Category Archives: Happiness

Everyone has hard times and difficulty, but happiness is still possible. There can be moments of joy in even the most difficult times. Pain happens in life, but suffering is optional.

Life is Short – Live NOW.

Life is short, and sometimes you come to a crossroads where you have to choose what really matters moving forward and what really doesn’t. I am at just such a crossroads now in my life and when that happens I usually wander back through my journals, blogs, etc… to see if I can get any clarity about the arc of my life. In doing so, I found this post from my previous blog and it struck a cord in me about what actually matters in life, and when it comes to the most important questions, what I might truly value.  This post was written in 2011 and I’ve left it in it’s original form. I hope it inspires you to think, just a little, about what really matters to you today.

I wish I could say that the inspiration for this post is a happy one, but it’s anything but.  I found out today that three colleagues, two of whom were dear friends from graduate school, have passed away recently.  Eli was a completely hilarious, quick witted, sarcastic man who kept everyone around him laughing and would go out of his way to make people happy.  Susan was a beautiful, vibrant woman who was somewhat quiet and always smiley but when she did speak up it was always with something unexpectedly funny that would take everyone by surprise.  She was one of the kindest, warmest people I’ve met. Stacey was in school after I was, but we worked together and I was impressed by her positivity and drive.

These three were all young (30s and 40s), vibrant, and did everything for their health. They had great relationships, children, careers and busy lives. I don’t think any of them would have anticipated leaving the world so early. I can’t begin to fathom that they are gone.

Life is short - Live NOW. Photo by Ian Britton, www.freefoto.com

Life is short – Live NOW. Photo by Ian Britton, www.freefoto.com

As I sit in my house, surrounded by my stuff and reminders of the things that normally weigh heavily on my mind I am struck by the sheer madness of my entire existence.  That I am here and whole and healthy is such a miracle – such a gift.  I feel so ashamed at the amount of time I waste worrying about things that don’t matter. When I look around today, after learning of these three deaths, my worries are so trivial and tiny and neurotic.  I have everything I need, I have wonderful friends, amazing family, a house I love and good food on the table. What does the rest of it matter? Where is there any kind of problem?




I’m also ashamed of the time I waste doing things that don’t truly make a difference in the end.  Sure it’s a good idea to make sure my business keeps running and my house is in good repair. But what about the time I fritter away on the internet or with some kind of escapism like TV or movies or books?  Doesn’t that just amount to watching other people live instead of living myself? Am I willing to spend some of these precious moments that way when I know that life is short? There is nothing like the stark reality of death to make a whole bunch of silliness just fall away.

This also throws light on the social and emotional stuff that can become issues in my head but are utterly meaningless.  Remember, life is short. How many times have I not called a dear friend because I was too busy or had to get one more thing done at work? How many people have I failed to keep in touch with, or not shown my feelings for  – for some ridiculous reason like laziness or shyness or inconvenience.  How many activities and events have I missed because there was something that really needed doing, or work, or I was so tired from work that I couldn’t muster up the energy, or some other equally small excuse.

At moments like this it is so hard not to look at my life and feel like maybe I’ve missed something somewhere. If Susan or Eli or Stacey had just a few more days – would they spend them working? Taking care of responsibilities? Or would they smile with their loved ones, maybe go to a park, pick flowers for their bedside table, eat chocolate or watch the sunset. Or maybe something totally different and fun and wonderful – who knows? The point is – they’d probably make joy and love and laughter a pretty high priority. And shouldn’t we all? I’m not saying we should ignore real life and let everything go – but what if work and money and stuff mattered just a little less and life and people and friends and joy mattered just a little bit more? Your life is short too – what do you choose to do with it today?

life is shortlife is shortBoth of these gorgeous images are from http://www.symphonyoflove.net/ – Thanks!



Are You Emotional Eating?

To some degree emotional eating is just part of being a human – we all do it now and again because the bottom line is that it works. Food really does translate into comfort in the human brain and that comfort feedback can get out of hand. It’s easy to use food as a reward, as a treat, or as a way to calm down when you’re anxious, depressed or angry.  It’s easy to do because a lot of the time it works – food does help you feel better in the moment when you’re emotions are getting the best of you.  It can also hurt you in the long-run because then you have to struggle with weight, self-image, powerlessness and body issues. This is a no-win cycle, but there are ways out.

Candy!! A great emotional eating trigger food. Take Five!

Candy!! A great emotional eating trigger food. Take Five!

Six Signs of Emotional Eating:

  1. You often eat so quickly or so much that you feel over-full, uncomfortable or bloated
  2. You find yourself eating ‘for no reason’ or ‘because you’re bored’
  3. You eat more when your schedule becomes tighter as a sign of stress
  4. You gain weight in stressful times or in emotional times
  5. You feel ‘addicted’ to food or to certain foods
  6. Your cravings are compelling and changeable (ice cream for sadness, chips for boredom, snickers when you’re feeling lonely)

Fixing Emotional Eating:

Emotional eating isn’t easy to fix, but it isn’t hard either, there isn’t a complicated technique or months of waiting, just some honest emotional processing.  The hardest part is being willing to actually sit down with yourself and feel exactly what you’re feeling instead of self-medicating. Sort of like an eating meditation, or a food contemplation. There is not really a big difference, grand scheme of things, between hiding from your feelings with food and hiding from your feeling with heroine. These are both just ways of escaping from what you really feel, even if one is a little more dramatic than the other.  It sounds really easy to admit that you’re feeling crummy and sit with that; maybe cry or get angry or be scared but this is honestly one of the hardest, most wonderful and most terrifying things you can ever do as a human. Real, honest emotions can be genuinely world-changing. This is some of the scariest, most honest work you will ever do along with some of the most rewarding, so let’s get to it.




The Cure for Emotional Eating: Take Five

  1. Take a tour of your kitchen and pantry and find your emotional trigger foods.  Chances are you know what it is you go for when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed or sad or lonely.The usual list includes things like brownies, snickers, sweets and candy, ice cream, chips, pop corn, etc…
  2. Write on the outside of those food containers with a sharpie to “Take 5” in big letters so that when you’re in a vulnerable place you don’t have to try to remember whether or not that’s a trigger food for you, you can just read the package. Make sure that when you go grocery shopping you label your trigger foods when they come into the house.
  3. When you grab something out of the pantry, check the package to see if it says “Take Five”
  4. Sit down as usual, but set your kitchen timer for five minutes.
  5. In that 5 minutes, just sit and look at your food but don’t touch it yet.  Just sit, and look and pay attention to how you feel. Not how you want to feel, but how you really feel. If emotions are hard for you to get in touch with, then just focus on your body. How does the air feel in your lungs when you breathe? Is your stomach tight? Do you feel relaxed? Are you hurting anywhere? What does it feel like to be inside your body?
  6. In that 5 minutes, you may feel angry for having to wait, impatient, frustrated, sad, or irritable.  You may burst into tears, start thinking about a fight you had with your partner or have a grand realization about your life.  You also may not notice anything, or think about the toe you just stubbed on the chair as you were sitting down. Just pay attention to however it is that you feel and when the buzzer rings then eat like you normally would.
  7. As you’re eating, notice what the food feels like in your mouth, why you chose the food you did and how you feel as you’re eating it.  Really think about whether or not that food is making you feel any different.  Really think about if that food is giving you what you thought it would or not. You don’t have to change anything else about the eating other than just paying attention to it. Honestly, if you’re paying attention to how you really feel the compulsive eating will resolve itself.

That’s it! That’s all you have to do – is just wait five minutes and really be in your body before you eat and while you’re eating. This is an exercise in finding out about yourself.  Emotional eating is different in every person because we all have different hurts, fears, traumas, anxieties and life situations.  The only way to fix it is to notice that you’re doing it, notice when it happens and acknowledging those feelings in a healthy, honest way. The idea behind this is that you can’t deal with whatever is under there, unless you know what it is. Pretty simple, right?

If you work through things on paper, like I do, then keeping a journal about what you’re feeling can be really helpful.  If you’re more of a talker then finding a food buddy can be helpful or talking with a counselor. If you like to read about the idea then the best book I’ve found about this subject is Geneen Roth’s Women Food and God.

Women Food and God is just a great resource for anyone who really wants to get to the root of their emotional self, and the book uses the idea of food as a pathway to everything – life, beliefs about yourself, and god. Essentially her idea is that your relationship with food is your relationship with life, so if you’re eating for comfort or solace or escape, then what does that say about the rest of your life? Emotional eating is a challenge for sure, but it is also an opportunity for growth and a tool that you can use to explore yourself more deeply.  Of course there are many health reasons to do this, but the most important reasons are about happiness. After all, nobody self-medicates happiness.



Be an Urban Wildling: ReWilding YOUR Ecology!

So rarely do I find an idea that just zings with me like rewilding does, but ZING! Wow WOW am I ever excited about this. Let me back up and tell you what exactly I’m going on about before I go on any further…

I’ve been talking with the Urban Moonshine people, mostly because I love their bitters but partly because I wanted to make sure they weren’t going to be upset that I’m talking about them.  In any event, they were kind enough to send me this article, by their Chief Herbalist Guido Mase RH introducing the concept of rewilding our Urban spaces.  Not with big sweeping gestures, like knocking down buildings and tearing up pavement; but with the small gestures that gently nudge environments and ourselves back to health and balance.  The tiny things that will help our pollinators, help our soil health, help our internal health and maybe bring us all a little closer to wonderful.

A wild garden from ourhappyacres.com - rewilding at work.

A wild garden from ourhappyacres.com – rewilding at work.

Selected Rewilding Excerpts from Guido Mase, RH “Re-Wild Our Ecology This Spring”:

It’s always puzzled me that life and vitality even exist. After all, there is a vast amount of decay and destruction all around us. Many speculate that the universe will eventually end up a homogenous, barely warm field of force[i]. Yet somehow there is also this tendency everywhere for more and more complex beings to spring up, interact, and reproduce. These two trends seem to stand in opposition, two basic drives, somewhat of a paradox.




For us humans there is no escape from this basic fact. Some say we are becoming more and more separate from nature[iv], which of course is impossible (we are nature)

If you fail to recognize how important it is to fully interact and engage with the diversity of life, consequences inevitably follow. Less bees[vii], fewer flavonoids, more heart disease. Fewer monarch butterflies[viii], absent bitter compounds, more diabetes. That’s the thing: complexity works at all levels of the ecology, and our current culture has places where things aren’t as connected, aren’t as linked up. We may be fully jacked into the information stream, but our phytochemical stream has very low bandwidth. Maybe the best way to link up is simply to do as life does: increase the chaos, increase the diversity, open up access, re-wild within and without. It seems to me that the spring season is a good time for this. It’s when the ice cracks, and the seed breaks through the soil.

One strategy is to change the ecology, little by little. We can look to the parking lot, the lawn, the edge of the cornfield. Scatter seeds of resilient native plants – wild bee balm, dandelion, red clover. Leave some grass uncut – watch the trefoil, wild carrot, and asters grow. Leave thick buffer zones between your gardens, rich in weeds like St. John’s wort, mugwort, and chicory. These plants will attract pollinators, giving them a much needed source of safe food. They will change the chemical interactions of microbes in the soil[ix], affect patterns of bird nesting and reproduction[x], and speed the dissipation of contaminants[xi]. This will help our cities, gardens and fields link up.

In our bodies, herbal medicine is the best way to achieve similar diversity, and it may be the easiest as well (life, after all, appears to be the path of least resistance). While much of herbalism is devoted to specific constitutions, or well-defined patterns of imbalance, it also has a rich tradition of plants applied tonically, ritually, daily: planting a wild garden inside. The life-enhancing power of tonic herbalism is the exposure to an ever-changing cocktail of phytochemistry, enriching the internal ecology and helping us connect to seasons as they change.

This spring, try a simple version of the classic bitter tonic: gather dandelion leaves and roots and mix them with an aromatic plant like motherwort, mugwort, or mustard, the young leaves still fresh and vital. To these add something with a little hint of salt, like parsley or chickweed. Get your plants locally and, if you can’t find them, plant them. Chop the herbs up well and cover the mix with vodka, or even apple cider vinegar. After a few weeks, strain this mixture and take a little bit every day. Great on the tongue, this tonic wakes up and supports all the internal organs. It encourages vitality because it is vitality: life, diversity, complexity, efficiency. This will help our bodies link up.

Rewilding - The wild garden in the former churchyard of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Rewilding – The wild garden in the former churchyard of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

What Does It Mean – To Plant A Wild Garden Inside?

I *love* this imagery. I want to roll around in it and fill myself up with having a wild garden inside. Not a cultivated garden in neat little rows, but a wild, crazy, sprawling garden booming with life. My own internal rewilding. I imaging the idea of having a wild garden inside might be a little bit different for every person, but to me that feels free and alive and rich – like I would be filled to bursting with life and vitality and color. I agree we need a little more chaos and a little less cultivation – not only that we need to embrace the chaos more and to live into the changes rather than trying to avoid or control them.  There needs to be more native seed scattering and less lawn-mowing. I’m not just talking about the health of the earth here, I’m talking about for our own health, our own sanity.  I don’t think it’s normal to cultivate and tend and regiment everything down to well-oiled-machine status.  I think life is supposed to be a whole lot more than that.  It’s time to get out of those boxes and shake things up a bit. The wonderful thing is that rewilding can mean whatever you want it to mean – this can be your codeword for anything you want to make richer and more adventurous in your life. Any way you can nudge your own self back to balance.

Here’s a little list of ways I’m going to ReWild, and ways I’m going to nurture my wild garden:

  • Schedule fewer things so there’s time in the day to stop and smell the roses (or dandelions)
  • Appreciate more the richness and diversity of the “weeds” in my garden and worry less about keeping them out. I’m not just talking about the literal weeds – I’m also talking about the nuisances and hassles and personalities and minor chaos in life.  Sure – it’s there. it’s going to keep being there. That just adds depth and texture.
  • Make wishes and blow the dandelion tops when I see that they’re ready to re-seed, because bees and other pollinators need more dandelions, and I could use a little more child-like joy. I’m considering getting some kids bubble wands for the same reason.
  • Invest in some great native seeds from Native Seed Search and Native American Seed and scatter those in places that need to be made a little more beautiful. I’m also going to start to look at my home and see what there needs some metaphorical wild seed? Are there clothes I got because someone else thought they might look good (but don’t feel like me?) what about things in my home? Does my environment make me feel alive and wonderful or boxed-in and dreary? What about my living space can I rewild?
  • What about my routine is just routine? Where have I become stagnant and started doing the same things, not because they’re vibrant and wonderful but just because.  Am I in a rut with the foods I eat? With books I’m reading? Clothes I’m wearing?
  • Spontaneous road trips! Let’s have more of those. Just jump in the car and pick a direction. Why not?

I feel like rewilding is an idea that needs to pervade everyone’s life – we have become too domesticated and lost our fires and our sparks and our instincts.  Let’s work to rewild – to loosen and let go and shake things up. Life doesn’t need to feel like a cubicle job – it needs to feel alive and like a grand adventure that you look forward to every day.



It is your job to remember the divine mystery! This image from NASA's WISE telescope

Love, From the Divine Mystery

It can be so easy to lose sight of the wonder that we are surrounded by each day, the divine mystery as I call it, when we are also surrounded by piles of paper, bills, to-do lists and frustrating situations. I find myself sometimes overlooking the incredible gifts that have been given to me, and I so often see my clients doing the same thing. In fact, many will give me variations of this sentence: I have a great partner, relatively speaking we’re comfortable and our lives our easy. I don’t know why I feel so sad/lonely/anxious/frightened.

The Divine Mystery. A 300-year-old supernova remnant created by the explosion of a massive star. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO

The Divine Mystery. A 300-year-old supernova remnant created by the explosion of a massive star. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO

Somewhere in our human brains it seems we are hardwired to love misery, or at least to be so habituated to it that we seek it out as a familiar place.  There are so many ways to counteract that tendency, but it requires active participation on your part. You have to notice when you don’t feel good and actually find the things that bring you joy, solace, peace, wonder and gratitude.  One of those things, for me, is the reminder about just how amazing and awe-inspiring the gifts we have been given truly are – how generous the divine mystery really is.  I stumbled across this quote from Rob Brezsny’s book Pronoia: the Antidote for Paranoia. Something about it genuinely resonates with me – helps me to see how much I have truly received in my life – I hope it does the same for you.




Love, from the Divine Mystery (via Rob Breszny)

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN LOVED?

Have you ever been loved? I bet you have been loved so much and so
deeply that you have become nonchalant about the enormity of the grace
it confers.

So let me remind you: To be loved is a privilege and prize equivalent to
being born. If you’re smart, you pause regularly to bask in the astonishing
knowledge that there are many people out there who care for you and
want you to thrive and hold you in their thoughts with fondness.

Animals, too: You have been the recipient of their boundless affection.
The spirits of allies who’ve left this world continue to send their tender
regards, as well.

Do you “believe” in angels and other divine beings? Whether or not you
do, I can assure you that there are hordes of them beaming their uncanny
consecrations your way. You are awash in torrents of love.

As tremendous a gift it is to get love, giving love is an equal boon. Many
scientific studies demonstrate that whenever you bestow blessings on
other people, you bless yourself. Expressing practical compassion not only
strengthens your immune system and bolsters your health, but also
promotes self-esteem, enhances longevity, and stimulates tranquility and
even euphoria.

As the scientists say, we humans are hardwired to benefit from altruism.

What’s your position on making love? Do you regard it as one of the nicer
fringe benefits of being alive? Or are you more inclined to see it as a
central proof of the primal magnanimity of the universe? I’m more aligned
with the latter view.

Imagine yourself in the fluidic blaze of that intimate spectacle right now.
Savor the fantasy of entwining bodies and hearts and minds with an
appealing partner who has the power to enchant you. What better way do
you know of to dwell in sacred space while immersed in your body’s
delight? To commune with the Divine Wow while having fun? To tap into
your own deeper knowing while at the same time gazing into the
mysterious light of a fellow creature?

Are you astounded yet? All of this beauty, from the divine mystery. Served up just for you to enjoy. The Cat's Eye Nebula Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI

Are you astounded yet? All of this beauty, from the divine mystery. Served up just for you to enjoy. The Cat’s Eye Nebula Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI

Happiness  (and gratitude – remember how linked those two things are?) is an active process – you can tap back into those feelings on purpose. You have the power, at any moment to choose to dive into the divine mystery; into wonder and out of boredom, fear, anxiety or sadness. The hardest part is remembering that you have a choice. That can be one of the hardest things in the world when you feel like you’re at the bottom of a well, trapped in the darkness all alone.  This is where your own toolbox of helpful things comes in – your joy list, and your techniques that help you to get outside of your head for a little bit. So let’s add a new technique to that list:

ThIngs I Received Without Having to Be Worth It:

I know that sounds a little odd, but stop to think about it for a second. I feel like when we’re overlooking the wonder in our lives we forget how much the universe actually doles out to us without any effort on our part. We feel like nobody cares or it’s all so hard or that we don’t have enough.  It’s time to change that.  Every night before bed, or every time you feel your mood starting to nose-dive, write down at least three things that you have received from the universe today that were truly precious that have nothing to do with you earning them. Three random gifts from the divine mystery.

Can’t think of any? Try these examples: Sunshine on your face – the sun shines on you whether you’ve done anything to earn it or not. It’s like a gift. Smiles from strangers, boundless love from your animals, dogs you meet on the street, birds singing in the trees. Moon light, the yellow happiness of dandelions, edible weeds growing on your lawn, the smell of coffee, the sound of rain, air in your lungs. You have a heart that beats without you having to think about it. Your body goes through the mysterious process of sleep. You can dream and imagine and create. Your brain can perceive or create colors. Your body grew, on it’s own without any direction from you, out of a sperm and egg. If that isn’t evidence of the miraculous I don’t know what is. The divine mystery is generous with you constantly. It’s your job to remember.

It is your job to remember the divine mystery! This image from NASA's WISE telescope

It is your job to remember the divine mystery! This image from NASA’s WISE telescope



Wonder Woman Did It Right – Power Poses and You.

I’m not sure if you know this, but we should all be more like Wonder Woman – for so many reasons really, not the least of which is her power pose. Harvard professor Amy Cuddy did a fabulous (FABULOUS!) TED talk on what she calls a “life-hack.” It’s a simple, profound way to change your life – totally free, totally low-tech, and totally based on Wonder Woman. So obviously, it’s legit.

 How Power Poses and Wonder Woman can change your life:

Really, how couldn’t Wonder Woman change your life – that’s the real question we should be asking. In all seriousness, this talk gives a deeply inspiring message about the simple things we do day to day, how we stand, how we sit, how we hold our bodies can change our physiology and our likeability as humans.  We speak a verbal language, but we also speak a deeper more influential language that we call body language.  Your body language is always influencing how others perceive you, but more importantly, it changes how YOU feel. Amy Cuddy’s research showed that not only does your posture change how you feel, but it also changes your hormone levels in a significant and meaningful way.  Standing in a power pose for two minutes significantly raises testosterone levels, boosting confidence and mood and lowers cortisol levels, which reduces anxiety. If you’ve got a big job interview, that could be just the thing you need to get through it with flying colors.




Straight from Amy Cuddy's TED talk - the classic power pose, a la Wonder Woman.

Straight from Amy Cuddy’s TED talk – the classic power pose.

This means you can have a profound impact on your mood, your stress and your overall health in just two minutes.  So what if you take two minutes a day? What would the impact be then? You can actually change your destiny with two minutes of the power pose. It is that simple, because we are truly ruled by our hormone levels. Also, this not only changes how you feel internally, but also how you interact with the world and how those interactions go for you. Outside of prescription hormones this is typically not easy to do, so it’s amazing that this free, simple step can make such a huge difference in such a short time.

Here’s Amy Cuddy’s power pose TED talk:

The idea is that even if you don’t feel powerful, you can fake it ’til you make it. You can act powerful and confident until you realize that you actually ARE powerful and confident. Until you realize that a power pose is just your normal way of being in the world because you have become a leader.  Essentially standing like a leader gives your body the idea that you need to have the confidence and mental-emotional balance of a leader, so it produces that. Isn’t that just mind-blowing? This is just like the research that showed that smiling, even when you’re sad, causes your body to release the endorphins that would be released if you were actually happy.  Essentially if your face smiles, your body feels happy even if you’re smiling on cue. Maybe the classic case of changing your body changes your mind? You have nothing to lose – this is free, simple and takes two minutes. So, switch to a power pose and change your hormones and your life.



Pure Freaking Dance Joy

This week has been an uphill week so this video was like a little gift dropped in my lap – it is pure dance joy and just makes me smile every time I watch it. Part of being healthy is admitting when things have been tough and allowing yourself to have some reward time. It doesn’t help to just crack the whip and push yourself to be productive or to do more or to finish one more little task. Do the things that make you smile even if it’s just for a couple of minutes.  Take little breaks for absolutely no reason other than for the joy of it.

This? This is *totally* for the joy of it. The song is by Parov Stelar – All Night.  The dancer is the amazing and awesome Jamie Berry from Just Some Motion.  This just makes me want to close my office door and crank it up and see how much of this dance I can do right here. Pure dance joy.

Sometimes joy lands in your lap and thank God for it, but sometimes you have to remind yourself that joy is out there waiting for you. You can find it. This little bit of dance joy is really all you need to boost your mood. Actually – this and the Wonder Woman Pose and you are good to go.




Be someone who loves the gift - belly laugh and dance joy - here's to making life sizzle and pop.

Be someone who loves the gift – belly laughs and dance joy – here’s to making your life sizzle and pop.

If you’re feeling a little low right now, or overwhelmed or freaked out or your soul is a little under-nourished then it’s time for joy-seeking behavior. I highly suggest making a list right now of the things that ALWAYS bring you joy. Put your Joy list on your phone, on your computer, on post-it notes and on your mirrors at home so that you can remind yourself about those little things. Here’s my joy list:

Yup. It's my joy list - things that are simple and easy to do that make me happy. Like dance joy videos from youtube. It's on my phone to remind me when I'm down.

Yup. It’s my joy list – things that are simple and easy to do that make me happy. Like dance joy videos from youtube. It’s on my phone to remind me when I’m down.

Some days (or weeks) it really helps to remind yourself that there are things out there that make you smile, that make things seem easier, that make you happy and that are within your reach.  There are no Lamborghinis on my joy list – it’s little things like dove dark chocolate squares and fresh flowers. Like listening to a great song with my headphones or taking three minutes for myself to meditate.  This is about little things you can work into your day to help lift your spirits when you’re down or overwhelmed. It’s your own mental health minute. It’s like the dance joy video for no reason other than to make yourself smile. Happiness has to be a priority, always. If you don’t make your own joy a priority then nobody will.



Pain vs. Suffering: The Work of Byron Katie

So – I get that neither pain nor suffering are actually very much fun to talk about, but this is real life and pain happens.  It happens to everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, wealth, beauty, fame or anything else.  The most outwardly blessed people experience pain and the most outwardly wretched experience pain, and there’s no way to tell which pain is greater (nor any reason to really). This can be physical, mental or emotional pain because really it all boils down to the same thing. There is a caveat though. Is pain the same as suffering? Do we have to suffer? Let’s look at the question of pain vs. suffering:

Pain is a Part of Life, But Suffering is Optional.

Commonly people don’t really make a distinction between pain and suffering, but I would like to propose that they’re very different things – that while pain in life is inevitable and there will always be losses, deaths, illness, and injury – we don’t actually have to suffer about it. Let me explain:

Pain vs. Suffering: What’s the Difference?

Pain is the event – the death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship, the illness that you have or the injury that happens. This is what happens.  Suffering is the thought about the pain – the feeling that something isn’t right.  The loved one shouldn’t have died or left, the relationship should be something other than what it is, the illness shouldn’t exist.  It’s the idea that something about right now isn’t the way it should be.  The feeling like something *wrong* happened.  Does that make sense?  So Pain = what happened in reality.  Suffering = the difference between reality and what you wanted.




What would happen if you made a choice about that? If you choose to accept what happens as what is supposed to happen?  After all, all the angst in the world about someone dying doesn’t bring them back.  Say the worst case scenario happens – someone you love with your whole heart dies.  Pain slams into you like a Mac truck.  You don’t really have a choice about that – the pain will happen.  What next?

I can say that in my clients the people who get through grief well are the ones who accept that even though it isn’t what they wanted there may be a larger plan at work.  Things happen – maybe for a reason or maybe not but wanting them to be different doesn’t make them different, it just makes you unhappy. I know this all sounds very zen – the trick is starting to practice this accepting on little things so that when the big things happen you have some tools to deal with them.  Even if the big losses have already happened to you, start to work on accepting the little ones until you can begin to accept the big ones.

Steps to Accepting What Is:

There are many tools out there to help you accept what is, but one of my favorites is called The Work and it was developed by Byron Katie. Her entire system is online here, but I’ll outline a quick version below. This is a process of asking yourself questions about your belief and really exploring the answers you find. The first part is called the “Judge your Neighbor Worksheet,” then you’ll ask four questions and turn it around.

  1. Write a statement about something that you’re angry or suffering about in the format “I am ___________ (angry/sad/whatever) with _______________ (person) because _________. ex. I’m angry with my neighbor because he doesn’t respect me.
  2. Write down how you want them to change or what you want them to do. ex.  I want him to stop letting his trash drift into my yard, I want him to stop his dogs from barking.
  3. In this situation what advice would you offer them? ex. My neighbor should train his dogs better, my neighbor should not let stray trash fly out of his truck.
  4. In order for you to be happy in this situation what do you need them to say, think ,feel or do? ex: I need my neighbor to apologize. I need my neighbor to watch out for stray trash…
  5. What is it about this situation you don’t ever want to experience again? ex. I don’t ever want to have trash in my yard again.

(I just have to put in a side note that my neighbors are actually kind of awesome and that the above example is entirely made up – but I couldn’t really think of anything else and it works.)

Now you have this list of grievances.  This list of things that has been bugging you or getting under your skin. Don’t be nice in the list – be mean and nasty and horrible because nobody else is ever going to see it – get all of that out so that you can look at it.

Now ask 4 questions.

  1. Is it true? (yes or no – if no jump to #3)
  2. Can you really know it’s true?
  3. How do you react? How do you feel when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without that thought?

So let’s look at our example:

My neighbor doesn’t respect me:

Is it true? I think so – yes.

Can I really know it’s true? – no.  Maybe the trash is there because it flies out of the back of his truck when he isn’t there to see it. Maybe the trash comes from someone else. Maybe he can’t see through my bushes to even see the trash. Maybe respect has nothing to do with it.

How do I feel when I believe that thought? Angry! I feel like he’s not appreciating what a good neighbor I am and my stomach gets tight and my back starts to feel all tense.

Who would I be without that thought? Well – I’d probably be a lot happier, I wouldn’t get so mad when I walk out into my front yard or when I hear the dogs bark. I’d probably be able to enjoy my yard more.

Now turn it around – change the direction of the statement so that you’re turning it back on yourself (I don’t respect me), you’re turning it to the opposite (my neighbor does respect me) and you’re turning it to the other (I don’t respect my neighbor). For each turn-around find three examples where that has been true.

Why do The Work?

What you’re doing here is starting to see your thoughts as NOT REAL. Because they aren’t. The world is real. The things that happen are real. Your thoughts about them are literally all in your head. The thoughts we have about things are the reasons we suffer and letting go of those thoughts helps you to let go of suffering.  In the pain vs. suffering debate pain is mandatory but suffering is entirely optional.

I would highly recommend Byron Katie’s books – especially Loving what is.

Loving What Is by Byron Katie

Loving What Is by Byron Katie



Gratitude Is The Key To Happiness. And no this isn’t all woo-woo.

Gratitude is the key to happiness is NOT a new idea. In fact, if you frequent the same places I do you’ve probably had the idea stuffed down your throat so many times that you’re getting a little nauseated with all that gratitude. I know, I get it.  I don’t want to add to the overly-syrupy new-age-y message. And yet, as I watched this TED talk, I really just wanted this kindly older gentleman in a tunic and socks with sandals to come to my house and tell me more about the opportunity.  The opportunity for gratefulness, for which he uses stickers on his light switches to remind himself to continue being grateful.  Actually, I kind of want him to come to my house and put stickers on my light switches. He’s a little slow to start, but it warms up – keep watching.

I joke a lot, but he’s actually dead-on accurate.  We all have so much to be grateful for – even when there is a death, or a tragedy, or abuse or serious illness there is still so much wonder in every life and every day that there is always a moment to be grateful for. Just in case you don’t want to watch through, here are some of my favorite quotes:

We can not only have grateful experiences we can be people who live gratefully.

I didn’t say we can be grateful for everything but we can be grateful in every moment.

Most of the time what is given to us is the opportunity for joy but we miss it because we are rushing through life.

Those who avail themselves of opportunity are the ones we admire, they’re the ones who get somewhere in life.  The ones who fail, get another opportunity.

If you’re grateful, you’re not fearful. If you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. If you’re not fearful you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity.

A grateful world is a world of joyful people.




The method for  gratitude, the key to happiness is as simple as this:

  1. Stop. Get quiet for one second.
  2. Look. Appreciate the things around you to be grateful for – open your senses to the wonderful richness around you.
  3. Go. Move ahead and really do whatever that opportunity offered to you – the opportunity to enjoy, to learn, to grow.  You won’t see the opportunity if you don’t stop.
Gratitude: The Key to Happiness

There can never be too much happy, or too much grateful.

The idea is that we don’t ever stop – we rush from one thing to another like hamsters on a wheel without actually noticing what we’re doing or taking the time to appreciate anything at all. I know I can be guilty of this when I get going on a project or when things are hectic at work, but it is such a good reminder to stop, to look, and to allow what I’ve been able to see to help me move forward in a new way.  Remember – the sun shines on you whether you’ve done anything to deserve it or not.

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that a Benedictine monk sounds pretty darn wise and hits home hard with a message that is deeply spiritual. As it turns out gratitude is the key to happiness. It’s as simple as that.



Recovering From Overeating: Because Shankenstein is a Thing.

So – some weekends just really need a whole lot of indulgence (read: overeating). Those same weekends seem to also need some serious remediation, so here’s the story and the toolkit.

Recovering from Overeating:

For those of you who know me or are my clients, you know that I am as much about giving yourself what makes you happy (even if it’s not always healthy ) as I am about taking care of your health because when it comes down to it, those are the same things.  So this weekend, for a variety of reasons, what I needed was some major feel-good overeating indulgence that doesn’t fall into the health category.  This indulgence fell into the yummy category and included  a nice gin martini and some amazing fries. Also something called “Shankenstein” which NoVa restaurant here in Austin claims is fried pork and beef terrine (read: the most awesome salty, fatty, crispy-on-the-outside deep fried meat thingy ever), blueberry doughnuts and lemongrass panna cotta with (not joking) meringue “fruit loops” suspended in it. My god.




What that actually amounts to is five million calories (approx) and about a gallon of fat, seasoned with sugar and washed down with alcohol. Quite obviously when I indulge I do it big. It was actually pretty awesome and probably not what my body wanted but certainly what my soul needed – I wouldn’t do it any differently.  So for you I will share my tools to make this necessary soul-salving awesomeness not quite so health-damning. Here’s the recovering from overeating or overindulging tool-kit:

Great night to be recovering from overeating in Austin, TX

Great night to indulge.

  1. Take your enzymes.  I know I’m not good with wheat and gluten (ahem. doughnuts) but some days, like this weekend,  I do indulge.  For me, it’s important to have an enzyme that I can take with my food that covers the wheat and gluten thing (the ingredient to look for is DPP-IV) but for you, it might be something else.  More lipase or even ox bile if you know you don’t handle overeating fats well, lactase if you’re lactose intolerant. Protease if you have trouble with heavy protein-rich meals or betaine HCl if your digestion is weak overall. I took mine and they helped me recover and spared me some of the wheat-related fallout the next day. Obviously, if your big indulgence isn’t food-related then you can probably skip the enzymes, but if there’s food in there then plan ahead.
  2. Don’t forget your water. It sounds mundane, but obviously, I’m asking my body to process a whole boat-load of salt, sugar, and alcohol so I’d better give it some extra water to help flush those things out effectively. Otherwise, I’d turn into stay-puffed marshmallow woman and feel horrid the next day (for the record I did just fine). Not just the usual amount of water, but actually extra water to help your body recover from the extra indulgence.
  3. Move around some. Thankfully the uber-meal was followed by walking and then dancing.  Not a whole lot, but enough to remind my body not to settle and congeal into a lump of poorly-moving blobbiness.  The walking and little bit of dancing reminded my body that it can use some of those calories for actual fuel and not just store them away as a keepsake of this evening. Outside of that, gentle activity helps to keep blood flowing and actually encourage my body to work through all of that.
  4. Indulge, but slowly.  The best meals are enjoyed slowly and in good company. When the meal is a several hour process there is time for your body to cope with the onslaught of overeating and overindulgence and not get over-full or skimp on the digestive steps that will make this recovery quick the next day.  Take the time to laugh, share stories and generally connect over the meal and it will all work out much more easily. Obviously the same goes for alcohol.  Slamming the drinks down will only get you blind-drunk, where savoring gets you the joy of a great drink or two without the accompanying hangover and ridiculousness.
  5. Get what really matters to you.  Good food is my thing. It’s my go-to happy place of choice if things are rough or rocky. Not just food, or lots of food, but *good* food. Given the options, it would have been easier to just have crappy food but a lot of it and really overeat – but that wouldn’t feed my soul the same way.  Better for me to indulge in the thing that will really make me happy and get it out of my system. There are always substitutes, but that kind of defeats the purpose. If you’re going to indulge choose the thing that will feed your soul the most. For me, that’s great food and dancing (camping is right up there, but harder to arrange). For someone else it might be a day trip out of town, an entire day in bed with Netflix, a pedicure, a massage or whatever else you can think of that brings joy.
  6. Drop the guilt.  Guilt, although we’re culturally good at it, doesn’t actually help anyone do anything at all (except if you’re really looking to give yourself an ulcer. Then it will help). Life is difficult and messy and wonderful and painful and sometimes it requires a little bit of taking-care-of-you.  In fact, I think life requires far more taking-care-of-you than most people do.  I’m not talking about the things you do because they’re easy (like fast food) or the things you do because you’re burned out (like reality TV) – I’m talking about the things that help you to feel alive and joyful and like yourself even when things aren’t going the way you want them to.  Now – if that thing for you is reality TV then by all means, but choose your pleasure to maximize your benefit. Give yourself the gift of an indulgence with permission – no strings attached. No guilt, no judgment, no negative self-talk. None of that. Overeat or indulge, recover, and move on.
  7. Enjoy every second. It’s so easy, especially when you’re not in a great place, to choose your big treat and then not notice that you’re having it because you’re so busy thinking about your troubles.  Drop the worry, skip the troubles and really focus on your gift-to-you (SHANKENSTEIN).  If you notice your mind wandering in a dark direction, just focus again on whatever it is that you’re enjoying at the moment.  Indulgence as a form of meditation?  Oh yes.  That’s the whole point.
  8. Know the difference between self-indulgence and self-destruction.  There is a difference between enjoying a great meal with alcohol, and enjoying a bottle of alcohol, a blackout and a trip to the ER to get your stomach pumped. Likewise enjoying a fantastic meal is self-indulgence where eating your way through a bag of mini snickers and a box of doughnuts is overeating à la self-destruction. Indulgence makes you happy and isn’t exactly healthy and probably isn’t part of your normal routine, but it’s also not going to do you any serious damage. If you get into the seriously damaging category then you’re probably crossing over into self-destruction, self-punishment, and self-harm.  Give yourself an evening of overeating, recover and be glad for it, but keep your eyes open. Don’t wander down the road of self-destruction because those lessons often turn out to be much harder than whatever the original trouble is that you’re dealing with.

The bottom line is to enjoy your indulgence when you need it and then get on with actually dealing with whatever it is that’s getting you down in the first place. Recovering from overeating isn’t a big deal as long as you plan accordingly and don’t just keep overeating. Sometimes you really do need to make your joy a priority.



Positive Remembering: Amazing Lifehack for Trauma

You have the capacity to change the past through positive remembering, no matter how horrific it was or how much you’re still troubled by it. This amazing lifehack for trauma is so simple and yet so effective. Your brain is amazing.  A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

You have no idea how much your brain is capable of and what it can actually accomplish – it genuinely is the greatest, most wonderful tool you will ever possess. Your brain can actually change and adapt to do whatever you ask it to do – including re-write your history.  The darkest, scariest, most nauseating parts of your history as well as the annoying, the humiliating and the humbling.  Your brain is the tool you need to heal those old wounds and to get happier because of it. Let’s call it Positive Remembering, and it’s such a powerful lifehack to cure a bad past.

All of us have bad memories from our own lives – some of those are little snapshot memories of one particular incident (like almost stepping on a snake in the woods) and some are entire chapters (like that whole relationship with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, or that little thing called “childhood”). For many people these memories are there, but not called upon. Stuff happened and they’ve moved on and it doesn’t really matter. For others these memories are part of waking life – popping up at random times and interfering with emotions, happiness and even health. Positive remembering is the key to reducing the impact of those past traumas on your life now.

Positve remembering changes your mental stories. Once Upon A Time...

It’s all just a story – why not make it a better one? Practice positive remembering

Positive remembering is a way to free yourself slowly from these negative memories and re-frame the whole experience into something less harmful, less emotionally charged and to allow some healing to happen.

Positive Remembering in the First 24 Hours

The first 24 hours after a trauma is a powerful time to impact the way your brain holds and stores that information.  In those 24 hours if you can focus on the good things that are happening, the people who love you, the help you received, the blue of the sky while you were flat on your back, the wonderful things in your life. By doing this the overall impact of the trauma will be greatly diminished because your brain lays down that memory differently and with less emotional charge. Of course this is also the hardest time to focus on the good things, and for many of us the traumas that concern us were years, if not decades, ago. Never fear, positive remembering works for long-past memories too.




Changing Your Past To Change Your Present

If you know that some negative part of your past is still there, haunting you then it’s time to take some proactive steps to changing that situation.  Nothing you do can change the past, but the great news is you don’t have to. You just have to change the way you think and feel about the past. We’re going to call that Positive Remembering. Here are some of the tools you can use to change those memories.  Try to use one of these, quickly, every time you are confronted with a negative memory and soon that memory will lose it’s power over you:

  • Feel Your Body – Notice what reaction your body has to the memory. Often you’ll clench your jaw, tense your shoulders, your heart rate will accelerate or your stomach will start grinding because your body is re-living the stress, anxiety, sadness or fear from that moment.  Consciously bring your attention to that part of your body and instead of focusing on the memory, focus on relaxing that body part. You can pretend there is a warm, soft light shining there, or the feeling of a warm blanket, or just imagine that part turning to water or melting.  If it’s your heart rate think of something that would calm your heart rate down like lying on a beach or getting a massage.  I know, there is a little bit of a “go to your happy place” feel to this, but if your body lets go of the tension from the memory then you’ll start to re-wire your brain to let go of some of the tension too.
  • Banish The Boggart – For anyone who isn’t a Harry Potter fan, a boggart is a type of creature that takes the shape of whatever you fear most (your memory). To banish it, you must laugh at it in a genuine and meaningful way.  This produced all kinds of hilarity in books and movies as the boggart of a hated teacher was forced into a hideous and embarrassing drag-grandmother ensemble, thereby giving Harry and friends a great laugh.  Much like boggarts, memories can be changed too. If you had a horrible car wreck that still wakes you up in cold sweats, you can positive remember it: picture the same scene but in bumper cars and give the whole thing a cartoon “boing” noise.  Make the whole thing as ludicrous as possible.  This works even with the really scary memories too. Just be creative – what would make that scene silly or ridiculous. Every time you have that negative emotionally charged memory, banish it with your newer, sillier version. It’s really hard at first, espcially if those memories are still raw but the more you practice the easier it becomes and the less that memory bothers you.
  • Give Yourself a Gift – Memories are yours to play with. Nobody says they have to actually look like what happened. They can look like whatever you want them to.  So why not give that story a happy ending?  Chances are in your bad memory you  needed something that you didn’t have at that moment. Positive remember it! If you’re remembering childhood trauma you may have needed a big hug from a kind adult and a teddy bear – so just add that part in. Any time that memory pops up, just add in the part where you get what you need at the end.  Sure bad stuff happened, but start telling your brain that at the end you got what you needed and your brain will start believing you.

Positive Remembering: Your Memories are Just Stories

I know this sounds kind of silly and ridiculous, but the point is that the things in your memory are over – they aren’t happening right this second.  Right this second you’re just fine. You are breathing, your heart is beating, you’ve had enough food and water to stay alive until this moment.  Whatever that bad memory was, it didn’t actually kill you and at the end of the day that means it’s all kind of okay (I believe at the end of the day it’s *always* okay even after the whole death thing, but for the sake of brevity we don’t have to discuss that part today).

Essentially those memories are just stories you tell yourself over and over again so lets just change the story into something you can live with, something that doesn’t make you feel hollow, something that will let you heal and move forward. Positive remember it and start to get out of the clutches of negative memory. It’s your story – so make it whatever you want it to be: RE-member it differently.  You’re not trying to sell yourself on this new version being the truth, you’re just softening up the whole picture every time it comes up and by doing that, you also soften up the effect it has on your overall level of joy. Positive remembering helps you rediscover the joyfulness buried under the rubble.