So Much Happier Blog
A Ton of Great Free Info!
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
This week we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a special announcement. Every year, those who run one of the largest Web sites dedicated to Tapping, The Tapping Solution, run a tele-summit dedicated to showcasing experts using this amazing set of tools in various, interesting, and sometimes creative ways. It’s a great way to hear about what others are doing with it and get inspiration on techniques you might try in areas where you might not have thought to apply it. This year’s event starts today! I have no specific connection with this event, but I do participate every year because there’s always something to learn from the people who are interviewed. You can listen to the whole thing for free if you can make time to do so on their timeline. You can also choose to purchase the recordings if you prefer. Even if you you only end up catching one or two, I think you’ll find it to be a good use of your time.
If you want to sign up to receive all the information, you can do that here. Because this is my thing, I look forward to this every year and I totally geek out on the little turns of phrase and technique refinements the interviewees share. Maybe you can listen to every shred of content. Maybe you just want to check out one lecture with title that interests you. In any case, I hope you enjoy taking a look at the free content and come away with something that gets you a little more excited about making Tapping a part of your daily life. Thanks for reading, and for being someone who is willing to do the work to grow and improve your life. You make the world a better place!
Ready for Your Shot?
Timing is tricky. In order to have a life that feels like it hums along and really works, it’s necessary to learn skills that help you to keep up with your goals and desires. You have to be reasonably ready for the opportunities you want when they come knocking, otherwise you don’t move forward. The challenge is that life is complex, with seemingly infinite numbers of moving parts to coordinate. It’s easy to be distracted and exhausted by less important factors before you invest your time and energy where you most want to—and that’s assuming you’ve been able to come to clarity on what you want in the first place.
Readiness requires work. I know this may not be what we all like to hear, but most of us don’t gain mastery at any skill set in a short period of time. It takes practice and the wisdom gained from experience over time to gain grounded confidence. Being willing to put in this work day after day, month after month, year after year, and so on, is a huge part of timing. “Overnight success” tends to happen to those who have done this unglamorous work in the background long before the spotlights and the acclaim showed up.
One of the most valuable skill sets that most of us don’t spend nearly enough time building is the constant acquisition of the knowledge and habits required to build and maintain our personal health and wellness, including physical fitness and vibrant energy as well as mental and emotional well being. You cannot excel when handed opportunities if you can’t get out of bed in the morning, right?
But the thing that probably frustrates humans more about timing than any other factor is the existence of all the elements we just can’t control. Earth is a pretty chaotic place, what with billions of people exercising free will to the best of their abilities all the time. Efforts to stand out, muster resources, find and team up with like-minded others, and keep all the basics of life spinning take a lot of doing. Sometimes external conditions seem prohibitive, or at least inhospitable. And when it seems like we’re not getting anywhere, we get frustrated.
We’ve all heard stories about people finding romance after long periods when such a thing seemed like it would never happen. Often, the timing of one or the other partner was such that they were in the midst of other occupations and not truly available until they finally came together. It may be that one or both seemed to wait forever, but eventually the waiting came to an end. Other areas of life are like this too. Sometimes the wait for the right conditions for success seems interminable and pointless. Yet if you fill your time as best you can, you are preparing for the moment that may yet arrive, even if well past your preferred due date.
Many things about life are mysterious. This may make us nuts, but we can never control everything—not even close! The best we can do is invest in ourselves and our goals, always learning and proceeding as best we can. There is no total certainty on this planet. We must manage our emotions around this if we wish to enjoy happiness despite never having absolutely everything we want. Because humans are pretty darn creative, it’s unlikely that you ever will. Learning to be ok with this and appreciate what you do have is at the core of allowing happiness in.
While you may feel that it’s hard to stand out among such a large population, the high number of others around you also offers you a high number of chances for collaboration. Sometimes finding the right partners or supporters makes all the difference in charting your course. As frustrating as it can be to wait for the right conditions for your success, you must keep going if you want it. Fill your downtime with friends, mental and emotional management techniques, fun, learning, and preparation, and when that chance arrives, you’ll be ready to latch onto it and make the very best of it. You can’t make timing work, but can make yourself ready—so do that! This is your part in supporting the magic of timing.
What If I Can't Do It?
“A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway.”
As we approach the last week of January, I bet you’ve noticed some (possibly pretty serious) resistance to continuing your actions toward your New Year’s resolutions or general 2019 goals. I wanted to chime in at this point and remind you that this is completely normal, and that no one who accomplishes anything requiring sustained effort is always certain that they will prevail. Uncertainty assails us all as we reach for more than we’ve accomplished in the past; only when we’ve proven that we can do something, usually repeatedly, does confidence really start to root. Those who succeed find a way to cope with the worry, uncertainty, and doubt and keep moving and adjusting, failing all the way forward if necessary.
While you may be able to hold onto your enthusiasm for a new project in the short run despite difficulties, as weeks and months wear on, it will be challenged. Below are some strategies for handling the inevitable . I hope they help you to envision how you will work through tougher times, but know that the possibilities are endless, and a chief part of your job as CEO of your life and your mission is to expand this list and figure out which strategies really hit the bullseye of what you need in the midst of challenge.
Have a statement of what you’re working toward and why, and read it multiple times per day. Be descriptive and really write out everything you expect to have and feel when you’ve accomplished your goal. When you read this, you should feel inspired and as though your mission is a wonderful expression of who you are. When you read it, do not give in to negative, detracting thoughts, but just remind yourself why you started this process and why you still want the goal
When something comes up that tempts you to just run screaming and give up, remind yourself that it’s ok and part of being human to get frustrated
Be prepared to tinker your way to new solutions that may be unique to you
On the other hand, be willing to learn from others who have covered similar ground, or parts of it—you never have to do anything without the benefit of wisdom from others, even if it’s just in the form of reading books on a topic somewhere in the realm of what you’re working on, or looking up how-to’s on technical instruction online
Practice taking care of yourself when the tough times rear their ugly heads. What really works for you when you’re feeling overwhelmed and disheartened?
Naps?
Baths?
Cooking a beautiful and at least partly healthy meal that you and others around you can enjoy?
Spending time with certain positive, loving, accepting people or pets who help you to feel seen for who you are at your core?
Spending some time on a creative, fun hobby that brings you joy?
Inspiring music or other forms of art that remind you of the better things about humanity, and who you are and wish to be?
Moving your body in ways you enjoy?
Hikes or walks in natural surroundings to get you outside in the air and sun?
Getting a massage or some acupuncture or visiting some other kind of professional healer-type person?
Talking out issues with a friend or therapist?
Finding a support group for whatever you might be experiencing?
Teaming up with someone else who may need help and support as they work on goals as well, or with a coach who can assist you with your process?
Finding ways to laugh more and bring some hilarity into your life (just not at yourself in a derogatory way, though)
Just trying something, anything, new in your leisure time to get out of a rut
Addressing your emotions specifically, with Tapping or something else that helps you express and move past difficult feelings and get back to creativity
Planning treats into your regular routine that don’t contradict your goals so you always have something to look forward to
Etc.!
It’s easy to think up ways in which you’d like to succeed, but often much harder to actually bring these to fruition. I hope you have an enjoyable time in reaching your goals this year, but if you struggle at any point, there’s absolutely nothing unusual about that, and it doesn’t mean you can’t get to the results you want. It just means you need to be crafty as you go up against your challenges and keep getting better at something related to your goals every week. The self-renewal piece absolutely counts, because it’s what will help you to sustain your resilience when everything seems like too much.
And now I’m taking my own advice and going to get ready to see a fantastic improv group in LA that made me and my companions laugh really hard last time we went. I’ve worked really hard this week and I deserve some downtime! What do you need at this moment, or what would be most helpful? That’s your job to figure out as you take action, receive feedback from the world, and regroup to surge forward again. No matter what you’re up against, you can find ways to keep moving toward your worthy goals in ever smarter and more effective ways. Striving toward things that are meaningful to you is part of what makes life worth it, so keep modifying your techniques and even your goals if you must, but don’t give up!
The Long, Slow Burn
“The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.”
Whatever the first weeks of 2019 have been like for you, and no matter what your goals are as you look ahead, I know without a doubt that there will be challenges in the cards for you. You probably know it too, and this knowledge can drive fears that may slow you down, confuse you, or just make the process of taking your daily actions a lot less fun. No one is immune from dreading issues that may arise, so we all need to find sources of inspiration to keep us going when things look drab, bleak, or otherwise not fun.
This week I wanted to share a great clip from motivational speaker Les Brown, who is full of wisdom and always entertaining. In this audio, he talks about how sometimes it takes so much longer than we want it to to get to our destination. Not only that, others may tell us that we’re getting nowhere fast, and we’re crazy to try. If you want that goal, you have to find ways to just keep at your efforts, knowing that there will be progress eventually. This may all sound fairly obvious, but I want you to hear his spin on this, because it’s memorable, and it may serve as one of those inspirations for you. If you don’t know his work, it may also give you someone else to follow for words of wisdom and inspiration, and most of us can use as many of these as we can get! Enjoy, and remember to Tap about and challenges that have already started to rear their heads in your path this year. We need both inspiration and learning, and constant acts of self-care in order to stay ready for our daily routines.
Pushing the Eject Button On Fear
“There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.”
As we finish the first week of 2019, you may be fully invested in New Year’s resolutions; you may be already resisting yours; or perhaps you didn’t make them at all. Whatever you choose to do around this tradition, I believe that the most important thing is always to pursue your goals in a steady flow of self-acceptance, calmly learning and readjusting all along the way. If this sounds “soft” or unlikely to produce, that’s because we’ve all been so indoctrinated with the idea that we’re inherently lazy that we may think we have to ratchet ourselves up into a state of mania in order to make any progress; that we have to constantly channel our inner drill sergeant if we’re going to motivate ourselves; that nothing but constant a$$ kicking will get the job done.
Sadly, for most people, this is a terrible idea, born of an extremely cynical view of human nature and thousands of years of raw fear seeming to be the best life preserver in a harsh world. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, this idea may have served us well, but as modern humans we suddenly find ourselves in the opposite of our traditional state—rather than fighting the elements to survive on a daily basis, we now inhabit an overpopulated planet on which the most valuable skills are intellectual and social—the more able we are to learn quickly as technology changes, and to negotiate and de-escalate violence in favor of fair long-term solutions, the more equipped we are for life in today’s world. It turns out that turning harshness and shame on anyone, including ourselves, tends to foment anger and resentment. Inspiration and genuine excitement about creating a better future are exponentially more powerful as an engine for getting us up and going each day, and for moving us through blocks and setbacks that will arise in the course of any project; they also tend to naturally motivate others around us in positive ways without any additional effort, because enthusiasm is infectious!
One of the reasons people tend to resist working with specific goals is that they don’t feel up to dealing with disappointment—which, by the way, will be a part of any process. Sorry, but that’s life on this chaotic planet! Unfortunately, many of us learn from observing adults around us when we’re young that disappointment=impending failure and doom, and it means that we’re stupid/cursed/incapable, or whatever other counterproductive adjective may have been on the menu. The truth is that disappointment may come and go, but it doesn’t have to mean anything except that you’re still learning about how to succeed. Handling negative emotions as they arise, and moving on when you’ve absorbed the helpful message in the feedback you’ve received (and had a chance to rest and renew), is the name of the game. Anytime you take an underwhelming result as a referendum on who you are or what’s possible for you is when you begin a downward spiral that will cost you a lot of time and pain. Falling back into fear and harshness as a hard-wired self-preservation habit is understandable, since throughout so much of human history we didn’t have a lot of time or mental and emotional space in which to consider and practice the best ways to do things. Now, though, we have a lot more access to the higher mind, and we can choose to come off autopilot by noticing our self-talk, and how we’re feeling as we go about our days. Shining a light on our own patterns and being willing to address the ones that don’t serve us through Tapping or some other method that accelerates change will allow us to grow far more quickly and easily in the directions we choose for ourselves.
Whether you’ve made specific resolutions or not, remember that it’s rare for any project to speed forward to the finish line without impediments. One of the most valuable skill sets you can ever acquire is the discernment to note challenging emotions and the patience to follow a process that will resolve them, help you build experiential knowledge, and get yourself moving again. This skill set renders you basically unstoppable! On the other hand, if you don’t build it, you’ll keep repeating the same patterns over and over without understanding why you can’t ever seem to get out of a confusing loop you can’t even see. It sure can seem like there’s just something wrong with you if this is where you are, but that’s not it. You’re in the groove of some pretty ancient wiring that needs attention and replacement. It may not happen overnight, but you can change the way you operate and break out of the old, constrictive ruts. When you do, you’ll see the tendency to rail at yourself for your imperfections for what it is—an old, outdated habit that you can replace with far more effective and happiness-inducing mental software.
Your Line in the Sand
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
Most people know that it’s supposedly a good thing to set up appropriate boundaries in relationships, but setting them, and more importantly policing them, can seem like a bewildering process in which all targets are constantly moving. Becoming comfortable with communicating your boundaries ultimately takes self-knowledge and confidence, as well as discipline and faith. This can all seem like a pretty tall order! Since every one of us is different, we can learn from each other, but mastery only comes with practice in listening to our inner indicators on how much is too much of anything. Our emotions are a huge portion of these indicators, and we ignore them at our peril. If we don’t receive and act on their messages, relationships crumble. The pursuit of balance within relationships may be laborious work, but the creation of it is an essential element of any real peace and happiness.
A lot of people who are empathetic find it difficult to say no, either because they’re afraid of conflict, or because they just prefer to make others happy whenever possible because it’s more fulfilling—a noble goal. Of course, too much investment in making others happy (needing positive outcomes too much) usually ends up yielding annoyance in you and everyone around you. Neediness is not much fun to experience from any angle. If you need an outcome that is not within your control, your happiness will always be at the mercy of others and of fate, and you will always feel like a victim to some extent. On the other hand, when someone comes at you with a great deal of need about something, you might feel an overwhelming sense that they are trying to manipulate you, or that if you say no you’ll be proving that you’re a bad person…after all, this person NEEDS something you might be able to give or contribute to. The values fostered by one’s religious and cultural influences can amplify the discomfort by teaching us that we should always give to someone in need. Yet, obviously, one person can never be all things to all people, especially on a planet with billions of other people on it. It would be possible to very quickly over-give to the point of the annihilation of your energy and physical resources, which would not be at all helpful to anyone in the long run. This is what setting boundaries is all about.
I read an interesting article once about Mother Teresa that revealed her personal struggles. Despite being a massively inspiring presence on the world stage, demonstrating selfless love and compassion in the extreme for the poor and needy over a lifetime of religious service, and cutting a truly saintly figure, she apparently quietly battled depression for decades. Now, there can obviously be many contributing factors when someone is affected by clinical depression, including chemical issues that may be independent of the effects of mental, emotional, and spiritual life experiences. However, there is a growing understanding that, most often, there are strong experiential factors that go into creating someone’s depression. I personally don’t find it at all surprising that someone who worked tirelessly amid the most unfortunate people, in the most poverty-stricken areas, having taken personal vows of poverty and service, might have gotten pretty burned out emotionally from seeing all that suffering. I have to wonder if she took breaks. I wonder if she had sympathetic friends to laugh with sometimes to keep from constantly and solely mourning over what she saw on a daily basis. I wonder if she sought the help she needed. Even someone saintly is still in a human body, having a human experience, and subject to human emotions that need to be managed.
Most of us are not so saintly. We’re just normal humans living our lives and trying to make something good come of them. I’m not saying that we can’t do great things, but first, I think we need to understand the importance of sustaining ourselves. We need to learn how to operate our bodies sensibly so that we have a chance at health and stable moods. We need to learn to observe and learn from our experiences so that we can gain enough maturity to go beyond merely surviving. We need to learn that both caring for ourselves and caring for others are necessary if we want to be powerful sources of good. And we need to learn that without bringing rejuvenating and joyful experiences into our everyday experience, we will quickly become depleted, desperate, and even dangerous individuals.
When you can successfully cultivate your own overall balance, then it becomes easier to understand how much you can give to others before you need to retreat and renew. It becomes easier to notice which kinds of service to others are so much fun that you can happily do them all day long, and which kinds you come to dread because your strengths and weaknesses make you unsuitable for them. From a place of balance, it’s easier to admit what kind of tool you are and where you can be of most use rather than trying to prove that you can do absolutely whatever is asked of you at all times. And it’s easier to notice when something is making you uncomfortable because it’s going against your most important personal values, which will drain you very quickly every time.
Here are some recommendations for growing your capacity to set and insist on the honoring of your personal boundaries:
Learn to pay close attention to your emotions. They are one of your best indicators of how much you can currently handle. You can practice stretching your comfort zone over time, but if you do too much too fast without building in recovery, you’re likely to fold.
Make working on the quality of your nutrition, sleep, and exercise a non-negotiable part of every day. No two days are the same, so you’ll always be adjusting, and there’s no need to be a perfectionist, just don’t ignore these basics.
If saying no is hard for you, practice, practice, practice. Start with strangers if that’s easier. When you can execute a simple, cheerful “No thank you” response to random requests at will (when appropriate), you can start replicating that in higher-stakes relationships through more practice.
When your “no” affects others, it will be appropriate to give a short explanation, compassionate to both yourself and the other, about why this is your answer. Still, firmness is your goal. Being honest about what you can actually handle will serve everyone better than your saying yes and then collapsing midstream.
Cultivate friends with whom you can discuss the confusing situations that arise in life. No one should have to go it alone, and seeking other viewpoints can often help us make far better decisions than we could have arrived at alone.
Keep in mind that in order to have the space to give what you most want to, you have to keep yourself from always being so full up that you just can’t take on one more opportunity, no matter how perfect a match it seems for you.
Know that while you must take responsibility for yourself and your own actions because you’re the only one who can, you can’t take responsibility for everyone and everything else. Not knowing your boundaries amounts to hubris. Everyone else has a part to play too, so let them, and encourage them to seek their own balance.
Celebrate often both what you are able to give to others, and the ways in which you give to yourself. Allow yourself time to rest and play, then do it all again.
Practice Makes Progress
“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.”
This week, I came across an interesting article that speaks to our growing understanding of neural plasticity, or the brain’s ability to change and grow all throughout the course of a human life. So much for the difficulties of teaching old “dogs” new tricks! If you’re using the old standard line, “This is just how I am,” to justify a lack of effort to become who you wish to be, take heart—with some attention and effort, you can actually change habits and outcomes. In fact, there are a lot of interesting nuggets in this article, each one of which is worthy of note, but I wanted to call your attention specifically to the greater efficacy of happy people, and to your ability to move in the direction of greater happiness through simple practice.
Take a romp through this resource when you have a moment, and feel free to leave a comment about what you find most interesting, or what you’re going to do to start changing negative mental habits that drag down your efficacy. You don’t have to be perfect right away, just pick something to work on and start!
Becoming Your Own Ultimate Pit Crew
“Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.”
The world is filled with a whole lot of stuff that I bet you think is not ideal, to say the least. Things you can’t stand, things that make no sense, things that are unjust, stupid, and hurtful to you. How do I know? Because it’s the same for all of us. We live on a planet of incredible diversity, conflicting forces, and even chaos. The upside is that we have a lot of opportunity to experience an astonishing range of experiences. The downside is that many of those will not be pleasant.
One of the greatest challenges of coping with such variety and unpleasantness is in preserving your energy in the face of all the friction between you and the world around you. Experiencing continual conflict can be, and often is, exhausting for many of the people I work with. Feeling chronically depleted is demoralizing, and life can seem to devolve into nothing but a disappointing slog if we don’t find ways to preserve and rejuvenate our energy. We all want to feel alive, vital, and enthusiastic about life. How do we get there when we’re challenged so often?
Here are a few of my essential tips for preserving your vital life energy for the things and people you care about most:
Address your emotional realities before they snowball into giant, flashing, wailing signs that you need to pay attention. Suppressing emotion uses a ton of energy that is far better used elsewhere. Allow yourself to consider what that emotion is there to tell you, and then take steps to allow yourself to resolve the emotion for the time being (hint: Tap!) Note that this NOT the last time you’ll feel this emotion, because you will inevitable get off balance again! That’s life. But being able to calm yourself, get the message, and heal so you can move on is priceless. Finally, make new plans about changing the situation that gave rise to the emotion, or your reaction to it, in some way. This is how progress happens—through human beings exhibiting the courage to make new decisions and try new things.
Think about your thoughts, the stories you tell yourself, and start noticing the ways in which the ones you think most often aren’t serving you. You can change these. Perhaps not overnight, but more quickly than you might think once you decide to become aware of them and start working to consciously shift them. Our thoughts feed us constant, powerful messages about what’s possible for us. If you allow your stories to be of a negative and limiting variety, it will be difficult to find the energy to make good decisions and take effective action. Tapping can be a tremendous help here too in speeding the process of changing beliefs that have been created by your life experience.
Take care of your physical needs. Sleep, move your body, and keep working toward a more nutritious and less junk-foodie diet. There’s no way around these if you want sustained energy, vitality, and stable moods (which, all together, increase your capacity for achievement and living your greatness). Period.
Get clear on what’s important and most inspiring to you, and remind yourself of these priorities daily. If your life doesn’t feel meaningful, you’ll struggle with energy as surely as if you were sleeping and eating poorly. Humans are designed to express their talents and preferences in constructive ways. If you don’t, you won’t be able to muster enthusiasm for life.
Most of these actions don’t take a lot of time, just some thought and planning. You must carve out time for all of them regularly, though. As soon as you start dropping the ball on these, you’re starting a downward spiral that makes it extremely difficult to meet life’s many challenges with the grace under pressure that helps you preserve choices and create the best results. What we want is to be in a zone in which challenge doesn’t feel like a major assault, just the normal friction (from which you know how to recover) of living life in a world not entirely of your making. With some daily attention to these essentials, this is firmly within your grasp.
The Emotional Pressure Cooker
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Last week I mentioned that most of us are trained through the way we’re socialized to minimize any emotions we feel that might be uncomfortable—for anyone, not just for us. The result is that we ourselves generally don’t know how we really feel and why, we don’t learn from our emotions, and we feel powerless to combat the rising tension that accumulates as we age over the persistent unresolved emotional gunk that we’ve swept under the rug.
When someone starts Tapping, they’re often surprised at the intensity of something they thought was relatively minor as we open it up and work through it. It’s well known by practitioners that the intensity of a targeted issue may seem to rise rather than abate in the first few rounds, but this is actually a result of the client tuning into what they’ve been studiously ignoring in the absence of productive tools and solutions. When further rounds are completed, and the heart of the issue is uncovered and addressed, the intensity will start to fall as expected. Then, when it dawns on the client how much relief s/he has experienced, s/he may feel a wave of gratitude, and hope that more relief is just around the corner. I feel this myself all the time when I Tap! It’s so encouraging to know that there are simple tools that can change everything about how you feel, and that every time you use them you’ll make some sort of progress.
It’s true that tuning into how we really feel may cause some momentary discomfort, but when we do this while Tapping, we’re able to vent some of the pressure that has built up and usually feel much better in the space of a few minutes to an hour. In addition, we are often able to gain some clarity about what we were afraid to look at. The meaning of the emotions we were avoiding starts to bubble up, and we see that we are being called to make new choices, either internally in the ways we think and judge, or externally by bringing new actions to our life’s circumstances. Emotions aren’t random. They arise for specific reasons, and unwinding their tangles draws us naturally down a path of healing and progress toward maturity and wisdom.
What if, instead of denigrating and denying how you feel, you could admit, befriend, and even celebrate your emotions without getting overwhelmed by or lost in them? What if doing so tapped you into your inherent brilliance and problem-solving capabilities? Wouldn’t that be a more peace-filled, fulfilling existence? Well, I’m here to tell you that all this is waiting for you when you get to Tapping. And good news—you can start anytime!
There’s a lot of shame drilled into us when we’re young about crying and about wanting love and attention that it’s inconvenient or difficult for the adults around us to give. Parenting is a tough, relentless job, and shaming is often a very effective tactic in shutting down an unruly child; it’s also a tactic that has been passed down through countless generations and seems to have proven its salt. However, a lifetime of suppressing powerful emotions, needs, and desires builds up internal pressure that contributes to all kinds of problems that only worsen the longer we allow the pressure to build. Shaming ourselves as adults, continuing the learned pattern, is a recipe for disaster for our health and happiness. Instead, we can learn to listen to what’s going on for us internally, and through self-compassion, gain clarity and strength, working productively with our emotions.
Believe You Can?
“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”
Last week we looked at the importance of changing beliefs in order to make better choices and foster balance in your life. Often, the reasons we don’t make good choices come down to either being unaware of our habits and where they come from (hint: Our beliefs!), or from failing to slow down long enough to make a new plan and take a few sane actions to get moving in the right direction. This week, we’ll explore how to do all of this using EFT, or Tapping.
We’re all so used to the idea that whenever there’s an issue confronting us, we need to “figure it out” with the mind; if we can’t, we may be tempted to give up in disgust and despair of solving the problem. What I’m about to offer is a non-linear approach that may stand usual assumptions on their heads. It may not seem like it could work because it doesn’t involve logical mental exertions. We will surely be using the mind, but in different ways than perhaps we usually do, and you may need to step aside from the mind sometimes as it flaps around in confusion and protest.
In order to find the causes of your behavior, we’re going to start with your body and your emotions. When you sit quietly and tune into these, what do you notice? What is bothering you? Particularly when you think about whatever is most uncomfortable, what emotions come up, and what sensations in your body seem connected to these emotions? Take a few deep breaths and be patient while you wait to see and feel what surfaces. Usually we exert so much pressure in trying to stay unaware of discomfort that this may seem like a pretty odd thing to do, but there’s a purpose here.
In the beginning, what you notice may be a confused jumble of a whole bunch of sensations, competing emotions, and related thoughts. When this is the case, I sometimes like to ask people to do a round or two of Tapping while “ranting,” basically just giving voice to everything that’s bothering them in no particular order, listing off everything that comes up without overthinking it. This allows us to tread the perimeter of the pile-up and get a general map of the landscape involved. It also helps with the “What do I say?” dilemma that sometimes stops people from actually beginning a Tapping practice, because you can’t do this wrong! Once the Tapping has helped to calm and focus you somewhat, it’s often easier to pick just one thing to work with. Tapping works best when we get very specific about something and focus on it singly until it shifts and changes, so this precess of getting specific is an important skill to build.
Once you have made a choice about one thing to target, you’ll want to describe the issue, write it down if you can, and note how intense the emotions are, as well as the sensations in your body, when you feel the emotion. Give the intensity a subjective number on a scale of 0-10 so you have a good sense of where you’re starting. Then, you’ll Tap around the points repeating a short reminder phrase that sums up or symbolizes the feelings for you. As you do this, you may notice that at some point, you have seemingly random thoughts that come up. Often, these are extremely relevant to what you’re focusing on, and can tell you more about your underlying beliefs and the life experiences when you took those on. If this happens, you can use one of the many Tapping techniques to work on the originating event and change how you feel about it. This does almost all of the work for you in changing a belief, though you may have to repeat it to address multiple experiences that have contributed to the belief.
Another tactic to try is to Tap on the statement of the problematic belief itself. For instance, Tap around the points while repeating, “There’s never enough time,” if that’s the belief you want to work on. When you give it a subjective intensity number, you’re rating it on a scale of 0-10 for how true it feels, where 10 is 100% true. As you do this, you may find that the number reduces, and/or you may find that, again, memories surface that will clarify where this came from. You can then work through those experiences to reduce their hold on you. Once you’ve done that, the belief change you want is often a natural byproduct of the work. Once the intensity of the belief is low, you can use Tapping to supercharge any affirmations you want to use around the issue going forward.
This is just a broad outline, but it should give you a good sense of a couple of useful approaches for working on limiting beliefs. As always with Tapping, you start with expressing what feels true, no matter how outrageously negative it may be, and you do not try to force a change. As you Tap and continue doing this, the change will begin to happen in its own timing, even if you don’t notice it right away. Take breaks if you need to and come back to it later. Try different approaches. Keep breathing. As long as you’re not taking on something that feels too big or otherwise overwhelming, just keep at it and eventually, there will be a shift. If you get stuck, find a practitioner and get some help. When you free yourself from limiting beliefs, great reserves of energy can be unleashed, and then your life can open up in ways you might never have imagined before. Take it from me that this is a triumphant experience, one that you can’t put a price on, and one that ripples through every area of your life adding joy and confidence that builds as you continue this kind of work.
Should I Help?
“Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.”
All of us are good at some things and less good at others. In the areas where you’re highly competent, it can be tempting to attempt to “help” and guide others, basically just because you can; if you’re empathetic, and you’re aware of the pain that’s involved in someone else’s struggle, it can also seem like you have an obligation to help. The call toward alleviating suffering where you see it may be part of your spiritual outlook, or you may enjoy taking the opportunity to save others time and shorten their labors with your expertise. This desire generally comes from a kind-hearted place, and it spurs many of us to do a lot of good in the course of daily life. But is it ever inappropriate to help?
I think the answer to this comes down to respecting the concept of free will. “Help” is actually helpful only when it is offered and accepted freely, generously, and without coercion. The exception to the rule might be if someone is in a state of emergency and you either know the person well enough to recognize a need that they are not capable of handling, or you can clearly see that they are in legitimate danger of serious injury. Children too young to be aware of the consequences of their actions would also be an exception. Otherwise, difficult as it may be to see others struggle, it’s generally not your job to override someone else’s choices and timing. Once you’ve made yourself available for substantive assistance, it may be necessary to step back and allow them to learn through experience if that’s what they choose. Some lessons only stick if they’re learned this way anyway, frustrating as that might be to the observer!
Most spiritual traditions include the concept of acceptance—not as in, you must accept a condition you don’t like and never seek solutions, but as in, it’s important to be able to find a place of calm and acceptance within yourself. This might be through meditation, prayer, deep breathing, a physical practice like yoga, journaling, or whatever works for you. If you formulate a plan and take action without having done so first, you risk making decisions from a reactive, fearful place, which is not the best state from which to deliver your best and brightest offerings. If a life-and-death decision doesn't need to be made, and you don’t feel able to accept rejection of your help by the other person, then you might want to save the offer until you do. I also believe that there are times when it’s not appropriate to offer help because you are not capable of doing a good job with the task at that moment. If you are overwhelmed, very tired, or emotionally overwrought yourself, it’s probably best to attend to your own needs before trying to assist someone else. Another consideration is whether this particular person or situation seems like a good match for your skills and your passion. There is someone out there who would love to help in any given kind of situation, and leave the endeavor feeling wonderful and energized in some way. In other situations that same person would feel overwhelmed, frightened, and find themselves shutting down, becoming a burden themselves. It’s a good idea to get to know your strengths, and to consider whether this situation is one in which you can be helpful, or whether it requires skills and qualities you don’t possess. If someone needs a surgeon, and you’ve never had a day of medical training in your life, if you want to help, you need to spend your time in handling basic first aid and getting them to that surgeon—not trying to handle the situation yourself. Most people appreciate an offer of help when it comes from a calm desire to do them a good turn (even if there would be payment of some sort involved) rather than a need to have the offer accepted. When you bring a sense of distress and need into your offer, the person on the receiving end may feel that you’re trying to manipulate them, and run in the other direction! Then an opportunity that might have been rewarding for both parties is lost, at least temporarily.
On the other hand, if someone knows that you’re on the sidelines willing and waiting to help whenever they need it, that can be tremendously reassuring. When you don’t overstep or force yourself into their process, you become someone who will be very easy to turn to when the person is ready to accept help. In the meantime, you can just listen and celebrate the person’s wins, and still be a supportive part of getting them to the finish line. This can be quite challenging, and we may all become overzealous at times because of our own internal baggage; if you find that you have gone overboard, an apology and affirmation that you have faith in the other person goes a long way. Afterward it might be useful to take a look at why it was hard for you to remain calm in that situation, and do some work on that through Tapping or some other method you find helpful, to increase your ability to recognize that situation if it resurfaces and choose another way.
Helping others can be one of the most fulfilling aspects of living. It can be one of the best expressions of love for others, and it often brings joy and upliftment where there was struggle. Being able to be an effective part of this wonderful exchange is worth some occasional work and self-reflection. Building your skills around balanced helping will bring you the opportunity for more frequent fulfillment of this kind, and the opportunity to co-create better results with others. Next time you’re looking to help, see if you can do so from a calm, centered place and notice what happens when you do.
Hit or Fold?
“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.”
Sometimes working on a personal project ends up, at some point, feeling like a real slog through the mud. What started as a seemingly great idea is now causing you to wonder whether you were crazy to have ever taken up the banner. You start to wonder whether you should give up and can it. This can be a hard decision, though, because what about all that time and effort you’ve already sunk into your project? No one enjoys feeling like time and energy has been wasted! You also have to confront how you’ll judge yourself if you walk away—will that mean you’re a loser/a failure/a (fill-in-the-blank)? It may be tougher to ignore this question if your project is visible to others, because then you end up thinking about how others might judge you as well. Is it better and more noble to keep throwing good resources into a mysterious hole in hopes that things will work out eventually than is is to quit too early, and maybe never be sure you did?
Making good decisions about what to do in this situation requires multiple dimensions of consideration. Your deliberations need not take long, but if you don’t cover these bases, you may be left with nagging uncertainty and an unnecessary hit to your confidence. Here are the areas that I recommend you explore before making your final decision:
- Physical. Are you guilty of ignoring your own basic human needs (sleep, nutrition, exercise/movement)? If so, you may need to rely on answers within the other areas to make your decision, because ignoring your body over time will make everything feel like a slog! It’s fairly trendy in some circles to claim that only weaklings need these things, and “real men,” “warriors,” “entrepreneurs,” or whoever, can power through without without all those silly indulgences the peons distract themselves with. I’m sorry to break it to you, but this is an old-fashioned myth left over from less educated times! We now know that without these things, the body, and the brain that resides within as an inextricable part of it, falters, struggles, and ages far more quickly than necessary. You can use your precious energy to rail against the fact that you can only experience life on planet Earth in a body that has limitations, OR you can learn to choose the simple decisions that allow you the joy and fulfillment of functioning at peak capacity. Like adequate sleep and healthy food. Which would you rather?
- Mental. Our culture is very focused on logic, so this area should be familiar to you. Logic is, of course, an amazing tool for assessing where you are, extrapolating where you're headed based on this, and figuring out how you might want to change course. If you're not great at thinking through things logically and analyzing your situation, find someone with more skill in and enthusiasm for this area who can help you do this. If you think things are taking way too long, or you just don't have what it takes to reach your goal realistically, you may be right that there's something you're missing. That may not mean you can't fix it, but isolating the problem, where it lives, and how to address it may take some digging. Access to the super-computing power of the mind is one of the benefits of being human, so let's not leave its powers on the table in our decision making!
- Creative. Once you've figured out what the problem seems to be, you need to get out of pure logic and turn on your natural, playful creativity. This can be tough when you're stressed out, so you may need some help here too. You can search the Internet on the topic in question, find a book on how others have solved similar issues, or rope in a friend to troubleshoot how you might bust up your impasse and move forward more productively. The problem might even be that you just forgot to have fun and bring creativity to the daily work you've been doing on your project. That'll kill anyone's enthusiasm over time. Life is supposed to include elements of fun. If your project doesn't have any, you'll feel like something is wrong, when it's just that you need to loosen up a little to make it over the long haul.
- Emotional. That brings us to the emotional side of things, another area where we may have been taught there's nothing important to learn and we should just sweep everything that comes up under the rug! But emotions exist for a reason, and they're an important tool in our toolbox, even if we're not yet sure how to wring the magic out of them. In order to trace the emotional connections to our projects, attention and the openness to decoding hidden meanings is required. Yes, you may have to devote some actual time and attention to this! You may feel like this is a self-indulgent idea, but that's likely because you've never been taught what to do to get helpful results out of such time with your emotions. Tapping/EFT is an incredibly productive tool in helping you to stay calm through the act of creating openness to the emotional realm, and in gaining clarity about what's really going on in your emotional states and why. That clarity doesn't necessarily arise immediately, but it tends to result after you've done some Tapping on exactly how you feel without filters or judgment. Sometimes this is all you and your project need. Once you've blown off some steam and allowed yourself to express what seems true, the clarity starts to arrive, and new perspectives on possible solutions often effortlessly appear. However, you may find that your emotions tell you some truths about what you really want that you've been unwilling to look at. This can help you make new decisions that will serve you better. Sometimes you might even decide to end the project as previously imagined. Sometimes you learn as you go that the realities of reaching your goal are not acceptable to you, not healthy for you, or just not something you're ready for at this time. Accepting this may be the best choice even if it doesn't seem entirely logical to you or others.
- Spiritual. This is the hardest area to quantify, because spiritual experiences often defy explanation. We all have this part of us that is an "x" factor, explain it as you will. Sometimes, you just experience a strong knowingness that something is or isn't true for you, or right for you, or good for you despite how it looks on the surface. Often this part of you speaks in desires and joys that are unique to you. Again, if this isn't an area you feel comfortable with, you can consult others who live more easily in this space and see if anything they have to offer resonates with you. But without taking it into account in some way, you may be missing an important piece of the picture.
Sometimes, when you're hung up with a project, something has changed with circumstances, and you just need to recover from the shock and get more creative. Sometimes, you're tired and frustrated, and you need a break or to bring your sense of fun back into play. Sometimes, what has changed is you, and the truth is that you no longer really want to support the project at all.
Once you have a better sense of all this, the final challenge is accepting the good work you've done on the decision, and finding a way to let go of any worries about what it means about you, the world, and your future potential. This is another area in which Tapping can be a life saver. It can help you work through any resistance to doing what you think is best that arises because of your (or your perception of or anticipation of others') judgment or fears. You have a choice as far as what meaning to assign to the events of your life. When you forget that, you become a victim to every outside influence.
Making truly good decisions, ones you can look back on with satisfaction because you did the best you could with the knowledge that you had at the time, is a process best served by considering numerous areas of inquiry. When you've done this to the best of your abilities and used all the tools you have to make your peace with what you choose, you can get back to putting your energy toward what you really want, and working toward it with renewed resolve and patience. Life involves work, but if it feels like every moment of yours is tiresome, it's time to stop and consider whether new decisions are in order, or whether you're already on the best path and just dealing with the challenges of the journey.
Getting Off That Crazy Wheel
“Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.”
Most people I encounter these days feel as if they're always trying to do too much, that the world moves too fast, that they're always on the edge of falling behind and going under. We're a chronically overwhelmed culture. Now, get ready for a radical statement—part of the reason for this is that we ARE trying to do too much! When the sum total of everything you could be doing in any given moment is infinite, as it is in this age of "convenience," including 24/7 access to nearly all information ever collected, we suddenly need amazing focus and time management skills. And guess what? No one ever formally taught us any of these unless we grew up in a monastery, or with a parent with insanely effective natural organizational skills, in which case maybe we were lucky enough to have had mentors in these areas. Of course that's an exaggeration; you may have learned some excellent tidbits along these lines from any number of sources throughout your life, but it's a rare person who has been able to cobble together an effective set of strategies from these random references. The rest of us have to deal with the outrageous fortune that dumped an endless glut of opportunity in our laps, but with no way to turn off the fire hose when it all gets to be too much.
Since feeling chronically overwhelmed and ineffective doesn't feel like living a fulfilling life, we must find ways to do better. If you want to take back your life, it's time to get friendly with the concept of focus. There are two aspects I want to mention here: Inward focus and outward focus. The inward version is the one we practice in meditation when we observe our breathe or keep returning to a mantra—it's the ability to place our mind's awareness on, and continually bring it back to, a subject or a feeling of our choosing. Building this internal skill allows us to hone our capacity to spend time living in the calmest, best parts of ourselves, and therefore to have access to an ability to make the best possible choices, with the greatest possible sense of peace, in each moment. This is called sanity! Getting better at holding onto yours grants you a kind of personal power that's hard to describe, but imagine how great it would be to be able to choose your internal state more often than you react, automatically and without choice, to whatever assails you from your mental and emotional worlds.
The outward aspect of focus is the ability to deflect, in real time, distractions that bombard us from the outside world. Being able to do this efficiently all day long takes clarity (about your values and your purpose), intent, and relentless determination. While willpower is involved, a lot less of it is required when you've taken the time to write down your goals and priorities, and you remind yourself of them often so that in a moment of stress you can remember WHY a choice is right or wrong for you. Being clear about why you're choosing what you're choosing serves to inspire and galvanize you when you start to get confused. However, this constant decision making can still be exhausting when you have to do it all day! It's important to simplify where you can and find times each week when you can be restfully free of constant sifting and value judgments. This ability may also be hard to imagine, but I bet you've come across someone who seems able to stay functional even in the face of a whole lot of chaos, showing you that it is possible. If you have, think of that person as a model in this regard.
We also need those pesky time management skills mentioned above if we're going to succeed in getting things done when we choose to. These may include accurately estimating how long tasks will take, scheduling your time but not overscheduling yourself to the point where you burn out, transitioning between tasks in ways that assist you in refocusing, balancing your physical needs throughout the day so you don't crash, planning anew when things change so you can stay productive, managing your emotions when things aren't going your way, and others. Some of these you might already be good at, and some less so. When you think through the kinds of things that tend to stop you when you're working toward something you want, you'll probably be able to come up with your most likely challenges. Like all acquired skills, these take time to build, and you are a complex and ever-changing thing, so this work is never done. Choose just one or two of your personal challenges and start practicing improving your skills around them.
As you work, be patient with yourself. It's always annoying to feel like a beginner at something, but as I remind myself often, we've all been through the learning process many times. What feels painful and unlikely inevitably turns into something you can easily do on autopilot with practice. Over time, our capacities increase, and we can achieve heights that seemed vertigo inducing from former vantage points.
Whatever skills you think need your attention, there are probably lots of emotions, as well as habitual thoughts and negative self-talk, that come into play when they are challenged. This is where Tapping is absolutely brilliant in helping you to move through what's holding you back and come out the other side relieved—and often with new and revolutionary insights about why this thing has been hard for you and how that can change for you now. Humans are hard-wired to resist too much novelty because we have come to associate it with danger. You will always be working against the tendency toward caution because self-preservation is one of our most powerful drives. Dealing with the resistance that comes up when you attempt to make a change is a constant, never-ending process, so you might as well master techniques that can help you to do this quickly and with a sense of enjoyment and adventure. When you become comfortable with releasing unnecessary fear and immobility, the feeling of empowerment that results is amazing. I and my clients find this to be one of the best things about EFT/Tapping. Knowing that you can reduce your fear, overwhelm, and feelings of being stuck whenever you need to is truly something to be grateful for.
If you continue to work on your skills and your emotional management, you will eventually make progress. It may not be as rapid as you want, and it make take trials, errors, and seeming failures, but really, what's your alternative? We are evolutionary beings. We like to grow and test boundaries, even when doing so is scary. And human progress relies on our following this impulse. Failing to focus means that you will spend all your energy on recovery, and ultimately, that's not a lot of fun. This week, think about the ways in which you can work inward and outward focus, as well as better time management strategies, to create more available energy to feed into your goals and passions.
Who's Your Inspiration?
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Who or what would you change for if the stakes were high? Motivation, which is the willingness to confront challenge and surge toward a specific purpose in the face of uncertainty, can be a tricky beast to harness. If you're struggling with motivation, there are causes you'll need to handle at the root. At the same time, until that work is finished and beyond, there are some hacks that may help you to get through tougher times.
When you're languishing in the "blahs" and you can't seem to want to do anything, the biggest culprits to look toward in today's world are 1) physical needs that aren't being met, which cause a constant energy drain (such as proper nutrition and adequate sleep) and 2) a lack of clarity about what stirs your passion and enthusiasm, or a failure to leverage your passion effectively. Both of these should be thoroughly addressed if you want to reach maximum performance, but here's a shortcut that can act as a booster in the meantime: Figure out who you're drawn to serving and enlist their help in goading yourself into targeted action.
It's amazing how many of us will take action all day long if someone we love needs us, but never take action for ourselves! This is often because of unfortunate beliefs that were instilled in us (such as "To be a good person, I have to put my own desires and needs last") by family or other cultural elements. It can then become sheer habit for you to live out these beliefs, and they may run in the background virtually invisible to you, seemingly a core part of your identity, hard to clearly recognize let alone consciously change. Finding the beliefs that keep you feeling stuck under a mountain of reasons why your life is the way it is, and why you can't have what you want, can be a complicated process, but if you become comfortable with Tapping, it becomes a lot easier! Suddenly you don't have to figure out how to untangle this hopeless ball of string with just your logical mind. Your far-more-powerful subconscious mind starts to get on board when you Tap, and can lead you through a non-linear, but still amazingly effective, process of discovery and release from limited perspectives. If we have a solution to all the overwhelm that keeps us frozen in place, it's much easier to take action in the name of our own goals.
When you want to effect change, first setting up underlying support structures that will create a stable platform on which to anchor your work is a smart strategy. Having healthy exercise routines and mental, emotional, and spiritual practices in place can really help us to be in it for the long run. In addition, finding crafty ways to build your overall motivation and focus is well worth your time so that you have a variety of options on call whenever you just want to lie down and quit! No matter how positive you are, there will be times when you're running up against an obstacle that feels like it might be the last straw. For me, that's usually technology! I do appreciate all the incredible inventions that we have access to in modern life, but when my computer is refusing to talk to my printer for reasons unknown, the thought of spending the afternoon trying to mediate an argument between virtual entities with inscrutable motivations can make me want to climb the curtains. People I get. High-tech machines, not so much.
We're all different, so finding what motivates you will take observation. With some focus over even a week or two, you should be able to isolate a few ideas or activities that really get you excited about life. To find them, ask yourself questions like, "If I could stop time and do absolutely anything I wanted with no consequences for weeks at a time, what would that be?" If you answered "Sleep," then that gives you a clue about what you need in your life to recharge! Imagine that you've had 6 months to a year to just laze about and do nothing, and then try this question again. You'll probably come up with a thing or two that you'd love to do or explore.
Chances are, though, if you're not already adept at motivating yourself with passion, there will be someone else in your life for whom you would get out of bed no matter what. Knowing this is gold! If it's true for you, guess what? You can now enlist that person's help in any number of ways in your efforts toward a goal or a making a new habit stick. Sometimes all it takes is reminding yourself that you're exercising, for example, so you can be healthy for major events in your loved one's life that are still years away. You can also ask them to act as a cheerleader, and give them frequent updates on your progress so they can encourage you regularly. For some people, the idea that their actions affect their pets is a super-potent driver. Those who work with energy in healing practices know that your health, both physical and mental, affects the health of those around you, including that of your companion animals, in both subtle and more overt ways. Helping oneself in order to help a pet can be a very motivating way to commit to change. This is one of those hacks that can boost your motivation when nothing else is working because love is an incredibly powerful force that can be harnessed to impel us into action. As an added bonus, doing things for those you love makes you feel great, as long as you're doing them out an authentic loving spirit and not out of an attempt to control other people or events.
No matter where you are in your journey toward utilizing consistently effective self-motivation skills, you can build toward mastery in this area little bits at a time. Gaining the ability to motivate yourself no matter what's going on takes work over time for sure, but any effort toward building these skills will leave you more empowered and self-aware than before. Waking up to what works for you, and putting what you've noticed to work for you, will help you to build strong habits that will serve you well in the pursuit of all your goals. Pick a suggestion from above and get started! You deserve to feel excited about getting up in the morning, and these will help you get there.
The Health Risks of Loneliness
“A true community is not just about being geographically close to someone or part of the same social web network. It’s about feeling connected and responsible for what happens. Humanity is our ultimate community, and everyone plays a crucial role.”
There is increasing scientific evidence that loneliness is extremely unhealthy. We all know that it feels bad, but it is now apparent that lonely people have worse health outcomes than those who are not plagued by loneliness, often to a striking degree. This article mentions many ways in which the problem presents itself, but one of the most amazing statistics I found in my travels was that chronic loneliness has negative impact that is comparable to smoking about 15 packs of cigarettes a day! Well, when you put it that way, I guess we all need to pay attention!
There can be many reasons for rampant loneliness, as the causes of it are obviously subjective. Some of the main factors may be:
- The pace of modern life, which leaves little time for the kinds of unhurried interactions in which we build feelings of closeness with others
- The fact that we often don't live in close proximity to those we care most about, when in olden days we would have lived in small villages where everyone knew each other, and everyone we knew was physically close
- Young people may experience a great deal of social isolation until they build social skills and find acceptance in a group of friends. This can take much longer than is healthy
- Older people who made friends in school through proximity with others may not have built adequate social skills to continue making friends throughout life. Social skills are generally not specifically taught, so those not naturally talented in this area may struggle for a lifetime
- Because the expression of emotions is still considered taboo in many ways, those in the midst of adversity may retreat inward; admitting to having difficulty could lead to being judged as weak. They then don't receive the healthy support that could help them get through the tough times, which reinforces the experience of loneliness
- Mental and emotional health assistance is still stigmatized, so many who could really use professional health of some kind don't seek it
- Social media, where many get a lot of their interactions these days, can foment nastiness and resentments in public discourse as much as they connect us with creativity and support
Obviously these are just a smattering of the possible causes of modern loneliness, but do any of these sound familiar? Knowing that your long-term health may depend on it, what do you think you might do differently in order to foster deeper, more satisfying relationships? We'll look more at possible solutions going forward, but why not start thinking about ways that you can make the most of the social time you do get?
How can you stay present with the most important people in your life? If you have a choice to make about how to spend time and one of your choices might deepen a friendship, can you choose that one this week? Can you write a note or have a quick conversation with someone about something meaningful to remind both of you of the bond of trust you share? I bet if you just keep thinking about this in the background of your routines, you can find little ways to appreciate and build the relationships you have in small but impactful ways. Relationships are built and nurtured over time, so there's never a better time to start than now. The benefits of growing better habits are and will remain of the utmost importance to the quality of your health and happiness.