. We can learn from our instincts and be informed by our internalized rules, without being enslaved by either. We can flow more easily through our lives, trusting ourselves to make decisions that move us toward our highest potential. And, in maintaining this sense of internal harmony and self-awareness, we can let ourselves live both responsibly and freely, with a clear mind and an open heart.

Manifestation: The Real Deal

a man riding a zip line in the middle of a forest.

There’s a lot of talk these days, especially in spiritual circles, about manifestation. And that’s a beautiful thing. It means—on some level, at least— that people are becoming aware of how our thoughts, beliefs, and general mindset influence our experience. That’s essentially what the concept of manifestation is all about: focusing on what you desire, and attracting it through what you think, say, and do. Here’s the thing, though. That last part, the do part, is the most important element of the manifestation process—and it’s the one that tends to be emphasized the least.

Many discussions about manifestation make it appear as though you simply have to think positive thoughts, and all of your deepest desires will be fulfilled. But this is a narrow view of the concept. First, it implicitly suggests that what happens to us in life is exclusively a matter of choice; by extension, then, people who suffer great misfortunes—like those born into poverty, those with terrible diseases, or those subjected to violence, for example—somehow brought it upon themselves through negative thinking or a lack of intention. This is faulty and problematic reasoning, of course; things simply don’t work that way. However, though we can’t determine everything that happens to us in life, most of us, no matter our circumstances, have the creative capacity to bring about changes based on what we choose to think and believe. There are countless examples of people who, even in the most wretched of conditions, chose to interpret their circumstances in positive and uplifting ways, and subsequently moved their lives onto a more promising path. Dr. Viktor Frankl, who lost his wife, parents, and other family members in the Holocaust, is one such example. His famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, offers an inspiring testimony to the power of the mind, the endurance of the human spirit, and the true nature of manifestation.

There’s another major challenge with misinterpreting manifestation as simply a matter of closing your eyes, wishing for what you want, and opening them again to find it there in front of you. As I mentioned earlier, many conversations about manifestation heavily emphasize the thinking and feeling aspects and barely mention the doing. But it’s in the doing that the real magic of manifestation exists.

Any of us can easily conjure thoughts and fantasies about what we desire. For some of us it’s a hefty pay raise, a dream job, or a fancy house; for others it’s the ideal romantic partner or a picture-perfect family. Whatever the dream entails, the dreaming part is easy. And if we think of manifestation as simply dreaming the dream and waiting for it to materialize, we’re bound to be disappointed. But this doesn’t mean we need to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Instead, we should guide our attention to the most significant aspect of manifestation, the one with the greatest likelihood of turning our dreams into reality: committed action.

Many successful people will tell you they’ve gotten to where they have by dreaming big, keeping that dream alive for themselves, and doing whatever it takes to get there. Their path to success offers the rest of us a step-by-step guide to manifestation. Step 1: Create a vision; Step 2: Keep your mind filled with positive thoughts related to that vision, imagining it as if it’s already come true; Step 3: Do everything possible to achieve what you desire; Step 4: Watch your vision become reality. Put this way, manifestation isn’t such a far-out, new-age concept. It’s not nearly as glamorous or easy to sell, but it’s much more likely to yield results.

Once you start getting the step-by-step of manifestation down, you’re likely to notice that things you desire start showing up in your life. You’ve set your mind to the right frequency and taken committed action accordingly: Why wouldn’t you get what you want? But here’s where you’ve got to be extra careful. Remember the saying, “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it”? Well, it rings with real truth when it comes to manifestation. Because, you see, it’s one thing to want something we don’t yet have, and quite another to receive and hold onto that something. I’ve worked with more than a few people who learned everything they could about manifestation in order to attract the perfect partner, only to find that when that person actually did appear in their lives, they didn’t know what to do next.

One of my former clients spent years envisioning the man she believed would give her the happily-ever-after she’d always wanted. During a casual night out with friends, when she didn’t expect to meet anyone at all, she came face-to-face with a guy who seemed to be everything she’d been calling forth through her manifestation efforts. But a month or two into dating him, my client felt completely defeated. What she came to realize was that her attempts at manifesting the ideal partner were completely outwardly focused. She was so caught up in dreaming up what the other person would be like that she didn’t once stop to consider who she would want or need to be in order to maintain a healthy and harmonious relationship with that person. She was intent on manifesting a “responsible guy who’s focused on his career and his future;” but once she started dating him, she realized she hadn’t given much thought to what it would actually be like to have such a partner. His strict weekly routine of work, workouts, and early nights clashed with her happy hour circuit with girlfriends, and his future-focused attitude didn’t really jibe with her tendency to live in the moment and worry about the details later. In short, she asked for more than she was ready to receive, and rather than getting to enjoy what she had manifested, she wound up feeling as though she was “self-sabotaging” it.

I know my clients aren’t the only ones who have discovered that manifestation comes with some strings attached. In my own life, I’ve had to do my fair share of recalibrating when the things I was so focused on manifesting finally appeared. It all serves as a healthy and important reminder that life isn’t perfect, and that if we dare to ask for certain things to come our way, we’ve got to be ready to receive them. I, for one, continue to believe wholeheartedly in our collective creative capacity and the power we have to manifest our deepest desires. So, let’s keep dreaming big and weaving those dreams into reality. And while we’re on that journey of aligning our intentions, thoughts, emotions, and actions to bring forth what we’re seeking, let’s aim to keep it all in healthy perspective.

Communicate More Mindfully

two people sitting on a bench in front of a cage.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that mindfulness practice offers a broad array of benefits for the willing and dedicated practitioner. When we open ourselves to this practice, we create the potential for our lives to be transformed in ways that might seem subtle, but truly make a world of difference. Though many of the benefits of mindfulness are personal and internal—improved concentration, expanded sense of awareness, increased patience, and enduring states of tranquility, to name a few—some important aspects of the practice can positively affect our external experience as well. Take communication, for example. Using mindfulness in our communication with others can improve our relationships and help us navigate even the most difficult conversations.

If you already have a practice of cultivating mindfulness, a little intention is all you’ll need to start applying it to your communication. If you haven’t yet developed a practice of mindfulness, that’s a good place to start. In case the concept isn’t clear, mindfulness is essentially a practice of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, with a spirit of awareness, acceptance, and nonjudgment. Mindfulness can be cultivated through formal meditation practice, or on its own throughout the course of your day. By focusing your attention on what you’re experiencing in the moment, and letting thoughts drift into and out of your awareness instead of pulling you away, you start to flex a mental muscle that can help you create radical transformations in your life.

When it comes to communication, there are five simple steps you can follow to bring about more mindfulness and match the words you say with the meaning you want to convey.

1. Set a Clear Commitment. When we communicate with others—especially if that communication includes differences of opinion or requires some vulnerability—it can be easy to lose sight of our intention. That’s why it’s so important to make a clear commitment to yourself that can anchor your attention and help you stay focused as you navigate the conversation. Ask yourself, “What am I committed to creating in this conversation?” Then, whatever your response is—“connection,” “clarity,” “understanding,” etc.—make sure your words are aligned with that particular commitment.

2.  Choose Your Words Carefully. It’s easy to get so caught up in our desire to be heard that we lose sight of what we really want to say. Talking mindlessly in this way can steer us away from what we truly want to express, or cause others to tune us out. Intention, one of the cornerstones of mindfulness, goes a long way when we’re communicating. Once you’re clear about the message you want to get across, use great care to choose words that directly convey that message—no more, no less. Mahatma Gandhi is known for saying, “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.” This is a helpful reminder to keep your message straight and to the point. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t be afraid of silence. Sometimes those pauses are exactly what the other person needs to process what you’ve said and respond mindfully in return.

3. Listen With All You’ve Got. No matter how eloquent we might be, our ability to communicate is only as good as our ability to listen. It’s in the listening, in fact, that mindfulness becomes most meaningful and impactful. Often, when someone’s speaking to us, we drift into our minds and start preparing our response. But there’s no way we can be fully present to what’s being said to us if we’re busy thinking about what we’ll say next. Treat the act of listening as a true mindfulness practice. Allow your attention to rest completely on the words being said to you; and any time your thoughts threaten to pull you away, gently return to the act of listening and center your awareness there again.

4. Let Connection Be Your Guide. Communication is about much more than the words being exchanged between two or more people; it includes body language, tone of voice, timing, and much more. Keeping this in mind can help us bring all of our presence and awareness to our conversations, enabling us to communicate clearly and be grounded, graceful recipients of what others communicate to us. As you engage in the act of communication, practice attuning yourself to the other person. Eliminate distractions, and allow yourself to fully connect. Doing this will help you respond more effectively to what’s really being expressed.

5. Don’t Forget to Breathe! In our mindfulness practice, our breath is one of our most powerful tools. It helps us get out of our heads and into our experience; it moves us past impulsivity into intentionality. When you communicate with others, make it a point to connect with your breath, and use it as a way to support you in carrying out the previous four steps. You’ll be amazed at how much more grounded and clear minded you can be on the other side of just one deep, intentional breath.

 

 

The Practice is the Purpose

a woman doing yoga on the beach in front of the ocean.

In an effort to invite more consistency and discipline into my routine, I’ve recently developed a morning ritual to propel me into the day. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never been one to consistently follow rituals or routines. I tend to start out strong—swearing to myself that I’ll stick to it no matter what—only to flake off when things start to feel redundant. But this time, I’m approaching things a little differently, guided by the wisdom of something I learned from one of my meditation teachers several years ago.

When I first attempted meditation, I was a self-proclaimed “stress ball.” It was hard for me to sit still for even a few minutes, and my mind felt like it was always racing a mile a minute. No matter how much I tried to slow down or calm down, it never seemed possible. Yoga, which I had been practicing for many years by the time I found my way to sitting meditation, was the closest I could get to stillness—and even that felt like a fairly excruciating challenge. During my initial conversations with the meditation teacher I mentioned, we’d talk about the fundamentals of meditation and address my curiosities and reservations. I explained to him that as much as I wanted to develop a practice of meditation, I just wasn’t the Zen type. “My mind is too busy,” I told him. “Plus, I’m prone to anxiety, so it’s really hard for me to slow down my thoughts and just breathe in the moment.” Part of me wanted him to teach me how to overcome these apparent obstacles; but if I’m being honest, the bigger part of me hoped he’d buy my excuses and exempt me from the difficult practice altogether. He did neither of these. All he did was flash his playful, patient smile and insist, in one way or another, that I keep coming back to my cushion each day. “Just keep sitting,” he’d say. “And remember, the practice is the purpose.”

These words confounded me every time I heard them. They struck me like some sort of complex riddle that I couldn’t quite solve. At once simple and profound, the phrase was clearly supposed to be encouraging; but at that time in my life, all it did was make my head spin. Nonetheless, I heeded his advice and kept returning to my cushion every day, eager to get to the other side of my struggle and reach some sort of clearing, where my mind would become silent, and enlightenment would be mine.

When I look back at these times and remember the thinking that guided me through them, I can’t help but smile. I had no idea what my teacher was talking about, but boy, is it clear to me now. You see, it’s been years since I started meditating, and I can tell you without the slightest bit of hesitation that I’m nowhere near enlightenment. And there hasn’t been a single meditation session that’s led me to a completely silent mind. But I can also tell you that meditation has profoundly and radically transformed my life. No matter what I feel, how resistant I might be, or how much my sessions challenge me, I return to my cushion—over, and over, and over again. And each time I do, I learn and I grow. Each time I do, I realize how right my teacher was: the purpose has always been the practice.

Neuroscience research supports that we can change our brains—and, thus, change our lives—through committed and consistent practice. But we don’t need science to tell us that; it’s evident everywhere we look. How do professional athletes get so good at their game? Practice. How do long-term, successful couples quickly resolve issues in their relationship and reestablish harmony? Practice. How does anyone who’s exceptional at anything get to that point? Yep, you guessed it: they practice, with purpose, repeatedly and consistently. They keep coming back, no matter how difficult or mundane the task may be. And it’s important for us to remember that we all have that capacity. Over time, our brains and bodies reward our practice, yielding positive results that, if we let them, can reinforce our efforts.

Now that I understand what it means for the practice to be the purpose, I challenge people not to count themselves out of meditation because their minds are too busy. And I talk back to my own narratives about not being consistent enough to stick to a morning ritual. There’s beauty in devotion and discipline. Even when it seems like nothing is happening, practice works some pretty brilliant magic—the kind that can change our lives and evolve us into the best versions of ourselves.

So, what practice can you commit to? And who might you become through your purposeful dedication to it?

I Don’t Know Any Crazy People

Since becoming a therapist, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked, “What’s it like to spend your day listening to crazy people?” Over time, I’ve learned to be grateful for this question, in spite of the initial reaction it always invites in me. I now see it as a valuable opportunity to share my perspective about my work and what it means to me. The response I give—which never lacks in sincerity, no matter how often I repeat it—is always the same: “Actually, I don’t know any crazy people.”

I mean it.

When I first got on the path toward becoming a therapist, I’ll admit that I believed I was signing on to spend my working hours keeping company with sick and crazy people in need of my help. I believed that with the knowledge I was gaining in school, I was going to have all the answers to teach, guide, and treat the people I encountered in my clinical practice. But as soon as I started working with actual clients, all the thinking that was guiding me got turned on its head. I realized very quickly that the people I was working with had much more to teach me than they could ever learn from me. Above all, the great lesson I learned in that early part of my career was that there’s really no such thing as a crazy person.

For all our many differences, we, humans, are having a shared existential experience; we’re all in this weird and wondrous adventure called life together. Sometimes that adventure gets terrifying; sometimes it’s more painful than we can handle; sometimes we get confused and can’t find our way; sometimes we struggle to connect; sometimes we get tired and need support to keep us going. What I’m getting at is that the stuff we tend to call “sick” and “crazy” is merely a reflection of the struggles inherent in our human existence.

Now, when I sit across from a client, I know that I’m sitting across from an equal. A companion. A teacher. A friend. I know that what they’re sharing—no matter how extreme it might appear from the limited perspective of others—is an expression of something that also lives in me. I acknowledge their pain, see their confusion, make contact with their fear; and as I do, I know that I’m witnessing the realities of life—no more, no less. No matter what my clients share with me, even when it’s radically atypical or marginal by our society’s standards, I hold the space and keep my mind and heart open. Because they aren’t sharing their crazy with me, they’re sharing their world with me. And their world matters. Their perspective matters. Their truth matters. Their lives matter.

My clients are my greatest teachers, and I’m more grateful for them than I can ever express. They show me how to stay curious, stay open, and keeping challenging my certainties. They inspire me to keep leaning in, no matter how scary or painful it can be to witness someone else’s story unfolding. They remind me that truth is always relative, and just because we believe something doesn’t make it true. If these people are crazy, I don’t want to be sane.

What I sometimes add to the response I offer when asked about what it’s like to spend my days with crazy people is that “I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.” And this is really, wholeheartedly my truth. I’ve learned more, expanded more, and challenged myself more through my encounters with clients than through any other experience I’ve had in my life. I’m regularly humbled and consistently awestruck by the work I get to do, and to call it work seems ridiculous, because it’s more of a gift than anything else. I feel fortunate to be in the presence of such giants on a regular basis. Through their vulnerability, their courage, their wisdom, and their grace, my clients teach me how to live. I only wish that everyone could see them, and each other, this way.

If what I’m saying resonates with you in any way, know that don’t have to be a therapist to access the spirit of what I’m sharing. All you have to do is hold space for the people around you, and regard them with curiosity rather than certainty. Challenge your perspectives, and question everything you feel right about. Ask questions, and be present to the answers. Know that everyone on the planet knows at least one thing you don’t. Don’t settle for surface understandings. And never, ever let your heart close.

Let’s Bring YOLO Back—This Time With Feeling

a woman holding an umbrella in the dark.

Remember YOLO? The once-common acronym that stands for “you only live once” has fallen out of our common vernacular in recent years. But in its heyday, YOLO was the kind of thing people would throw around often—particularly before doing something crazy. In fact, the interjection made its way into the Oxford dictionary in 2016 and is defined there as an informal expression that’s “often used as a rationale for impulsive or reckless behavior.” I remember hearing YOLO used to preempt excessive drinking or other potentially dangerous activity and thinking what a shame it was to waste such a clever acronym (it sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) on something so contradictory. If we get only one life to live, I wondered, why would we squander or compromise it? Why would we invoke the phrase to celebrate reckless choices?

Thankfully, YOLO went the way of most other trendy phrases and is seldom heard these days. And I think we’re all okay with that. But I’ve been thinking . . . what if we bring it back?

I’ll let you finish your eye roll before I go on . . .

Okay, so here’s what I mean. When you think about it, the acronym stands in the place of a powerful statement reflecting a profound existential truth: we only live once. These words are a reminder of the brevity of life—and like most things that happen only once, that life is pretty special. But how often do we pause to remind ourselves of this? How present are we to the reality that this will all come to an end?

I’m a firm believer that death does a better job than anyone or anything at teaching us how to live. Knowing that our time will run out can infuse deep meaning into every moment; but it’s easy to lose sight of this. It’s easy to waste the moments by rushing through them or staying numb—in other words, by doing the kinds of things YOLO was once used to justify. But assuming we only live once—in this particular incarnation, at least—why not make the most out of each and every moment? Why not fill our lives with meaning and connect with our experience, knowing that it will one day come to an end?

What I mean by suggesting we bring YOLO back is that it’s a good time to return to the truth of our mortality and stay connected to it in devoted commitment to making each moment matter. While we might not revive the trend and throw YOLO around like we once did, let’s write the spirit of it into our hearts and carry it with us everywhere we go. Let’s breathe a little more deeply, love a little more freely. Let’s take time to make peace with time. Let’s hold space for the presence of life and death, allowing ourselves to learn all the lessons we can in this singular, brief, and wondrous existence.

And now I’ll leave you to ponder these words as I sip my oolong tea and marvel at the birds soaring past my open window . . . because YOLO!