Are You Coping or Copping Out?

therapy

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”

These words, commonly attributed to the late American actress, Katharine Hepburn, are a bit of a downer. But they’re also unquestionably, inevitably true. As beautiful as it may be, life really is hard. And in the absence of a clear instruction manual, it can sometimes feel like we’re stumbling more than striving as we make our way through it. Each one of us, without exception, is bound to encounter hardship at some point in life. But we don’t all experience our adversities in the same way. While some of us are crippled by our struggles, others approach them as catalysts for growth.

Undoubtedly, life’s difficulties come in various magnitudes and degrees of devastation. But those that don’t kill us must somehow be dealt with, one way or another. Between the time we’re born and the time we die, there’s a space of time in which we encounter, interpret, and respond to what we experience. Most people, at least the ones I talk to, hope to not only survive life, but to thrive within the time they’re given. And though a fortunate few people are able to thrive without effort, the rest of us have to work toward that ambition.

When it comes right down to it, the difference between fully thriving and merely surviving is how we deal with our circumstances. What do we do in the face of the tough stuff? Do we cope, or do we cop out? Now, before you accuse me of being insensitive to the plight of the disadvantaged or those heavily burdened by matter of genetics, upbringing, or circumstance, let me clarify a couple of things. When I refer to coping, I’m talking about what happens when we acknowledge our difficulties and take responsibility for responding to them in order to mitigate the struggle and alleviate our distress. When I say copping out, I’m referring to what happens when we avoid or deny our struggles, bypass the feelings they bring up, and attempt to evade our responsibility for dealing with them. No matter how difficult our lives might be, all of us have the choice to either cope or cop out. And, in reality, it’s one of the only options any of us really have. So, how can you tell which one you’re doing?

If you’re coping . . .

  • You acknowledge and accept that life isn’t all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.
  • You recognize what you’re feeling and do what you can to work through it.
  • You own that while much of life is out of your control, how you respond to it isn’t.
  • You take responsibility for facing what’s in front of you, and you find a way to deal with it.
  • You ask for support when you need it.
  • You take care of yourself when life’s got you down.
  • You find ways to create a sense of meaning out of the difficulties you encounter.
  • You use your struggles as a source of strength.

If you’re copping out . . .

  • You avoid or downplay your difficulties.
  • You routinely blame circumstances or other people for how you feel.
  • You react impulsively to challenges and don’t reflect on those reactions afterward.
  • You bypass or suppress painful emotions when they come up.
  • You deny or resist support when you need it.
  • You try to push through, push stuff down, and pretend like everything’s fine when it isn’t.
  • You tell yourself that your struggles aren’t important and your emotions don’t matter.
  • You feel like a victim of life, with no options other than to endure it.

Whichever category you think you fall into, know that there’s no value judgment attached to it. You’re not a superior person if you cope, nor a bad one if you tend to cop out. Instead of judging or comparing yourself according to how you deal with life’s difficulties, consider reflecting on how you’d prefer to do it. If you want to become the kind of person who copes and creates meaning when the going gets tough, make that a daily intentional practice. Look for inspiration in the stories of people who overcame tremendous adversity and found a way to flourish. Viktor Frankl, one of those people whose story of resilience is an example for us all, offered a profound reminder for any of us who want to do more coping than copping out:

“Everything can be taken from a (wo)man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

8 Simple Hacks for Happiness

a woman jumping in the air on a bridge.

As a mental health professional, I’m often faced with questions about how to reduce suffering; how to manage tough transitions; and, perhaps most often, how to experience real happiness. As it turns out, it’s this third question that people tend to struggle with the most. For so many of us, happiness is an ideal we’ve been sold on that’s so transient and elusive as to make us wonder whether it exists at all. We all want it, but most of us have no idea where to find it.

When we’re young, happiness is much easier to access, so much more lasting an experience. But as time goes on and our responsibilities and obligations increase, happiness tends to register far less frequently on our emotional radar. Why is this, and what can we do about it?

What I’ve learned in my years of practicing therapy and studying the science of happiness and wellbeing is that happiness is—as the worn-out cliché suggests—about the journey, not the destination. It’s an experience that we cultivate in the day-to-day encounters of our lives—one that we’re capable of creating at will and get to experience more vividly the more we conjure it. There are many ways to harness happiness and hack your brain to experience it more often; here are eight.

1. Smile for “no reason.” It might sound silly, but this one really works wonders. Research shows that when your body works the muscles that form a smile, a signal gets sent to your brain, letting it know that you’re happy. But don’t’ rely on the research; try this out for yourself. Chances are, the more you smile, the better you’ll feel—and, of course, the better you feel, the more you’ll smile. Before you know it, you’ll have generated a fun feedback loop that sparks happiness for you and everyone you meet. We’re hardwired to respond to nonverbal forms of communication, and smiles are the universal language for connection, joy, and positive vibes. As you practice smiling for no reason at all, you’ll see more smiling faces around you. And if those faces continue to move through the world transmitting that positive energy, you’ll have created a ripple effect of happiness; not only will you be happier, but the world will be that much happier, too. Put this little trick in practice, and you’ll be off to a fabulous start.

2. Practice kindness. Let’s be real; it feels really good to have others be kind to us. And, the research is clear, it feels just as good to be kind to others. When we go through the world guarded, jaded, and walled off to other people, we isolate ourselves from a source of happiness and wellbeing that we’d otherwise get to access. It might take a little practice, especially if you’ve been hurt by other people and feel the need to protect yourself, but making kindness a deliberate practice promises to yield great rewards in terms of happiness and general positivity. Being kind to others promotes good feelings in them, of course, but it also delivers us a powerful happiness boost. Beyond that, it has the potential to enrich and strengthen our relationships with others, allowing us to feel connected and supported—both of which are vital contributors to happiness.

3. Be in awe. This is one of my favorites. Recent research has shown that a regular experience of being in awe is associated with decreased rates of depression and anxiety. When we do, read about, witness, or otherwise experience things that make us feel a true sense of how awesome life can be, we make a significant contribution to our overall wellbeing. And this is something we can deliberately practice in an effort to generate those good vibrations. Go for a walk in nature; marvel at the intricacies of artwork or the architecture in your neighborhood; read about new scientific discoveries or human achievements; watch a newborn baby discover the world. As much and as often as you can, put yourself in a position to be in awe, and watch how much more easily happiness comes to you.

4. Affirm your worthiness. With so many messages telling us who we should be—the ones coming from the media, communicated silently by the people around us, or echoing in our own minds—we sometimes need to strive to remember that we are enough. Doing this for ourselves, intentionally and regularly, can boost our sense of self-confidence and increase our sense of contentment. To fold this into your happiness practice, regularly check in with how you’re thinking and feeling throughout the day. Whenever you find yourself caught in the web of comparing, criticizing, or cutting yourself down, repeat worthiness-boosting affirmations. You might say something like, “I am whole and complete, exactly as I am,” “I am worthy of love and connection,” “I am worthy of forgiveness, including my own,” or create your own affirmations that help you remember your worthiness. Watch your happiness meter rise.

5. Tune out. We already know that we live in a digital era, in which technology pervades every aspect of our lives. But as many advantages as this provides us, there are also some pretty considerable drawbacks to consider. The research is clear that if we aren’t mindful about how we engage online, we risk doing harm to our happiness. The more mindlessly we engage online, the less connected we feel to our actual lives. And this is worth adjusting, because as it turns out, mindfulness—the practice of deliberately connecting to our actual experience in the moment—is known to increase happiness. To harness happiness by tuning out, practice limiting your online engagement. Take social media fasts; dedicate time to going offline; cultivate your real-life relationships; limit your TV time, and try a new activity instead.

6. Drop in. Our waking hours are spent swimming through a stream of distractions that vie determinedly for our attention. From the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep, many of us are either busy doing something or thinking about the next thing we’ll do. But when we fill our days with work and obligations, constantly thinking about what’s next, we get tired. And often when we’re tired, we numb ourselves out in an effort to rest and disconnect. There’s nothing wrong with this, except that it often doesn’t work very well. Instead of feeling refreshed, we can feel even less energized. Worse, we can find ourselves lethargic, bored, or apathetic. Developing practices that connect us inward can help us increase our happiness as we learn to nurture and give to ourselves. Meditation is a remarkably effective tool for helping us turn inward and generate positive feelings. Exercise is another great way for us to practice connecting with ourselves and attuning to our mind and body. Journaling, another useful tool for hacking happiness, helps us to learn from the wisdom of our own free-flowing thoughts and let go of things in our minds that weigh us down and contribute negatively to our lives. Try incorporating one or all of these into your daily life, and enjoy the uptick in happiness that comes with it.

7. Get your hands dirty. One of the best ways to experience more happiness is to get in touch with our abundance, and helping others is a marvelous way to do this. Volunteering has been shown to boost our sense of contentment, gratitude, and overall wellbeing. But we don’t need to be Rockefellers to make this happen. When we contribute to others, in ways both large and small, we also contribute to our own happiness. Take some time to seek ways that you can get involved in your world and your life, and enjoy the bonus prize of a sizable boost in happiness.

8. Get your feet dirty, too. This final happiness hack is my personal favorite. I don’t know about you, but I have fond recollections of how fun and freeing it felt to be a child. Back when my responsibilities were few and my options felt limitless, happiness always seemed to be right at my fingertips. If you can relate to this, then you’ll be glad to know that engaging in play activities is one of the best ways to experience more happiness. Let loose, access your imagination, and be creative. And if you want to up-level your efforts to get happier through play, take the fun outdoors! Being in nature is an unparalleled mood-booster. Kick of your shoes, ground yourself in the earth, and soak up all the good vibes it has to share with you.

I hope these 8 simple hacks set you on the path toward inviting more happiness into your life. Got some happiness hacking tips of your own? Share them with me in the comments section below!

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.

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.

 

 

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!

Meditation and Mental Health—Part 5

a man sitting in a field watching the sunset.

It’s time for the fifth and final installment of this series on meditation’s role in mental health—and I’m honored to share it with you. I’ve talked so far about the many ways in which meditation can support and expand our lives in terms of our thoughts, our emotions, our relationships, and our physical health; but the benefits don’t stop there. The last domain of mental health supported by meditation and mindfulness is one of the most significant. In this way, perhaps, you might say I’ve saved the best for last.

It’s no secret that people who feel good about themselves, live with integrity, and see their values reflected in their choices tend to be pretty healthy when it comes to their mental and emotional experience. This way of living allows them to develop a strong sense of purpose and conviction about the lives they lead, which is all but guaranteed to improve their quality of life. It’s also not much of a secret that many people who maintain a regular meditation and mindfulness practice live in precisely this way.

That’s because the process of witnessing what’s unfolding inside us and what’s happening around us—which meditation and mindfulness are all about—makes us more familiar with who we are, what we value, and what we desire. We grow tremendously when we realize that we are responsible for creating our lives through the choices we make and the stories we tell ourselves. By paying attention to what’s happening in our lives, from moment to moment, we improve our ability to interpret and respond in ways that align with our core values and support our mental health. We learn to step into the power we possess to choose our own way, no matter what circumstances might befall us.

Self-esteem, integrity, and purpose are important aspects of mental health that we can cultivate by learning what we want. But this is one of those things that’s much easier said than done. The question, “What do you want?” is one that most people have no idea how to answer. And the reason it tends to be so elusive is that we aren’t practiced in asking the question and then going inside to wait for the answer. Instead of determining what we really want, we go with what we’ve been told we should want or what other people seem to want. We don’t do the work of finding and owning our authentic, legitimate answers. To do this takes courage; it requires practice. But the more we do it, the more familiar we become with ourselves. We grow to learn what makes us tick, what inspires us, what opens our hearts. We learn to access and honor our internal reservoir of yeses and nos.

Becoming familiar with who we are and what we want fortifies our self-esteem and enables us to feel confident about what we have to offer and what mark we want to leave on the world. It allows us to deliberately and intentionally create lives of integrity; it helps us align our actions with our values. All of this can generate a profound sense of fulfillment—the kind that boosts our mental health and dramatically improves our quality of life. And meditation is one of the foundational practices that can support us in generating these kinds of outcomes and this kind of purpose-driven life.

It’s astonishing to think that sitting in silence and connecting with ourselves in the moment can hold such potent, transformative potential. But this is what meditation has to offer—if only we’re willing to commit ourselves to it. The more we practice, the more purposeful our lives become. We transform our relationship with our thoughts and emotions. We create deeper and more meaningful relationships with other people. We experience greater vitality in our physical bodies. We get closer to living a life of integrity that brings contentment and makes us proud.

It’s been an honor to write this series, and I’d like to conclude it with an offering of the hopes I guard in my heart for all of you. I hope you come away from reading this with new ways to think about the ancient practices of meditation and mindfulness. I hope their many benefits are apparent to you. I hope the information I shared will inspire you to adopt a practice of your own. And finally, I hope you feel confident and excited about the contributions your practice will make to your mental health, your life, your future, your relationships, and the world in general.

Meditation and Mental Health—Part 4

It’s time for part four of the five-part series I’ve been exploring on meditation and mental health. So far, I’ve made the case for how meditation can support us by influencing how we relate to our thoughts, our emotions, and the people in our lives. This time, I want to examine the role that meditation plays in supporting our physical health. You see, a healthy body is associated with a healthy mind. That’s because our minds and our bodies are connected; the health of one influences and is influenced by the health of the other. Through our meditation practice, we come to understand and access the mind-body connection in ways that foster and expand our mental health.

One way to define meditation is as a committed practice of transforming the mind and connecting with the body. Through the practice, we learn to consciously follow the bridge of our breath, guiding our attention into the body and connecting with ourselves. Every time we find ourselves getting distracted or lost in our thoughts, we come back into our bodies and anchor our attention in the present moment. This not only serves us during our formal practice, it also aids us in every other area of our lives. Because the more practiced we are at bridging the connection between mind and body, the more aware of our physical selves we become.

With the awareness of meditation practice comes the capacity to mindfully choose how we treat our physical bodies. We start to think more carefully and be more intentional about the foods we eat, the beverages we drink, and the products we put into or onto our bodies. When our bodies are fueled and fortified in ways that support our physical health, we think more clearly, engage in higher levels of productivity, attend to our needs more efficiently, sustain higher levels of energy, and feel more alive. Improved mental health, in this way, becomes a natural byproduct of physical health—and meditation is one way to get us there.

The mindfulness we cultivate through a regular meditation practice gives us the ability to keep an ongoing awareness of our physical bodies. It enables us to be in contact with our hunger cues, so we know when it’s time to eat. It encourages us to eat and drink slowly, so we enjoy the process and realize when we’ve had enough. It let us tune into our intrinsic wisdom, choosing to eat what our bodies need instead of what our minds crave. All of this serves to reinforce the mind-body connection, thereby increasing our self-awareness, self-care, physical wellness, and mental health.

When we learn to connect with the breath and the body, we start to expand what’s physically possible for us. This is something yogis have known for centuries, which is no surprise, considering yoga is ultimately a moving form of meditation. Not only can we reach new levels of physical fitness through the foundations of meditation, we can also become highly intuitive about how we move our bodies. We can listen to the messages our bodies are sending, so we know when it’s time to be active and when it’s time to rest. We know when it’s a good idea to roll on some lavender oil and take an Epsom salt bath, or when a good old doctor’s visit is in order. To be this aware, this connected, requires ongoing attention. It’s a skill that we develop through practice, over time.

One of the coolest things about meditation is that there are endless ways we can use it to support our bodies and sharpen our minds. For example, many swimmers, basketball players, gymnasts, and runners regularly engage in visualization meditation to improve their performance. That’s because studies have shown that athletes who use visualization meditation to imagine themselves performing a certain physical activity improve as much as—or, in some cases, more than—athletes who practice actually performing the activity. How’s that for a testament to the mind-body connection?

Whether your physical health goals include losing weight, overcoming panic attacks, expanding your yoga practice, changing your physique, adopting a cleaner diet, cutting back your alcohol consumption, improving your athletic performance, reducing the intensity of chronic aches and pains, or just generally feeling more connected to your body, meditation practice can support you—and you get to enjoy the fun bonus prize of enhanced mental health!

As long as we’re enjoying this human experience, we’ll do so within the vessels of our beautiful, remarkable, wise, and resilient bodies. It’s a worthy activity, then, to connect with those bodies and treat them with love and respect. Meditation, which gives us entry to the present moment and guides our awareness within, is a gift we give ourselves in the service of our health. I invite you to begin exploring your mind-body connection through meditation, yoga, and any other practices that call to you. And I look forward to coming back to you soon with the final installment of this series!