A Deeper Wellness: Conquering Stress, Mood, Anxiety, and Traumas

Copyright ©2022 Dr. Monica Vermani, C. Psych.

Published by VitaOdyssey Inc.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7779155-0-6

eISBN: 978-1-7779155-1-3

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval
or storage system, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
This book is dedicated to you, as you strive to go deeper and become a
higher, better version of yourself.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply grateful for my wonderful family, who provide unstinting

support for all that I take on, and love me just as I am. I thank my parents
Om Parkash and Usha Vermani, who modeled courage, strength, and
resilience as they navigated life’s challenges as immigrants to Canada. They
taught me, by example, to work hard and never give up. I thank my brother
Sanjay and his wonderful wife Vicky with all my heart, and their twin
daughters, my lovely nieces Tia and Maya. They have shown me how to
reconnect with playfulness, love, laughter, healing, and the boundless joys
of childhood.

A very special thank you to Dr. Giorgio Ilacqua, C. Psych., who encouraged
me to become a clinical psychologist. When I began working for him as a
psychometrist, he made out my first paycheque to Dr. Monica Vermani, a
gesture that spoke volumes and ignited a passion that informed virtually
every aspect of my career and my life. I would also like to acknowledge and
thank the many clinicians who also believed in and supported me early in
my career: Dr. Donna Ferguson, C. Psych., ABPP; Dr. David Nussbaum,
PhD, Neuropsychologist; Dr. Martin Katzman, MD, FRCP(C), Psychiatrist;
Dr. Lukasz Struzik, MD; Dr. Richard Brown, MD, Psychiatrist; and Dr. Pat
Gerbarg, MD, Psychiatrist.

Special thanks to Andrea Olivera, Lorena Lasky, Paul Marhue, Raj Girn,
Shelby Monita, Simone Purboo-Rennie, Paul Chato, Freedom Malhotra,
Mario Lewis, Rev. Mark and Rev. Elaine Thomas, Rev. Cassandra Joan
Butler, Marissa Eigenbrood, Janet Shapiro and Lydia Rasmussen of Smith
Publicity, and Bethany Brown of The Cadence Group. My heartfelt
gratitude and thanks to Sergio Lasky and Madonna McManus, who have
believed in me from the start. They have worked endless hours to help
manifest my goals.

Last — but not least — Rita DiLuca, Sandi Dwarka, Vinny Dwarka, Nam
Do, Jessie Dimech, Ruth Davis, Milica Tempest, Christina Droumtsekas,
Eyvonne Findlay, Margaret Bernat, Kaithy Wu, Rev. Sandra Atkinson,
Laura Torrado, Olivia Blanchette, Julie Cummins-Chaudhari, Rev. Michelle
Paterniti, Meena Tanna, Kiran Bedi-Ruparelia, Rohini and Paul Gill, Anita
Bhandari, Angela and Jag Jodha, Vera Pavri, Margi Pagliaro, Monica
Pagliaro-McInnis, Anju Virmani, Dr. Cheryl Bradbury, C. Psych., and Dr.
Martha McKay, C. Psych., my closest friends who are also my family, who
unstintingly love, support, encourage, and enrich my life. I am truly blessed
with you all being a part of my life’s journey. My sincere heartfelt love and
gratitude to you all.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Introduction
How to use this book

A DEEPER WELLNESS

PUTTING YOUR PROBLEMS ON THE TABLE

YOUR IDEAL SELF

UNDERSTANDING STRESS & INTEGRATING SELF-CARE

IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS

UNDERSTANDING THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING

UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY AND THE CYCLE OF PANIC

COMMUNICATION

MEDITATION

WORTHY OF LOVE

GUILT
 SHARING THE BURDEN 141

FORGIVENESS

GRATITUDE

SELF-WORTH

OBSTACLES AS LESSONS

BECOMING A HIGHER VERSION OF YOURSELF

YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

FLOW

Epilogue
 FOREWORD

As Integrative Psychiatrists and mind-body teachers, it is a special honor to

write the foreword to this book. We have known Dr. Monica Vermani for
more than 20 years. Our work together began with a research study of the
effects of a yoga breath intervention on people suffering from severe
treatment-resistant anxiety and comorbid emotional disorders. Many of
those who participated in the study were patients of Dr. Vermani and her
team. They had all clearly benefited from their treatment with her. Beyond
that, they all spontaneously talked about not only how helpful she was, but
also how exceptionally caring she had been in comparison to other
therapists they had known before.

Our collaboration continued for years. Dr. Martin Katzman, head of the
START Clinic in Toronto where Monica was using Mindfulness Based
Cognitive Behavior Therapy for severe anxiety disorders, encouraged us to
further refine our breath-based intervention, now known as Breath-Body-
Mind. By 2007 we began offering pro bono workshops with a not-for-
profit, Serving Those Who Serve, to help relieve the physical and
psychological problems that continued to plague those who were
traumatized during and after the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center
attacks—policemen, firemen, iron workers, Ground Zero workers,
residents, and people who escaped from the towers. Years after the 2001
terrorist attacks, having failed to benefit from conventional treatments for
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hundreds of people responded to the
Breath-Body-Mind practices with significant improvements in their
physical and psychological wellbeing. Dr. Vermani and Dr. Katzman
generously volunteered their time to conduct two preliminary studies that
documented these benefits. Since then, thousands more have benefited from
these breath-centered mind-body practices.
We are very excited to see Dr. Vermani create a book that integrates her
skills in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy, her experience as
a long-term serious yoga practitioner, her training as a Breath-Body-Mind
teacher, and her naturally loving spirit. This well-organized, clearly written,
and fully detailed book provides a very practical approach to giving people
tools to relieve their suffering. Drawing from her extensive clinical
experience and research, using both her mind and her heart, Dr. Vermani
shows the way to a Deeper Wellness.

Follow this step-by-step approach to become the best you can be. Start with
“How to use the book” and progress through the 18 chapters, which include
lessons about your problems, goals, thoughts, emotions, obstacles, and
valuing yourself. Useful exercises at the end of each chapter help you to
personalize your understanding of how to create change in your life.

This book is the culmination of Dr. Vermani’s professional experience and

her loving nature. Here, therapists of diverse backgrounds will gather new
ways to enrich their work. Those of you who may be struggling with
anxiety or trauma will discover new perspectives and methods to build the
skills needed to live happier lives. Some of you will do this on your own;
others may engage with a therapist to work through the book. We will
recommend this book to our patients and colleagues, confident that it can be
a game changer for many of you.

Richard P. Brown, MD
Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, NY &
Patricia L. Gerbarg, MD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY

Co-authors of The Healing Power of the Breath, Non-Drug Treatments for

ADHD, and Complementary and Integrative Treatments in Psychiatric
Practices (American Psychiatric Association Publishing)
www.Breath-Body-Mind.com
 INTRODUCTION

This book has been decades in the making.

The seeds of A Deeper Wellness took root over 25 years ago as I was
working my way toward becoming a clinical psychologist. I was moved by
an elderly gentleman who confided in me that he missed the good old days
when his family doctor had the time to get to know him, knew the
circumstances of his life in full, and asked how everything was going
during appointments.

This man carried trauma from active duty on the battlefields of World War
II and later struggled in his relationships. He confided to me that his current
family doctor knew nothing about his life, that he felt rushed through short
appointments, and that he was unable to remember half of what he had
wanted to address in the doctor’s office.

Moreover, he was never asked how things were going in his life. As a
result, he was never allowed the opportunity to provide the context of his
symptoms, which included stomach and digestive pain and dysfunction,
muscle ache, and fatigue. Had he shared this information, his doctor might
well have explored the possible — and highly likely — connection between
his patient’s physical symptoms and his undiagnosed anxiety and depressive
disorder.

This sparked, for me, the question: Are primary-care physicians — through
the time constraints of the existing system — missing the mind/body
connection, and leaving serious mental health issues undiagnosed and
untreated? What are the implications and costs both for patients and the
medical system?
For my doctoral thesis, I conducted hundreds of interviews with patients in
primary care waiting rooms, the first line of treatment for most people. The
results were astounding. Over 50 percent of the patients interviewed were
suffering from mental health issues undiagnosed by their primary care
physician, including anxiety and major depressive disorders, bipolar and
panic disorders.

We also weighed and measured patient medical records on file. These

findings revealed that the heavier and thicker a patient’s file, the more likely
that patient wassuffering from an undiagnosed mental-health issue. Patients
with undiagnosed mental health issues kept coming to their doctors to
explore their physical symptoms, undergoing repeated tests, labs, check-
ups, and evaluations, though the root causes of their symptoms were
psychological, not physical.

The time constraints of brief primary care visits resulted in misdiagnoses.

My doctoral thesis culminated in the creation of a short and simple
diagnostic tool for general practitioners, to help them identify mental health
patients, decrease suffering, and minimize the economic, medical, and
societal costs to the healthcare system.

As I transitioned from academia into my clinical practice, I realized the

need to help my patients understand the connection and interplay between
their problems and their physical symptoms, persistent negative thoughts,
and maladaptive behaviors.

I created the three-legged table schematic diagram, and took patients

through the process of putting their problems on the table and identifying
their symptoms represented by three legs: physical symptoms, negative
thoughts, and harmful, maladaptive behaviors. To treat their problems, we
began addressing all three ‘legs’ of the table.

This lesson evolved into the first chapter of this book, and the first step in
helping people understand their symptoms, heal, and create the life they
truly want. In full, the 18 chapters — or lessons — in A Deeper Wellness
provide a way forward, a path to healing, that leads anyone ready and
willing to do the work to a better, more authentic and joyful life.

Each of us has a life story. Regardless of the life you live — whether you
are single, married, with or without children, over-working or unemployed
— you have good moments and days and bad ones too. Positive and
negative experiences are woven into the fabric of every life story.

In my 25 years as a clinical psychologist, I have had the unique privilege of

working with hundreds of patients, helping them heal their past, deal with
their present, and take control of their future.

Day by day, we are shaping the story of our lives. We let some people in,
cast others aside. We open our hearts. We experience joy, sorrow, and loss.
We expand. We contract. We soar. We fly high. And sometimes we crash
and burn. Sometimes we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, learn from
our experiences, set boundaries, and bring in resources and situations to
help us be higher, better versions of ourselves. Other times, we remain
stuck, repeating patterns until the suffering becomes unbearable and causes
us to shift. These shifts reset our path, reconnect us to ourselves, and propel
us along a wiser and more fruitful path.

We are all born alone and die alone. We take our first breath into the world
alone, and our final breath out alone. Yes, we are born into a family, a
culture, and a community. Once we are here our life expands out into the
society into which we were born. We allow people into our journey. We
shift and turn. We are born connected to our authentic selves and then, over
time, our mind records and often personalizes events and our experiences
with other people. We get caught up along our own path and growth in
stories from experiences that distract us from our true self and purpose to
grow. We often take on others’ journeys as our own, which can create
symptoms and suffering. Life has moments of pauses and flows, starts and
stops, but the fabric of life is to simply propel you to grow and hopefully
facilitate you to be your highest and best version of you.
The people around us are mirrors. They show us sides of ourselves we need
to work on and reflect how far we have come in life and grown. Everything
and everyone around us reflects, like a mirror, aspects of ourselves: our
strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth. The people we interact
with reflect to us the attributes we need to acquire and the obstacles that
hold us back from becoming the highest and best version of ourselves.

Suffering is a catalyst for change. As creatures of habit, we don’t want to

change, so the only way we propel and grow is through uncomfortable
situations, challenges, and pain. A difficult work situation, unhealthy
relationship dynamics, or illnesses … these are all lessons from which we
learn and grow. But often we lose the lesson and cling to the pain and
suffering that came along with it. And we live in fear of it repeating. Our
fears are simply self-doubts. Often, when we struggle, we doubt that we
will have the ability to overcome life’s challenges. We feel that holding onto
our pain will prevent it from happening again, or at least make us better
prepared for it. This is not true. We need to trust ourselves and know that
we are built to survive and grow. Growth is more than size and age; we
learn and grow from our life experiences and moments, each and every one
of them, positive and negative.

The lessons in this book lead those who do the work into a deep sense of
wellbeing, of confidence and connectedness to their authentic selves. We all
have layers of traumas from which we can heal when we detach ourselves
from our stories and connect to our opportunities for healing and growth.
We are then free to manifest the life we deserve to live … and become the
best version of ourselves.

Today I am a successful clinical psychologist, blessed with the opportunity

to facilitate and witness many people’s healings, struggles, and personal
growth. As a psychologist, I help people to connect inward and work
through their stories of pain, abandonment, loneliness, sadness, fear,
anxiety, self-doubt, anger and feelings of inadequacies, and not feeling
worthy of love … as we all are, just the way we are.
Therein lies the common ground I believe we share: we are all healing from
negative stories, schemas, and ‘recordings’ we attach ourselves to in intense
emotional moments, and intense affect and suffering. Life is a series of
experiences, but we choose to label our experiences as positive or negative.
The stories we create and negative cognitions we attach ourselves to are of
our own creation. Since we create them, we can also rewrite and reframe
them. And when we bring forth awareness, we can revise, shift, reframe,
and heal them to be more positive, hopeful, and propelling cognitions and
thoughts.

As you begin Chapter 1 of A Deeper Wellness, you are embarking on a

journey of healing.

I wish you an insightful and rewarding journey through the many lessons of
this book. As you work through the many tasks and challenges herein, I
encourage you to stick with the process. You are worth it. You are the
reason I wrote this book. I cannot promise you that your journey through
these lessons will be easy. But I do promise you that if you commit to the
work at hand and your healing, you will acquire the skills and insights to
reconnect with your authentic self, and find the courage and confidence to
create the life you want.

Finally, I wish for you all that this book’s title implies and holds: a deeper
wellness.

With blessings,
Dr. Monica Vermani
 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

We all lead busy lives. Day in and day out, caught up in the relentless pace
of modern living, we can become so preoccupied with the demands of
work, family, and finances that at times we feel overwhelmed. Mired in
routines and habits and laden with responsibilities, we often lack the time
and energy to take a breath, let alone think about the life we want.

The rapid, demanding pace of modern life can trigger states of stress,
anxiety, worry, depression, restlessness, anger, and irritability … and
unhealthy habits, like overeating, overworking, avoidance, poor self-care,
and addictions. Our daily responsibilities can leave us struggling to keep up
with the demands of work, friends, and family, with little or no time for
self-care or reflection. We find ourselves merely existing, not living the life
we wish to live.

Most of us, when we are alone with our thoughts, worry about the future,
construc worst-case scenarios, or ruminate on the past, replaying negative,
self-deprecating thoughts over and over … not exactly a recipe for being at
peace or liking ourselves. True spirituality is an ability to connect with our
authentic selves, be at peace with the content in our head, and enjoy our
own company. Many of us, unfortunately, dislike spending time alone,
when our minds ruminate on negative thoughts, disappointments, hurts and
regrets, and feelings of not being good enough.

We all strive to live a life of balance and self-care. And we’re drawn to the
latest quick fixes and approaches that promise to help us take control, take
better care, manage the stressors of modern life, implement better self-care,
and bring wellness into our lives. But wellness is not a quick fix. Neither is
it a placebo or a passing fancy. It’s a serious undertaking. It’s your very life!
A Deeper Wellness will help you stop just existing, and start living, and deal
with the challenges you are facing now. The insights and self-reflective
exercises at the end of each chapter will help you move beyond going
through the motions in your life … and begin to create meaningful change.

In each chapter, you will find a succinct explanation of the subject you will
be exploring, along with accompanying exercises. You will learn how to
identify your symptoms and how you can begin to take steps to break
patterns of negative thinking and change the maladaptive, unhealthy
behaviors and habits that no longer serve you and your highest self. Along
the way, you may find yourself examining and challenging long-held
negative thought patterns and beliefs. And you will learn to build life skills
that allow you to break away from your negative thoughts and behaviors
and begin to live the life you want.

Working through the exercises will help you think about your life through a
new lens, facilitate the changes you would like to manifest, and embrace
wellness and betterment across all areas of your life … work, school, family
life, social life, intimacy, and self-care, which includes activities and
pursuits that bring you joy, health, and spirituality.

While simple in nature, these exercises will ignite thought-provoking

reflections and tasks that will challenge and engage you to think deeply and
differently about your thoughts and behaviors, and imagine your best life,
goals, and dreams by implementing change. So, sharpen your pencils, and
allow yourself the time to do the work outlined in this book.

Allow yourself as much time as you need to complete each exercise before
moving on to the next, and revisit the completed exercises whenever you
like when further thoughts, memories, insights, or inspirations arise.

When we’re in pain we spill onto others. It impacts every area of our lives.
Taking charge and addressing your problems will positively affect every
area of your life and everyone in it. Remember, A Deeper Wellness was
created to help you bring forth meaningful change and happiness in your
life. It’s about you bringing true self-care and wellness to your life. May the
attention and efforts you put into this work serve as your first steps in the
direction of living a healthier, happier, more confident, successful, and
balanced life. It’s time to stop existing and start living!

Let’s begin.
A DEEPER WELLNESS
 CHAPTER 1

PUTTING YOUR PROBLEMS ON THE

TABLE

The first step to forging a deeper wellness and creating positive change in
your life is building awareness. To do this, let’s begin by putting your
problems on the table. Recognizing the problems and challenges that prevent
you from living a full and happy life is the first step in creating positive
change. In this chapter, we’ll explore the relationship between your
problems and your symptoms. As you work through the exercise at the end
of the chapter, you can begin to set goals that will allow you to make the
changes you desire for your healing, recovery, and betterment.

We walk through life with many symptoms, often feeling overwhelmed. As

we undertake to do the work of creating positive change, it’s important to
take stock, look deeply at ourselves, and identify our problems and
corresponding symptoms. Looking at symptoms can seem overwhelming,
but it is necessary. After all, the first step to betterment is awareness. The
goal of this book is to help you shift towards betterment.

Let’s simplify this process.

WHY THREE LEGS
Here is a table with three legs. You’re going to put your problems on the
tabletop, anything and everything … whatever is troubling you, from work
struggles, low self-esteem, relationship troubles, interpersonal conflicts,
anger, medical conditions, addictions (e.g., food, alcohol, porn, shopping,
video games, etc.), chronic pain, money concerns, depression, anxiety,
infertility. Dive deep into yourself. Be honest and commit to this task.

Give yourself as much time as you need to identify what is truly troubling
you. We may, at times, get in the way of our healing. Step out of the way for
your betterment; be honest and transparent with yourself.

I use the image of a three-legged table because problems manifest in our

lives in three distinct ways: physical and physiological symptoms in our
bodies; negative thoughts and cognitions in our minds; and unhealthy,
maladaptive behaviors, actions, and lifestyle habits.

Should you decide to address your physical symptoms while ignoring your
negative thoughts and behaviors, you continue to support the negative
thoughts and behaviors at play in your life. Dynamics don’t shift, and we
don’t facilitate significant changes. Likewise, if you choose to change your
behaviors while ignoring your physical and cognitive symptoms, you
unwittingly and unwillingly continue to support your problems. If you treat
just one of the ‘legs’ on its own and ignore the others, you continue to prop
up the negative forces at play. But when you confront all three categories of
the three-legged table, you empower yourself to make the significant
changes you want in your life to be who you want to be.

We can treat, revise, and reframe our negative thoughts with Cognitive
Therapy (CT), thereby breaking that table leg, or alter our maladaptive
behaviors with Behavioral Therapy (BT), and break that one. Either way, the
table can remain standing, and we can remain stuck.

The far more effective option — Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — is

a form of therapy that breaks both legs, and in doing so shifts the recipient of
treatment towards real, meaningful, positive changes. CBT works by
challenging and reframing the thoughts you hold onto, and, in addition,
promoting you to start facilitating positive changes by slowly shifting our
maladaptive behaviors and habits to healthier, more adaptive ones.

With this knowledge, let’s get to work, and put your problems on the table.
Don’t focus on just a few problems. Be transparent and honest with yourself.
List all of your problems, regardless of their magnitude or severity.
LEG #1: PHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS
Physical and physiological symptoms — represented by the first leg of the
table — encompass the symptoms that occur in the body. These include
headaches, muscle aches, weakness, tingling, numbness and tensions,
abdominal distress (including diarrhea, constipation or cramping, and
nausea) fatigue, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, restlessness, anxiety,
concentration or memory problems, racing mind, sexual dysfunction,
fatigue, moodiness, crying, sadness, irritability, and panic attacks. Panic
attacks are severe forms of incidents and situations where you feel a number
of physical symptoms coming on, peaking, and dropping in intensity. People
often feel as though they’re having a heart attack when, in fact, they are
experiencing a panic (or anxiety) attack. Once you’ve had a panic attack,
you constantly worry about having another one as they feel like they come
out of the blue.
LEG #2: COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS, NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
The middle leg represents our cognitive thoughts, more specifically,
negative, unhealthy ones. We are born into a household and a unique family
environment. In this unique environment as we grow, we learn our values
and thoughts about the world. We observe the way our parents demonstrate
love, deal with conflicts, and cope with life’s challenges.

For example, if Mom was a clean freak, we absorb that value, or if Dad
drank at the end of a hard day, we take on the thought that this is how to
cope with stress. In the unique setting of the home environment, we not only
learn our values, habits, and behaviors, we develop our thoughts and beliefs.

Then, as we move through our own life experiences, when we encounter

hurts, sufferings, and failures, such as job loss, heartaches, significant
injuries, bullying, grief, loss, and disappointments, we internalize and
personalize these experiences, and often develop negative thoughts which
lead to self-depreciation, feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness, and
negative thoughts about our abilities, relationships, the world, and
opportunities.

Persistent negative thoughts like:

• Men are
• Women are
• Children are
• My family is
• Relationships are
• I’m not good enough
• I’m ugly
• I’m a failure
• I will never amount to anything
• I am not worthy of love
• I’m stupid
• I’m incapable
• I’m unlucky
• I cannot change
• Everybody else has it better than me
• I’m a fraud, an impostor

A very common negative thought is, ‘I am undeserving of money, happiness,

a relationship, success. These negative thoughts are what we’re looking at
here. Dig deep. Think about your negative thoughts. How are you self-
depreciative?
LEG #3: MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS
So far, we’ve talked about physical symptoms and the negative thoughts
racing in our heads. Finally, we are going to examine how this plays out on a
day-to-day basis through unhealthy, maladaptive behaviors and habits.
Maladaptive behaviors include:

• eating too much

• eating too little
• sleeping too much or too little
• relying on alcohol and drugs to numb physical symptoms or escape
negative thoughts
• avoiding relationships or staying in a negative relationship
• not communicating our needs
• angry outbursts
• avoiding confrontation
• self-sabotage
• people pleasing
• not setting boundaries
• staying in a job we don’t like
• avoiding career advancement
• poor self-care
• procrastination
• neglecting health
• self-harm
• insensitive and impulsive behaviors
• cheating on a partner
• dropping out of school
• poor financial management
• poor decision-making
• inflicting or tolerating abuse
• poor hygiene
• not getting the medical treatment one needs

And the list goes on …

I know that these lists are overwhelming … and that we walk around with
these symptoms affecting us day after day. But the good news is that by
identifying our symptoms in these three categories we can begin to address
them. We can use the three-legged table to gain insight into and awareness of
the connections between our problems and our physical symptoms, negative
thoughts, and maladaptive behaviors. It’s time to put your problems on the
table and address them. Let’s get to it.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you will explore your physical
symptoms, negative thoughts, and maladaptive behaviors.
THE GOOD NEWS

Here’s the good news: when you’ve identified your physical symptoms,
negative thoughts, and unhealthy behaviors, you can then begin to address
specific symptoms in a manageable way. From there, you can begin to set
goals. (A goal is simply where you would like to be in your life.) You can
then begin to take small, achievable actions, steps forward from where you
are to where you want to be. In the exercise at the end of this chapter, we
will focus on creating goals and the steps you can take to create incremental,
positive changes.
SUPPORTING CHANGE
Let’s look at some of the therapies and actions you can take that will support
change for your betterment.
PHYSICAL
First, if you’re experiencing physical symptoms, healthy symptom-
management possibilities include medication, exercise, and other self-care
routines and meditation practices.

Depending on your symptoms, you could find medications that will alleviate
the intensity of your troublesome physical symptoms. Medication throws a
blanket over your symptoms to lessen their intensity, and it also has a
reparative function when used in combination with therapeutic treatments.
Medication alone breaks one leg of our table. Alone, it is never enough to
effect significant change.

Meditation allows us to sit with uncomfortable sensations rather than

avoiding or distracting ourselves from them. In meditation, we focus on our
breath and remaining in the present moment. Your breath is the only thing
that takes place from moment to moment. Physical exercise, such as yoga,
walking, cardio, weight training, and even simple breathing exercises, just
like meditation, enables us to focus on the present moment and offers
physical benefits, replenishment, calmness, and renewal.
COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS
Let’s look at what we can do about our cognitive distortions, better known as
persistent negative thoughts. We all struggle with negative thoughts, that is
to say persistent, harmful ways of seeing ourselves and our prospects.
Remember, we all grow up in unique families and live through life events
that can negatively shape our worldview, self-image, and self-esteem.
Identifying these negative thoughts is the first step towards creating positive
change in our lives.

Negative automatic thoughts, such as: I’m not good enough, I’m not capable,
I can’t handle this, I’m a failure, I am weak, or I’m not smart enough, over
time can wreak havoc in our lives. Remember, what we focus on expands
and begins to feel true. Twisted thinking and overgeneralizations, such as:
Everybody else has it easier than me; sweeping negative generalizations
about our prospects, such as: Nothing ever goes my way, I never make a
good first impression, or I’ll never attract a good partner; and cognitive
distortions, such as: I’m a total mess, I never get the recognition I deserve,
Life’s just too hard, People always leave me for someone better, smarter, or
better looking, hold us back from taking the chances and making the
connections that can lead to success, fulfillment, and happiness. When we
are children, our innocence leads us to strive and believe we can have it all.
We acquire negativity through modeled behaviors, hardships, or
personalizing life’s challenges.
IT IS NOT WRITTEN IN STONE
Your negative thoughts are not written in stone. The automatic negative
thoughts, twisted thinking, and cognitive distortions that cycle through your
head are of your own creation. You choose to hold onto them and reinforce
them. But you have power over them, and you can replace them with more
positive thoughts that better serve you. What you put out there, you will
manifest. Think about your pervasive, limiting negative thoughts. Identify
those that trouble you and hold you back, thoughts that you would like to
change. Make sure that what you’re putting out into the world is what you
want to manifest, not what you fear or dread.

As an experiment, think of times you feel good about yourself. That feeling
is like a pebble you throw in the water; the ripple effect makes people
gravitate towards you. On an off day, the opposite happens.

While we often feel overwhelmed by our negative thoughts, behaviors, and

physical symptoms, there are plenty of things that we can do to help support
the change we wish to manifest in our lives. There are things we’re all aware
of, such as starting or increasing an exercise regimen, confiding in a
supportive friend, colleague, or family member, sleeping and eating well,
socializing and seeking mutual support through a buddy system, making
healthier choices, introducing self-care into your life, seeking out ways to
get involved in your community, or seeking medical or psychological
counseling. All are worth exploring.

I would like to share with you a few words about creating change. We don’t
live in isolation, and any change we begin to make is going to impact other
people in our lives, like the ripple effect when you throw a pebble into the
water. From some aspects of your life, you will find help, including friends,
a supportive employer, access to resources, perhaps the fortuitous timing of
events — such as a gym opening in your neighborhood just as you resolve to
finally commit to an exercise routine — and your own degree of motivation.

Likewise, among friends, family members, and colleagues, we are likely to

find saboteurs, including non-supportive individuals who are threatened by
change, overwhelming and conflicting work, family, and social obligations,
lack of available resources, discouragement after small set-backs, self-
sabotaging settings, situations, and individuals, and lack of peer support.
Take charge of the energy in your space and surroundings. Stay close to
supportive people who are aligned with your positivity and goals of
betterment.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be asked to list some of
the obstacles you anticipate.

It’s important to take a good look at the people in your life, and the
environments where you work, live, and play. Where do you anticipate
running into difficulties while making the changes you want to make? Who
and where in your life will you find support as you move toward your goal?
Explore!

Take the time to work through the exercise at the end of this chapter. As you
move into creating change in your life, remember that change is a process
with challenges and rewards. Allow yourself time, patience, and compassion
to work toward your goal. Reinforcement strengthens our determination and
commitment. Revisit this chapter from time to time and review the
challenges and goals that you identified and set for yourself in the course of
completing this exercise. Ask yourself how much closer to your goal are you
today than when you began. What are the next steps that will take you closer
to your goal? Revisit this chapter to reinforce your commitment to change,
reset your goals and strategies, and put any new problems you are facing on
the table.

I regularly have mini meetings with me, a date with myself, for my
betterment, over tea on my balcony. I explore where I am, the obstacles to
my growth, and what new steps I want to take toward my goals of
betterment.

Nobody can go back and start over from the beginning, but you can start
today to make a new ending. By changing nothing, nothing changes. A year
from now, you’ll be glad you started today. Let’s start!
EXERCISE

What are the main problems in your life? Take your time to honestly explore
the areas in your life where you are suffering or struggling.
Think about the problems that are currently troubling you. List them. Dive
deep into yourself. Be honest and commit to this task. Identify what is truly
troubling you. Take as much time as you need.
Are you experiencing troubling psychological/physical symptoms? If so, list
them.

Think about your negative thoughts. List them.

Think about your unhealthy habits or troubling behaviors. List them.

Once you have identified your problems, symptoms, negative thoughts, and
maladaptive habits and behaviors, you will start to recognize the
interrelationships at play.

Further, you can begin challenging your negative thoughts and change the
harmful patterns and behaviors at play in your life. Your symptoms can feel
overwhelming, but by sorting them into categories, you can see them and set
incremental goals to treat each one.

You don’t need to cure yourself, just focus on taking baby steps toward
change to help move you in the right direction: health, healing, and
betterment for your overall quality of life.
 CHAPTER 2

YOUR IDEAL SELF

In Chapter 1, we explored our problems, which led to physical symptoms,

and examined how our negative thoughts and maladaptive behaviors
manifest in our lives. We have begun a process of changing our lives for the
better. In this chapter, we explore the ideal you. Everything is a process, and
we are beginning to understand that by dealing with our symptoms, we can
learn to make better decisions and live a healthier life.

We live in a fast-paced, demanding world and we are expected to hang in

there, stay strong, and carry on. We sometimes get stuck in patterns and deal
with our symptoms as best we can, day in and day out. But how do we know
when our symptoms are a big deal?

Here’s the answer to this daunting question: our symptoms are a big deal
when they cause suffering, impede functioning on a day-to-day basis, and
prevent us from living a fuller and better quality of life.

Anything that hinders your daily life, and negatively impacts your life tasks,
such as work, interpersonal relationships, and your spirituality is a big deal.
If you’re experiencing irritability, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, or
dealing with an addiction to shopping, food, alcohol, or drugs, your
symptoms are a big deal. But nothing is static. We’re always shifting and
changing, so let’s shift with health in mind.

We all have life tasks, including work, school, family life, social life,
intimacy, self-care, and spirituality (by which I mean connecting with our
spirit, or our ‘self,’ liking our own company, being at peace with our own
mind). At times we can become stuck in maladaptive thoughts or behaviors,
and find ourselves at a loss as to how to find our way out.
WAVING THE MAGIC WAND
When getting to know clients in my private practice, I ask them to imagine
that I could wave a magic wand and take away all of their problems. Then, I
ask them to imagine life with their problems magically obliterated. We
explore where they are and where they want to be. In the gap lie their
problematic symptoms (physical symptoms, negative thoughts, and
maladaptive, unhealthy behaviors). How would they describe where they’d
want to go in life? Who would they like to be? What would they like to be
doing?

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be tapping into your
deepest desires and imagining the ideal you.

What may on the surface appear to be a fanciful exercise is a valuable, life-

changing assignment. Defining where you want to go is essentially goal
setting … and setting goals plants the seeds for positive, meaningful
changes. If I could wave a magic wand and take away all of your problems,
what would your life look like?

I am going to ask you to dream big and describe your ideal life in many
areas. Where would you like to be? What would it look like? How would
you feel? Take your time with this. Write it all down and enjoy the process!
Here are your categories: work/school, social, family, intimacy, self-care,
hobbies and interests, health (physical and mental), spirituality, money,
confidence, and boundaries.

Defining where you want to go in life shines a spotlight on the gap between
where you are and where you want to be, and gives you a start and an
endpoint to help you set a course to close that gap.

The next exercise will help illuminate how your symptoms could be
holding you back from getting where you want to go.

You will be taking stock of where you are now and noting the gap between
your current reality and your ideal self. Be as honest as you can with
yourself. The more realistically you capture your current circumstances, the
better you will be able to identify the gaps between where you are and where
you want to be in various aspects of your life. As we move into the next step,
you’ll find there’s gold in your gaps.

Next, compare your ideal with your current life, and choose one area of your
life in which you would like to start to affect healthy, positive change today,
and move closer toward your ideal. Choose one area of your life in which
you wish to commit to implementing healthy change.
HARD BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE
Change is hard — but it is not impossible. The good news here is that you
know four important things that you didn’t know before you began this
lesson: where you are, where you want to be, the symptoms you need to
alleviate, and the changes you have to make in your life to take you where
you want to go.

To make the changes you are committed to making, you may find that you
need help. If you’d like to improve your health and physical fitness, you may
want to join a gym, a running group, or sign up for a yoga class. Before
doing any of that, you may wish to visit your family doctor or consult a
nutritionist. If you’re looking to improve your finances, you may wish to talk
to a financial adviser or your bank manager. If you’d like to work on
improving relationships within your family, you may want to seek one-on-
one or family counseling. Or, if you’re looking to build self-confidence to
advance your career, you may look for a professional advisor who can assist
you in building the image, social skills, and confidence you require. You
need to focus on things in order to better them because they won’t shift and
resolve on their own. We do the best with what we have and what we know.
Learning from others helps us know more. Make a list of the people,
resources, and professional supports that can help you begin to make
changes in the areas of your life you are ready to work on.

When it comes to creating change in our lives, two major factors come into
play: your faith in yourself and your ability to make a change, and your fear
of the unknown, of possible failure, of obstacles you think you have, or lack
of confidence in your ability to commit to change or to succeed. Here’s a
motivational thought to help sustain you as you work toward your goal:
Make your faith bigger than your fear. Faith is belief in yourself and your
skillset, and fear is self-doubt.

As you move into creating change in your life, keep in mind that change is a
process that is both challenging and rewarding. Allow yourself time and
patience to work toward your ideal life. Remember, as you move away from
the thoughts and behaviors that no longer serve you, you may be afraid of
what lies ahead … but that’s okay. Your faith in yourself will carry you
through the tough moments. Remember: Make your faith bigger than your
fear. Most of us have self-esteem struggles, but we can learn to parent and
nurture ourselves. We can treat ourself with compassion and love, and take
steps toward the life we deserve. Return to this chapter — and your notes —
from time to time. Revisit the goals and strategies that you laid out for
yourself here today. See how much closer to your goal you are today than
when you began. Use these resources to connect to and reinforce your
commitment to change, and to reset your goals and strategies.

EXERCISE

If you could wave a magic wand and take away all of your problems, what
would your life look like? Describe your ideal life in the following areas.
Where would you like to be? What would it look like? How would you feel?
The future is imagination. Imagine manifesting the best version of your life
… the life you dream of for yourself. Don’t think of obstacles or whether or
not it is possible. What would your ideal life be like if you could manifest it
now?

WORK/CAREER/SCHOOL:
SOCIAL/FAMILY:

INTIMACY:
SELF-CARE/INTERESTS:

SPIRITUALITY/ENJOYING MY OWN COMPANY:

MONEY:

CONFIDENCE:
BOUNDARIES:

Describe your current life in the same areas.

Defining where you want to go in life illuminates the gap between where
you are and where you want to be, and provides both the start and the
endpoint to help you set a course to close that gap. (This exercise helps
illuminate the factors that could be holding you back from getting where you
want to go.)

WORK/CAREER/SCHOOL:

SOCIAL/FAMILY:
INTIMACY:

SELF-CARE/INTERESTS:
SPIRITUALITY/ENJOYING MY OWN COMPANY:

MONEY:
CONFIDENCE:

BOUNDARIES:
Now, you can begin to set a course to close the gap between your current self
and where you ideally want to be. Make a list of changes that you can start
to make — right now — to move toward becoming your ‘ideal’ self. Don’t
let yourself become overwhelmed; take baby steps.
 CHAPTER 3

UNDERSTANDING STRESS &

INTEGRATING SELF-CARE

Stress: it’s something we all have, and something we all struggle with in
some capacity. It’s an unavoidable part of life. And we could all benefit from
strategies to cope with it. In this chapter, we’re going to examine our stress.
We’ll talk about exactly what stress is and learn life-changing strategies to
help deal with it.

Stress is the result of our activity level surpassing our energy level. When
this happens, we have two options: we can decrease our activity level —
mental or physical activity, and the responsibilities we take on — or we can
increase our energy. Option one — decreasing our activity level — is often
not an option. After all, life comes with responsibilities and activities we
need to fulfill for survival. We have to go to work, and we have things we
need to do to sustain life for ourselves and our families. Option two —
raising our energy level — makes more sense, and we can take charge of this
area.

There are four sources of energy: food/nourishment, sleep/rest, exercise and

breathing, and actively maintaining a calm state of mind (addressing our
problems rather than avoiding them). Often, we don’t realize how depleted
we are feeling, and how much all we take on and carry drains our energy.
Take a moment to think about situations in your life that stress you out. What
springs to mind?
COPING WITH STRESS
Once you’ve identified your sources of stress, you’ll quickly surmise that
while you may be able to eliminate some stressors, most of your
responsibilities are not going to go away any time soon. The way to cope
with stressors in life is to increase our energy. How do we do that? Let’s look
closer at our energy sources.
NOURISHMENT AND THE FOOD WE EAT
Number one is the food we eat. We often eat food to fill our bellies, but we
don’t necessarily choose quality foods that provide energy and nourishment.
Instead, we reach for overly processed foods that spike our insulin levels, or
stimulants, such as caffeine-laden coffee or chocolate or other sugary treats
that give us a little boost. We often choose carb-heavy comfort foods that
make us sluggish over nutrient-rich foods that give us the energy we need to
get through a stressful day.

When making choices, it is important to consider the foods we eat as a

source of energy. Ask yourself:

• Am I eating foods that will give me the energy level I need?

• Will what I am about to eat sustain my energy level throughout the day?
• Am I eating food just to fill my belly?
• Do I rely on caffeine and sugar to keep me running when I’m sluggish or
sleepy?
SLEEP/REST
Speaking of sleep, it’s our second source of energy. Often, without realizing
it, we deprive ourselves of quality sleep. When it comes to raising our
energy levels, sleep is a big deal. Why? Because sleep gives us rejuvenation.
Quality sleep is crucial in helping to raise our energy levels to sustain our
day-to-day activities. It’s when we rejuvenate, replenish, and repair our
bodies after the wear and tear of the day. When we sleep, we move through
cycles of light and deep sleep. In deep sleep, called REM (rapid eye
movement), we repair our central nervous system and muscles. And when
we’re sick, sleep helps rebuild and recharge our immune systems. That’s
why we need to sleep more than usual when we have a cold or the flu or
other infections, or when we need to heal.

Through poor sleep hygiene, we deprive ourselves of much-needed sleep.

Eating just before bed, for example, stimulates the metabolism which, in
turn, keeps us awake. Exercising before bed also raises our energy levels and
gets in the way of sleep. And these days a growing source of poor sleep
hygiene is technology. Though it may feel relaxing, binge-watching movies
or TV shows on our laptops or phones, or scrolling through Facebook and
other social media just before closing our eyes stimulates our minds and can
keep us awake into the wee hours rather than helping us wind down and fall
asleep peacefully.

We go, go, go throughout the day. Then, overworked, overstressed, and

overstimulated by our electronic devices, we jump into bed hoping to sleep.
How does that work? We need to realize that, especially when our day has
been super active, we need to define a period of time before we go to bed
where we wind down and arrive at a place of calmness, ready for rest,
relaxation, and deep, quality sleep.

Winding down before bed allows you to empty your mind, calm down, and
relax your body. Turn off the lights and prepare for quality sleep. No TV,
reading, or catching up on social media. Your bedroom is really for two
things: intimate recreational activities and sleep.
You should not be reading books. You should not be watching TV. You
should not be on your phone. You should not be worrying about the next day.
In bed, if you don’t have intimacy going on, you should be asleep. If you are
not asleep within 5 or 10 minutes of going to bed, you should get out of bed
and go to another room. Allow yourself to become drowsy, then go back to
bed. Look at your quality of rest as a means to calm your mind and recharge
your body’s energy level for the day ahead. Many people say that in bed,
their minds race with worries. A useful exercise before bedtime is to grab a
notepad and create a worry log. Just dump from your head onto the paper all
your worries. Place it aside and say you will address these matters in the
morning, then plant an intention to allow yourself to rest and renew with a
clear mind to be awake and refreshed to face a new day.
BREATH
Our third source of energy is exercise and breathing. One reason we feel so
great after a workout is because exercise forces us to take full, deep body
breaths. Throughout the day, especially when we’re under stress, we’re
running around, taking short and shallow breaths, no deeper than chest level.
This is an unhealthy breathing pattern as the resulting lack of oxygen to the
muscles prevents us from feeling our best.

When we breathe deeply, bringing our breath down to our belly, we are
relaxing and rejuvenating. When we do cardio, Pilates, or yoga, or go for a
brisk walk or run, we are forcing our bodies to counter the stress response of
short and shallow breaths. We’re literally going deeper, breathing more
deeply. These deep breaths restore and rejuvenate every muscle in the body
and calm the mind. But we don’t need exercise to breathe a little deeper.
Thoughtfully, from time to time throughout your day, take a moment and pay
attention to your breath. Breathe deeply. You will feel your stress level lower
immediately.
STATE OF MIND
This brings us to the fourth and final source of energy: a calm state of mind.
But how do we get there? Doesn’t just hearing someone tell you to calm
down stress you out? One of the goals of A Deeper Wellness is to help you
clean up your life and foster a calm state of mind by addressing issues,
dealing with past hurts or disappointments, and looking at life in new ways
to help deal with situations, feelings, and challenges that are problematic in
your life. Am I paying my taxes on time? Am I dealing with relationship
struggles? Am I doing okay at work? Am I taking care of myself?

Just as exercise and breathing calm the mind, so too does meditation.
Spending some time with yourself engaging in an activity can lead you to a
calm state of mind. When you spend time with yourself, alone with your
thoughts, what comes up? Are you worried about things? Are you stressed
out? Do you ruminate, imagining worst-case scenarios? Or are you feeling at
peace? Can you plant a seed of hope for good in your own life and the
world? It’s important to prioritize yourself and begin to introduce self-care
that allows you to feel calm and at peace in your daily life.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT GUILT

A few words about something that can be a major source of stress in our
lives: guilt. Out of guilt, we often put others ahead of ourselves. Next time
you’re feeling guilty, take a minute to examine your guilt. Ask yourself:
What do I want, as opposed to what other people want of me? Am I putting
someone else’s needs before my own? When we choose to do so, it’s okay.
But when you don’t want to and push yourself to make others happy at your
expense, it becomes a problem you need to address. It’s poor self-care and
self-love.

Putting other people ahead of yourself is not good self-care. We are born
alone, and we die alone. We’re also born into a world, and into a family. But
your journey is your own, a self-revolution; it’s about you learning how to be
your highest and best self. Everyone is learning and sometimes we handicap
others’ growth by giving in to guilt. Then you become a part of their problem
of lack of growth.

Guilt is a signal that there’s a conflict between what you want for yourself
and what others want from you. The goal is to put yourself first. Ask
yourself: Am I prioritizing my needs and goals? Are there situations or
people in my life that often leave me feeling guilty?
AN ENERGY AUDIT
Explore the four sources of energy in your life and where you are — and are
not — prioritizing yourself and practicing good self-care. This information
will give you a snapshot of your current energy-enhancing habits and
routines — aspects of your life that impact your sources of energy — right
now.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you will explore your sources
of energy, and the changes you can make to improve your energy levels
and support your best life.

Are your food habits good, fair, or problematic? Do they need some
attention? Do alcohol, drugs, or other substance habits negatively impact
your energy level and/or quality of life?

Examine the quality of your sleep. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you
prioritizing it? Do you struggle with serious insomnia or other sleep issues
that should be addressed? A family doctor can arrange a sleep study to
determine if there is a problem that can be addressed medically.

Look at your exercise regimens and breathing habits. Are you getting some
exercise every day? Are you paying attention to your breath, or rushing
around throughout the day stressed, taking short, shallow breaths?

What is your state of mind? Are you addressing things from the past that
bother you? Are you forgiving people; are you forgiving yourself? Do you
have compassion for how heavy your life can sometimes feel?

Take a look at the role of guilt in your life. Are you prioritizing what you
want for yourself over what others want from you? Are you able to refuse a
request from someone who wants something from you that you do not want
to give?

Do you often give in to the demands of others to your detriment? Many of us

become co-dependent when we derive our value from taking care of others
or take on roles as people-pleasers to be liked by others. Explore your
patterns.
MORE ABOUT GUILT
I’d like to share a few more insights about guilt. Remember, when it comes
to guilt, ask yourself whether you are putting the needs of others ahead of
your own. If you are, it’s not only detrimental to you, it’s also detrimental to
the person you’re giving in to. Here’s why: every time you put the needs of
another person ahead of yourself you prevent that person from learning
lessons. Give in to guilt, and you not only put yourself on the back burner,
which is just poor self-care, you also negatively impact the other person in
the situation. No one wins.

Here’s an example: I want to wear a black shirt to the family Holiday party. I
put on the black shirt — no problem. But then my mother comes around and
says, “Hey, I bought you this beautiful white shirt, and I’d like you to wear it
tonight.” I decline and tell her I prefer what I’ve chosen. She responds:
“Please … for me?” Is it such a big deal to make your mother happy?”
Suddenly, out of the blue, there’s conflict. Guilt shows up. If I cave in and
wear the white shirt, I sacrifice what I want for myself. But if I follow what I
want, I feel petty, and disappoint my mother by doing what I want rather
than what she wants of me.

It might not be a big deal to change my shirt. But my mother needs to realize
that I am a grown adult, and I should be allowed to make my own choices.
Every time I give in to even the smallest request, I prevent her from realizing
that her child is an adult and entitled to her own opinion: she doesn’t get the
opportunity to let go a little and see me as an adult rather than a child. On
my end, every time I sacrifice myself, I disappoint myself. This leads to
feelings of unhappiness, sadness, discontent, and anger toward somebody
else for wanting something different for me than I want for myself.
EXAMINING GUILT
Think about a situation in your life where you feel guilty, perhaps a recurring
situation with a specific person, something that troubles you, something you
would like to change. When you give in to what the other person in this
situation wants, what is this person failing to learn? How do you feel? Now,
imagine standing up for what you want in this guilt-inducing scenario.
Consider standing your ground the next time this situation presents itself and
loving yourself enough to live your life for yourself.

At the end of this chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to examine a recurring

source of guilt in your life and develop a strategy to deal with it for your
own benefit, and for the benefit of the person who wants something of you
that you do not wish to give.
CONSIDER MEDITATION
There’s a very powerful way to gain control and calm our minds when we’re
feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or exhausted: meditate. You may already be
familiar with the practice of meditation, but I want you to be aware that you
can use various meditation practices throughout your day. Different types of
meditation allow you to connect to the present moment completely. If you’re
new to meditation, explore the various types of meditation out there, and
pick the style or styles that align with your character, personality, and
lifestyle.

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. You have lots to think about and do to
create self-care routines that raise your energy levels and reduce stress in
your life. Before we conclude, take a minute to review and reflect on the
new insights you have gained. Remember, as you begin to create change in
your life, change is a process with both challenges and rewards. Allow
yourself time, patience, and compassion to work toward your goals.

Revisit this chapter and your notes from time to time. Review the insights
and strategies you’ve discovered. These notes can help you reinforce your
commitment to yourself, work through any obstacles you are facing, and
create new goals and strategies. Finally, remember that nobody can go back
and start over at the beginning, but you can start today and make a new
ending. Start where you’re at. Let’s do this!

EXERCISE

With a snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses in your day-to-day self-

care, you can begin to look at ways to raise your energy levels to help you
deal with your stress. Set goals. These goals will guide you to take steps
forward and begin to shift from where you are to where you want to be. The
focus here is on incremental, positive change.

ENERGY:
There are four sources of energy: food, sleep, exercise and breathing, and
state of mind. List areas where you could make improvements to build your
energy levels:

FOOD/NOURISHMENT:

SLEEP/REST:
EXERCISE AND BREATHING:

A CALM STATE OF MIND:

Examine your guilt. Think of a recurring scenario in your life that causes
you guilt. Examine the dynamics of this situation. Think about the gap
between what you want and what someone else wants of you. Think of how
you could handle this situation differently the next time it shows up in your
life.
Set goals to raise your energy levels and introduce better self-care into your
daily life.
 CHAPTER 4

IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS

Our thoughts are powerful. One thought at a time, our thoughts — both
positive and negative — shape our lives. Positive thinking propels us
forward, while negative thinking feeds our fears and self-doubts, and holds
us back from attaining personal growth, happiness, and success. Conquering
fear and self-doubt are all about replacing negative thoughts with positive
ones.

In this chapter, we’re going to examine our negative thoughts. We need to

understand that life is a series of experiences. We tend to judge or label our
experiences as positive or negative. The reason we judge an experience as
negative is that we perceive it as something that has somehow
inconvenienced us.

The same experience could be judged as positive or negative depending on

your circumstances and state of mind. Here’s an example: my kid comes to
me and says: “Mommy, Mommy, I heard the boogieman walking around
upstairs. Please come upstairs so I can change into my pjs.” If my day is
running smoothly, and we’re having a good time, and I’m rested and not
pressed for time, I might say: “Sure, let’s go chase him off.” The situation is
positive. My kid’s kind of cute, and I’m happy to go upstairs and chase down
the boogieman.

But if I’m under the gun, if I also have to cook dinner, clean the house, and
supervise my kid’s homework, the boogieman situation is not cute at all. It
just makes me irritated and frustrated. It is inconvenient for me to stop
making dinner and go upstairs to look for the boogieman. This time, I label
the boogieman experience as negative, not just a lighthearted thing to deal
with.
Remember, life is a series of experiences that, depending on our
circumstances and state of mind, we label as positive or negative. Often we
fail to realize that our negative experiences — meaning those that we judge
as negative — are the ones that help us change. That’s right — our negative
experiences act as a catalyst for change, to help us be a better, higher version
of ourselves, or help us learn a new skillset that is beneficial for our lives.
THOUGHTS AND PERCEPTIONS
Throughout our lives, we constantly accumulate thoughts and perceptions.
Some are the result of our upbringing, some from our life experiences, others
from societal influences, such as our culture, the economy, our parents, our
grandparents, our peer groups, mass media, and social media. Nothing is
static. As we age, we develop new skills, have new experiences, enter new
phases in life, and we shift our states and perceptions.

We need to start to examine and challenge our thoughts rather than digest
every entrenched thought as if it were an indisputable truth written in stone.
Here’s a visual representation to help us understand where thoughts come
from and help us look at and challenge our ingrained thoughts.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll explore your automatic
thoughts, core beliefs, and other negative thoughts at play in your life.

We are our thoughts. Our thoughts are like trees. Deep in our roots, we hold
core beliefs: blueprints that come from early childhood experiences, often
before the age of 10. Core beliefs are simply deeply seated thoughts about
ourselves that we acquire in childhood. We often hold onto these beliefs as
irrefutable facts. Many times, these thoughts come with intense emotion or
affect, for example, being scolded (emotional sadness), falling (physical
pain), or bullying (intense self-doubt).

The reality of our core beliefs is that they are not necessarily true; they arise
from childhood experiences, from the eyes of a child. Here’s an example:
here I am, 6 years old, wrapping a present. I do pretty well but make a mess
of one of the corners. My father snatches the present away and says: “You
don’t do anything right.” He rewraps it. An objective person might question
my father’s need to rewrap his six-year-old daughter’s present. But as that
six-year-old child, here’s what I internalize at that moment: I don’t do
anything right!

As a grown woman, with a wall of degrees, I know I do a lot of things right.

However, from time to time, in the different roles I play, friend, partner,
sister, colleague, professional, something happens to trigger negative
thoughts that make me feel like I never do anything right. Back to that tree.

Rising up from the roots, our tree is growing, sprouting branches. Each
branch of our tree represents a different role we undertake in our lives. The
branches sprout leaves. Each leaf is marked as positive or negative, and
these we label as automatic thoughts. As we jump around from branch to
branch, we run into these automatic thoughts, both positive and negative.
Automatic thoughts are the thoughts that jump around in our monkey brain
untethered. They can affect our mood, cause physical symptoms, and change
the course of our actions by leading us to insecurities and lost opportunities.

We have no problem with the positive thoughts, but negative ones are a
whole different story.

For example, my mother says to me: “You forgot my birthday.” Or a friend

says, “Every time I call you, you’re never there!” Or I make dinner and my
partner says: “There’s too much salt in this dish.” At work, I miss a deadline.
Guess what automatic thought gets activated from my core beliefs: I never
do anything right. That’s right. So not true in my head, but it feels so true
that I give it more power every time it pops up.

Our automatic thoughts trigger deep core beliefs about ourselves, beliefs that
we hold onto about ourselves, the world, men, women, money,
responsibilities … beliefs that are not necessarily true, but with which we
have strong emotional ties. That’s one way to frame these deep-seated
beliefs about ourselves: automatic thoughts and core beliefs.

As a therapist, I do a lot of work with clients to clean up their automatic

thoughts. Here’s the good news: when we challenge our automatic thoughts,
those core beliefs automatically begin to hold less and less value and can
even be revised into healthier, adaptive, positive thoughts.

Think about the negative automatic thoughts and core beliefs that you hold.
Begin to challenge their veracity.
SCHEMAS
Let’s talk about schemas. Schemas are maps of information we operate from
in our heads. Every time we learn something new, from childhood onwards,
we create a schema of it. These maps are useful in helping us navigate the
world and deal with the sorting of massive amounts of information.

For example, Lucy starts a new job. On her first day, as she drives to work,
she pays attention to the road, the street names, landmarks, and where she
turns left and right. She takes care not to make a wrong turn as she makes
her way. But once she’s driven that route for a week or two, it becomes
automatic. By now, weeks later, she’s eating breakfast in the car, doing her
makeup, talking to friends, singing along to the song on the radio. She no
longer needs to pay close attention, because she’s operating by using a
helpful, positive, and very useful schema. Lucy is running on automatic
pilot.

But schemas can also have a downside. An example: the first time Lucy
makes dinner reservations for a party of friends, she picks a restaurant,
makes a call, and requests a table on the date for the number of people who
will be coming for dinner. On the evening of her get-together, she arrives at
the restaurant, and requests a table, using her name to let them know she has
a reservation. Her party is seated, and they enjoy a pleasant evening. Great
schema!

But then, after making restaurant reservations for years, one day, Lucy’s on
automatic pilot. She makes dinner reservations as usual. But this time, when
she shows up with her friends, the restaurant has no record of her
reservation! She panics. Her panic situation creates a new schema, a new
map in her head, which includes the warning: Oh my God, what if the
reservation gets lost! It triggers the feeling of a loss of control, which brings
on anxiety and activates Lucy’s anxiety schema. With it come heart
palpitations, sweating palms, and racing negative thoughts. Lucy freezes.
She panics and feels a loss of control.
Back to the dilemma of the lost reservation. As her symptoms emerge, Lucy
thinks of Plan B: what are the other restaurants in the area? She brings up the
maps in her head of the neighborhood and nearby restaurants and remembers
a pub across the street and a restaurant a few doors down. Your schemas are
not Google! They don’t have access to everything available. They activate
what your knowledge set knows.

Then she thinks of Plan C: What’s in my fridge? Maybe I could cook these
people dinner? Then there’s Plan D: Forget it and send everyone home.
Since that’s no good, Lucy reverts to Plan B. She picks a restaurant just
across the street. Her group gets a table and ends up having a wonderful
evening.

All’s well that ends well, right? Not exactly, because Lucy wakes up the
morning after the reservation debacle with emotional debris. Emotional
memory of a stressful or unpleasant event is stressful. Confidence in her
tried and true restaurant reservation schema has been shattered. The next
time she makes dinner reservations, there’s a little creeping voice in the back
of her mind: What if this new restaurant also misses my dinner reservation?
What do I do? Lucy develops safety behaviors, things to do that prevent
potentially bad things from happening. This type of behavior stems from
emotional debris: emotional memories from difficult periods in our life.

Back to Lucy’s now fraught task of making a dinner reservation. This time,
when she makes dinner reservations, she adds a few new steps to the ones
she already knows. Before she shows up for her reservation, she calls several
times to confirm that her reservation is in their book. And just to be safe, she
makes a couple of backup reservations at a nearby restaurant and the pub
across the street, just in case.

I’ve used a fairly simple example to show how schemas are created and can
impact our lives. Here’s why we have to pay attention to how schemas
develop and play out: when we experience traumas, difficulties, or abuse, we
create a map of what relationships look like, what people look like, what
men are, what women are, what jobs look like, our communication styles,
what our insecurities are, how people treat us, and so on.
We have maps, or schemas, in our heads about every area of our life. Until
we record over them, retrace or revisit our maps, we are bound to repeat
them. It’s why we talk sometimes about turning into our parents. Our parents
are our first source of maps about men, women, relationships, love, handling
conflict, communication, anger, assertiveness, perfectionism, restlessness,
values about religion or spirituality, values about work and relationships, and
love. Think about the negative experiences in your life that have created
emotional debris that led you to develop safety behaviors, ways of avoiding
that same negative outcome.
A THIRD AND FINAL THOUGHT ON THOUGHTS
In this third — and final — aspect of why it’s the thought that counts, let’s
go to a party three times, one scenario, but with three very different thoughts
in our heads. Here’s an example from Mind Over Mood, a CBT workbook
by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky.

Take one: we arrive at a party, and I introduce you to Alex. But rather than
engage with you in conversation, his eyes dart around the room, looking
everywhere but at you. Now, I’m going to give you the thought that runs
through your mind, and you choose the mood you think corresponds with
that thought. Your thought is: Alex is rude. He is insulting me by ignoring
me. Would you feel irritated, sad, nervous, or caring in this scenario? Here,
most people would feel irritated by Alex’s behavior.

Take two: I introduce you to Alex at that same party. Again, he looks
everywhere but at you. This time, you have a different thought: Alex is
uninterested in me. No wonder. I bore everyone. If this were your thought
would you feel irritated, sad, nervous, or caring?

Most people would feel sad or nervous in this situation: Nobody likes me
anyway, why bother talking to anyone? I just want to get out of here. You’re
feeling sad, uninteresting, and uneasy in this social setting.

Take three: Back at the party, I introduce you to Alex, and again, he pays no
attention to you. But this time your thought is: Alex seems uncomfortable.
Maybe he’s shy, anxious, or upset about something. This time, you would
most likely feel caring and compassion for Alex.

One scenario with three very different thoughts after meeting Alex … all that
has changed is the perception, interpretation, or thought about a stranger’s
behavior toward you.

Depending on what thought we pull from thin air, our mood shifts, and so
too do our actions and behaviors. The takeaway from the party scenes we
just witnessed is that each reaction to Alex’s lack of attention was triggered
by a thought in your head. You didn’t ask Alex: “What’s your problem? Why
won’t you look at me?” If you had, he might have said: “I think I have food
poisoning and I need to find a bathroom,” or “I’m anxious because I’m
worried about my friend, who should have been here an hour ago.” People
with mood and anxiety disorders tend to pick either thought one or two from
our party scene. This is because they are both about them. In psychology,
this is what’s known as the ‘spotlight effect.’
THE SPOTLIGHT EFFECT
The spotlight effect is when you walk into a room and feel as though all eyes
are on you. We become self-conscious and nervous about life when we feel
that everyone is noticing everything about us. Here’s the interesting reality:
everyone has a proverbial screen door of self-consciousness and insecurities.
We’re all looking at each other through these screen doors wondering if
everyone is noticing everything we perceive and believe is wrong about us.

The moment we are in a situation where a negative thought arises, we are

not asking for confirmation of our thoughts. We are literally pulling a
thought out of midair, or our own schemas and mindsets, giving it life and
conducting ourselves accordingly … as though that thought were true. But
many times, it is not!
BEYOND THE SCREEN DOOR OF OUR THOUGHTS
We need to learn to look past that screen door of our thoughts — because
just as a screen door lets us see outside, it also diminishes the view, and
keeps us from seeing everything as it is. When we do this, we can look at life
as though everything is possible. And that allows us to go one step deeper
and try to determine the likelihood of any thought being true. Back at that
party, each one of those ‘thoughts’ could have been true. But in real life, we
need to develop the ability to determine the likelihood of a specific thought
being true. We need to learn to start looking at the screen door of our
thoughts. Since everything is possible, we need to explore the probability of
something actually being true.

Again, self-doubt is just a thought. Why are you putting so much value into a
thought that doesn’t serve you, help you grow, and make you a better, higher
version of yourself? In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you will
explore worst-case scenarios and self-doubts.

In this chapter, we’ve explored the importance of challenging your core

beliefs or automatic thoughts, your schemas, and the negative thoughts you
pull from thin air. With this information, and through the exercise included
in this chapter, you will be able to begin to identify situations that trigger
negative thoughts and the behaviors that arise.

To live our highest and best life, we need to challenge our negative thoughts
and make our faith bigger than our fear. To that end, I have created a brief
exercise to help quiet your mind to examine negative thinking, and challenge
the veracity of entrenched negative self-doubts, thoughts, or imagined worst-
case scenarios.

We need to learn how to make our faith bigger than our fear. Here’s what
this means. Fear is self-doubt, not believing your skillset can help you
through something. Faith is the exact opposite: believing in your skillset and
your capabilities. To date, life has presented you with many tough situations,
and you’ve always dealt with them, right? Even if at times you’ve felt that
you didn’t deal with a situation adequately, or in a way you wish you could
have, you dealt with it. We don’t give ourselves the credit we deserve. With
these new insights around seeing where your thoughts come from, explore
your negative beliefs and thoughts about yourself. What are the thoughts that
you hold onto that don’t serve your highest and best self? What thoughts
prevent you from becoming a better version of yourself?

Revisit this chapter and your notes from time to time, anytime you want to
go deeper into a situation where your negative thoughts or core beliefs are
troubling you. Review the challenges and goals that you set for yourself.
What are the next steps that will take you closer to your goal?

Think about it. Our thoughts count because they determine our inner
dialogue and affect our self-esteem. Remember, life is just a series of
experiences. We can face it and say: “Bring it on!” It’s time to move forward
and strive to live life as our strongest and best selves. Remember, it’s always
the thought that counts. We can replace one thought with another.

EXERCISE

By now you’ve gained a whole new understanding of why it’s the thought
that counts, and how negative thoughts can wreak havoc in your life. Take
your time to reflect and answer these questions and set the goal of aligning
your thoughts to who you want to be and what you want to manifest in your
life.

Make a list of any negative automatic thoughts and core beliefs you have
about yourself:

AUTOMATIC THOUGHTS:
CORE BELIEFS:

How do your negative thoughts and self-doubts color your perception of the
world, life, people, and yourself?

We all have schemas, or maps, from our upbringing and our positive and
negative experiences as we move through life: failures, successes, job losses,
relationship breakups, friendships, and more. Take a moment to list the
negative experiences in your life that have created emotional debris that led
you to develop safety behaviors as ways of avoiding that same negative
outcome.

Explore self-doubts and worst-case scenarios. When we are nervous or

anxious or insecure, we overestimate the likelihood of bad things happening
and we end up thinking bad things or worst-case scenarios are very possible.
Explore the evidence about the worst-case scenarios you envision. How
likely are they?

List situations where you find yourself overestimating the possibility of

negative outcomes.

Think about situations in your life where negative core beliefs, schemas, or
negative automatic thoughts negatively impact you.
 CHAPTER 5

UNDERSTANDING THE PURPOSE OF

SUFFERING

We all suffer loss, disappointment, failure, and trauma. We all experience

pain and hurt. It’s part of life. In this chapter, we’re going to talk about the
purpose of suffering in our lives.

In my practice, I work with many patients who are miserable because of the
turmoil, pain, and suffering in their lives. “Why?” they ask, “What is the
purpose of all this suffering?” This question comes up time and time again.
At spiritual talks or retreats, people ask the Dalai Lama and other respected
spiritual leaders the same question: “Why do we suffer?”

Understanding the purpose of suffering is of critical importance because

truly understanding it enables us to regain the power we feel we have lost
when we experience pain and suffering.
A SERIES OF EXPERIENCES
We know from our previous work that life is a series of experiences, and we
judge and label these experiences as positive or negative. In everyone’s life,
there are positives and negatives. For us to appreciate the richness of a good
moment in our lives, we need to have the polar opposite — the negative.

A perfect example is found in the M. Night Shyamalan film, Unbreakable.

As the film begins, security guard David Dunn, played by Bruce Willis, the
sole survivor of a horrific train wreck, walks away miraculously unharmed.
News of his survival catches the attention of Elijah Price (played by Samuel
L. Jackson), a wheelchair-bound comic store owner. He is Dunn’s polar
opposite: fragile and frail, with a rare genetic disorder that causes his bones
to break easily. He is so fragile that turning a doorknob can break his wrist.
Price meets Dunn and they speak of opposites, good versus evil, weak versus
strong. Price says: “If there’s someone like me in the world, and I’m at one
end of the spectrum, couldn’t there be someone else, the opposite of me at
the other end?” In that moment, Dunn, the unbreakable man, realizes that he
is face to face with his polar opposite, the easily breakable Elijah Price.

The message in this story is that we all have opposites in our life. The
difficult times teach us to have gratitude for the good times. We need to
develop a deeper understanding of suffering. Why? Because when we
accurately understand the purpose of suffering, we become better at dealing
with it. The first step to understanding and treatment is awareness, and
awareness comes from recognizing the power of our thoughts. It is through
our thoughts that we can begin to see suffering in a new light.

We all have suffering, pain, sorrow, hurts, painful and devastating break-ups,
job losses, and illnesses. Terrible things can happen: accidents, natural
disasters, traumas, abuse, and losses. Anxiety and depression are some of the
symptoms that come when we encounter pain and suffering.

As we move through suffering, it intensifies, becomes worse and worse. Our

symptoms become more intense. As we suffer, our symptoms get louder and
louder, and more painful. Here, the true purpose of suffering reveals itself:
suffering is a catalyst for change! Suffering propels us to shift and change, to
learn a new skillset, and to move closer to becoming our highest and best
self. We do the best we can with what we have, and suffering propels us to
learn skills to be better versions of ourselves.

If we didn’t feel discomfort or experience suffering and pain in our lives, we

would never change. As suffering comes into our lives, it leads us forward
by being a catalyst for change. It compels us to acquire new skillsets, build
resilience and strength, discover new opportunities, and unearth untapped
potential.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll explore your past hurts,
what you may have personalized from these experiences, and how your
pain has been a catalyst for change in your life.
A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
Here’s an example of suffering as a catalyst for positive change. There’s a
restructuring in management at the company where I have worked diligently,
happily, and successfully for 10 years. My boss is assigned to a new role.
Now I have a new boss and a new role with added responsibilities. I struggle
with this new boss. I am getting more and more work dumped on me. I feel
unappreciated and no longer valued. I begin feeling an inner conflict. I’m
dragging my feet to go to work, experiencing low mood and anxiety, and
feeling upset with my new boss. My symptoms get louder and louder by the
day. They intensify with each negative development and unpleasant
encounter until one day there comes the moment that is the catalyst for
change. I finally say to myself: Enough! I deserve better. I’m going to take
my skillset and go somewhere where I’ll be appreciated.

My suffering has become a catalyst for change that propels me forward to

the place where I am meant to go. I would never have looked for a new job if
it wasn’t for that pain and suffering.

In the aftermath of my suffering, it is important to let go of the emotional

debris, to not carry the suffering of my former situation into the present or
future, into my next job or relationship, for example. Instead, we need to
forgive and release our pain by saying something like: I release or forgive
my difficult boss, as this person came into my life to teach me and help me
see my value and my skillset as valuable and underappreciated. It compelled
me to go elsewhere, to seek and find a better and higher place for me to be
happy and grow.

Let’s look at another not uncommon and often very painful example: the
break-up of a relationship.

Sam is in a romantic relationship. He’s suffering and in pain because he is

feeling unappreciated, unloved, and unvalued. As his symptoms intensify, he
begins to realize what a horrible relationship he is in, and he feels stuck.
He’s sad, angry, and depressed all day every day, and feeling lost and empty.
Sam’s feelings lead him to a place of change. His suffering becomes a
catalyst for change. And his unhappy relationship teaches him to make
himself a priority in his life, to put himself ahead of other people, in short, to
love himself more than he loves the habit of being with someone. Things
shift and change, and we need to allow ourselves to embrace these shifts and
feel capable of dealing with them. We need to begin to believe that change is
good. In retrospect, most often, the fear of change is worse than the change
itself.

We sometimes love other people at the expense of ourselves. But when the
suffering is bad enough, we put ourselves first, and realize that we deserve
better, and leave a bad relationship and move on, because we deserve better.
Moving on is about releasing your pain rather than carrying it with you. It’s
about forgiving or releasing a negative relationship. You can make a
declaration to yourself:

I release (or forgive) this relationship as it caused me a lot of pain and suffering and left me
feeling unappreciated and not feeling the love I deserve. It taught me to walk away from
whatever is not serving me, not making me happy. It also taught me to stand up for myself,
set boundaries, and walk away from someone hurtful in my life. This relationship has taught
me to be a better person and to strive to be my highest and best self.

Once you act on a change, it is important to let go of the emotional memory

of the story of the pain that brought us to that change by understanding that
the pain came to us as a lesson for us to learn and change, and grow into our
highest and best self. In our suffering, we often don’t recognize the need to
change. Instead, we personalize and hold onto the experience. When we do
this, we stay stuck. When we’re stuck, we repeat patterns over and over.

Examine your past hurts and understand your suffering through a new lens.
Think about some of the major pain and sorrows and hurts you’ve
experienced in the past. Reflect on how the pain you suffered acted as a
catalyst for change in your life.

We often don’t recognize the positive changes that suffering brings into our
lives. We personalize — and hold onto — a painful, negative experience,
and stay stuck. Not believing in our skillset to manage or move forward, we
repeat negative patterns over and over. When we don’t have faith in
ourselves, when we don’t believe in ourselves, we repeat patterns. We say:
“I’m too scared,” and stay in that bad relationship or bad job for another five
years … or until that pain and suffering gets louder and louder, to the point
where we realize that we need to change.

Is there a situation in your current life that is causing you pain and suffering?
Is it part of a pattern that is repeating itself?
RESISTING CHANGE
We need to recognize that if a pattern is repeating in our life, we’re resisting
change, and we’re choosing instead to stay stuck in something familiar
rather than taking the chance that there will be something good in the change
that comes forth. Another reason we’re afraid of change harkens back to our
schemas.

Schemas, you’ll recall, are entrenched beliefs and insights about yourself,
others, and how events and situations will play out. Many of our schemas are
formed early in our lives and become automatic. On the plus side, schemas
help us make sense of the world. On the minus, they can limit our thoughts
and prevent us from taking in new information or considering new
possibilities.

For example, many of us were raised to think of change as something to fear

and avoid if at all possible. But change can be beautiful: a new home, a new
baby, a new relationship, a proposal, or a new job or career change with a
raise. There can be wonderful surprises.

We can become afraid of change on an emotional memory front due to

painful experiences, such as a job loss, illness or death of a loved one,
relationship break-ups, abuse, feeling victimized, or living through a trauma
or disaster.

Sometimes we fear change because we link it to negative experiences, such

as money loss, emotional torment, physical suffering, or grief. But the truth
is there are beautiful things that come with change: new relationships,
healthier environments, appreciation, career advancement, challenging
yourself to be a stronger, deeper, better, and more compassionate version of
yourself.

The purpose of suffering is to help us to grow and shift to be our highest and
best self in life. We stop growing if we resist change. When you experience
suffering and pain and you’re not happy where you are, you can take a step
forward to get to a better place. Whether it’s a relationship, a workplace, new
friends, or cutting out old friends, when we are stuck in fear and self-doubt,
we get stuck in maladaptive patterns and stay there longer, and prolong our
suffering.
TIME TO SET A GOAL
When you are in pain, it’s important to recognize that it’s time to set a goal.
Where there is suffering in your life, it forces you to think about where you
would rather be. Your pain is an opportunity for growth and change for your
betterment. Every time something painful shows up in your life, ask
yourself: What is this trying to show me? How am I supposed to grow? What
is it teaching me? What is it forsing me to see that I need to learn in order to
become my highest and best self and have a happier life?

Explore how you can support positive changes in your life. Examine your
suffering. How is it trying to help you change? Ask yourself: What are the
changes trying to bring for my highest and best self? How many things am I
carrying right now that I should be forgiving and letting go? What is the
purpose of holding on? Don’t assume isolated negative events will be never-
ending patterns.

Our purpose in life is to create interest for ourselves. As human beings, we

are propelled to learn, grow and evolve. We learn a lot of lessons and we
make a lot of changes as we go through life. But often we keep a lot of our
most painful stories alive in ourselves by personalizing stories or events that
were hurtful experiences. We are not meant to personalize our pain. We are
meant to learn from it, grow from it, and move ahead to live in the present
moment.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll develop strategies for
moving past pain to create meaningful change in your life and lighten
the emotional load you carry within.

Start looking at your suffering in a new way. When we realize its true
purpose, we can use it as a means of release from situations that no longer
serve us. Then we can begin to move toward building a stronger, better life
for ourselves.

People often say this is easier said than done. But remember, as kids we
were not negative. As we move through life, we acquire negative states, self-
critical perspectives, and doubts. Let’s put choices in place that work in our
favor rather than sticking with what keeps us stuck. Decide to put your
suffering to good use as a catalyst for positive change and growth.

It’s time to make a commitment to yourself by setting a concrete goal toward

positive change. As you begin to understand the purpose of suffering and
learn to move beyond it to create change in your life, that change is a process
with challenges and rewards. Allow yourself time, patience, and compassion
to work toward your goal.

Return to this lesson anytime you find yourself mired in past pain and
suffering. Review the challenges and goals that you set for yourself here
today. Ask yourself how much closer to your goals you are today than when
you began. What are the next steps that will take you closer to your goal?
Use this lesson and your notes to reinforce your commitment to change, to
reset your goals and strategies, and to work through any new situations that
are causing you pain and suffering.

EXERCISE

Make a list of some of the major pain and hurts you’ve experienced in the
past.
Think about how the pain you suffered acted as a catalyst for change for
you. How has a past hurt helped you shift and grow to be a better, healthier
version of yourself?

Is there a situation in your life right now that is causing you major pain? If
so, make a list of potential actions you could take to diminish current
suffering in your life, and see what you are personalizing and what is
holding you back.
 CHAPTER 6

UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY AND THE

CYCLE OF PANIC

We all struggle with change. Change brings some uncomfortable feelings. In

previous chapters, we’ve talked about how making meaningful, positive
changes in our lives takes commitment and, at times, painful reflection and
the courage to challenge long-held beliefs about ourselves, our abilities, and
our limitations. We’ve explored the symptoms that arise when we have
problems in our lives with work, intimacy, self-care, and spirituality. In this
chapter, we’re going to explore anxiety and the cycle of panic, and how we
can manage the situations where our fear becomes stronger than our faith.
Let’s begin.

When we’re in a situation or setting that makes us anxious, our feelings of

discomfort begin to rise, increasing our anxiety, and can lead to a state of
panic. Often, we are faced with navigating through change. Change is not
easy. It fosters uncertainty and fear and triggers intense feelings of self-
doubt. We become unsure of ourselves and frightened, which leads to an
intense feeling of panic about our ability to cope with what’s going on. As a
sense of dread creeps in, it can trigger thoughts of potential worst-case
scenarios and catastrophic outcomes. This can culminate in a panic state,
what’s commonly known as a panic attack. I am going to break down the
cycle of panic so you can understand the unhealthy cycle that can develop
when you’re nervous and anxious.
I like to use this circle to illustrate what the cycle of panic looks like, and
how it works. We all face feared, dreaded, and even panic-invoking
situations. When you enter into an anxiety-provoking situation — social,
work-related, a relationship confrontation, or a feared setting, such as an
elevator, driving on a busy highway, flying, or water — the first thing that
alerts you to the fact that you’re in an uncomfortable situation is that you
begin to experience an increase in physiological (physical) symptoms. As
these symptoms — which may include heart palpitations, sweating, mind
racing, abdominal discomfort, or fatigue — begin to increase in intensity,
your thoughts start racing, you start ruminating, thinking the same negative
thoughts and imagining the same worst-case scenarios over and over again.
UNDERSTANDING THE CYCLE OF PANIC
Let’s follow the cycle of panic around the circle.

Imagine yourself in a feared or anxiety-provoking situation. Your physical

symptoms increase. Negative thoughts start racing in your head. The first
thing you want to do when you’re feeling panicky is to escape, get out of
there, find a safety zone. But if your feared situation is your office Holiday
party, a company board meeting, a class, the dentist, writing an exam, or
taking the driver’s road test, chances are you can’t leave. It’s just not an
option.

What do most of us do in a panic situation, something from which we cannot

escape? We look for a quick fix: a cigarette break or nerve-calming alcohol
or drugs, such as Ativan, lorazepam, or cannabis. Another quick fix might be
a brief retreat to the washroom for a break, a moment alone to take a few
deep breaths, and maybe splash water on your face. We look for distractions
as quick fixes as well: a colleague, a pal, a friendly face, a place to briefly
step back from what’s happening.

What’s so wrong with reaching for that quick fix? After using whatever
quick fix we’ve managed to find to help endure an uncomfortable situation
and lessen distress, we end up with a negative memory; and with that
negative memory comes decreased self-confidence to handle the next
situation in which we do not feel in complete control. This memory creates a
mindset known as anticipatory anxiety.
ANTICIPATORY ANXIETY
Anticipatory anxiety is an interesting one. The first time you have anxiety in
your life, it takes a long time for your anxiety to peak. After that first
negative experience, each time you encounter that situation — even just as a
thought — those feelings build and become very intense, very quickly. This
sets the stage for an anxiety attack.

For example, I’ve been riding in elevators without a second thought all my
life. But after reading a couple of tragic news stories about deadly elevator
mishaps, one day I get a little panicky in an old, overcrowded elevator that
stalls between floors a couple of times. I begin feeling uneasy and
claustrophobic, and by the time I arrive at my floor, my heart is racing. I am
relieved when I step out into the hallway. The first time I panic in an
elevator, it takes a lot of time for my feelings to peak.

Later that evening, I’m home and I’m safe and watching an old movie on
TV, and all of a sudden George Clooney is making out with a girl in an
elevator. Just watching this scene raises my anxiety. I’m relaxing on my
couch, safe and sound, but the mere sight of an elevator spikes my anxiety
and sends me into a mild panic.
HIGH ANXIETY
Once you experience that first cycle of panic in a specific situation or
setting, your panic cycle becomes shorter and shorter, and even brief
thoughts can trigger that anxiety, and lead to overwhelming anticipatory
anxiety in an imagined feared situation. This can lead to a very ugly place
called avoidance.

When this happens, we start cutting things that bring us anxiety out of our
lives. We don’t want to face a situation in real life when the mere thought of
it makes us anxious. Think about the anxiety-provoking situations in your
life and the avoidance behaviors you’ve utilized to prevent having to
confront your anxieties.

Let’s explore how the cycle of anxiety plays out and what a healthy way of
dealing with panic looks like. You find yourself in a feared, anxiety-
provoking situation. You are anxious and uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a
situation you’ve avoided for so long that you’re simply out of practice as to
how to deal with it. But this time, instead of avoiding it, you choose to stay
in the situation and ride it out. Dealing with anxiety and panic-provoking
situations is just like exercising a muscle. The more you exercise your arms,
the stronger your arm muscles become. Many of the situations that cause us
anxiety are situations that we haven’t really repeated or exercised often
enough, so our ‘muscle’ becomes a little bit weaker. You need to use it more.
You need to set the goal of becoming bored, unbothered by, and comfortable
with whatever is making you anxious. Repeat until boredom with whatever
triggers your anxiety sets in.
A HEALTHY CYCLE
Here’s what a healthy cycle looks like. You’re in it, but you don’t leave or
reach for that quick fix. Instead, you pay attention to your feelings and
thoughts. You watch for an increase in physical symptoms and racing
thoughts. The moment this starts to happen, you practice rolling with your
anxiety. You bring in some deep breathing and create other physical
grounding practices (like closing your eyes for a few seconds or counting
backward from 10 to 1) to prevent yourself from getting carried away by
negative thoughts. The goal here is to feel a little bit more grounded in your
body and relaxed as your mind starts racing and your physical symptoms
intensify. Connecting to our senses allows us to ground ourselves. Smell a
scent, taste candy, take a deep breath, feel a cool breeze, take in details,
touch different textures, jump up and down. Try anything to connect through
your senses back to yourself, in the present.
CHALLENGING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
About the negative thoughts that give rise to panic, you need to learn how to
challenge them. Rather than sticking with the catastrophic scenarios playing
out in your head, thoughts that you hold onto from past negative
experiences, worst-case scenarios that you’ve pulled from thin air and given
life, you can begin to challenge, revise, and examine them in realistic terms.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to

identify situations in your life that cause you anxiety and choose a
specific situation that you would like to address. And best of all — you’ll
be able to create actionable strategies to help you conquer your
anxieties.
WHAT GOES UP …
When it comes to physical symptoms, what goes up must come down.
Imagine yourself in an anxiety-provoking situation. As you’re breathing
deeply, you’re sitting with uncomfortable feelings, and allowing your
anxiety level to come down. Remember, what goes up must come down.
Your symptoms are going to pass either way. Nothing is static; everything
shifts and changes. But, when you acknowledge your thoughts and feelings
and mindfully calm yourself down, they’ll pass more quickly than if you
avoid them and shut out your emotions.

As you experience your physical symptoms and you’re rolling with them,
you’re also challenging some of those negative thoughts, rather than
escaping, by resisting the natural inclination to flee. You instead choose to
remain mindfully in the situation. Gradually, you experience symptom
reduction. You will find that what goes up is indeed coming down. Before
you know it, you get a little calmer. Your physical symptoms subside, and
your negative thoughts start to slow down in intensity and rumination.

Riding out a feared experience gives you the courage to say: “Hey, I handled
that.” You have also created a somewhat positive memory, which leaves you
with a sense of some confidence, and reduces anticipatory anxiety because
you did it! This allows you to have the courage to intentionally enter the
feared situation again. Psychologists call practicing riding out uncomfortable
situations exposure therapy. The more you do something the easier it
becomes and the better you get at it. Remember, the goal of exposure
therapy is to become bored by what makes you anxious.
OVERCOMING FEAR THROUGH REPETITION
There is one highly successful approach when it comes to overcoming
anxiety and panic: learning to master whatever makes you anxious. Ride out
a situation that makes you anxious, then repeat it until you are bored by it.
And how do you get bored with anything? You do it over and over and over
again. If you’re afraid of dating, become a lean, mean dating machine.
Arrange several dates a week. If you’re worried about public speaking, join a
club, such as Toastmasters, where you’ll be speaking in front of others three
or four times a week.
RULES OF EXPOSURE
With situations that make us anxious, we need to take charge and learn how
to get bored by what makes us anxious by repeating it until we feel more
capable and confident. When it comes to exposure therapy, here are a few
winning strategies:

Exposure Therapy:

• Needs to be gradual. Take baby steps to gain confidence. Be careful not to

recreate situations that deepen your anxiety and set you into a state of
panic. Flooding is a term referring to going into a situation that is too hard.
It can leave you feeling traumatized and hopeless. Exposures need to be
gradual and incremental.
• Needs to be prolonged. You want to remain in the exposure environment
for more than 15 minutes; with longer exposure you allow a new
experience to sink in and become a pattern.
• Needs to be repeated. You have to do it three to five times a week. If you
do something only once or twice a week, it will always feel like a new
task. The more you do something, the stronger that muscle becomes.

Recognize how you can gain control by riding out situations that cause you
anxiety, discomfort, and panic. Understand and realize that you can shift.
Make your faith and belief in your skillset bigger than your fear. Powerful
strategies such as managing physical symptoms through breathing or
grounding practices, challenging negative thoughts by examining the
evidence that supports and sustains your worst-case scenarios, and practicing
exposure therapy in feared situations, will bolster self-confidence and create
positive memories that mitigate anticipatory anxiety.

Allow your faith in your skillset to override your anxieties and self-doubts.
Remember that your fears and self-doubts are only thoughts. Through more
positive and empowering thoughts and actions, you can regain your power
and control.
As you begin to create meaningful changes in your life, allow yourself time,
patience, and compassion to work toward your goals. And remember that
reinforcement strengthens our determination and commitment. Revisit this
chapter and its lessons from time to time. Reread your notes about the
challenges that you have identified, and the strategies and goals that you set
for yourself to overcome them. Ask yourself how much closer to your goal
are you today than when you began. What are the next steps that will take
you closer to your goal?

You can use this lesson time and time again to reinforce your commitment to
change, reset your goals and strategies, and work through situations in your
life that cause you anxiety.

EXERCISE

Identify your sources of anxiety. Think about the situations in your life
where you feel anxiety and panic, a serious and troubling fear. List them.
From this list, choose one that impacts your life significantly that you would
like to conquer. Consider your worst-case scenario in this situation. In as
much detail as you can, describe your imagined worst-case, or feared,
outcome.
Explore the evidence that your imagined worst-case scenario is going to
unfold. Is this really possible? Is this really probable (anything might be
possible)? How likely is this to happen to you?

Now, imagine yourself experiencing a positive outcome in the same

situation. How would it play out? How would you feel?
List the situations or settings in your life where repeated exposures could
help alleviate your anxiety. Create a list of exposure activities to address
what is making you anxious, activities that you would like to master. You are
highly likely to succeed when you are highly motivated to conquer whatever
is making you anxious.
 CHAPTER 7

COMMUNICATION

We’re born alone and we die alone. Our journey is about learning to be a
better version of ourselves. For you to be a better version of yourself, you
have to learn how to communicate with yourself, in truth.

We’re going to go deeper. And it’s all about you. We’re going to talk about
communication, and how improving communication — with ourselves,
which then leads to improved communication with others — can help
facilitate positive changes in our lives. We need to learn how to facilitate
change in our lives by learning to communicate well, not only with others
but, most importantly, with ourselves. It all starts with you. Before you can
get it right with others, you need to get right within yourself.

This chapter is all about communication. We’ll explore why the most
important person we need to learn how to communicate with is ourselves.
You’ll learn valuable strategies and tools, and how to set goals to support
positive changes in your life. Most patients I see talk a great deal about
anger. So let’s start there.
A BAD REPUTATION
Anger has a really bad reputation as violent, explosive, and dangerous. Each
and every one of us has a version of anger that we display to people. Some
of us turn anger inward, which can lead to depression and self-harm. Most of
us would like to know how to deal with our anger, but we have virtually no
understanding of it. Understanding anger is all about breaking down what is
underneath the anger.

Anger, it turns out, is pretty simple to break down.

What is really happening when we’re upset with someone? When we are
upset with someone, what is really going on is that the person we are upset
with is reflecting our uncomfortable feelings or sensations of feeling
insecure, incompetent, or not good enough. People are just mirroring back
our own sensations, judgments, views, and experiences.

Every person we interact with is showing us a mirror of ourselves. Each

situation and every person we meet reflects certain traits or qualities about
ourselves back to us. For example, Monica knows who she is as a daughter
in front of her mother. She knows who she is as a partner in front of her
partner, a sibling in front of her brother, a student in front of a textbook, in
winter in winter, in summer in summer. The world outside teaches us how
we are in various roles, events, experiences, and situations. What do we do
when we get angry? We spill over onto others. We blame other people for
our anger, but others are not making us angry. It’s our communication and
our interpretation of what’s going on that’s making us angry. We first see
something that, with our insecurities, we judge negatively. This, in turn,
causes us unpleasant emotions that lead us to inward and/or outward anger.

Happy, sad, nervous, and scared: these are blanket words, meaning they
cover a lot of ground, but don’t give us a clear picture of what’s going on in
our mind, body, and emotions, or the outer world. Anger is also a blanket
word. Most people demonize anger, they misinterpret it, personalize it, and
categorize it as extreme. Anger, as a blanket word, doesn’t reveal the depth
of what someone in a state of anger is actually going through. Neither does it
reveal the clear and true story of the real emotions hidden beneath the
blanket of anger.

We can use this funnel to break down anger into its real feelings. What are
the real feelings going on underneath or behind your anger? Anger can stem
from many things, such as love, sadness, feeling embarrassed, feeling a loss
of control, feeling irritated, sad, lonely, dependent, embarrassed,
incompetent, or incapable. Anger can stem from feeling guilty, victimized,
bored, frustrated, powerless, irate, betrayed, taken advantage of, unlovable,
loss of control, lost, scared, or frightened. Anger can stem from all of these
feelings and more.

We need to explore our anger and break it down to understand what is really
going on. What are the real feelings behind my anger? People around you
are not making you angry. Your feelings of insecurity are the true source of
your anger.

Let’s explore how anger looks and changes at various stages in life. For
example, Mary, at 27, goes online to start dating. She meets Keith. They
arrange to meet in person and have a wonderful evening. They go on a
second date. That date also goes well and at the end of the evening, Keith
says, “Tomorrow I’ll give you a call.”

Let’s go back in time here to Mary’s childhood. Her father used to say to her,
“Hey, Mary, when you spit on the ground, do you ever lick it back up?” She
would answer, “No, that’s gross!” He’d add, “So when you say you’re going
to do something, it is like spitting. You don’t lick it back up, you do it.” So,
Mary was brought up with the core value: when you say you’re going to do
something, you do it. Mary expects this not only from herself but from
everybody else who comes into her life.

Back to Keith and Mary at 27. It’s the day after their second date, and
Mary’s waiting for Keith’s call. But the phone doesn’t ring. So Mary gets
angry. Let’s look at what Mary’s anger is really all about. She’s feeling
insecure that Keith has maybe met somebody else. She’s feeling lonely, sad
that he didn’t call, let down, lost, confused, overwhelmed. She’s feeling
nervous and anxious. Realizing that Keith is just some guy she’s only been
on two dates with, she shakes off her feelings and lets them go.
Five months later, Mary and Keith are still dating. She’s shared the core
value that she learned as a child: If you make a promise and say you’re going
to do something, you always follow through. One evening, Keith tells Mary
he’s going out with the guys and promises he will call her later when he
returns home. But he doesn’t call, and Mary gets angry as she stays up
waiting for this call into the wee hours.

This time her anger stems from a different place — from feeling unheard.
She’s feeling insecure, wondering whether the reason he hasn’t called is that
he’s met another girl. She’s feeling forgotten, invisible, like she doesn’t
matter. She’s feeling taken for granted, as if she’s not setting proper
boundaries, and is stupid, incompetent, and naïve. She feels doubt about
Keith’s integrity and feelings for her. Maybe he’s not the right guy and she’s
worried that she’s putting all this time and energy into someone who is going
to break her heart.
Fast forward another five years. Keith and Mary are married with two young
children. One night Keith announces that he is going out with the guys and
will call when he’s on his way home. Again, Keith forgets to make that
promised call. Again, Mary finds herself angry. But this time underneath her
anger she is feeling unheard, anxious, and scared. She plays out worst-case
scenarios in her head, imagining her husband dead on the street with her
having no way of knowing how to find him. She’s thinking of how much she
loves him, and if something happened how would she and the kids survive
without him. She scolds herself for being silly, and is frustrated with herself
for being unable to conquer her anxiety and insecurity. Fearful of worst-case
scenarios, she cannot fall asleep.

Then Keith walks through the door. Mary’s in a rage, but if she shows her
anger, she knows Keith will get defensive and they will get into an
argument.

Instead, she lets him know she’s angry, but that she’s not angry with him.
She explains that when she doesn’t know where he is and he doesn’t call as
promised, her mind goes to fearful places and leaves her feeling, afraid,
insecure, lost. She wonders whether something bad has happened to him and
worries about how dependent she and the children are on him. Her mind
goes to such dark places that she can’t settle herself down and get to sleep,
even though he is more likely than not just being his sometimes absent-
minded self and has simply forgotten all about his promise to call her.

If, like Mary, we can take ownership of what’s going on inside when we’re
angry, the person we’re angry with can begin to understand what is really
going on rather than simply reacting to our anger and becoming defensive.
The moment you say, “I’m angry with you,” that person takes it as an attack
and they become defensive and begin to defend themselves rather than
hearing why you’re upset.

To better communicate with others, the first person you need to

communicate with is yourself. What’s the mirror going on between you and
the person who is ‘making’ you angry? What are you truly feeling on the
inside? Remember, anger — like nervousness, sadness, and anxiety — is just
a blanket word. It covers a lot of ground without giving proper context to
what is going on.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you will have the opportunity
to work on breaking down your anger and discovering the real feelings
underneath.
ANGER TOWARD OTHER PEOPLE
We can also do this with people in mind. I can place someone who I struggle
with in the bubble at the bottom of the funnel and ask myself: what traits of
this person do I like? What are the traits that I share? What traits do I have
trouble with? Remember, in our interactions with other people, they act as a
mirror. This whole story is about you. In our lives, we bring people in, and
we, at times, push them away. And every single person we encounter teaches
us something about ourselves. This mirror helps us grow. Here’s an example.
Let’s discover what is revealed as Mary puts her feelings about her mother,
who she struggles with at times, through the funnel. Mary really wants to
figure out what’s happening in the ongoing struggles between her and her
mother. So she puts her mother in the bubble at the bottom of the funnel.
Then she makes note of the real feelings that she associates with her mother.
There’s a lot of love there. There’s also nurturance and caring. Mary
recognizes admirable qualities in her mother, such as persistence, a great
work ethic, playfulness, flexibility, kindness, and generosity. She also notes
qualities of her mother that frustrate her: a tendency to overextend herself,
her people-pleasing nature, her stubbornness, her naïveté, and her tendency
to be easily influenced by others. Mary circles the traits she likes and
admires, underlines the ones she shares, and crosses off the ones she does
not share with her mother or is frustrated or irritated with.

Chances are if you find traits you admire in others, you probably share the
same traits or aspire to attain these traits. After all, we are mirrors for each
other. In Mary’s case, generosity, kindness, and playfulness are very nice
traits to share with another person.

The qualities she dislikes and crosses off are ones she doesn’t share or shares
but does not like in herself. These traits she struggles with.
MIRROR, MIRROR
Here’s what we can learn from Mary’s exercise: everyone in our lives is a
mirror reflecting aspects of ourselves to us. Each person we meet and
interact with shows us different aspects of ourselves. When we build
awareness of our own traits and those of the people around us, we can then
begin to relate to them, rather than lashing out and reacting. We can say to
ourselves: Hey, there’s a lot of things about this person that I love or admire.
And as for the things I struggle with — they’re not their fault. They’re just
traits I don’t share. I struggle with them because I can’t relate to them or do
not know how to manage, react to, or deal with them.

Remember, when someone mirrors back a trait — not necessarily a ‘bad’ one
— with which you struggle or cannot relate, you need to reflect on what you
need to do to approach that trait with loving kindness and compassion. This
is the path to dealing more effectively and compassionately with problematic
characteristics and qualities in others.

The world outside of us — including the people in it — is just showing us

sides of ourselves so that we can become better, higher, and more authentic
versions of ourselves. When we meet people we see as better than us, we
have the opportunity to grow. We can strive to become more like what we
admire in them by understanding and embodying what we admire about
them. And that’s why we’re here — to become better, higher versions of
ourselves.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have a chance to explore
the traits of a person you struggle with in your life.
WHAT GOES AROUND …
Let’s talk about Karma. We’ve all heard the adage, What goes around, comes
around, and we all know that negativity just leads to more negativity. When
we’re in low self-esteem and pain, we personalize the behaviors of others.
We react and our pain and negativity spill out onto others.

For example, if my mother swears at me, and I’m in low self-esteem, I might
react by swearing back at her. All of a sudden, we are both reacting
negatively, and the situation can devolve into a very bad one in no time. In
extreme cases, when negativity multiplies and builds, interactions can end in
violence.

But if, when my mother swears at me, I am working on being my higher and
better self, I understand that she is in a place of pain or stuck in unhealthy,
maladaptive habits or patterns from her past. What should I do instead? In
short, I need to respond, rather than react. Responding involves practicing
the pause, reflecting, and revising a negative reaction to a positive, thought-
out response. If I hug her, I break the cycle of negativity. With this more
compassionate response, anger and negativity can no longer grow. And just
maybe we can both move into a place of being more positive with each
other.

Here’s an example of acting and reacting out in the world we can all relate to
— shopping in a grocery store. Gina, a busy and overburdened working
mother, out shopping at Costco after work, is lined up with other shoppers
and their oversized carts for a sample of a dumpling. The woman in the cart
ahead of Gina takes her sample, pops it into her mouth, and throws her
toothpick and napkin onto the floor. The woman working the sample station
requests loudly for the woman who has thrown her garbage on the floor to
please come back and pick it up. The shopper ignores her request and just
walks away.

The Costco employee becomes upset, steps out from behind her table, picks
up the toothpick and napkin and puts them in the wastebasket while
complaining aloud that it’s not her job to clean up after others. Gina
approaches the woman and apologizes on the other customer’s behalf. This
only further saddens and upsets the sample woman, who complains to Gina
that she is treated the same way at home and by her friends. No one respects
her. No one appreciates what she does, so she shouldn’t be surprised when
here at work random strangers walking by treat her the same way.

At this point, Gina could just grab her dumpling and be on her way. But she
sees that the woman behind the table is in pain, so she approaches her and
says, “Hey, you’re doing a great job. I really appreciate you, and just
because some people take you for granted, please know you are a good
person to be who you are. I’d like to give you a hug if you are okay with it.”
Reluctantly, the sample woman agrees to let Gina hug her. As they embrace,
Gina thanks her for what she is doing, tells her again that she is doing a great
job, and whispers, “Don’t let anyone dull your shine.” Gina smiles and her
own state of mind shifts from despair and feeling worthless to feeling better
about herself. And maybe the grocery store employee can forgive those who
take her for granted, who may, themselves, be in low self-esteem.

The employee wishes Gina a good evening, and they part, both feeling better
as a result of Gina’s compassionate response to a person in pain.
CHALLENGE YOUR ANGER
When you explore the feelings beneath the blanket emotion of anger, you
begin to understand what these people and situations are mirroring back to
you, and you can then communicate more authentically and compassionately
with yourself and others. You can put forth positive, energizing emotions
rather than negative, depleting ones.

To better communicate with ourselves and others, we need to delve deeper

into our own feelings to understand ourselves. As we strive to make changes
that move us into being our highest and best selves, we need to learn to slow
down and take the time to reflect on our own feelings.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have the opportunity to
think about the people or situations that trigger anger with which you
struggle, and consider potential actions you could take to explore the
feelings behind your anger, to interpret them accurately, and act
accordingly to produce a healthier response.
MEANINGFUL CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE
As you begin to better communicate with yourself and others in your life,
you will begin to have healthier, more supportive interactions with friends,
family members, colleagues, and perhaps even your employer. Likewise,
you will find yourself challenged, as it is not always easy. Among friends,
family members, and colleagues you are likely to find potential saboteurs,
non-supportive individuals who are threatened by your commitment to
change. There will be overwhelming work, family, and social obligations
that threaten to weaken your resolve. You may be discouraged by small
setbacks, self-sabotaging settings, situations, and individuals, or a lack of
peer support. Positive changes, like other healthy commitments, require
consistency and determination. Wobbles are normal; don’t get discouraged,
and get back on track if you slip back to reacting instead of responding one
day.

Take a good look at the people in your life, and the environments in which
you work, live, and play. Where do you anticipate running into difficulties
while making the changes you want to make? Where in your life will you
find support as you move toward your goals?
TIME TO GO DEEPER
One of the main reasons we don’t allow ourselves to reflect on our real
feelings is because it’s hard. It’s painful. It takes courage to see your
insecurities and your part in unhealthy dynamics. It’s important for us to
look at the real feelings behind blanket emotions such as anger to understand
why we act the way we act and feel the way we feel.

It’s time to go deeper. Stop taking things on a superficial level. Stop reacting
in low self-esteem and start responding to others and yourself with loving
kindness. You can begin moving toward being a better version of yourself by
looking at the genuine, authentic feelings and insecurities you need to
overcome.

Take a moment to review what you’ve accomplished in this chapter. You’ve

learned how to identify the feelings beneath your anger. You’ve learned that
others act as a mirror for your own feelings, and you’ve learned to identify
the traits and qualities in others that you share, struggle with, and react to.
Most importantly, you have the knowledge and understanding to develop
actionable strategies to help you succeed.

Revisit this chapter — and especially your notes — from time to time.
Review your notes about the challenges that you have identified in your life,
and the goals that you set for yourself. Ask yourself how much closer to your
goals you are today than when you began. Think about the next steps that
will take you closer to your goal.

EXERCISE

Identify, examine, and explore the real emotions beneath blanket emotions,
such as anger, sadness, nervousness, and frustration. Commit to improving
communication within yourself and with others. Commit to responding
authentically and compassionately to others, rather than reacting to others in
pain. Strive to go deeper into your emotions to understand your real feelings
and how others reflect your feelings back to you.
Think of the people and situations that cause you to experience anger.
Choose one person/situation that is troubling you. Explore the real emotions
beneath your blanket emotion of anger.

In this situation — or with this person — imagine responding more

authentically, with more compassion and understanding, rather than in anger.
How would your responses be different?
List other situations in which improving communication within yourself and
with others would improve the outcome.
 CHAPTER 8

MEDITATION

Many people are confused about what meditation is, what it means, and its
benefits, never mind how to meditate. Most people don’t realize that
meditation isn’t some foreign concept. We all do it from time to time, more
often than we realize. We do it in little snippets here and there. We don’t
understand how meditation comes in. In this chapter, we’ll explore
meditation and facilitate building your confidence to commit to adding a
daily practice with intent.

Mindfulness meditation is about you connecting to you. It’s a connection to

yourself. The balance in your life that you are seeking requires that you learn
how to turn inward, rather than focusing on what is outside of you. You are
the common denominator in your life, so why would you seek answers
outside?

We wake up in the morning, jump out of bed, and spend much of our day in
our head, helping others, taking care of things, fulfilling responsibilities,
playing out roles at work, socializing, and affirming intimacy. We do most, if
not all of it, with an external focus.
BREAKING IT DOWN
I’m going to break down meditation so you begin to understand how you, in
one form or another, meditate every day. Once you understand what
meditation is and how it manifests in your daily life, you can set a goal of
increasing the amount of time you go inward in your daily life, and begin to
enjoy the benefits of spending a little less time ‘in your head.’

When you are connected to the moment, to the absolute present time, you
are meditating! Athletes call it being in the zone, photographers call it the
pocket, those moments where you lose the concept of time and space. When
you lose the concept of time and space, you are completely connected to the
present moment. When you live in the present, in the moment, you simply
experience, do and act. This is you, connecting to your senses with complete
presence and focus.

Imagine those days when you’re hanging out with your friends and check
your watch and say: “Four hours went by. How did that happen?” This is
when you are completely in the moment. When you’re in the zone, you lose
the concept of time and space and you feel great experiencing the moment
with all your senses … fully present and just doing. You’re in that bubble of
energy where you’re connected to all of your senses, and you are
experiencing, doing, and acting in life. There is no worrying, ruminating on
past experiences, or forecasting worst-case scenarios here! You are fully in
the present, experiencing your authentic, true, amazing self.
THIS IS MEDITATION
When you’re in the moment, you’re fine. You’re perfect. This is meditation.
You have gone inward and you are connecting to your perfection. You are
yourself, and you’re doing exactly what you want to do, fully present,
experiencing your senses.

But here’s where the problem comes in: sometimes we leave the moment
and go into our heads and ruminate on the past or the future. The past is
comprised of memories. We often go to negative memories and relive events
that we’re afraid of repeating.

Or our mind goes to the future. We know that the future is just our
imagination … but instead of imagining what we want to manifest, we often
imagine worst-case scenarios. We’re afraid. We don’t know if we can handle
things so we start imagining things that could go wrong as a means of
protecting ourselves by preventing or controlling various imagined
situations. We start ruminating over dreaded ‘what-if’ scenarios. ‘What ifs’
are nothing more than worries. What if this happens? What if that happens?
We start forecasting worst-case scenarios, catastrophizing, and bring in the
doubting mind: imagining a future where things might go wrong because we
want to be prepared for the worst that could happen. We spend so much
precious time trying to prevent possible harm, to control life, that we forget
to live.
PAST AND FUTURE
The past and the future are just thoughts. Your thoughts are — plain and
simple — your own judgments. Remember, life is just a series of
experiences that we judge and label as positive or negative. We often
generate negative future projections because we are afraid of repeating
negative past experiences or mistakes. Fear is simply self-doubt. Doubting
our ability to handle difficult situations, we sometimes choose to take
ourselves to places in our imagination that we fear to prepare ourselves for
the worst.

The truth is, we can’t prepare ourselves. Even if you spend huge portions of
your time trying to prepare for potential disasters in your life, if and when a
disaster actually does happen, you’ll deal with it in the moment by doing
whatever feels appropriate. What comes out in the moment isn’t often what
we planned. But meanwhile, by thinking about it, you’re just imagining
something that could happen. Remember, what you focus on expands. By
focusing on potential worst-case scenarios, we stay in a negative state. Why
not, instead, consider best-case scenarios and promote a positive state of
mind?
POSSIBLE VERSUS PROBABLE
Anything is possible, but what is probable? Many times people with anxiety
and depression overestimate the probability of bad things happening.
Everything is possible in life, and yes, bad things can happen at times, but
should we live each and every day constantly worrying about worst-case
scenarios versus living our life imagining what we want to manifest?
BACK TO MEDITATION
In the present, in the moment, you’re completely connected, enjoying
something with all your senses. For example, say I bake a loaf of banana
bread. I smell it. I taste it. It’s wonderful, it’s perfect while I’m doing it, in
the moment. But then I say, “Oh shoot, I think the last time I made this, it
tasted better.” Suddenly I am out of the moment; I have gone to the past and
am critical. I compare the present negatively to an experience from the past,
and I’m regretting the difference. Then, my mind jumps to the future. “Next
time I make this recipe, I need to do this and that to it, which will make it
better.” Suddenly, I’m scrutinizing, judging, and criticizing my moment. I
ruin the moment by getting into my head and comparing my past or
forecasting my future actions. As a result, I miss the full experience of my
wonderful, tasty banana bread in the here and now.

Many times, this is exactly what we are doing. We leave the moment, and we
go into our heads and start to criticize, scrutinize, and judge, to compare or
forecast worst-case scenarios.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have the opportunity to
reflect on how much time you spend reliving your past mistakes and
negative experiences, and forecasting worst-case scenarios.
PRACTICE THE PAUSE
To take control, we need to learn to practice the pause. Here’s how. Start
adding simple practices daily that take you into the moment. For example, I
take a moment to go inward and feel grateful for the food I am eating. I take
a moment to be thankful for it. Slow down to take that first bite of food.
Really connect to the present moment of enjoying that first bite, rather than
staying in your head and missing the experience of enjoying your food.

Do little things that give you joy and pleasure. These are the things that keep
you in the moment. Activities, interests, and pursuits that you love are what
allow you to lose the concept of time and space: hobbies, activities, interests,
outings, moments of reflection where you’re doing things that hold you in
the zone, and where you’re engaging in things fully present.
S.T.O.P.
I’d like to introduce you to S.T.O.P., a simple method of introducing
mindfulness into your daily life. You simply Stop, Take a breath, Observe
yourself in the moment, doing one thing with complete presence. Then
Proceed with your day.

Here’s how it works.

Stopping takes us out of our heads from ruminating and self-critical talk.

Taking a breath keeps us in the moment and holds us there. It grounds and
relaxes us a bit.

Observing yourself allows you to truly experience a moment in full

presence and connection to yourself.

Proceeding takes you back to whatever you’re busy doing but in a healthier
state, more grounded and present. Try to proceed in the moment, to really
feel things. Feel your fingers washing your hair, feel the toothbrush on your
teeth and your gums when you’re brushing your teeth. Taste the chocolate as
it’s melting in your mouth. Feel the kiss when you kiss someone. Feel the
hug, the warmth, and the heartbeat when you hug someone. Learn to slow
things down and connect with all your senses to experience the moment
fully.
Right now, take a moment. How do your feet feel touching the floor, your
fingertips touching the page? Your back on the chair, your posture, your
breathing? As you breathe, feel the cool air coming in through your nostrils
and the warm air leaving your body as you exhale. Feel your abdomen
expand as you inhale and deflate as you let go of that breath.

Take the time to slow things down in your daily life. Observe them
differently and realize that the more you bring yourself into the present the
less you’re in your head. As I said before, the past and the future are just
thoughts, and thoughts are just self-made judgments.

In the next few chapters we will look at where some of those judgments
come from — our parents, society, the pressures we put on ourselves — all
our thoughts.

Anxiety and depression, by the way, are thought disorders — they only exist
when you’re in your head. When you are in the moment, you do not feel
anxious or depressed. Notice that when you are free of anxiety, depression,
and negative thoughts, you’re often enjoying interests, hobbies, or the
company of loved ones, with complete presence, engaged with your senses,
rather than judging the experience. When I work with patients, I try to bring
them to a place where they practice the pause frequently throughout the day
while enjoying hobbies, interests, or anything they enjoy, to allow
themselves to be in a place where they are connecting to the moment and
learning how to expand the practice of meditation.

Take the time to reflect on your life. Are you living in the moment every day,
more and more, less and less, or not at all? Understand that meditation is
nothing complex or mysterious; it’s living in the moment with the complete
presence of your senses. Give yourself permission to get in the zone and
enjoy your life experiences without scrutiny, worry, and self-judgment.
Connecting to the moment as many times as you can in a day is healthy.
Then, as you master that, you can also notice the content in your head
becoming more positive and happier. Gradually, when we are in our minds,
we will find ourselves in a less threatening and anxiety-provoking place.

EXERCISE
Think about the thoughts that run through your head on any given day. How
much time do you spend reliving your past mistakes and negative
experiences? How often do you forecast worst-case scenarios?

List your recurring and pervasive negative thoughts about the past and
worst-case scenario outcomes.
List the activities, interests, and pursuits that give you joy: the things in your
life that allow you to lose all sense of time and live in the moment. Include
things that you have yet to explore.
List strategies that would enable you to incorporate more meditative
activities into your life.
List the obstacles that hold you back from meditating
 CHAPTER 9

WORTHY OF LOVE

There’s an ultimate need each and every one of us has in life: to feel worthy
of love. I learned the worthy of love concept from the book, Born on the
Mountaintop, by Freedom and Satyam Malhotra.

Merriam Webster defines love as: “a strong affection for another arising out
of kinship or personal ties, an attraction based on sexual desire, affection
based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests, an assurance of
affection, and/or a warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion.” In our
extensive array of interpersonal relationships with the people in our life,
every one of us strives to feel worthy of love. We place conditions on
ourselves in order to be worthy of love, and in doing so we put a lot of
pressure on ourselves. In fact, it’s the first of many conditions we place on
ourselves in life.

Our earliest experience of seeking validation of our worthiness — otherwise

known as the external validating the internal — is seeking the approval of
our parents. If Mom and Dad say “good girl” or “good boy,” we feel that we
are worthy of their time, attention, and affection.

As we proceed through life, we continue to seek validation and worthiness

from other sources, and as we do, we often place tremendous conditions on
ourselves and go to great lengths to feel worthy. For example, I have a first-
generation Canadian patient from an Asian family. When he reached the
point in his life where he was considering his career choices, I asked him
what he wanted to be. He said: “I want to be an architect but I’m going to be
a doctor.”

I asked: “Why don’t you do what you want and be an architect?”

He replied: “My parents are immigrants. They came here for me, and they
want me to be a doctor. I can’t disappoint them.”

I asked: “If you disappoint your parents by becoming an architect, are they
going to stop loving you?”

His response: “Of course not, but they’ll be disappointed. And if they’re
disappointed, I’m going to be disappointed in me.”

This young man’s response implies that he’s worthy of love only if his
parents approve of his career choice. Not only that, if he follows his dream
of becoming an architect, he is not worthy of his parents’ love, and feels less
than as a person, thus unworthy of self-love and self-respect because he has
disappointed his parents.
OUR FIRST CONDITION
This is the first condition in which we place ourselves: to feel worthy is to
gain the approval of our parents. Then, we unwittingly become addicted to
making our mother and father approve of our behaviors. What follows is a
pattern of approval seeking.
EXTERNAL VALIDATES INTERNAL
When our parents are happy with us, we are happy with ourselves. But this is
only the beginning of the conditions we heap upon ourselves as we grow
into adulthood.

As we move through our lives, the cycle continues and expands. I’m worthy
of love if I get an education. If I don’t get an education, I feel less than. I’m
worthy of love if people like me. I’m worthy of love if I get that dream job,
house, or car. I’m worthy of love if I do things perfectly and have good
skills. I’m worthy of love if I marry the right person. I’m worthy of love if I
dress well, look good, and am a good parent. I’m worthy of love if I live a
moral life. And there are many more conditions we hold onto.

This chapter is all about being worthy of love. We’ll examine the conditions
we place on ourselves. These conditions can be endless and lead an
individual to live an inauthentic life of pleasing others at their own expense.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Let’s take a look at some of the typical terms and conditions we place upon
ourselves.

We can always do more people pleasing to make people like us. We can
always do more approval seeking from our parents, friends, and associates.
We can always seek higher levels of education or academic achievements.
We can always find a better job, put more money in the bank, or aspire to
have a better home. We can aspire to do things more perfectly. We can strive
to become a better partner, a better parent, dress better, look better, and work
smarter and harder. We can be more observant of our religion and live by a
higher moral code. These conditions can become bottomless pits of
expectation that we place on ourselves. The more you’re trying to make
everybody happy, the more certain it becomes that you will one day burn out
trying to keep up with the cycle of doing things for the sake of others at your
expense.

These are bottomless pits we can never fill. But we never stop trying! It fills
a void temporarily but drains us over time. This can lead to feeling empty,
drained, and unhappy. Over time, the lack of authenticity that comes from
trying to please others or meet these many conditions can cause us to feel
disconnected from ourselves and experience symptoms of anxiety and
depression.

Here’s the problem: in seeking validation and approval from others you
sacrifice your own needs, desires, possibilities, and potential, often without
realizing it. Mired in expectation and pleasing others, we often sacrifice our
own authenticity and interests.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have the opportunity to
explore the conditions and pressures you place upon yourself to please
others.
THE CURE
Here’s the antidote: you need to question whether you are doing or having
something in order to be someone. Are your choices authentically your own,
or are you doing what you feel others expect of you? The reality is that from
the time you were born, you were worthy of love — just the way you were.
In other words, you have always been and will always be worthy of love just
as you are. Placing conditions is a learned behavior that doesn’t serve your
highest and best self.

Most of us grow up unaware of this. As a result, as we progress through our

schooling and into adulthood, the conditions continue to mount.
YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE
You are worthy of love if you get into the school and program of your
choice, but if you don’t, you’re still worthy of love just the way you are. You
are worthy of love if people like you, and if someone is angry with you,
you’re still worthy of love just the way you are.

You are worthy of love if you have the ideal job, house, money, but if you
don’t have money, or are in debt, you are still worthy of love just the way
you are. You are worthy of love if you do things perfectly, and if you’ve
made a mistake or two, you’re still worthy of love, just the way you are.

You can say: “I’m worthy of love if I marry the perfect partner, and if I get
divorced, I’m still worthy of love just the way I am. I’m worthy of love if I
dress perfectly, and if I don’t, I’m still worthy of love, just the way I am. I’m
worthy of love if I’m a good parent, and if my child turns out to be a
criminal or a drug addict, I’m still worthy of love just the way I am. I’m
worthy of love if I go to church regularly and take part in community
activities, and if I don’t or can’t, I’m still worthy of love just the way I am.”
Pure and simple, you are worthy of love just the way you are, with or
without acquiring things. Your value comes from being, not doing.
BOTTOMLESS PITS
These conditions are, without exception, bottomless pits. The more you try
to make everybody happy at your own expense, the more certain it becomes
that you will one day burn out trying to keep up with the cycle of pleasing
others.

The key is to question your choices and actions. Ask yourself: Am I placing
conditions on myself — things I need to do or have or be in order to be
someone, or am I authentically choosing this for my own fulfillment? You
are worthy of love if your parents approve of your behavior and choices, but
you’re also worthy of love if you disappoint them. You are worthy of love
just the way you are.

You are worthy of love if you get into the school and program of your — or
your parents’ — choice. You’re also worthy of love just the way you are,
whether you do well academically or not. You’re worthy of love if people
like you, and just as worthy if they don’t. Whether people are pleased or
angry with you, you’re worthy of love just the way you are.

I am worthy of love if I have the ideal job, house, money, or partner. If I

don’t, I am still worthy of love just the way I am. I’m worthy of love if I do
things perfectly, and if I’ve made mistakes, I’m still worthy of love, just the
way I am. I’m worthy of love if I’m in a successful marriage, but if I get
divorced, I’m still worthy of love, just the way I am. I’m worthy of love if I
dress well, but if I don’t, I’m still worthy of love, just the way I am. I’m
worthy of love if I’m a good parent. If my child turns out to be a criminal or
drug addict, I’m still worthy of love, just the way I am. I’m worthy of love if
I go to church and if not, I’m still worthy of love, just the way I am. You can
have everything you want, but even if you don’t, you are still worthy of love,
just as you are.
WORTHINESS, DRIVE, AND SELF-LOVE
The truth is that you are worthy of love just the way you are, with or without
the conditions you and/or others impose on you.

Many of us are driven. We set aggressive goals and place stringent

conditions on ourselves. We think that we are not good enough if we don’t
have certain material possessions, achieve certain professional or personal
targets, or behave in certain ways. We do not unconditionally love ourselves.
We place conditions on loving ourselves.

You may prefer to try to make the people in your life happier with you. You
may prefer to do well in academics, choose an ambitious career, or strive for
a better job. Preferring means that with or without it you are worthy of love
and okay. Preferring is setting a goal. But with or without it working out,
you won’t crumble. You are worthy, just as you are.
LOVE WITHOUT CONDITIONS
When I see parents in my clinical practice, I often ask them this question: “Is
there anything your child could do that could make you love them less?”
Most parents respond that they might be disappointed in their children from
time to time, but the truth is that whether they go through a break-up, lose a
job, or go to jail — no matter what — they will always love their children
just the way they are. As parents, we can unconditionally love our children,
but we all struggle with unconditionally loving ourselves. We need to model
unconditional love to ourselves rather than being hard on ourselves while
unconditionally loving others.
EXAMINE YOUR EXPECTED SELF
Being well-adjusted to a sick society is unhealthy. We all have a true self
with whom we align. It’s who we want to be and what we want in life. But
we also have an expected self who is all about other people’s expectations or
beliefs about who we should be.

Just what is the expected self? The expected self is what people want and
expect of us. Those people are your parents, society, your peers, your faith
community, and what they expect may be based on what your
socioeconomic status dictates, what your age and gender dictate, or what
your culture dictates. Look at all those expectations placed on you. Bear in
mind that being well-adjusted to a sick society means that you’re sacrificing
yourself by molding yourself into everything that people want from you —
at your expense. If you’re not living the life you want, not striving for what
you want for yourself, then whose life are you living?

Challenge yourself to look at your life today. Are you becoming what
everybody wants you to be at the cost of your authenticity? Or are you living
your life authentically, being your true self without being everybody’s
everything, and sacrificing the VIP (very important person) you should be to
yourself?

It’s important to start looking at your life, and the cycles of conditions you
place upon yourself. What conditions do you place on yourself to be worthy
of your own self-love — worthy, valued, and good enough?

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you will be tasked with
reflecting on your life over the past five years to identify the conditions
you have placed upon yourself.
GET TO KNOW YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF
In recent memory, many successful, high-achieving, high-profile celebrities,
such as Robin Williams, Kate Spade, and Anthony Bourdain, have tragically
taken their own lives. Highly successful people who on a superficial level
seem to have it all — fame, successful careers, wealth, friends, and loving
families — can be disconnected from their authentic selves. A lack of
authenticity leads many people to a dark and dangerous place in their lives,
regardless of how much they are loved and admired, and how much they
have and have achieved. They were not content, healthy, and aligned with
self-love, acceptance, and self-care.

When we’re doing everything to participate in the race to the top, or striving
to please others and be everybody’s everything, we drain and exhaust
ourselves because we’re not operating from a place of truth. Instead, our
energies come from a place of trying to keep up with a version of ourselves
that makes other people happy at our own expense, but has no authentic
connection to our true selves.

The emptier and darker we feel, the more we feel hopeless, alone, and
unfulfilled. We can become overwhelmed and overburdened by mounting
commitments that do not fulfill or nurture us in any way. But when we
choose to take on responsibilities and commitments because they are
authentically part of our true selves, we can move forward to a place of our
choosing.
WAVE THE MAGIC WAND
In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be instructed to revisit your
work in Chapter 2, where you waved your magic wand and explored your
ideal self. Now, you’ll have a chance to go deeper and explore what you
really want. The purpose of this exercise is to explore your authentic
interests, goals, and desires. What do you truly want in life? This is a wish
list, and an inventory of your authentic interests, passions, and dreams for
your life, what you have aligned with and dedicated yourself to.
MAKING CHANGE
Changing a lifetime of validation seeking is hard — but not impossible. The
good news here is that you know three important things that you didn’t know
before: the conditions that you have placed upon yourself, the conditions that
others have placed on you, and that you have the ability to live your life free
of these conditions if you choose to do so.

When it comes to creating meaningful change, two major factors come into
play: your faith in yourself and your ability to make a change, and your fear
of the unknown, of possible failure, or lack of confidence in your ability to
commit to change or to succeed beyond your wildest aspirations.

Remember to consider your current job, friends, family members, and

community as you begin to integrate your authentic choices into your life.
Make note of the people and resources at hand that can help you, such as
friends, a supportive employer, mentors, and other resources in your
community.

At the same time, it’s important to think about the people and situations that
could be saboteurs, such as non-supportive individuals who are threatened
by change or are envious of you, overwhelming and conflicting work,
family, and social obligations, lack of available resources, discouragement
after small set-backs, self-sabotaging settings, situations, and individuals, old
traumas, bad habits, and lack of peer support.
COMMIT TO YOURSELF
As you move into creating meaningful change in your life, keep in mind that
change is a process with both challenges and rewards. Allow yourself time
and patience to work toward your ideal life. As you move through the
challenges that change presents along the way, know that there will be times
when you will be afraid of what lies ahead as you move away from living up
to conditions that no longer serve you. Remind yourself that faith in yourself
will carry you through the tough moments. Remember: make your faith
bigger than your fear. Fear is self-doubt, a no-no when you are aligned with
being in higher self-esteem.

Return to this chapter and your notes from time to time. Revisit the goals
and strategies that you laid out for yourself in your notes. And identify the
next steps that will take you closer to your goals.

At the end of the day, remember, your worthiness is unwavering; it is not

tied to your achievements, activities, acquisitions, or how much you please
or disappoint others or yourself. You are worthy of love just the way you are.
You are a human being, not a human doer. And you deserve to fill your life
with interests and pursuits that fill you with joy, connection, and worthiness,
just as you are.

EXERCISE

We are worthy of love just as we are. Sounds good, but most of us do not
live this way at all. Many of us place overwhelming conditions on loving
ourselves. We set impossible standards. We need to meet these nearly
impossible standards in order to feel good about ourselves.

What conditions do you place on yourself in order to feel ‘worthy?’ What

standards do you need to meet to feel ‘good enough?’
List the conditions you carry within yourself to feel worthy of love.
What (or whose) standards do you need to live up to in order to feel worthy?
Work on correcting this! After all, your journey is an individual one of self-
discovery. Live your life for yourself and your growth.
Commit to yourself. Review your notes from Chapter 2, where you waved
your magic wand and explored your ideal self. What does your authentic,
ideal self really want out of life? List your authentic interests, goals, and
desires. (Another way to think about this is to imagine what you would do if
you won a lottery and were free of obstacles and limitations preventing you
from being who you want to be.) Make a wish list, and an inventory of your
authentic self, your interests, passions, and dreams for your life.

What you focus on expands! Once you envision it, allow yourself to
manifest it.
 CHAPTER 10

GUILT

In this chapter, we are going to explore what guilt is all about.

People often struggle with feelings related to guilt. We rarely sit with our
guilt or attempt to deconstruct, explore, and understand its components.
What is guilt really about? Why does it keep happening? We often find
ourselves enmeshed in guilt and feeling distressed, overwhelmed, and angry.

Guilt is simply a sign that there is a conflict around what you want versus
what someone else wants from you. When we want to do something and no
one complains about it or has other ideas about what we should be doing, it’s
all good. No guilt! We do and live as we please, aligned with what we want,
what makes us happy. From self-care and work, to play, pleasure, and
enjoyment, we do what we want or need to do on any given day until
someone comes along and requests something different from us.

Many of us struggle daily because others place expectations on our time,

focus, and energies. Often, others want something very different from us
than what we want to give. When there is a conflict with what we want
versus what someone else wants from us, guilt arises. Guilt is a signal that
there is a dilemma we must address. That dilemma gives rise to the question:
“Do I please myself, or please those who place expectations on me to do
something different?”
FOLLOWING OUR TRUTH
Our goal in life should be to follow our truth. Why? Because following our
truth always leads to a greater good. When you are a child, you don’t
experience guilt because you are looking for guidance and direction. You’re
looking for growth and are open to being led by adults. You’re looking to
parents, mentors, siblings, or friends to guide you.

For example, you might look to your parents to determine whether a stranger
is safe or not, or what to wear to a party or to school because you are still
learning and developing into your authentic self. You are learning and
modeling the behaviors of others.

There comes a time when you are no longer looking for that guidance. You
go inward, weigh your facts and perceptions, draw your own conclusions,
and guide yourself. You want to form opinions on your own. This is natural;
it’s part of the process of maturation and individuation, the process of
becoming your own person with a unique identity, with your own thoughts,
opinions, and preferences.
PLEASING OTHERS AT OUR OWN EXPENSE
Often, we struggle at this point in life. Though it is natural to want to form
our own opinions and live our own lives, we begin to perceive the possibility
of disappointing those who have guided us in our lives when our opinion is
not in alignment with theirs. To make everything okay, we begin to sacrifice
what we want, what we think, and what we do. In short, we feel guilty for
disappointing the people we love, and choose to please others at our
expense. The result is costly — we disappoint ourselves and sacrifice our
self-care.
SELF-CARE VERSUS SELF-HARM
When we give in to others at the cost of our own authenticity, we promote
self-sacrifice and self-harm by taking a back seat in our own life. But not
doing what makes us happy can often make us angry. Anger turned inward is
depression, which causes tremendous harm. We often do not realize the
detrimental effects of going against ourselves, sacrificing our self-care, self-
truth, and self-love.

When instead of being true to ourselves we align with others’ opinions or

agendas, we block others from learning the lesson that we have evolved,
grown, and have our own unique and separate agenda. There comes a time
when our family members and friends need to realize that while at one time
they were able to guide and direct our opinion, that time has passed, and we
need to move forward and forge our own lives and work to achieve our own
goals and growth.
SERVING YOURSELF
When we are in a place of self-care and doing what we want, we enrich
ourselves. Here’s an example: I want to wear a new blue silk shirt to a family
event. As long as no one opposes my plan, it’s all good. I wear the blue shirt
to the event, and I’m happy. No problem. However, I pick up my parents on
the way to the event and I find that my mother has bought me a white shirt
that she is determined I should wear, and kindly asks me to change.

This is where guilt shows up. What is the guilt about? In this example, it is,
of course, easy to see that the guilt is a signal of the conflict between my
desire to wear a blue shirt and my mother’s desire that I wear the white shirt
she so generously gifted to me.

If I refuse my mother’s request and wear the blue shirt, all is well. I am
making my own decisions and living in alignment with what I want for
myself and how I want to present myself to the world. I am happy and feel
confident and grounded. However, when my mother insists on me wearing
the white shirt, she is putting expectations on me to change and abide by her
preferences and choices.
ENTER GUILT
Enter guilt, the signal of a conflict between what I want for myself and what
someone else wants for me. Guilt is a conflict that needs to be confronted
and respectfully resolved in truth. This conflict occurs not only with family
and friends but with society at large: your boss, your colleagues, your
partner, your children. Anyone could show up with expectations of you at
any time. Guilt can arise when there is a discrepancy between what you want
for yourself and what others would like you to do or be.

When a problem or dilemma arises between yourself and someone else, it

does not automatically mean that you need to bend to their expectations,
soften, and sacrifice yourself to their demands. If you are experiencing guilt,
it’s a sign that you have an opinion, preference, or agenda of your own, and
something else you’d rather do. There are times when we look for guidance
from others: bosses, siblings, friends, or parents. When we are looking for
direction, we tend to go along with what others tell us. But there are also
times when we are not. When we begin to mature and form our own
opinions and lessen or end our dependence on the guidance and opinions of
others, guilt can show up when we feel guilt for contradicting someone with
a different viewpoint or preference.

As we mature, we develop a sense of independence, and we find fulfillment

in making our own choices rather than looking for others to guide us.
Independence is all about choices. We choose as best we can, to live our
lives as we want, in authenticity and alignment with ourselves, for our
highest good.

But many times, we remain stuck in patterns from our childhood, of caving
in, people pleasing, seeking affirmation. But our purpose in life is not to
please others at our expense. When we are younger, we please others, but not
out of self-sacrifice. We do it from a place of innocence, lack of knowledge,
and for survival. We’re at a stage of development where we’re not
oppositional, and truly want to align with others. But as we mature, we grow
into our own person, with preferences and opinions of our own. If we choose
to please others at our own expense, we disappoint ourselves. This is where
the harm occurs: disappointing ourselves reinforces self-harm, poor self-
care, and low self-esteem.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll explore your guilt, its
sources, and how to stop the cycle and accept growth as organic and
healthy, something to celebrate, not be embarrassed about.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE SHIRT!
Back to our earlier example. If I wear the white shirt my mother wants me to
wear, I am disappointing myself. But it’s not about the shirt. It’s about me,
training myself that it is okay to disappoint myself, to feel unhappy within
myself to please others and to make and keep others happy at my own
expense. This will lead to emptiness, sadness, and feelings of void and
dissatisfaction within myself.

There is a second negative outcome of this shirt scenario. When I give into
my mother’s request — or demand — to wear the white shirt, I am standing
in the way of her learning a valuable life lesson — the lesson that I have
matured to the point where I am no longer a child and no longer need her
opinion to dress myself and feel presentable in public. I have grown from her
teachings and guidance and can do it for myself, in authenticity. She can be
proud that she has taught me so well.

When I resist giving in to her direction and wear what I choose, she learns
the valuable lesson that I have matured, and no longer need her direction and
intervention. She can begin to accept that I am no longer dependent on her
and that I have matured and can take care of myself. Our relationship, in
turn, is given a chance to change, evolve, and expand in new ways. I enable
her to grow and be the mother of her evolved adult daughter. She deserves
the opportunity to be proud of my growth and her teachings, which have led
to my self-sufficiency.

When I say that I appreciate her gift but I am going to wear what I have
chosen for the event, I stop enabling her to live in the past and enable her to
move into the next phase of our relationship, where she respects me as an
adult.
PART OF THE PROBLEM
We need to realize that when we sacrifice ourselves, we are part of the
problem! We prevent others from changing their impressions of and
interactions with us as we grow and expand. We all stay stuck in old habits
and patterns.

Once in a while, we can choose to sacrifice what we want for someone else,
but when we do it, it should not come with hurt and harm. What do I mean
by that? When we act, we should always look at our intention. When our
intention comes from a place of truth, meaning a good place, a place that
does not intend to cause hurt and harm to someone else, even while we
might hurt others, we are being true to ourselves. This is growth-oriented
and therefore okay.

Here’s another example. You go on a blind date. At the end of the evening,
rather than vaguely allude to making plans with a person you have no
interest in just to avoid an awkward moment, you let that person know that
you are not interested. You thank them for their time and wish them well.

You may have caused them discomfort or pain in a moment, but your
intentions were not harmful and came from a place of truth. All good! Acting
from a place of authenticity, you wanted to be clear and fair, and honest. You
told this person the truth in the moment. You may have caused them
momentary hurt and harm, but you’ve spared them greater hurt and harm in
the long run, which would most definitely be the result if you were to be
misleading and deceptive over time.
HURT AND HARM
There are times, though, when we seek revenge and cause hurt and harm.
For example, your partner breaks up with you, but you are able to persuade
them to get back together with you even though you have no intention other
than to break up with them and cause them the same degree of harm they
inflicted on you. The energy and intention here do not come from a place of
truth. It is vengeful and negative, self-centered, and egocentric.

A final example of actions and intentions that hurt and harm is game playing.
Here’s another relationship example. You break up with someone you have
broken up with over and over because you have finally realized that you’re
just not a good fit. Later, one lonely evening, you text or call. You tell
yourself you’re just saying hello in a moment of weakness. They respond,
and in no time, you’re back in a dead-end relationship. You know it will
never change. You both know that you’re not compatible, that things will
never really change. You’re just playing games with each other. It feels like
and is manipulation and deceit. You’re not only lying to another person,
you’re lying to yourself. You’re also holding yourself back from being with
the right person by settling for someone who is just a comfort and habit.
TRUE TO YOURSELF
It is important to look at our intentions when we interact with others. Are we
being true to ourselves, and honest with others? If we intend to act with truth
and not harm others, then we are not causing harm. We are living our truth.

We are born alone, and we die alone. Your journey is about you learning and
striving to become a better, higher version of yourself, regardless of your
upbringing, circumstances, and the experiences you have lived through. It is
important to recognize the role of guilt in our interactions with others and to
strive to be aligned with our higher, better self.

Guilt is alleviated only when we understand it. Remember, guilt is a signal

that someone wants something different from you than what you want for
yourself. It is important to connect with your feelings and your intentions
when interacting with others. When what you choose to do about your guilt
comes from a place of authenticity and truth, you are living your life on your
own terms.

EXERCISE

Guilt is a red flag emotion! It’s a signal that appears in your body indicating
an internal conflict at play. Guilt is triggered by a dissonance between what
someone else wants or expects from you and what you want. Guilt is a
useless emotion and serves neither the recipient nor the person making
uncalled demands. Want to stop guilt in its tracks? The solution is simple:
don’t cave into it! Stop misinterpreting the signal of guilt and start doing
what aligns you with your truth.

This exercise is designed to familiarize yourself with the sources of guilt in

your life, and its impact on your wellbeing.

Let’s look closely at the last time someone made you feel guilty.

Describe the guilt signal (where it came from, what the signaler wanted from
you):
How was this request out of alignment with what you wanted?

For what did you feel guilty?

Who in your life are you enabling?
 CHAPTER 11

SHARING THE BURDEN

In life, we often find ourselves feeling lonely. Loneliness is an interesting

concept because, in different societies and cultures, this feeling of loneliness
varies greatly. In large cities, many people feel independent throughout their
lives. They do not rely on one another. They are private and insular, and
often feel very much alone and lonely. By contrast, in tightly knit European
and Asian cultures, and among those living in smaller cities, towns, and rural
communities, there is a greater sense of community: closer family
involvement, and extended family support in raising children, and when
conflicts like divorce, job loss, and bereavement arise, there is a support
system in place. There is a strong sense of community support, neighbors
support each other, and there is more sharing of burdens and stressors.

The sharing of burdens is a concept that applies to the therapist-patient

relationship. One reason why therapy works is that a comfort level is
established where there is someone available with whom you can share your
burdens by baring your soul and talking about things without a filter. You’re
able to share and have mirrored back what is really going on in your life …
your inner struggles with symptoms, negative thoughts, fears, and doubts.

You’re also learning. We do not often learn in isolation. We learn from

others. We often do not know what to do in our lives and find ourselves
struggling to understand what is right and wrong. When we are children, we
don’t know everything, but in interacting with other children we find out that
other kids also don’t know how to tell time, tie their shoes, or do well on
multiple-choice exams, or that we’re not the only ones who struggle with
math or reading. By talking to other children, we contextualize and
normalize our struggles. We gain perspective and the courage to carry on
beyond the struggle. We realize the struggle is real but feel less alone with
the understanding that our struggles are not unique but experienced by many
others.

It’s not all that different for adults. Sharing our struggles, or our burden, with
others, whether monumental or small, allows us to normalize and better
understand our challenges and our suffering, and presents us with
opportunities for support and knowledge on how to cope, treat, or work
through situations that feel challenging in the moment.
WE ARE ALL CONNECTED
The truth is that we are interconnected and learning from one another. Some
cultures promote competition in which we are driven to compare ourselves
to others and constantly feel judged as lesser than, or better than, everyone
we encounter. We get caught up in presenting ourselves in an inauthentic
manner, faking it until we make it. We show no signs of self-doubt or
weakness. We isolate ourselves from others in hope that people won’t
uncover our issues and doubts.

Here’s the reality — there is no weakness. Life is a series of experiences.

We’re all learning. We’re all growing. We are at once perfect and a work in
progress. And we’re all trying to become better, higher versions of ourselves.
What’s more, we are interconnected and living a human life complete with
difficulties, obstacles, and struggles while sharing joy, acceptance, love,
support, success, and growth.

We are not meant to be perfect. Neither are others. We need to have

compassion and empathy for ourselves as we grow and learn. We do the best
we can with what we have, and we make the best decisions and choices we
can with the knowledge and resources we have at our disposal.

What we know today is different from what we will know tomorrow. When
I’m in Grade 3, I do the best I can with what I know, and when I am in
Grade 5, I do the best I can with what I know. When I am in Grade 5, it
would be foolish and harmful to look back at my Grade 3 self and punish
myself for the immature behaviors and choices of my youth. In third grade, I
had only Grade 3 life experiences and information. The two years in
between have taught me so much that now, in fifth grade, I know better.
Comparing is unfair and irrational.
SCRUTINIZING, JUDGING, ADMONISHING
As adults, we do this to ourselves all the time. We scrutinize, judge, and
admonish ourselves for the decisions we’ve made as though we could or
should have made better, different decisions. The truth is that we do the best
we can with what we know. We don’t want to cause ourselves harm. At
times, in ignorance or lack of knowledge or information, we do. We make
decisions that do not serve our best interests. But we do not harm ourselves
on purpose. We make suboptimal choices at times because we do not know
any better.

For example, I am buying my first brand new car, and I have narrowed it
down to two choices, car A and car B. I weigh my options, and doing the
best I can with what I have and know. I end up purchasing car A. In time, I
begin doubting my choice, and start to lose confidence in my knowledge of
cars in general. I beat myself up about a decision I made in the past by
wondering if car B was a better choice.

Here’s the reality. After driving car A for a year, I can see its flaws. I have
essentially expanded my knowledge set and now better see and understand
what I like and dislike about this car. The reality is, I’ve learned a lot about
cars.

But suppose I am right. Car A turns out to be a complete lemon, and car B
ends up being the car of the year. The next time I purchase a car, I’ll be a
little wiser in making my decisions with my newly acquired information and
won’t make the same mistake again. Trust that in a moment we decide, we
are choosing the best for ourselves with what we know at that time.
LESSONS ALONG THE WAY
Life is just a series of experiences. We learn our lessons along the way. With
these lessons, we expand our knowledge set. And each and every day, as we
grow from childhood onward, we are expanding our knowledge set. We do
the best with what we have in the present. You began reading this chapter
with one knowledge set, and by the end of this chapter, you will have
enhanced your knowledge. You’ve expanded. You’ve learned. You will never
be who you were before you started reading this book. You will have grown
and learned, and will be working on implementing your learnings in your
life.

We tend to be hard on ourselves, to expect that we should know everything

up front. And we beat ourselves up if we fall short. Again, life is a series of
experiences that shape us and help us grow.

Along the way, we are surrounded by others who are having their own series
of experiences and lessons. To live is to learn. This is what connects us to
others. By holding back and not sharing our experiences with others, we
hold ourselves back from opportunities to feel connected and to normalize
our doubts, challenges, and struggles.

When other people share their struggles with us, we learn from their trials
and errors as well, much to our own benefit. Alone, we are exhausted. But
we can heal our tiredness through connection and rest.
SELF-HELP AND WELLNESS
What are self-help and wellness really about? They’re about you uncovering
and discovering other aspects of yourself. It’s you seeking knowledge and
untapped resources. But it’s also about you being honest with yourself and
others.

In Chapter 1, we talked about the table with three legs. The legs represent
our physical symptoms, negative thoughts, and lifestyles/behaviors. On any
given day, all three of these elements are at play, intermingled and mushed
up inside. We can become overwhelmed with physical symptoms and
negative thoughts. Unhealthy behaviors or habits then emerge.
SOFTEN AND RELAX
You don’t have to be alone in all you carry. When we share our burden by
connecting with others, we can sort out our physical symptoms and negative
thoughts and behaviors, and begin taking steps to change. Self-help and
wellness are about awareness. A key step in awareness is understanding
ourselves. Other people could have more or different knowledge about what
we are experiencing, and could help us by contributing to our knowledge set,
just as we could contribute to theirs. There is strength in sharing. Explore
new ways of being, learning, and growing.
CONNECTING WITH OTHERS AND OURSELVES
Sharing our burden is also about slowing down … slowing down to connect
with people and with yourself. In fact, to genuinely connect with others, you
must first connect with yourself. Pause and reflect. Rituals are a great means
of connecting to ourselves. A simple ritual, such as lighting a candle and
sitting in silence for a few minutes, helps us slow down. Rest is what I call
practicing the pause and connecting with how we are feeling. Keeping a
gratitude log, taking a moment at the end of each day to reflect and record
what you are grateful for, is another simple and powerful ritual.

We are all tired, exhausted on a variety of fronts. Let’s unite, share, connect,
and empower ourselves and others to heal. Foster healthy practices, habits,
and interactions.

We can share our struggles, victories, and gratitude with others. And they
can share theirs with us. From others, we can learn many things, including
what we may be taking for granted. Through sharing our burden, we expand
our knowledge set and deepen our gratitude. Sharing sorrow halves it;
sharing joy doubles it.

If we don’t connect with others, we limit our experiences, intellect,

understanding, connectedness, and growth. We are here to live and love
fully, not just go through the motions. Sharing our burden with others is
crucial to our goal to stop existing and start living.

Live until you die. Don’t just exist, life is too special for that. Live fully!
Start now with yourself and with others. Sharing your burden is a part of the
human journey. We are all in this together.

EXERCISE

Reflect on the thoughts and beliefs that hold you back from connecting with
others, sharing, and asking for help. Make note of how you could shift to
connect authentically.
What behaviors can you bring in to share deeper parts of yourself, be real
with others, share pains and sorrows, and celebrate joys, gratitude, and love?
Sometimes we feel bad sharing our good qualities, gains, and successes
because we don’t want to appear arrogant. If you intend to be proud of
yourself, don’t hold back on being your own greatest fan. Celebrate you!

You don’t need people to validate you. See the good in you and appreciate
your own good skillset. Don’t share to belittle someone or to show them you
are better, as those intentions come from an unhealthy place of negativity.
Instead, practice healthy self-praise and self-love to acknowledge your own
good. It is acceptable to speak positively.
 CHAPTER 12

FORGIVENESS

We all struggle with forgiveness because we do not fully understand it.

Forgiveness is not something we do for others. It’s about us processing our
pain and understanding the hurts that we internalize resulting from
experiences that we have judged as negative.

Life is, you will remember, just a series of experiences that we judge through
our filters. We judge these experiences as positive or negative. I have learned
through my own life that most people do not intend to cause us pain. But
people in pain spill their pain onto others.

At times we encounter people who are acting out their negative, hurtful
behaviors, abuses, and low self-value. They may be lying, cheating,
withholding information, taking us for granted, being selfish, or punishing
… the list goes on. Some of this is modeled behavior (behavior we learn
from observing others), some is related to upbringing and values that they
have learned within their family structures, and life experiences.

We may also feel hurt by others for our own reasons. If we have been
tormented or abused, we may have ongoing trust issues. We may be
inordinately hard on others because we learned to be hard on ourselves.
VARIABLES AT PLAY
Often, when we are going through hurtful experiences, our pain is not as
clear-cut as we think it is. There are many variables at play when it comes to
others causing us pain. Other people, you will remember from earlier in this
book, are mirrors that reflect ourselves to us in many ways.

We need to learn to take accountability when others cause us pain, and when
we perceive and judge others as the cause of our pain, happiness, or healing.
By this, I mean that we need to learn how to look at ourselves in our many
contexts and settings with clarity and compassion. For example, I know
myself as a daughter in front of my mother, a friend among my friends, a
sister in front of my brother, an aunt with my nieces, a student in front of my
teachers, and a therapist in front of my patients. Everything and everyone
outside of myself is constantly revealing sides of myself to me — my likes,
my dislikes, my strengths, my ego, and my challenges. A math exam might
show me my shortcomings in that area, or an English exam might reveal
how much calmer and collected I am in that milieu.
TALK ABOUT FORGIVENESS
Everyone and everything we interact with reveals something about ourselves
to us. Often, when we talk about forgiveness, it’s about people. We get hurt,
and our hurts are, for the most part, people-related. When I say there is a
mirror between ourselves and others, I mean that we are judging them
through our own filters. Your issues from growing up, your schemas, or the
maps in your head about how things need to or should be … it’s all at play.

When someone aligns with the way we feel things need to be, we feel a level
of comfort. We feel comfortable with them and may even feel comfortable
enough to like them. When someone doesn’t match up to our version of the
way things should be, we often feel uncomfortable or distrustful. We may
not like them or trust them. We might judge them negatively or reject them
completely.
EXPLORING OUR PATTERNS
Sometimes we need to take a step back from our initial impressions and
reactions and explore what our feelings are really about. We’ve all heard the
term chemistry. Chemistry has nothing to do with chemistry — it’s all about
familiarity. Though you may not recognize it in the moment, the person with
whom you feel an instant connection may be just like your father, sister,
mother, mentor, brother, or friend.

We often repeat patterns but fail to recognize those patterns until later in the
game. There is a mirror in each and every person that comes to you. If, for
example, I walk by you wearing the same scent your Aunt Matilda used to
wear, you may instantly like or dislike me (depending on how you feel about
Aunt Matilda). If Aunt Matilda used to whack you with a stick, you just
might hate me by association. If she was sweet and kind and used to bake
your favorite cookies and take you to the park to play, you might have an
instant like for me without my earning such a bond with you. You might
judge me as kind and caring without knowing a single thing about me. We
make a lot of judgments without knowing why, or how. What’s this got to do
with forgiveness? Good question!

We go through a lot of pain and hurt caused by other people. But most
people do not intentionally cause others harm. They behave the way they
behave as a consequence of their experiences and upbringing. We often have
conflicting ideas about what is right and wrong. We often do not relate to the
way others see the world, and we cause each other pain, sometimes out of
ignorance, other times out of our own fears and insecurities.

When we are children, we are in a place of high self-esteem. We are also in a

place of innocence and ignorance. We believe in the good. But as we grow
and experience hurts, they strip us of our innocence. We learn that others can
hurt us and that we can fall down and hurt ourselves. We learn through
experiencing pain that our safe, happy, and secure picture of the world might
not be an accurate one.
Likewise, with people we start out on a positive front, trusting and hopeful,
and through ongoing experiences, we begin to see different sides of one
another. These experiences can cause us conflict, pain, disagreements,
disappointments, and hurts.
LOOK DEEP INTO THE MIRROR
It is important to look deeply into the mirror and see what the mirror is
showing and teaching you, not only about the other person but about
yourself. Learned beliefs about yourself that are not necessarily true, with
reinforcement, can feel true.

For example, if I were dating someone for five years and it was an abusive
relationship, I would not only need to forgive them for the hurt they caused,
I would also need to forgive myself. I would have to forgive my partner for
causing me harm and would have to forgive myself for putting up with it
longer than necessary. I would have to forgive myself for loving the other
person more than I loved myself. I would have to forgive myself for
believing that this person would change when they had been consistently
causing me harm. I have to forgive myself for not loving myself enough to
walk away from something hurtful and harmful. I have to forgive myself for
putting their needs ahead of my own. I have to forgive myself for not seeing
the truth. And I have to forgive myself for staying in a situation that lowered
my sense of self-worth and self-esteem.
THE GAMES WE PLAY WITH OURSELVES
We have to be accountable to ourselves for those times when we put blinders
on and refuse to see the red flags or acknowledge the truth about situations
that are hurtful, painful, risky, harmful, or dangerous. We have to
acknowledge our part in remaining in relationships and situations that lower
our self-esteem out of fear that we will never meet anyone better.

We need to look at the games we play with ourselves so that when we

forgive those who cause us pain, we can also understand our own part in the
story. Why did this person come into my life? What are they showing me
about my own lack of self-esteem? Are they showing me that I love others at
great expense to myself? They are showing me that I put up with abuse.

Even when someone has done you harm, the story in its entirety is unlikely
to be solely a painful one. Usually, when a person enters into your life, it is
on a positive note. It is near the end that we focus on the bad. But this person
may have brought you good, or at least good in the form of the growth of a
skillset to handle the bad they brought in.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be asked to choose a

person with whom you’ve had a negative personal relationship, or a
business partnership that has gone sour, or a boss that is hard on you,
and you will be guided through the process of writing a forgiveness
letter. In this letter, you will be taking the important step of
acknowledging the entire story of a relationship, the good, the bad, the
hurt and harm, accountability for your part, the growth, lessons, and
steps forward that resulted from this person entering into your life
story.

We need to recognize that all suffering, hurts, pains, and sorrows are
catalysts for change. Forgiving those who have hurt us means that we are
letting go of the personalization of a negative experience and allowing
ourselves to move forward by understanding its lessons. Getting caught up
solely in the pains and negatives can lead to our own demise.
You need to see the various parts, within a shared story, take accountability,
and realize that in every situation of pain, there’s learning and growth.
Through life-changing traumatic events, we often personalize the impacts
and see ourselves as less than. But such experiences teach us self-
compassion, love, rest, and healing. Our traumas — like all of our life
experiences — teach us. You have a choice to release yourself from your
pain through forgiveness, rather than personalizing it and carrying it as a
weight in fear of it repeating. Keep that in mind as you work on this
exercise.

EXERCISE

Think of someone from your past with whom you’ve had a negative
relationship — personal, business, or someone in your family.

On a separate piece of paper, using the instructions below, write this person a
letter of forgiveness. In this letter, you will be taking the important step of
acknowledging the entire story of this relationship and forgiving this person.

This letter is a form of therapeutic processing. It is for you, but if you feel in
your truth you want to share it with the person, you may choose to do so. But
before sharing ask yourself: What is the purpose of sharing this letter? If this
person is out of your life, and you feel this is a healthy boundary, you may
not want to disrupt the status quo. Remember, this forgiveness letter is
principally for you and no one else.

• Begin with the story of how you came to be involved with this person.
If, for example, this person is a former boss, begin with what inspired you to
want to work for them, for example, how you saw them as a brilliant,
inspiring leader and a valuable mentor.

• Then outline the hurt and harm that came to you. What hurt you, made
you insecure, doubtful, eroded your confidence, or caused you pain and
suffering? Tell the whole story of what went wrong, how you may have
disappointed them, and how they failed to live up to your idealized version
of them. Outline the times you felt judged, criticized, passed over,
disrespected, less than in comparison to others, and so on.
• Next, go deeper into the reasons this person entered into your life.
What did this person teach you? Maybe they showed you how easily you
lost faith and belief in yourself, how you were quick to doubt and judge
yourself negatively in front of your competition. Maybe they taught you that
overcompensating in the face of competition alienates others from you and
makes them turn away from you. Perhaps seeing others receive compliments
and praise revealed to you a lack of openness, ability, or willingness to
collaborate with others at your own level. Perhaps the boss reflected
insecurities, jealousy, envy, laziness, etc. Share the insights and lessons you
carry with you as a result of your hurtful experiences.

• Now review your part in the situation. What could you have done
differently? How could you have reacted and interacted more positively in
the situation? What did you learn, and how have you grown as a result of
your experiences with this person?

• Finish with a statement that provides you with closure. You are now
ready to conclude the letter with a statement of closure. This statement
acknowledges that while this person has caused you pain, this experience has
also taught you to become a better, higher version of yourself.

You now choose to focus on your strength and self-growth, rather than the
story of pain from this encounter.

List all that you have learned and the lessons that have moved you forward.
End with the statement that you choose to let go of the hurts, criticisms, and
other negative experiences, and take away from the interaction the lessons of
growth. Thank them for entering your life and for teaching you valuable
lessons, perhaps about your own self-esteem, about how much you value
other people’s opinions of you over your own. In closing, clear the negativity
and hurts from your interactions by forgiving them for all intentional and
unintentional hurts, and forgive yourself for being so hard on yourself and
personalizing the experience. Acknowledge the experience for the lessons it
taught you and the growth and betterment it made possible.

Here’s a sample closing statement:

“Thank you for teaching me and helping me grow. I appreciate your lessons
and release all hurts I carry within. I set myself free of [list] and I choose to
close this exercise through this simple ritual, or act.” (Create a simple ritual
for yourself to symbolize closure. For example, you could burn, tear up, or
store this letter somewhere safe and secure as an act of closure.)

Use the space below to explore your thoughts about forgiveness, who you
wish to forgive, and how forgiving someone makes you feel.
 CHAPTER 13

GRATITUDE

More often than not, we tend to focus on what we are missing in life. Rather
than see the glass as half full we are constantly looking at what we lack. We
need to look at life accurately. Gratitude is a way to do just that — to look at
life clearly and with accuracy.

One of the reasons that we focus on the negative is that there is a part of
each and every one of us that is afraid of getting hurt, afraid of repeating our
patterns of pain and suffering. We hold onto our pain so that it doesn’t repeat
itself, and what ends up happening is that exactly what we are resisting
shows up over and over again in different forms.

Whatever we resist, so the saying goes, persists. For example, if I say to you:
“Don’t think about a pink monkey with a purple banana,” your mind
automatically goes there. Even though I asked you not to think of a
particular image, your mind goes there because what you resist persists.

It is important for us to become more aware of the habit of focusing on the

negative and learn to shift to a more positive focus on our past, live in the
present, and manifest a positive future.
IN THE MOMENT
In Chapter 8, we explored meditation, the practice of living in the moment.
When we are living in the moment, the present, we simply experience, do,
and act. We are connected to our senses.

When we leave the present, our minds go to the past or the future. When we
go to the past, we look at memories, more often than not negative memories,
since we don’t want them to repeat. We replay regrets, we compare our
present situation to our past, we scrutinize, we judge. Or our minds go to the
future, and when we go to the future what do we do? That’s right — we
forecast negative scenarios out of fear or self-doubt, we worry about
repeating past mistakes, we imagine reliving past hurts, or, worse, having a
worst-case scenario come to life.

The future is just our imagination. But rather than planting the seeds of what
we would like to happen, we envision what we are afraid of. We want so
badly to avoid negative situations, yet we catastrophize and imagine the
worst. Our past and our future are nothing more than our thoughts and
judgments about life. Anxiety and depression are thought disorders. They
exist only when we are in our heads, thinking about the negative aspects of
our past and projecting negativity into our future.

Here’s the good news, and the crux of the lesson of this chapter: we can take
charge of what we think about. We can refocus our thoughts on the positive
memories from our past, and rather than planting the seeds of worst-case
scenarios for the future, we can instead plant the seeds of best-case
scenarios, of things that we want to manifest and bring forth.

People often say to me, “this is hard.” But it only feels hard because you
have reinforced negatives for so long. Remember, you were born innocent
and positive; you acquired the negative as you grew. Time to unlearn and get
comfortable with the positives with which you’ve lost touch.

Most of the time, though we may not realize it, we spend most of our day,
consciously and unconsciously, in self-scrutiny, in negative evaluation, and
in negative judgment. But we have the power to choose to focus on the
positive rather than the negative.
BREAKING AN OLD HABIT
Gratitude is a very simple and powerful way of breaking this habit. In our
meditation chapter, we explored the value of establishing rituals as a way of
practicing the pause. Here it is back again. But this time, we’re going to get
even more specific and explore practicing the pause for positivity. Instill in a
pause an uplifting mantra, an affirmation, a reframing statement or self-
praise, and gratitude.
WELLS AND BRIDGES
The truth is, as much as we suffer in our life — remember that suffering is a
catalyst for change to take you to a better place — suffering contains many
aspects of wells and bridges, beautiful moments of positivity, opportunity,
and shifts with supports. You may not be acknowledging such things, but
they are present. Let’s use wells and bridges as a metaphor for exploring this
powerful catalyst for change. Wells represent the many opportunities for
abundance and growth that have manifested throughout your life
unexpectedly. Bridges represent the opportunities and situations that have
shown up to help you through times of trouble. When you examine your life
story through this metaphor, you will discover that you have been blessed
with many wells and bridges in your life.

Think about friends who have come to your aid when you needed help, the
teacher who noticed that you were sad or not yourself in school, the mentor
who showed up at a time when you needed inspiration. These bridges carry
you over troubled times and waters.

Look at the many times in your life when you have been sent blessings in the
form of wells or bridges, through friends, mentors, family members, and
even strangers who share and disclose parts of their life experiences that
relate to your own struggles and challenges. There are many bridges to keep
you from becoming discouraged about your life and your sufferings, and to
help you realize that you are being given exactly what you need to take you
to the next level.

For examples of wells, recount jobs you obtained without preparation,

people you magically connected with through networking or love, a winning
lottery, a pregnancy after years of trying, a new job, a promotion, a passing
grade when you thought you failed, recovery from an illness, surviving a
serious car accident, etc.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have the opportunity to
explore your wells and bridges.
We need to make our faith bigger than our fear. We need to believe, not only
in ourselves, but that everything has its place in our growth. We need to
move beyond getting caught up in the negatives and focus on planting seeds
of positivity. We need to acknowledge that despite what is lacking in life,
there is much that is positive and beautiful, and much to be grateful for
amongst the chaos and the challenging moments. When you can see the
many blessings in your life, despite any negativity in your past, and see the
good amongst the bad, you have arrived at a place where you can transform
from living in low self-esteem into high self-esteem, that is to say, the most
authentic, highest and best version of you.

What goes around, comes around. Negative multiplies into more negative. It
cycles downward, feeding off its harmful energy. If you call me stupid, I
might react in kind, and our interactions could devolve into violence. But if
you call me stupid and I am in touch with the good things in my life, I won’t
engage in the negativity and it will end there. I will give you a hug or in
some other way break the cycle by not responding in the same energy,
frequency, or vibration.
BREAKING NEGATIVE CYCLES
Remember, when people are in pain, their pain spills over onto others. We
need to reflect on our truth, their truth, and the ultimate truth. We judge what
is right and wrong from our viewpoint, and in turn, are judged by others
from theirs. The goal is to live in your truth, own who you are and where
you are at, at any given moment in time.

For example: Say I have a friend who is upset that she is always the one who
makes plans and that I never take initiative. She is, of course, allowed to feel
that way, given her blueprint and perspective. She may also have issues
around people not reaching out to her. However, she has the time and energy
to make social plans. And if she had compassion rather than judgment, she
would see that I am so busy that I don’t have time to make plans and that I
appreciate her efforts and rely on her to do it.

From her perspective, she feels unappreciated, and that I am taking

advantage of her. However, I am just really busy, and appreciate that my
friend with the time and energy to make plans makes it easier for me, in my
current work situation, my truth, and my life. If she is a true friend, she will
let me know that, once in a while, she needs her friends to reach out, make
an effort to make plans. Here, she brings awareness about something that
bothers her, and supports change by letting me know she is upset and needs
me to do something to fill her needs and her truth. And she has provided me
with an opportunity to enrich our relationship by showing her that I respect
her efforts and care about her feelings. But if she doesn’t communicate with
me, and stays upset, and puts her foot down, she has already made a
judgment about me, which does not give me a chance to respond and
change.

Many times, people judge you. There is simply no use in trying to convince
them otherwise as they’ve already made up their minds about who you are.
This is where you need to stand in your truth and say, “Not my circus … not
my monkey.” Own yourself and your truth, that your intentions are good and
that a true friend would express their feelings and allow you to explain
yourself and change, versus judging you and staying angry. Remember,
when people are in pain, they spill onto others. We have a choice. We can
take it on, or say, “thanks but no thanks; these are your feelings to own.” I
am not saying we do not get hurt or upset by peoples’ actions. However,
good health is indicated by our ability to bounce back from negative upset
feelings. Explore how long you are stuck in conflicts, hurts,
disappointments, upset feelings. Our ability to bounce back quicker by
revising thoughts, reconceptualizing and letting go of past hurts to be in the
moment is the goal for us all. If I’ve made someone upset unintentionally,
that person should make me aware of their feelings. Because we all have our
own unique blueprints, we may not be aware of what will be hurtful to
another. You can demonstrate compassion. People want love. If they’re
causing you pain, before judging them, let them know, and give them an
opportunity to change. Likewise, if someone doesn’t allow you to change,
and instead allows their pain to spill over onto you, you can choose to walk
away.

You can choose to surround yourself with positive people with good
intentions. Always take charge of the energy in your space. When you
remove judgmental people from your life, you’re making room for people
who are more aligned with where you are today. Don’t feel bad when people
leave your life, cut you out, or block you on social media. Realize and accept
that some relationships may be ending. Make room for healthier
relationships that align with who you are today.

You can transform rather than engage in negative energy. If you can break
cycles of negativity and refrain from throwing fuel on the fire by engaging in
conflicts that make everything worse, you can bring yourself to a place
where there is more positivity, calmness, control, ease, and happiness
coming into your life.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be challenged to explore

areas of negativity in your life, and how you might act to shift to a more
positive state.

Are you able to take hold of your moments and break cycles of negativity by
being proactive and bringing in more positivity? You may not be at your best
possible weight and figure, but are you able to recognize the beauty amongst
the areas you are striving to improve? Are you able to recognize that you are
not living in a worst-case scenario?

In many ways, gratitude is an exercise that involves you slowing down your
day in order to give thanks for what is good in your life, what is going well
today and in your life in general.
TAKE A MOMENT
Take a moment of gratitude right now: for your feet that carry you where
you want to go throughout the day and for your mind that enables you to
think and work through things. Have a moment of gratitude for the people in
your life who support you and love you, for the food that nourishes you and
gives you the energy that carries you through a full day of activities. Be
grateful for the moments that bring blessings, smiles, and love into your life.

Gratitude also combats negative thoughts and moods. Negativity is anger.

Anger turned inward is depression. Anxiety is about self-doubt. We have
cognitive distortions and worries ruminating in our minds during stress. Stay
grateful. Practice the pause throughout the day. When we practice gratitude,
we are strengthening our positivity, calming ourselves, and learning to focus
on the good amongst the bad. As you focus on and are grateful for the good
amongst the bad, you alleviate negative moods and symptoms of anxiety.
Negative emotions and thoughts, as well as pessimistic ways of seeing the
world, cannot persist where there is gratitude.

With gratitude, we replace darkness with light. Through positive

affirmations, we plant seeds for hope for the future rather than forecasting
worst-case scenarios. By having gratitude for the things that are working, we
can lift ourselves out of negativity and depression, of loneliness, of feeling
lost and alone without a sense of belonging in the world. Often, our negative
thoughts are not accurate or true, yet we give them a lot of weight. Starting
today, take a moment to bring gratitude into your life. Take five minutes
every day to reflect on your day. Find gratitude in the little things that have
sustained you. Be grateful for all the little things that made your day
beautiful among the moments of stress, criticism, frustration, fatigue, illness,
and responsibilities.

EXERCISE

In this chapter, we learned that gratitude provides us with a way to look at

our life clearly and that practicing the pause of gratitude empowers us to
replace negative thoughts with positive ones. More importantly, when we
practice gratitude, we shift from living in a state of lack and low self-esteem
to a more positive state of high self-esteem. In the exercise below, we focus
on creating a more positive perspective on our past, our present, and our
future.

PART ONE: WELLS & BRIDGES

Wells represent the many opportunities for abundance and growth in our
lives. List your wells, including career, educational, social, and other
opportunities that have enriched your life:
Bridges represent those who have shown up to help and guide you through
times of trouble and pain. List the people in your life who have come to your
aid in times of trouble:
PART TWO: PRACTICING THE PAUSE FOR GRATITUDE

It takes just a few moments a day to stop and be thankful for the many good
people, experiences, and comforts of your day. Take just five minutes and
list the many features of your day for which you are grateful. Think about
the people who support you, the food you enjoy, the clean air you breathe,
your comfortable shoes, and your warm, comfortable bed.
Moving forward …

Make this five-minute gratitude pause a daily ritual, and if and when you’re
having a bad day or thinking negative thoughts, revisit this exercise and
lesson to renew your commitment to an attitude of gratitude, and shift from a
negative mindset to a state of high self-esteem.
 CHAPTER 14

SELF-WORTH

Let’s talk about self-worth and self-esteem. Self-esteem is really about

loving yourself as you are, which is a hard thing to do. Why is it so hard?
This is a very good question.

We are born in high self-esteem. We are born in a place of purity and

innocence, living in the moment, unconditionally loving, the very definition
of high self-esteem. Children show us this when they welcome everyone
with love. They smile and laugh and hug and kiss everyone, even those who
don’t return their affections. Children act as if they’re all-powerful and
capable of anything. They’re going to be astronauts, firefighters, doctors,
scientists, teachers, bus drivers, construction workers, artists … anything and
everything they see that excites them. They see only good and play, fun,
love, and smiles. Six-year-olds laugh on average 300 times a day, and adults,
50-100 times daily.

Children speak with confidence, from a place of truth and strength. They
look in the mirror and see and accept themselves as they are. You don’t hear
children saying: “I’m too fat,” “I’m unworthy,” or “I need to lose 10 lbs.”
They see only their own beauty. And they are engrossed in living in the
moment, playing, and loving happily.

They live in the moment — the here and now — because that’s all they
know. Summers seem endless. That months-away promised trip to Disney
World means nothing other than their joy in the moment it is mentioned to
them.

Children walk around in high self-esteem. Their innocence is their strength.

They speak from a place of truth, often blurting out embarrassing comments
about people and situations they see.
Along the way, the adults in their lives teach them to check themselves,
question their truth, and proceed with caution. “You can’t walk around
naked. Put on some clothes!” We erode their high self-esteem by teaching
them to question what feels good and natural to them.

Living in their superhero truth, speaking out, being playful, having no fear as
they move into the world, we temper their behaviors and they learn that there
are limitations to their abilities. We warn them that they have much to learn
about living in the world. On the inside, they are purity, love, and excitement
for living in the moment, and their self-esteem exudes love unconditionally,
without judgment or scrutiny. We teach them to hold back their truth and fit
in and be socially appropriate.

As children grow, they begin to question themselves. Are they really that
superhero with high self-esteem? Or are they the roles they play: the good
little girl who listens in school rather than laughing and playing with her
friends, the well-behaved young boy who sits still on the school bus when he
feels like running up and down the aisle screaming at the top of his lungs?
THE ROLES WE PLAY
Let’s look at the roles we play in our lives. First, we’re children,
grandchildren, perhaps siblings, we’re students, friends, parents,
professionals, and partners. On the inside, we may still harbor that
superhero. On the outside, as we grow, we take on many roles in the course
of our lives.

These roles we play are in large part a product of our environment, and the
modeled behaviors and activities we see. Monkey see; monkey do. The way
my mother fries eggs is the way I will do it because I learned it from her. We
learn how to play the roles we take on from the people around us. We can
shift, but that takes conscious awareness and practice.

If you are a child with high self-esteem who lives with a parent who calls
you “stupid” for years, what happens? After several years, you begin to
believe this to be true. You start to fear that this could be true. Maybe your
parent is right, and you are stupid. Over time, you arrive at a place of low
courage where you no longer challenge your parent’s negative statement.
You have internalized their assessment and made it official — you now
consider yourself stupid.

Over time, this negative self-esteem lowers the quality of your life. You feel
emotionally fatigued to the point where you feel less than others around you.
You settle in your job, in the partner you choose, in the way you live your
life because you’re afraid. You might also find yourself in a place of being
hard on yourself. You may start hurting and harming yourself with comfort
foods, drugs, or alcohol to numb the pain and suffering that arises from the
internalization of negative messages like: “I’m stupid.” You might hurt and
harm yourself through isolation, for example, by dropping out of school or
deciding not to go at all. You might not ask for a well-deserved raise, fearing
that your supervisor thinks you are stupid and unworthy. If we personalize
our roles in life, it can lead us to our own demise.
SINKING INTO LOW SELF-ESTEEM
You sink into a place of low self-esteem by believing things that are not true.
Until you record over the negative I’m stupid message, you will settle for
less, and lack the confidence to pursue your dreams and interests over fears
that you are not smart enough or good enough.
GOING DEEPER
When we personalize the roles we play, they can cause us a lot of pain and
suffering. If we can recognize that we are not the roles we play — and that
we are in fact much more than that — we can learn how to stop internalizing
the pain that has occurred while playing these roles.

For example, as a student, I studied hard and wrote a lot of exams, and I
usually did pretty well. But on one occasion, I failed a multiple-choice exam.
I knew that I had worked hard in class and understood and studied the
material. Since the failing mark would show up on my university record, I
asked the professor if I could rewrite the exam. She said: “You’re a hard-
working student, come back tomorrow morning for a rewrite.” I went home
and reviewed and then tried to get a good night’s rest. The next morning, the
prof gave me a written rather than a multiple-choice exam. This time I got
96 percent, which made me feel really good. This experience taught me that
even though I understood the material, I struggled with the multiple-choice
exam format. I wasn’t stupid. I was better able to demonstrate my grasp of
the subject matter in the context of a written exam over multiple choice.
BUT WHAT IF?
What if rather than ask my professor for a rewrite that day I’d simply
accepted my failing grade and assumed I was a failure and too stupid to
pursue my academic goals? This choice could have had a catastrophic effect
on my career and my future. I might have told myself that I was not smart
enough or as worthy or capable as others. With that thought in mind, I would
have had little courage with which to challenge my low self-esteem. I might
have taken any job I could find rather than continuing my education, and
thus lowered my quality of life.

I wanted to be a psychologist, but I wouldn’t have been able to if I had given

up. I would have become emotionally fatigued and compared myself to other
people. I would have seen only that everyone else was doing better than I. I
might have settled in life because of one poor grade on an exam, and I would
have been hard on myself. I might have punished myself, and sought
comfort in drugs, comfort foods, or alcohol to numb my pain and suffering.

Today, because of one failing mark, I could be merely existing rather than
enjoying my occupation and living the full and interesting life I envisioned
for myself. Because I had enough self-esteem, I found the courage to ask for
a second chance. I rewrote and passed that exam, and my life took me on a
positive course.
UPS AND DOWNS
We experience all sorts of ups and downs over the course of a lifetime. If
you lose a job, for example, why do you get depressed? After all, you are
more than your job. Losing a job is an isolated event, not a never-ending
pattern. If you regularly fail math exams, maybe math is not your forte. But
when we take an isolated event, one person’s criticism, or one break-up to
heart and hold onto it, we fail to challenge ourselves to examine the
possibility that it is not an irrefutable truth, but perhaps an isolated event.
ISOLATED EVENTS VERSUS REPEATING PATTERNS
Let’s talk about relationships. When we have a break-up, why do we often
feel like we’re never going to meet someone new? One break-up is an
isolated event, not a repeating pattern.

We often connect with others on a soul level, but, for any number of reasons,
sometimes we cannot sustain a relationship with someone over time. If
you’re a professional with set working hours who needs a lot of quiet time
and you connect with someone who wants to party like a rock star, even if
they are a great person and their heart is in the right place, chances are that
relationship will not last. One of you is out there all the time, socializing,
and perhaps burning the candle at both ends, while the other prefers a
quieter, more introspective, balanced lifestyle.

For example, if you prefer to stay home in the evenings, watch movies, and
snuggle, and your partner one day says: “I’m out of here, you’re a drag.
You’re not worth being with,” does that make you an unworthy person? No,
it does not. But if you were to hold onto that person’s assessment as the
gospel truth, you might never get into another relationship. You might
choose instead to isolate, to hurt, and harm yourself by self-soothing with
alcohol, drugs, comfort foods, or other harmful behaviors.

Here’s the key: an isolated event is not a never-ending pattern. When we get
thrown off course by a job loss, we must realize that we are not just one lost
job. We are more than that! When we break up with a partner, we need to
remember that we are not simply a partner, we are much more than that.

Let’s look at some remarkable examples. Helen Keller was much more than
her lack of sight. Terry Fox was much more than an amputee. Nelson
Mandela was much more than a victim of apartheid. Mahatma Gandhi’s
eldest son was an alcoholic who despised his father … but Mahatma Gandhi
was much more than a heartbroken, estranged parent.
WE ARE MORE
Many of the most admired and accomplished people in the world have
learned to recognize that they are more than their failures and shortcomings.
We too are more. We are more than our depression, our anxiety, our ADD,
our abuse, our failures, our childhood, our bank balance, our losses, our
dysfunctions. We are more! We need to realize that we are not just the
experiences and the roles we play in our lives. We are much more! We are at
once perfect and a work in progress.

Just like children who live in the moment, we need to believe in the
superheroes within us.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to

explore the hurts you have personalized in your life: negative events and
symptoms that prevent you from recognizing your true value and
potential.

We need to learn to rise above the negative events and messages we have
accrued in our lives. I am not my anxiety. I am more than that. I am not my
Attention Deficit Disorder. I am more than that. I am not my abuse. I am
more than that. I am not my trauma. I am more than that. I am not my age
and weight. I am more than that. I am not my relationship loss. I am more
than that.

Self-worth does not come from just one area of our lives, nor is it defined,
restrained, or diminished by isolated events. There is more to us! To love
ourselves as we are, we need to have compassion for ourselves, our
challenges, our pain, our struggles, and our suffering in the many roles we
have played and are playing in our lives.

We have to recognize with child-like innocence that just because a couple of

experiences have thrown us off, it doesn’t mean that we are not good
enough. We are, at once, perfect and a work in progress.
In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have a chance to reset
your self-worth by acknowledging the negative events that have taken
place in your life and taking inventory of your best qualities and
attributes.

You are worthy of love just the way you are. Learn how to love yourself,
with your beauty and your scars, your traumas, and your hurts. Learn to
strive to be better while recognizing that the obstacles and difficulties you’ll
encounter do not mean that you are not good enough.

We can strive to be higher, better versions of ourselves each and every day.
That’s our journey. Take a moment and practice the pause. Return to your
notes from time to time, and review and add to your list of good things about
you. Begin to appreciate your own worth just as you are. Reinforce this and
one day you will truly align and feel able to believe it. Life is all about
replacing one thought with another … replacing negative thoughts with
positive, compassionate, supportive ones.

EXERCISE

List the past hurts in your life that you have personalized.
What negative events, such as break-ups, job losses, and symptoms from
your genetic make-up, have you internalized? Identify the hurts that keep
you stuck and prevent you from recognizing your true value.
Make a list of the good things about you, your strengths, skills, patience,
courage, dedication, persistence, and kindness. Don’t be stingy. Go all out
and be proud of every good thing about you!
 CHAPTER 15

OBSTACLES AS LESSONS

Life, as I have said before, is just a series of experiences. We judge these

experiences as positive or negative. The experiences we judge as negative
tend to be those that inconvenience us. From day to day, what may
inconvenience us can shift and change.

For example, a child asks his mother: “Please come upstairs with me. The
boogieman is up there and I’m afraid to go alone.” If his mother has plenty
of time and no pressing demands, she may find the request cute and
charming, and enjoy a trip upstairs to scare away the boogieman. But if this
request coincides with a day the mother is juggling completing a work
assignment while making dinner and doing laundry, the trip upstairs to
banish the boogieman becomes a negative experience.

We need to start removing the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ labels from our
experiences. We need to begin looking at our obstacles and challenges in life
as lessons, or as a pause where we can choose to do something different.
Life only gives us what we can handle. Know that you can handle problems
as they arise.
PAUSES AND FLOWS
Let’s talk about pauses and flows. When things are going pretty much
according to plan, we see our life flowing as it should, without obstacles or
difficulties. But when there are pauses — things that we don’t expect that
slow us down or throw us off course, such as illnesses, obstacles, or
decisions we need to make — these pauses feel uncomfortable because they
throw us off our pace. Having to pick up a sick child from school, or fix a
flat tire, or nurse a nasty head cold may not be a big deal, but these things
interrupt our flow, that is to say, the smooth predictability of our daily
routines.

We need to start removing negative labels. Our fears say: I don’t know if I
can handle that. It’s our job to make our faith that life doesn’t give us more
than we can handle bigger than our fears. We can handle it all, good or bad.
Bring it on!
FAITH VERSUS FEAR
Faith is believing in your skillset and knowing that you can handle whatever
comes your way. When things go off course, we become stressed because we
fear that we might not have what it takes to deal with a situation: Am I going
to lose my job if I leave the office and pick up my sick kid for the third time
this month? or I don’t have time to deal with repairing my car. We get
stressed out about imagined catastrophic possibilities and worst-case
scenarios. Fear is simply the absence of faith, a lack of faith in your ability
to handle whatever challenges come your way. Let’s start with that.

While everything in life is possible, we need to explore the probability of a

worst-case scenario taking place. My boss might fire me for leaving to pick
up my sick child from school. But how probable is it? I have a great track
record at work. Everyone on my team loves working with me. I don’t have
emergencies like this often, and my child is really sick. If my boss doesn’t
have compassion for my situation, maybe this is not the right place for me.
CHALLENGING OUR THOUGHTS
We need to start challenging the thoughts that we give weight to. Anything is
possible; but what is probable? Say I’ve always feared that I would be hit by
lightning: what is the probability that this is going to happen? It’s not
raining. I’m indoors. I live and work in a city full of tall buildings where my
chances of being hit by lightning are even lower than most. We need to
challenge our cognitive distortions, our inaccurate ways of seeing reality.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll be asked to explore your
thoughts and judgments about the challenges in your life.

We need to recognize that in life we all have good days and bad days. On a
good day, things flow a little bit smoother. On a bad day, they don’t. You
might need to slow down, take extra care, or change your agenda or
expectations for the day. But it’s not a big deal. Good days or bad, you can
handle it.

Life only gives you what you can handle. To date, you’ve handled whatever
has come your way. Reinforce your belief that you can handle whatever
comes your way. Embrace everything that comes into your life as a lesson.
Embrace every obstacle as a lesson for growth. Remove labels. And on
challenging days, add in some self-care, have a treat, walk, chat with a
friend, have a movie night or dinner out, engage in a hobby. Do something
that brings you joy.
OBSTACLES AND UNCERTAINTIES
Everything running smoothly for too long can leave you unprepared when
obstacles and uncertainty pop up. Unexpected occurrences are not all bad:
you could win the lottery. But even winning the lottery could bring
unimagined challenges. You could get a better job, be offered a transfer or
promotion; all good, but such opportunities come with obstacles and
challenges of their own. We might initially be afraid of change or worry
about stepping into a new role with added pressures and greater
responsibilities.

For example, as my mother entered her final year in the workforce before
retiring, her job shifted. She was assigned to a later shift with fewer working
days. Initially, she was upset and perceived this change as negative and
disrespectful of her long-time service to her employer. But in the fullness of
time, her perception changed. She came to see these changes as invaluable
because her revised work schedule prepared her for the transition into
retirement.

We often judge the changes in our lives as negative, but these changes often
show up for our own betterment. Remove judgment. Allow yourself the
confidence to embrace things that come up in your path. Consider that they
have shown up for your own betterment and growth.

When something happens to you, consider it a message. It is showing you

something about yourself. After that, every time it repeats, it is a test. For
example, the first time I experience a relationship becoming unpleasant and
hurtful to me, I am being shown features or behaviors in another person that
I find problematic. From then on, every time these same features or
behaviors reappear in new relationships, I am being tested. Have I learned
my lessons from the first person who hurt me? Am I just repeating my past
mistakes, and choosing that misaligned ‘bad boy’ — or ‘bad girl’ — over
and over again? Or am I able to change my patterns of behavior and make
better choices for myself?
THE SAME MISTAKES
While it is easy to see when friends make the same mistakes over and over
again, we often do not recognize the repeated patterns in our own lives. So,
in my first ‘bad boy’ relationship, I learned the lesson that this particular
type of person is not a good fit for me as I strive to become my highest and
best self. In my first failed career move, I learned that a certain type of job or
setting or boss is not a good fit for my skills, interests, temperament, or
goals. Life is trial and error. I accepted what didn’t work and kept trying new
experiences, and I allowed my growth to lead to a better fit for me.

After learning the valuable lessons gained by living through challenging

situations, every time you’re faced with an opportunity that falls into the
same pattern, it’s a test. Have you grown enough through your experiences
to recognize a repeated pattern? Can you say to yourself: I’m not doing this
again; it doesn’t work for me? Can you stand up for yourself, be assertive
and brave, and seek out what works for you, rather than repeating patterns
and people pleasing or otherwise following the same path over and over?
You can make a job or relationship work or fit, but our goal is to find our
best possible fit.

You need to embrace your life experiences — including the negative ones —
as a series of opportunities for growth, opportunities to learn lessons,
opportunities that reveal aspects of yourself that you need to address, stay
with, or move away from so that you can begin to set healthy boundaries for
yourself.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to

reflect on some of the most important ‘hard’ lessons you have learned,
and how these lessons informed your choices moving forward.

Yes, there have been and will be hard days. But you need to realize that on
those days when you encounter pauses and obstacles, you’re also being
taught how to rest, how to be kind to and love yourself, how to bring in
elements of self-care.
Self-care can be as simple as ordering dinner rather than dragging yourself,
exhausted, off to the grocery store to shop for food, then heading to the
kitchen to prepare a meal. It could mean canceling a night out with friends
and just relaxing at home if you’re feeling stressed and fatigued at the end of
a challenging day. On difficult days, allow yourself the choice to slow down,
and add in self-care. Realize that the fabric of life is learning and growing.
Every obstacle has its place and purpose in your growth. If you accept it, you
can roll with the punches, enjoy the good, and recognize and embrace the
lessons of the obstacles. It’s all part of life’s journey.

EXERCISE

We need to challenge our thoughts. Being a better, higher version of

ourselves requires us to recognize our judgments and where we place our
value. Tell your inner child that you deserve it all and nurture them with
compassion to live life fully.

Ask yourself:

• Are you making the challenges in your life heavier than they need to
be?
• Are you magnifying the probability of bad things happening?
• Do you tend to focus more on what is not working than what is in
your life?
Think about the most important ‘hard’ lessons you have learned through
challenging situations in your life. How did these lessons inform and
influence your choices? Are you growing or feeling like a hamster on a
wheel going nowhere.
 CHAPTER 16

BECOMING A HIGHER VERSION OF

YOURSELF

This chapter is all about becoming higher versions of ourselves. The chart
below illustrates a cycle of life from childhood into midlife and beyond.

When we are growing up, we are sponges, we’re eager, we’re enthusiastic,
we’re in a place of learning and growth. There’s a big world out there to
explore, and we’re itching to take it all in. It’s all new! In our youth-obsessed
culture, we celebrate and embrace this phase of life. But it’s only just the
beginning of a long, exciting journey.

It’s important to understand life’s phases. In the first part of life, up to age
25, there is a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We’re full of vigor and zest for
life. Everything is a new experience. Newness in life creates interest. But life
can be heavy in this time-to-live first phase. You don’t have money, you’re
trying to go to school, trying to figure out what your career will be. You have
many influencers pulling you away from your truth, telling you what they
think you should do, who you should be, and how you should live your life.
Your parents think you should be one thing, and society is showing you
other options. Maybe you have attention/learning struggles or anxiety
hindering you from performing at the level you know you are capable of. We
struggle with a lot of things in this first phase of life. It’s a tough time to live
through.

We have a glorified image of youth. But as we mature beyond this phase, we

begin to sense that life is fleeting and short. Often, in the second phase of
life, between the ages of 35 and 55, we experience a midlife crisis.
THE SECOND PHASE OF LIFE
In this second — time-left-to-live — phase of life, the responsibilities and
challenges begin to mount. Our parents begin to age. Eventually, they get old
and sick, and many times we become their caregivers. At the same time, we
take on more responsibilities, such as raising children, servicing a mortgage,
and meeting the increasing demands of a job. In this phase of life there is
more sacrifice required of you. Life appears busier, more time-pressured,
and stressful.

Also, there’s more wear and tear on your body, and you lose interest in
things that were once exciting and novel. You’ve been there and done that a
thousand times, and what once gave you joy no longer holds your interest.
Intimacy may decline, interest in established hobbies or activities might
fade, and you might find yourself no longer excited about travel or activities
that you once looked forward to with enthusiasm. You might also feel stress
about long-term finances and the time looming in your life when you will no
longer be able to support yourself in the same way. You might realize that
you made decisions in your youth that are unfavorable for your older years.
BECOMING A BETTER YOU
No matter what stage you’re in, it is important to strive to become a better
version of yourself. But what does this mean? A better version of the self is
not about accomplishment. We’re taught from an early age to strive to
achieve success and make something of ourselves. But where are we going?
And why so fast? What’s the rush? We’re often trying so hard to accomplish
and arrive that we fail to bring in self-care and self-love. If you push too
much and work too long and hard, you just might peter out earlier than you
otherwise would. True success in life includes quality self-care rather than
always putting the needs of others ahead of your own. It is smart to reflect.
Ask yourself, if I died today how would people remember me? Are you
living a quality life that people would appreciate and reflect back on with
respect at your funeral?

We go through life thinking of happiness as a destination, a point in the

distant future when at last we will have achieved and accumulated all that
we want. We think we will be happy when we finish school. When we finish
school, we think we will be happy when we get married. Once we’re
married, we think we’ll be happy when we have children or a better job,
more financial security, a better car, a better home. Then one day, we die,
still waiting to be happy.
NOT A DESTINATION
Life is not a destination. It’s a journey. It’s about living each and every day,
every moment in your truth. Are you living each day fully with joy and
pleasure? Are you sparking interest? Are you learning how to incorporate
self-love and self-care into your life? Are you able to live each day as if it
were your last?

It’s important when striving to be a better version of yourself to step back

from the cycle of being well-adjusted to a sick society. A sick society
promotes overworking, overstretching, getting caught up in superficial
material acquisitions, sacrificing yourself for others all the time, burning out,
being sick, losing your sense of purpose and joy in your own life, and not
taking care of your relationships or your mind, body and soul.

In your final hours, you’re not going to be fretting about not spending
enough time working, you are going to agonize over time and energies not
spent enjoying your life, interests, and relationships with others. Your
colleagues, clients, and professional connections will not be by your side in
the end, but the people you sacrificed will be there. Are you living a life
aligned with how you want to be remembered?

A person striving to become a better version of themselves goes beyond their

habits, daily routines and responsibilities and really looks at their self-
evolution. The higher version of yourself goes beyond the daily routines and
responsibilities and asks: What is my self-evolution?

We often become depressed when we put so much pressure on ourselves. We

stay isolated and stuck in a place of loneliness. But when we strive to be a
higher version of ourselves, we constantly work on our mind, body, and soul,
on our relationships with and our service to others, on relations with family
and friends and our community.

Without self-love, self-care, and self-fulfillment, we are truly alone. We

don’t make time to be healthier. We don’t make time for our minds to be
healthier. We don’t challenge our negative thoughts and we don’t engage in
meaningful, in-depth conversations with others. We get stuck in superficial
chit-chat, caught up in superficial comparisons. We often feel empty, even
after spending time with people we care about. This void is a sign that we
need to work on ourselves and our life on a deeper level.
THE WELL OF DEPRESSION
When people are suffering from depression, they feel hopeless about life and
trapped as if they were at the bottom of a well. When you’re stuck in a well
of depression, you feel alone, out of place, disconnected, unable to relate to
others. You feel cold, lonely, confused, disheartened, and lost. Even if you’re
surrounded by people and beauty, you feel disconnected from everything
good and sustaining.

Emerging out of depression is like climbing out of a deep, dark well. We

need to learn how to embolden ourselves to look up from the well and see a
point of light. That light is the hope that you can climb out of the dark place.
You have the skillset to do it no matter how stuck you feel. This hope
musters up a little bit of energy that allows you to begin to wedge your
hands and feet into the cracks and grooves in the walls to raise yourself up.
You can do it. As humans, we are made for survival. Our bodies do
everything to survive threats. We just need to align with and trust ourselves.
OUT OF THE WELL
Step by step you rise higher and higher. Not wanting to return to the
darkness, you don’t look back. You keep climbing higher, searching in the
darkness for the next opportunity to grab onto. Finally, you reach the edge of
the well, and you pull yourself out. You are warmly welcomed by a ray of
sunshine. Sunshine brings you connection, hope for a better moment. You
feel the warmth of the sun and the healing light on your face. The wear and
tear on your body and soul from the darkness of the well melts away as the
sun invigorates your body. Visualize reaching out and grabbing a piece of
that sun and putting it in your heart. Now your heart radiates this beautiful
light. This light spreads from the top of your head down to the tip of your
toes. It brings you to a place of healing from within.

In depression, we allow our mind, body, and soul to stay connected to

negative ruminations, darkness, and pessimism. We put ourselves deeper and
deeper into these wells. If we don’t find a way to see hope and light, to pull
ourselves out, we can feel alone and disconnected, which can lead to pain
and suffering. We can get to the point of wanting to leave this life.
RECREATING INTEREST
Buddhist teachings say that we must constantly strive to recreate interest in
and passion for life. In the first phase of life, there is so much to be
interested in. We’re young and the world is waiting for us to explore. But as
we get older, it’s harder to create interest because we have been there and
done that on so many fronts.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have a chance to

examine your current life phase and take inventory of your daily
positive practices. And you’ll be challenged to imagine ways of bringing
more joy and excitement into your life.
YOUR LIFE’S WORK
Becoming a higher version of yourself means thinking positively, seeing the
light, having more faith than fear, and constantly working on yourself. Being
alive in health takes work, care, and attention. We need to start paying
attention to our mind, body, and soul and to our relationships with friends,
family, co-workers, and our community. (When I refer to the ‘soul,’ I am
talking about a spiritual connection to our own spirit, truly enjoying your
own company.) When you are alone, do you enjoy your own company or are
you exhausted? Do you like what goes through your mind? Are you
ruminating negative, racing thoughts? Are you at peace with yourself? Do
you feel happy and appreciate where you are, or are you constantly looking
to be elsewhere? Do you have negative memories, sadness, loneliness, fears,
self-dislike, doubt, and anxiety?

You enjoying your soul — enjoying your self-esteem and taking pride in
who you are — seeing the qualities you were born with, the positivity, the
happiness, the unconditional love, the vigor for life, your ability to speak
your truth, and living on your own terms, as children do, is possible at any
age.

You are not your age. You’re more than that! Recognize that to be a higher
version of yourself, you need to work on yourself every day, climb out of the
well when you need to, to find vigor and light in your life. Bring in
happiness through gratitude and recognize positivity, eating well, exercising,
and limiting or eliminating alcohol and drugs that could be depressing you.
We need to be kind to ourselves. We often bring substances into our lives
that can cause depression and anxiety. Alcohol, for example, is a depressant.
It depresses the central nervous system and is not aligned with lifting us up
when we are already in a low place.

Begin to explore what you put not only in your body but also in your mind.
In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll explore difficult questions,
including how hard you are on yourself, how negative your thoughts are,
what cycles through your mind as lingering, unfinished business, and other
questions.
The goal here is to start challenging yourself, no matter what stage of life
you’re in. Establish goals for yourself and bring in baby steps to get you
started on your way. Acknowledge and celebrate your minor gains as big
wins. If you’re eating well and exercising, if you’ve stopped scrutinizing and
criticizing your appearance, and you’re working to align yourself with your
vision of a healthier version of yourself, you are on your way. Everything
will fall into place over time. Living healthy is a choice we need to make —
over and over — for our betterment.

Have compassion for yourself. Things take time. Have compassion for your
genetics, your stage of life, and for how stressful life can be. Set an intention
to become a better, higher version of yourself.

EXERCISE

Whatever age you’re at right now, take a look at your day-to-day life.
Whether you’re in a time-to-live or time-left-to-live phase, ask yourself the
following questions:

• Are you living with vigor?

• Are you embracing your life with happiness?
• Are you bringing in moments of self-joy, self-love, compassion, and
connection with people you care about?
• Are you celebrating life, or just going through the motions?
• Do you look forward to the day ahead every day?
Explore what you put in your mind:

• How hard are you on yourself?

• How negative are your thoughts?
• What goes on in your mind that feels like lingering, unfinished
business?
• What do you hold on to, that no longer serves you?
 • Are there hurts in life that you are still stuck on?
• Are you happy with the relationships in your life or do you need to
make more connections and deepen the ones you have with the people
in your life?
• Are you living your life on your terms or are you afraid?

Make note of any issues that come up.

Take a moment right now to set an intention of becoming a better, higher
version of yourself.
 CHAPTER 17

YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

We’re born playful, innocent, feeling like superheroes, in a state of

unconditional love. As children, we embody magnificent energy, passion,
and presence. We live each moment in positivity, high self-esteem, and
connectedness. This is our authentic self — the one that we are born into.

Over time we start losing and letting go of our connection to our authentic
self. We replace much of that positivity and vigor with low self-esteem, self-
criticism, and fear. We internalize hurtful things and feel afraid to re-
experience pain, hurts, and struggles.
STRIVING FOR AUTHENTICITY
Each and every day, we need to strive to bring in reminders of our authentic
self, our true self, the one we were born with, in high self-esteem. We need
to recognize that every one of us has a true, unique, authentic self. We are
unique in our expression of ourselves, our interests, our passions.

Each and every one of us also has a battlefield inside. Our authentic selves
struggle with what is expected of us. We need to learn to follow our truth
and fight for our authenticity, for our greater good.

In this chapter, you will begin the challenge to reinvent yourself. You will
begin to look at your life and take action to reinvent it for your own greater
good.
FACTORING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF INTO YOUR LIFE
In previous chapters, we’ve talked about how when we are in pain (low self-
esteem, anxious, doubtful, negative, depreciative, unhappy), we spill our
pain onto others. When you work on yourself, you also spill positivity onto
others. Don’t give from your well, give from your overflow: an overflow of
positivity, love, kindness, support, and compassion.

We make time to take on extra work, help others, or lend a hand when asked.
It’s time to start factoring yourself into your life. Start by setting aside time
every week to strategize and plan ways to move toward becoming a more
authentic, healthier, kinder version of yourself. Children eat regularly, go to
bed early, and get enough sleep. They rest when they need to, they reach out
for affection when they need it, they follow their feelings, and seek out what
they require to feel good and whole. As we age, we hesitate or feel
embarrassed to share our needs, and we fear that people will not love us as
we are. Where did the doubts creep in? Why are you holding onto them as
absolute truths? We all want to be loved and accepted. We all just mirror and
hesitate to reach out because of self-deprecating thoughts and isolated
hurtful experiences or influences.
THINK ABOUT IT
Imagine for a moment not that you are a child, but that like a child, you
could seek out or ask for what you want or need. Think about your life. What
would you like to change? Take a moment to recognize, in your mind, body,
and soul, what concerns you about your relationships with your partner,
family and friends, co-workers and your community, your finances, your
career, and your health. Acknowledge the areas of positivity and prosperity
and note the areas of your life where there is dysfunction caused by your
own actions. Are there areas in your life of hurt, harm, ignorance, and
avoidance that stem from your behaviors? Are there areas of concern where
you could begin to take action?

Let’s explore some ways you can begin today to connect with your authentic
self.
NOURISHMENT
Your relationship with food is a great place to start. I facilitated a group
therapy program called Food for Mood. This group was all about facilitating
understanding that when your mood is off, your food habits tend to go off
track as well. When we’re feeling sad, worried, depressed, or lonely, we
crave comfort foods or withdraw from food altogether. When we’re feeling
happy and in control, we make healthier choices, in alignment with our
wellbeing. When we’re feeling sad, or victimized, or overwhelmed, or
triggered by trauma, we crave numbing agents, such as drugs, alcohol, and
comfort foods.

It’s important to recognize what you put into your mouth, and the purpose it
serves. Are you eating for nutrition and energy, or to deplete and numb
yourself? Have you formed comfort habits from your upbringing? Did your
mother offer food as comfort, or did you grow up in a culture centered
around food rather than food as nourishment? Examine your relationship
with food and mood and the patterns and habits you have formed.
SELF-TALK
Another great starting point is how you start your day. We wake up in the
morning and do not speak to ourselves with high self-esteem. We wake up
and drag ourselves into work feeling tired. People ask us how we are, and we
answer with the flat-line response: “Fine.” We often criticize our weight,
fatigue, age, or level of accomplishment in life.

We fail ourselves when we fail to look at ourselves positively. We might

criticize the way our clothes fit. We put pressure on ourselves to look a
certain way. At work, we feel like we’re behind, or not up to the tasks at
hand. We scrutinize and deride ourselves from the moment we wake up until
we go to sleep at night. How is this in any way positive or healthy?

What would shift if you took the time to look at yourself and acknowledge
your true self? Think what would change if you could say: My true self is
unconditionally loving, giving, caring, intelligent, funny, strong, powerful,
cute, pretty, compassionate, handsome, loyal, accountable, trustworthy,
generous, organized, patient, considerate, cooperative, fearless, worthy,
knowledgeable, capable, creative, kind, artsy, beautiful, amazing, athletic,
enthusiastic, self-loving, dependable, reliable, empathic, forgiving, grateful,
friendly, helpful, honest, punctual, respectful, resourceful, understanding,
pure, innocent, a good partner, a good parent, a good friend, a loving
daughter or son, spiritual, driven, and vivacious.

There are so many beautiful words we can use to describe ourselves. How do
you speak about yourself? Self-talk is important.
AFFIRMATIONS AND MANTRAS
Affirmations are a powerful means of aligning with your authentic self.
Think of affirmations as a way of planting seeds for the future. The future,
after all, is nothing more than the imagination. It could be positive or
negative. Are you planting the seeds of positivity for your future, or are you
planting seeds of fear, anxiety, and worst-case scenarios? If the future is
uncertain, it means you can make it as beautiful as you want it to be. You can
plant any seed you want. Affirmations can help you plant the seed of what
you want to bring into your life, what you want to manifest. Affirmations
such as:

• I bring in an abundance of money.

• I am safe, healthy and protected.
• I am capable.
• I bring in the love of my life.
• I bring in success.
• I work with ease.
• I bring in balance with ease.
• I am always in a state of love, gratitude, or calmness.
• I am worthy of love just as I am.
AFFIRMATIONS
Let’s talk about how you speak to yourself in moments of stress. Are you
able to pull yourself out of a negative state of mind? In moments of stress,
you can use affirmations or mantras to pull yourself out of a negative state.
Imagine saying to yourself in moments of doubt: I am worthy of love just the
way I am. Imagine, when you’re feeling vulnerable, saying: Nothing bad
leaves me. Nothing bad comes to me. These affirmations can make you feel
supported, positive, and protected in times of self-doubt.

You can use affirmations to reconnect with your authentic self, and support
yourself when you’re feeling less than, stressed, anxious, or vulnerable.
Affirmations can replace negative thoughts in moments of anxiety and take
you to a place of calmness and self-care.

In the exercise at the end of this chapter, you’ll have a chance to create
affirmations of your own. You can use your affirmations to reconnect
with your authentic self, and support yourself when you’re feeling less
than, stressed, anxious, or vulnerable.
SEED MANTRAS AND CONTEMPLATIVE MANTRAS
Mantras are very useful tools. They can replace negative thoughts in
moments of anxiety and take you to a place of calmness and self-care. There
are two types of mantras. Seed mantras are single words you can drop at any
time, in silence. People often use a seed mantra to calm the mind. An
example of a seed mantra: Love. Love. Love. Love. A contemplative mantra
is a sentence or statement that you can repeat as often as you like to
overpower your negative statements and empower yourself. Here’s an
example of a contemplative mantra: I am capable. I am capable. The
Ho’oponopono Prayer is a popular Hawaiian healing mantra-like tool for
facilitating forgiveness of others and self. The statements repeated are: “I am
sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”

By repeating these words or phrases in your head, you are reaffirming on a

vibrational front where you want to be and how you want to feel, versus how
you might be feeling in a moment of vulnerability or negativity. You can’t
have two thoughts working simultaneously, so replace negative thoughts or
statements with positive ones. Take charge of the content repeating in your
head. Your thoughts lead to your moods and physical symptoms, and
consequently affect your actions and behaviors. So take charge of your
thoughts.
BREATHING
Breathing is a powerful way to reconnect with your authentic self. It’s the
quickest way to ground yourself and get out of your head. Often, when we
are stressed, we take short and shallow breaths. When we are taking short
and shallow breaths, we are not bringing enough oxygen into our bodies.
This stresses our body and tightens our muscles. It is important to
incorporate breathing as a means of bringing you back to yourself,
grounding yourself, and reconnecting with your authenticity. The box
method of breathing is simply a six-second inhale and six-second exhale. It
is a powerful means of deep breathing that can ground you and calm you
down. These deep breaths also bring sufficient oxygen into every part of
your body. Proper oxygenation makes you feel healthier and more relaxed.
KINDNESS
What you put out there will come back to you. Take a moment right now.
Think of yourself as your highest self in your most authentic life. Just as
when you’re in pain you spill over onto others, when you are your authentic
self, you spill over your joy and you will receive joy in return. When you act
in kindness, you receive kindness back. When you give love, you receive
love in return. Are you putting out there what you want to receive? Whether
it’s kindness, respect, compassion, or understanding, take a moment to
identify and recognize what you put out all day long, and think about what
you receive in return. Is it positive, negative, or neutral? Identify and
recognize what you put out all day long, and think about what you receive in
return. Is it positive, negative, or neutral?
REST
Rest means that you care about your body and your mind enough to put it in
a place of rejuvenation and replenishment. Do you bring rest into your life?
Do you bring in balance? As much as we want to conquer the world, get to
the top and be ahead of our schedules, at some point, something’s got to
give. Some say that a well-kept home is an unlived life. It’s okay to live with
a little mess. Sometimes we need to relax and restore.

Give yourself permission to do things that bring you pleasure, enjoyment,

fun, rest, and playfulness. Life is not all about responsibilities and things that
have to get done.

Look at your life with a magnifying glass. Are you living your authentic life?
Are you doing things that bring passion and interest into your life? Or are
you doing things that are depleting you, that keep you merely existing rather
than living?

Your authentic self is closer and more accessible than you think. Explore
these and other ways to reconnect with your authentic self.

EXERCISE

You can use these affirmations to reconnect with your authentic self and
support yourself when you’re feeling less than, stressed, anxious, or
vulnerable. Mantras can replace negative thoughts in moments of anxiety
and take you back to a place of calmness and self-care. Louise Hay has
recorded many beautiful affirmations. You can use these affirmations as
inspiration for creating mantras of your own.
Take a moment to come up with a few of your own affirmations.

You can use these affirmations to reconnect with your authentic self, and
support yourself when you’re feeling less than, stressed, anxious, or
vulnerable. Your tailor-made affirmations can replace negative thoughts in
moments of anxiety and take you back to a place of calmness and self-care.

Create a seed mantra, one word you drop in silence to bring calmness,
grounding, positivity, or gratitude/happiness. For example, Love, Love, Love
or Om, Om, Om or Protected, Protected, Protected or Safe, Safe, Safe.
Create a contemplative mantra, a statement that reinforces something
positive in you. Some examples: I am capable. I am safe, healthy, protected.
My loved ones are well. I am worthy of love just the way I am.
 CHAPTER 18

FLOW

Where your attention goes, your energy flows!

Throughout this book, we’ve worked on setting life goals. A goal is the
beginning of a plan to move ahead toward betterment. You have to plan to
manifest what you want in life. Good health is something you can plan for.
Letting go of past hurts and trauma, forgiving yourself and others,
improving family, peer, and work relationships, finding a more fulfilling
job, or making a change in your career are all things you can plan to bring
into your life. Set goals to become a higher, more authentic version of
yourself. Everything you want, or intend to bring into your life, you can
manifest.

In this chapter, we’re going to explore attention, energy, and flow. You need
to start recognizing that your mind is quite powerful. It can uplift you or
lead to your demise. What we pay attention to is very important. You need
to look at where your mind goes because that is where your energy is going
to flow. Slow down, pause, and reflect to shift positively.
PLANTING THE SEEDS
Planning is planting the seed of where you want to go. We need to pay
attention to ourselves and what we want to bring into our life. We need to
list our goals and create a vision for where we want to be in life, and turn
our attention to things that will encourage success and bring forth the
changes we want to make.

Make a weekly date with yourself to check in with your goals and your
commitment to becoming a higher version of yourself. Pay attention to and
make note of the obstacles and struggles that hold you back from achieving
the goals you’ve set for yourself. This is crucial to moving forward in a
healthy direction.

Accountability is important. It’s important to be accountable to someone.

Being accountable only to ourselves is great in theory, but we often let
ourselves down and put ourselves last on our list of priorities. Bringing in
supports to help achieve the goals you set is critical. Make note of the
people who can act as your cheerleaders and those who will keep you
accountable. Consider establishing a buddy system in which you and a
friend act as support for one another. Sign up with a group that can help you
reach your goals.

For example, if your goal is to take up running to get into shape, rather than
doing it alone, you could find a group that helps guide novice runners into
the sport knowledgeably, safely, and with a sense of comradery. Rather than
become discouraged because you are pushing yourself too hard, too fast, or
in the wrong way, you will be more likely to achieve your goal surrounded
by others who share your intentions.

Your weekly self-date check-ins could be supported by your partner or a

friend going with you to a coffee shop where you will silently examine your
goals and review your progress and obstacles in the supportive presence of
another, and then share your progress with one another. Here, you can build
accountability, authenticity, and a deep support system.
I’d like to share with you the story of how my own buddy system began.
Michelle and I had been ordained together as ministers in the same
spiritualist church. Over time, we kept meeting while studying meditation
and teaching practices. Our connection in classes was strong and
immediate. Years later, we reconnected over social media, and spoke over
Skype to catch up. Realizing that we shared similar goals, we decided to
check in with each other once every two weeks to provide support and
accountability for the meditation goals we set for ourselves.

As we live in separate cities, we began bi-weekly meetings over Skype. We

have been doing this for years, and I look forward and value our check-ins.
We’ve also traveled to visit one another in person. We poke fun at one
another, we share our failures and our successes. We talk about the wobbles
that throw us off course and keep one another inspired and on track. We
send each other food logs and talk about what we will be working on in the
coming weeks and months. We work on mind, body, soul, relationships,
meal preparation, self-love, meditation, and many other goals we set for
ourselves.

Commit to yourself, and when you find your support person, to them as
well. Having friends who align with your goals makes your friendships a
little deeper and more real. You won’t be talking about shopping, vacations,
and other superficial things. You’ll be sharing what you’ve struggled with,
accomplished, and learned, as well as your experiences, your goals, and
dreams, forging a deeper, more fulfilling connection. You will help one
another grow and be better, more authentic versions of yourselves. You
learn from others who share their goals, and their goals may inspire you in
some way too! It is fascinating how beautiful life is when you have people
in your life with whom you share similar goals. We’re all interconnected.
The food we eat sacrifices itself for our nourishment and life.
TAKE A MOMENT
Take a moment. Create a vision board. People who are anxious and
depressed have sometimes been carrying such patterns for so long that they
don’t know how to feel without them. So we not only need to imagine the
way we want to be, we have to try to connect to the feelings that align with
the healthier version of ourselves.

Create your ideal list and vision board, and imagine and connect to the
feelings that come with that life being created. Imagine feeling the way you
want to be. Try and break the pattern of feeling that what you have always
carried needs to continue to be carried into today and every day after.
TAKE SMALL STEPS
Take a look at your self-talk. I want you to look at where you are and plant
the seeds of where you want to be. I’d like you to look at your ideal life.
Without putting undue pressure on yourself, begin to take small steps that
move you from where you are now to where you want to be. Everything
does not have to change overnight. Change is a process. Achieving a goal is
a process. Bring in people to help you work through obstacles in your way.
Your supports can help you through times of self-criticism and the days that
you wobble and go off course.

Look where your energy goes. Are you putting your energy toward things
that are going to facilitate success in your life? Or are you putting your
energies into things that are going to sabotage, distract, and hold you back
from achieving your goals?

You need to love yourself, and believe in yourself. It’s a choice. We can
make this choice. We can learn to love and value ourselves. We can learn to
strive to be in alliance with our own wellbeing and goals.

Being healthy in mind, body, and spirit doesn’t just happen. It’s hard work,
recognizing and revising unhealthy habits. But it’s worth it because it is
what will get you closer to the life that you want for yourself. You will age
better and carry less of what does not serve your health and betterment.

You deserve it. Feel deserving of love just the way you are. Feel deserving
of health and of the life you really want. Bring in supports to provide
consistency and accountability to help you succeed in breaking bad habits
and routines.

Have compassion for yourself on your journey. Things take time. You have
a whole lifetime to reach your goals. Each and every day, love yourself
enough to do at least one kind thing that aligns with you becoming a higher,
better version of yourself. Be the hero in your own life. Show up and stand
up for yourself. Be better, for yourself and others.
You’re worthy of love just the way you are. Working on yourself is all
about becoming a better, higher version of yourself. If there is a purpose to
life, it is this.

Life is just a series of experiences. Through these experiences, as we learn

more and more, we can strive to become better versions of ourselves. On
tough days, when it is hard, treat yourself with compassion. Be gentle with
yourself.

When life is flowing well, challenge yourself to take it up a notch. Commit

to a bigger goal. Push yourself a little harder. In Buddhism, they say we
need to constantly create interest in life so that we do not get depressed.
Striving for a higher, better self is a goal that creates interest and
betterment.

Strive to live in a state of wellness each and every day, in a state of

positivity each and every moment. If you find that you spend most of your
day in negativity, begin by intentionally, consciously bringing in positive
thoughts several times a day. Whether through meditating, listening to a
guided meditation, using deep breathing to ground yourself, bring in
positivity. Break for a healthy treat, catch the scent of something pleasant,
prepare yourself a delicious meal, repeat a mantra that makes you feel
empowered and positive, commit to a goal, work through social anxiety,
interrupt the cycle of negativity.

Start setting goals. Find hobbies and pursue interests that make you a better
version of yourself. Take a break from the high standards and pressures you
place on yourself. Most of all, love yourself. Make a start.
CONGRATULATIONS!

Congratulations for doing the work, completing this program, and for
committing to making positive changes that will help you transform into a
better version of yourself. This is what true happiness is. It’s a choice. It’s
you choosing to be better.

Decide to heal. Decide to love. Decide to try. Decide to replace negative

thoughts with positive ones. As you heal past hurts and begin to thrive and
grow, you give others permission to do the same. Set a shining example.
Decide to connect. Decide to help yourself, to be kind, to sit with whatever
shows up. Decide to set yourself free of pain, and to forgive. Decide to
embrace gratitude. Decide to be the version of you that you truly long to be.
Decide to create space in your life for moments of joy and gratitude.

Choose to accept yourself as you are. Celebrate your progress. And

continue to set goals to be a better version of you. We all wobble, and that’s
okay. Have compassion for yourself. You are both perfect and a work in
progress. Own it! Own who you are, just as you are, right now.

Pay attention to your thoughts. Examine them. High levels of positive

thoughts mean that you are aligned with your highest and best self. Watch
out for negative thoughts that you don’t agree with but affect you anyway.
Guilt, jealousy, and parental values you may disagree with: these are the
thoughts and feelings that are not aligned with your highest and best self.

This is the beginning of your journey of choosing to live your best life.

Revisit the chapters and exercises in this book from time to time. Review
the goals and strategies you’ve set for yourself. Reenergize and renew your
commitment to becoming your highest and best self.

It’s time to make your faith bigger than your fear. Remember, faith is
believing in yourself and your ability to change. And fear is self-doubt. It’s
you doubting your ability to handle things, to adapt and change. Making
your faith bigger than your fear aligns with you living a better, more
authentic, and happier life.

It’s time to stop existing and start living!

 EPILOGUE

We all have takeaways from our life events and experiences. We are all
survivors in our own way. We often take away what pertains to our issues or
needs at that particular point in time. There is always a reason or a lesson
behind why we are feeling attached to a thought or concept.

People don’t act on their thoughts; they act on their feelings about their
thoughts. We need to learn how to create our own life, make it matter, factor
ourselves into the equation of our life, and create the version of ourselves
that we want to be, not the version we think we need to be to fit in. It’s
important to imagine our ideal self, and manifest it.

Remember you are worthy just the way you are.

THOUGHTS, INCLUSIONS, AND EXCLUSIONS
We attach ourselves to thoughts that create moods and feelings, then act on
them. That’s right — our thoughts lead to our moods and behaviors. We
also attach ourselves to thoughts of exclusion. Reinforcement of our
exclusionary thoughts leads to behaviors such as self-isolation. Inclusionary
thoughts reinforced propel us to manifest connection with others, for
example, to feel like becoming part of a community, or seeking out and
participating in activities with like-minded people. It is up to you what
thought you pick to reinforce and how it looks and plays out in your life.

What kind of life are you creating for yourself? I challenge you to look at
your life. Are you staying stuck versus healing? Are you staying lonely
versus connecting? Are you staying distracted versus focusing?

What are you focusing on? Whatever you focus on expands. Your inner
world equals your outer world.

I have people asking about ego. How do I get rid of my ego? What is ego?
The ego separates you from your truth. Ego makes excuses for why you
cannot change. By getting rid of the concept of who you think you are, you
are removing ego and learning how to just be who you are versus who you
think you need to be. Help yourself heal today and try to see the good in
yourself in your mind. Envision it. Embody it.
CLEARING THE WAY WITH EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, widely referred to as
EMDR, is a process that facilitates the healing and clearing of trauma. We
all have layers of trauma. You can clear memories that are associated with
unpleasant, hurtful, traumatizing emotions. Your memories are in your past,
which means that the events that gave rise to them cannot affect you today.
It’s happened. It’s over. However, many of us carry an affect attached to
that memory. This is actually what we work to clear in therapy, and what we
need to clear to be free.

You can hold onto and think about memories from your past, but if there’s
affect attached to them, they are holding you back from living freely. Rather
than seeing memory as a page in your book from your past, you’re carrying
it forth into your present. Traumas get locked in our nervous system, along
with their original pictures, sounds, thoughts, and feelings.

EMDR unlocks the nervous system, allowing our minds and bodies to
process the experience on a deeper level. In other words, bilateral
stimulation helps process what we’re still attached to. In this process, one’s
own brain does the healing as it is completely in control. Replaying
memories, we can see what has been personalized, and clear the intensity of
the emotions and hurts of a negative memory or experience, and revise and
reframe negative concepts into more positive, helpful and adaptive
statements.
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
The reality is that you have always been in the driver’s seat, in control. The
thoughts and feelings we attach to our memories are ours. We might not
have control over the incidents and suffering that happen in our life, but we
have control over the thoughts and the way we interpret them, and the way
we attach ourselves to concepts and beliefs. The key is you are in control of
your own therapy in life. You need to make time for it. Make time for your
connection, healing, and rest. Often, our exhaustion and fatigue are, in fact,
emotional fatigue. How much or how little you do is up to you. The courage
to go into your stuff is about you being fed up with carrying painful
experiences that no longer serve your highest and best self.

As children, we sometimes come up with defense mechanisms that serve us

well in our young lives in a time of need. But as adults, we don’t question
and challenge whether these defense mechanisms are still serving us
(working for us), or if they are hurting us.

As a child, you might have suppressed, avoided, denied, and just moved on
as a way of coping. But as an adult, these mechanisms might no longer
serve you. You might need to mature and realize that you are no longer a
child in a household where you are stuck. You are an adult now and you can
choose your life. This means you don’t need to avoid things; rather, you can
address them.

Our coping skills need to evolve throughout the various stages of our life.
That’s something many of us don’t understand, and in therapy many times,
this is what we are uncovering: better ways of coping when we’re not in a
place of survival or a place of threat.

Traumas of racism, abuse, physical pains, medical maltreatments, COVID,

death, sudden life changes, bad news, shock, vulnerability, heartache,
disappointment in ourselves or others — we carry pain as a reminder not to
go through those experiences again.
We can grow and learn that we don’t need to carry memories with the same
level of hurt we felt when we first experienced them. This just holds us
back. Instead, it’s okay to have memories of incidents without the pain
attached and have compassion for ourselves and what we’ve gone through
and how painful it once was. Shifts in how we see ourselves are about us
learning to be who we need to be: a happier, healthier version of ourselves.
COPING WITH ALCOHOL AND DRUGS
Often, people cope with alcohol. Alcohol is often a gateway to the use of
other drugs. Substances numb negative physical and emotional states.
People who get into addictions have a lower pain threshold, a lack of
tolerance for unmanaged stress, so learning to cope better, learning how to
have better habits helps people disrupt the negative patterns in play. We
sometimes ‘use’ to take a break from life, stresses, ruminations, racing
minds, sadness, and feelings of low self-value.

So, once upon a time, if you did cope by using alcohol or drugs, today we
can find a way to disrupt the habits in you and help you learn how to find a
healthier way of coping with stress, with supports, resources, and healthier
ways of being.

I often help people with the concepts of what holds us back — the stories,
values, and belief systems that we take on. One that’s very common is: I’m
not safe in my world. I tell people to trace that concept back in time, to go to
a target memory where once upon a time, they might have had a childhood
experience where they felt unsafe in their world.

Sometimes we absorb our parents’ fears and anxieties of not feeling safe in
the world, and we take that on. Often, children born into immigrant families
take on their parents’ issues, anxieties, and perspectives of what the world
should look like. Many of us take on our parents’ anxieties, fears, money
issues, relationship struggles, concepts of the roles of men and women, or
racism.

Many times, we repeat patterns that have been projected onto us.
Unthinkingly we end up reinforcing them and absorbing them on a cellular
level; we repeat cycles and turn into our parents. Many of their fears and
prejudices in turn become our own.

When you have a somatic symptom (a symptom that is experienced in the

body), what words go along with it? This is important to look at. Many
times when we have such experiences, it is good to go into them to discover
the words that go with them, what associations go with them. Many times
these words are holding us back.
BRINGING IN RESOURCES
Installing positive resources is often what I do as a therapist. I try to help
people recognize that they have the resources to cope with difficult things.
Most of my work is helping people see that they have resources to help,
support, and guide them through situations in which they feel a lack of
nurturing, support, love, and capability. Our wise self, who is grown, can be
of support when we truly feel alone. I also try to help people imagine a
positive future, envision where they want to be in life, with their issues,
beliefs, and situations, versus being stuck in a situation and repeating
patterns from the past.

Safety is established with resources. Install resources to feel empowered in

life. Many people feel the child within. They see events and insecurities
through a child’s eyes and hold onto cognitive distortions, inaccurate ways
of seeing reality. The adult self has a wiser mind and is more mature. Some
of our adult cognitive distortions are very different from our childhood
ones. We need to develop more realistic ways of seeing situations. We need
to take time to realize how inaccurate our thoughts can be, and how we
reinforce and keep cognitive distortions going that do not apply or make
sense in our world today.
BECOMING A UNITED FORCE
Let’s try to connect the two worlds — that of your child and your adult —
and close the gap, to unite the two. Using all aspects of yourself, restart and
reconceptualize who you need to be, and become a united force. Hold your
younger self’s hand with compassion and let them know their adult
counterpart can heal and grow beyond where they became stuck.

As children, we are perfect … in high self-esteem, unconditionally loving.

This is why we love children. They are full of love and compassion, living
in their truth. They say it as it is. They have no filter. We love their
innocence, purity, connectedness, and authenticity.

But as that child grows, they start attaching themselves to difficult, scary,
horrible, or painful experiences. This begins a cycle where we become
fragmented. We separate ourselves from our truth and start allowing these
fragmented parts of ourselves to attach to stories that are not true: stories
that are our parents’ or symptoms of our parents. These are stories about
how we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not capable,
we’re damaged. This causes us pain.

In trauma, whether sexual abuse victims or victims of war, I find people

often blame themselves: It’s my fault, I’m powerless, I’m damaged, I’m not
good enough. These are irrational beliefs that we give power to. Reinforced
enough, they become, in a sense, a reality; they start to feel true to us. We
need to process pain and build a bridge to connect childhood experiences
with the adult we are today. We need to take fragmented selves and make
them whole again. We need to look realistically at our childhood and create
a vision of who we want to be by merging our child with our adult and
allowing ourselves to heal everything in the middle that we have acquired
that no longer serves us or presents an accurate picture of our world as it
really is today. Many of us are embarrassed about who we were. Rather
than live in shame, embrace who you were, and see how far you have come.

We absorb our parents’ insecurities, energies, judgments, belief systems,

and values. We need to challenge ourselves and ask: Are these values and
beliefs mine? Do they work in my world for the life I want to create for
myself? We often claim values that worked for our parents’ generation. But
times change, and we too must change.

With childhood abuse, sometimes a child keeps going back to the abuser.
It’s not that they want to be abused over and over again. Many times,
children go back seeking love, attention, and acceptance. It is not the abuse
they are going back for.

Many times, as adults, they wonder what is wrong with them. Why did I
keep going back? Why didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I seek help? They
often lack compassion for themselves as the child who went back seeking
love, attention, acceptance, care, nurturing, or connection with someone
they loved. Setting boundaries is a big part of our journey, but for abuse
victims to work on boundaries, they need to understand where they left
(abandoned) their boundaries.

We often yearn for comfort and attention and we put up with things in order
to obtain it. We need to examine our imaginations and reimagine the ill
thoughts that we’ve attached ourselves to, and we need to imagine adaptive,
healthy statements for our betterment, self-protection, and highest good.
CHALLENGING NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
We cannot blame ourselves for what happens to us. We need to look at how
we are continuing the pattern today. How am I keeping it going in my life?
We need to take accountability for revictimizing ourselves, day after day, by
not revamping and not having compassion and love for the child who went
through pain and suffering. When you went out, did you know you were
going to encounter abuse? When you went out, did you know you were
going to have a car accident? Did you know you were going to go through a
trauma? Did you know your father was going to pass away? We often
harbor irrational statements in our heads, such as: I shouldn’t have gone out!
Look what happened. But when you went out, did you go out seeking
abuse? Did you seek out trauma? No! We hold the irrational belief that we
are in control of everything that happens to us. Therefore, we caused our
abuse or trauma by choosing to go where we were assaulted, abused, or
traumatized.

In my practice, I help people revise their thinking by challenging the

negative and distorted thoughts that they hold onto out of habit or
misconception. Many times we blame ourselves, not because we are
blameworthy, but because it gives us a sense of control. A sense of a lack of
control can make us scared of uncertainty and fearful of bad things
happening at any time.

It’s hard to live in a world with uncertainty. However, we are born into a
world of uncertainty, and we do not know when and how we are going to
die. We are born with uncertainty so we can become comfortable with it.
We live in a society that teaches us to try hard to control each and every
moment of our lives.

It’s important to challenge our beliefs. Does everyone who does this get that
result? Does everyone who goes out at night get attacked? Does everyone
who gets into a car get into a car accident? We need to challenge ourselves
to examine negative thoughts when we blame ourselves for negative things
that happen to us. Did you know that if you went out that night, you would
have a car accident? Typically, people say no. If we don’t and can’t know
what is going to happen to us, how can we then blame ourselves? We didn’t
go out intending to cause ourselves harm. We didn’t go to someone’s home
to be abused.

We need to recognize that we don’t get into relationships hoping that we

will be unloved or go through abuse. It is important for us to realize how we
speak to ourselves, and how many times we speak to ourselves in a manner
that is not in alignment with the truth. Remove the conditioning that hides
your authentic, child-like self: your sense of love, compassion, belief,
wonder, safety, and self-confidence — we were born with all of this. Where
did we lose it?
OUR INNER RESOURCES
We all have resources within us. Most of us are surviving, and yet we don’t
give ourselves credit for having survived difficult traumas in life. What
does your child-self need to feel healed, safe, loved, protected, and able to
deal with the world?

Start questioning yourself. As an adult, your inner child is still with you.
What does that child need to heal? What does that child need to be a better
version of themselves? What does that child need to feel more equipped to
deal with society and not feel unsafe?

We have a universal connection to each other. We need to learn how to

accept situations as they are and people as they are. And we all have choices
amongst our acceptance. Our choices can liberate us from our pain. We can
choose to let go of things, change things, and equip ourselves with better
coping skills. The choice to carry pain is there, as is the choice to clear it.

Start again, right now. If you feel damaged, stressed, less than perfect, or a
work in progress, that’s okay. Start now. We’re allowed to be ‘perfect’ and a
work in progress at the same time. This is what is real. Things are as they
are. Our painful experiences are incidents and events that we go through.
And our brain can grab onto the associated concepts and thoughts to protect
itself and survive, to help us through the painful, challenging experiences
and protect us from them happening again. Our brain creates attachments to
painful incidents, creates fear and self-doubt as a means to help us equip
ourselves with better resources and coping skills.

It works in the moment, but if we hold onto these ill thoughts, we develop
constricting beliefs, which hold us back and revictimize us. We stay stuck in
the past rather than living our lives in the present.

An anxious child goes back and revictimizes him or herself constantly.

Many anxious children have something akin to a loudspeaker in their
bodies. Their symptoms are loud, and they constantly go to others to
neutralize their energy and seek comfort. But they are abandoning
themselves when they constantly look for other people to help them,
leading to inner emptiness, a lack of sense of self.

Later in life, they need to learn to reintegrate themselves and know

themselves better. As we learn we grow and develop aspirations, we seek
out resources to better ourselves and our circumstances.

Using our emotions and our imagination, we can create health. After all, it
is the imagination that holds onto ill health.

When an event happens, it’s just that — an event. We judge events and link
ill thoughts to them. These thoughts keep us stuck. It is our imagination that
attaches negative thoughts, beliefs, and concepts to those experiences. The
good news is that it is our thoughts that can liberate us and help us move
forward from negative experiences.
CREATING WHAT YOU NEED
In therapy, we work to create ideal supports (ideal parents, mentors, etc.).
We bring in resources to feel empowered, so that we have a better life
today, rather than staying stuck in trauma and revictimizing ourselves.

Create whatever you need! We have alter-ego states. We can create

ourselves to be the person we want. Who is the person you want to be? If
you’re not the person you want to be, create a new persona, one who is
more confident, who copes better, who feels empowered, and who feels
worthy and deserving of good.

I see the emptiness in so many people, a feeling of lack, a feeling of void.

You won’t forget what has happened in your past, but with resources, you
can shift, and you may even learn to grow. We don’t replace our parents, but
we can bring in new supports. At a time when you felt unsupported, you can
imagine mentors — real people or people you create out of your
imagination — helping you be a better version of yourself. I have a patient
who chose to imagine Pocahontas as her support system, a person who
played the part of a sibling helping her work through difficult times. (This
patient had no siblings and her parents were in a troubled marriage.)

Many of us have confusion around compassion and responsibility. When we

were growing up, our parents may have lacked supports. But as children we
see our parents as omnipotent and omniscient. As adults, we can begin to
accept that our parents were only human and that they were playing many
other roles besides that of a parent. I ask people to imagine what their
parents would have needed to be better parents when they were raising
them. Sometimes it is possible for you to imagine good supports for your
parents: to be healthier, better partners, and better parents, able to give you
what you needed to feel supported and be a healthier child. This releases a
child from feeling pressured to take care of their mother and father. We can
bring in imaginary supports to teach our parents how to be better versions
of themselves in our imaginations, removing the need for us to be their
caretakers.
People ask: “What is imagination?” My simple way of explaining this is to
ask how much they worry. And what do you worry about … about work,
money, future, safety, your partner, love, loneliness? All the things you
worry about … that’s your imagination. Your worries are not real. You have
created them in your imagination.

We can use our imagination to our advantage, for the positive. Rather than
take a negative thought and reinforce it, we can light up a positive pathway
and reinforce that through our imagination. When we open one door, it’s
like dominos, it links up to so many other doors. Negative pathways link to
other negative pathways. What we focus on — whether it is positive or
negative — expands.

When I do EMDR and I help someone look at I’m not good enough as a
concept, what they will find is that their mind takes them to all the times
they felt not good enough. Like dominos, it opens up all the memories, the
times when they reinforced a negative pathway, the feeling of not being
good enough.

In the same way, I can say that I am proud of myself. I am good enough. In
the same way that a negative pathway opens, a positive one can open. Like
dominos, you can end up with a bunch of memories that are positive,
reinforcing how you are good enough, and how you can be proud of
yourself.

Sometimes we hold onto pain because of fear. But if we let that story
remain, then the person who caused us pain got away with it. And we will
be susceptible to further hurts. Who is suffering by holding onto these
thoughts? I am. Is it worth it for me to hold onto negative thoughts and
reinforce negativity in my life? When you let the negativity out of your
system, the person who harmed you is not getting away with anything.
RELEASING AND CLEARING
Past traumas are like movies you have playing over and over. You’ve seen it
many, many times. In trauma, we reinforce our pain through flashbacks and
nightmares. The key thing for people working through trauma to remember
is that they survived it.

Add in resources and compassion for the suffering that you went through in
your trauma and recognize and acknowledge that you survived the trauma.
Resolve, strengthen, and reconceptualize life with gratitude, playfulness,
compassion for the pain in the past, but with a new beginning for the
current moment, where you are now. You have survived.

Abuse is confusing for children because they don’t understand their

attachment figures. Many times in abuse our attachment figures are our
perpetrators. This is confusing because we are taught that safety comes with
family, and strangers are the ones we have to worry about. But when family
members cause us suffering through verbal, physical, or sexual abuse, we
become confused about what is and is not safe.
THE WORLD BECOMES A VERY FRIGHTENING PLACE
Negative constructs are learned and then reinforced. When we clear things,
we allow ourselves to neutralize distorted ways of seeing reality, and we’re
left with compassion, love, and safety. Let’s dissolve the conditions that we
have placed on ourselves to feel unsafe, victimized, to feel hurt, and feel
less than others, or not good enough. Let’s look at our true selves and allow
them to emerge.

We need to trust ourselves, to move past our pain, into a place of pleasure,
compassion, love, and deservedness. In current situations with negative
concepts, I ask, “When have you felt like this before?” Most often,
whatever you’re struggling with today connects to your past. Almost
always, if you look backward, you will remember an earlier time when you
felt like this. Sometimes we do not recognize the patterns in our lives
because the faces and details change. But when we take the time to examine
our life stories, we can begin to see and understand our developmental
history. A developmental history in therapy helps us discover important
links and repeating patterns. In my private practice, becoming familiar with
a patient’s life story helps me see the repeating patterns in their life.

For example, if I have an issue with my father because he is a liar, maybe I

move out. By moving out and distancing myself, I don’t solve my problem,
but I do avoid it. But then I end up having a roommate who is a liar. So I
move out of that apartment because I don’t want to be with a roommate
who lies. Again, I don’t solve my problem with liars, I simply distance
myself from it, again, an avoidance maneuver. Now, I’m working at a place
where my boss is a liar. I quit that job and move on because I am not good
with liars. I’m still not solving my issue with liars; I am just separating
myself. Now I find myself dating a liar, so I dump him. Next, I become a
parent and find out my child is a liar.
FACING YOUR ISSUES
There are only so many times you can run away. Sooner or later you have to
face your issues and learn how to deal with the people with whom you
struggle. What in the past is linked to your behavior today? It is important
to recognize this.

Addiction is linked to trauma. It’s unprocessed neglect. Tease out blocking

beliefs, negative cognitions that hold you back. Replace negative cognitions
with positive ones. See the truth about your parents. They weren’t capable
of handling some situations and events, and that’s okay. Learning how to
see our parents in our truth not only humbles us, it gives us the power to
forgive. Learning to see the truth of your parents’ capacities showed you the
truth of their limitations, their lack of capacity to be everything you needed
them to be.

When you have a body sensation, it feels real. It’s not just a thought — it’s
a thought with a feeling, and now there’s a state attached. What is the belief
that goes on in your mind that accompanies that feeling? Is that thought
true? Or is it the feeling that makes it feel true?

Our job is to empower our inner advisor. We all have an inner advisor. We
are all gifted enough to work through our pain. We want to heal. But we
need to give it time and we have to stop numbing. We need to pause, reflect
and breathe. When we slow down and breathe, we can respond in awareness
and insight to heal and act with health and wellness in mind. Today’s world
of numbing with alcohol and drugs hurts us because we don’t allow
ourselves to heal, and what needs to heal is there, bubbling under the
surface,
EXAMINING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE COGNITIONS
Let’s examine positive and negative cognitions. It’s important for us to
recognize the core messages we say to ourselves. Here’s a negative thought:
I did something wrong. Reframing this thought could involve saying
something to yourself along the lines of, I’ve learned and I have grown
from this experience.

Here’s a list of ‘reframed’ negative thoughts or cognitions:

• I don’t deserve love.

I deserve love and I can have love.
• I’m not safe.
I am safe now.
• I am a failure.
I can succeed.
• I am a bad person.
I am a good person.
• I am broken.
I am beginning to heal.
• I am worthless and inadequate.
I am worthy and enough.
• I am not in control.
I am in control now.
• I can’t protect myself.
I can protect myself now.
• I am stupid.
I have intelligence.
• I have to be perfect.
I can be myself.
• I am ugly.
I am fine and beautiful just as I am.

Our thoughts are powerful. Remember, whatever we focus on expands. We

need to learn to focus on more positives to bring in gratitude, appreciation,
and sometimes even survival. Trust the wisdom within your body and build
health. We can choose health. We choose unhealthy habits daily. But we
weren’t born with unhealthy habits.

We weren’t born with a desire for alcohol. When we try it, at first it doesn’t
taste good, but we reinforce it over and over until it becomes desirable
because we like its numbing effects. What are we numbing from? If you
have a good life, you should be choosing to work through things, rather
than numbing. If life is too stressful, take charge and change.
PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE
Your past is your past. Your future is just your imagination. Start in the
present, right where you are. Just be. Grace is a beautiful concept that
indicates that life is orchestrated for our benefit, to grow and learn, and
become the highest and best version of ourselves.

Our obstacles or patterns of overthinking and attaching ourselves to

negative concepts and beliefs can become catalysts for change and growth.
Master your life now and be a better version of yourself. Trust yourself to
know that you can survive and navigate your way to where you want to be.
If you want to be in success, love, healing, growth, and worthiness, you can
do it. You just need to focus on bringing the supports and resources you
need to be in that energy.
CONNECT TO YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF
Your journey is to align with your authentic self. Never desert yourself. You
are born alone. You die alone. Once here, you are interconnected to
everything to help you be your highest and best if you choose to be. The
journey is about you learning how to be a better version of yourself in the
world in which you live. Imagine all your supports in alignment: healing
reverses hurt; energy follows intention; love is the connecting energy.
Connect to yourself and others and all around you.

Look at everything around you, the seen and unseen. Everything is holding
you up. Everything is supporting you.
Trust yourself. Ask yourself: What is the best next step for me? Surround
yourself with the supports that will get you to where you want to be. Take
time to connect and renew yourself. Renew your mind, your body, and your
soul. Ask yourself: In suffering, am I running away from an old program or
an old story? Am I stuck in an old pattern? Can I connect my current
suffering back to the first time I felt this way? When have I felt like this
before? When have I behaved like this before?

Acknowledge old patterns, then return to the present and plant the intention
of a new beginning. Allow your future to be what you want it to be rather
than just a repeated pattern from your past. We don’t need to reinforce
expectations. We need to learn to live as who we are.

There are two reasons why we suffer in life — we don’t accept people for
who they are, and we don’t accept situations as they are. Humble yourself.
People don’t have to live up to who you think they should be. They can be
themselves. You need to look at how that person’s actions affect you. If you
have healthy boundaries, other people cannot affect you negatively.
MANIFESTING THE LIFE YOU WANT
The steps you need to take to manifest the life you want are yours to take.
Intention followed by action leads to a higher version of your life and
yourself. Become one with the truth of who you need and want to be.

Our therapy comes from sharing our lives, becoming interconnected in the
world in which we live. We need to learn how to feel supported, grow, and
learn and acquire skills to facilitate a higher state of being. We are never
alone in our pain. Trust me — we do not live alone. We are born alone, but
we are born into families, systems, a society, with resources, in
communities, in friendships, and in partnerships. We are never alone in our
pain.

Sharing our sorrow halves it and sharing our happiness doubles it. Be real
in your life and you will see that everyone shares aspects of your pain and
issues. As we open up to our truth and our issues, we allow those around us
to open up as well. In this way, we allow others to heal and rescue us, and
help us to grow to be a better version of ourselves.

Envision where you want to be. Connect and align with your higher self.
Take action. Outline what those steps will need to look like. Change comes
through outlining and taking the steps to get there.

Bring in strategies and supports that will lead you to success. What might
these supports look like? They could include mentors, buddy systems,
therapy, coaching, parents, children, and more. Learn to surround yourself
with people who are aligned with you being a better version of you.
GIVING AND RECEIVING
Sometimes people lift us up, but sometimes people are unhappy with the
changes we’re making because our changes somehow negatively affect
them. Say you’re a giver. When you learn to step back and not give as
much, the people who are used to receiving might not be happy with your
change. But the people who have your best interests at heart will support
you in the journey that you are on to become a higher version of yourself,
even if it means they are not as much or as often on the receiving end of the
relationship.

Learn to recognize your true allies, those who support the changes you are
undertaking. And learn to see those who want to keep you stuck because it
benefits them. Get pumped up. Align your energy to become motivated.
There are a plethora of motivational speakers and empowering coaches out
there. You might feel great after an uplifting talk, but that energy will soon
fade unless you act on it. You need to do the work on your own to keep the
energy and inspiration going.
BEING YOUR OWN GOOD BOSS
Meditate. Go inward. Find affirmations that resonate within you. Create
positive self-talk. Act and hold yourself accountable. Be your own good
boss. Be laser-focused on eliminating your barriers, laser-focused on the
baby steps you are taking, and laser-focused on where and who you want to
be. Be clear with yourself that you deserve to be happier, healthier, and free
of the ties that are holding you back. Consistency is key. Keep at it. To get
the results, you need to keep going. Get into alignment with the positives in
all areas of your life. Institute a daily practice. Hold yourself accountable
and bring in the systems and supports you need.

People often ask me if they can change themselves and others. I say, of
course. But you can only change others by first changing yourself. Motivate
others to want to join you as you become a higher and better version of
yourself. See the positives in yourself, and as you make gains, envision a
larger picture with others changing around you.

As you change you might lose some people who are not ready or do not
want to change. That’s okay. As you grow you will attract new people.

The two things that affect us are our beliefs and our values. Change is about
removing limiting beliefs and values. Learn to shift and see the truth. Free
yourself of what no longer serves you. Pause, acknowledge, and release.
Release, revise, reframe, and heal all that does not serve you. Learn to shift.

Most importantly, never disconnect from yourself. Every breath we take

connects us to ourselves. Align with that breath. Every day we learn and
grow. Release yourself from your victimhood. Your journey to freedom is
you choosing to live in your highest and best self in every moment of every
day. Call in your ideal self. Imagine it. Feel it. Know it. Manifest it.

It’s time to stop existing and start living!