Leaving a painful, unhappy, or unhealthy relationship can be very difficult, and it often takes time and a good deal of effort to finally let go. On one hand, you care about the person and wanted things to work out. On the other, you may have sacrificed your time, happiness, or even your integrity to stay in the relationship.

People usually leave this kind of relationship when the pain of staying outweighs the pain of leaving. Both choices are difficult, but you’ve had enough. You are ready for something different, even if it’s just the relief of being alone.

So what comes next?

The good news is: this is a golden opportunity! You’re tired of pain in your relationships. You don’t want to repeat the same relationship pattern the next time. You want something different and better. So, this is your chance to make change.

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The process of making internal change is not easy, but it’s worth it to set yourself up for success the next time, whether in romantic or other types of relationships.

Because when you look at yourself, you begin to see your behavior patterns. What are you doing that contributes to the difficulties? Take a deep look at your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, and you can begin to identify those patterns and work toward changing them.

I went through this experience of change when I met an alcoholic and started behaving in ways that shocked me. I had no idea how my past had prepared me for obsessive behavior, abandoning myself, and sacrificing my values.

This blog is where I share my experiences, and how I found a way through to a place of healing and serenity. Today I write Insanely Serene to share with you the process and methods that worked for me and that can help on your journey to inner change and peace of mind.

My Transformation Story

I hit my lowest emotional point ever when I broke up (for last time) with my alcoholic boyfriend and realized that he was not the problem, I was the problem.

I was never going to have peace of mind in my romantic (or any) relationship unless I looked at and worked on my own negative and codependent behaviors. At my low self-esteem and self-loathing. At my need for attention, love, and validation from someone else.

All my life I had been the good girl who got good grades and never got in trouble, who focused on keeping the peace among others and had no opinions but those I thought others wanted me to have. I would do anything to hear other people confirm that I was worthy of love, attention, and value.

All of these efforts led to depression, anxiety, and codependency. I had no idea how to have healthy relationships, only to focus on giving what I thought others wanted from me. As a result, my interactions with friends, family, or romantic partners often produced uncertainty, anxiety, resentment, and confusion.

I just wanted peace of mind. I wanted to be able to interact with people without doubting myself, feeling I’d made a mistake, beating myself up, or dwelling on it for weeks, months, or even years. I wanted ease and clarity in my relationships. I wanted a life partner I was passionate about and with whom I could be myself.

I tried everything I could think of. Therapy, emotion work, journaling, self-help resources and tools, medication. And it helped. I made progress in understanding myself and releasing some of the toxic emotions I’d carried around since childhood.

But I still sacrificed my needs to others. I was passive in friendships, letting others direct our path, and never saying no. I was angry and resentful in family relationships, blaming them for the past and its impact on me. I grasped at romantic relationships, wanting only to be with someone, anyone, who wanted to be with me.

And then I met the alcoholic. Oh, was he charming. He was the bad boy I never dated in high school. And he absolutely adored me, providing an overwhelming flood of love and validation that I couldn’t resist. I started behaving in ways I never thought I would. And it started having a negative impact on my life. I was losing sleep, serenity, and my sanity. I lost my cool and found my rage. I lost my valuables, a good deal of money, and eventually my apartment.

I was as far from peace of mind as I had ever been. I was so lost, I barely recognized myself. I was sad, scared, and desperate.

Because others in my family had been through similar situations, they helped me find help through a mutual support group. I glommed onto every suggestion and every tool that was offered. I was relentless in my pursuit of help – at first for my boyfriend and then more and more for myself. I wanted to feel better. I wanted that peace of mind I’d been seeking since childhood, and that now seemed impossibly far away.

Slowly, I found a way forward. I found tools and techniques that helped me while I was in the relationship and then that helped me get out of it. I would break up with him, and then get sucked back in. It was a very incremental process, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. Over and over until I finally realized that he might never change and I did not like who I was when I was with him.

That’s when I was finally able to break up with him for the last time. And that’s when I had my huge realization: he was not the problem. I was the problem.

At this, my lowest emotional point ever, I decided I was going to do whatever it took to feel better. I got painfully honest, examined my patterns of thought and behavior, and dug deep to understand where they came from.

I released the old patterns and embraced new behaviors, practicing over and over until I mastered them. I treated myself with kindness and patience, as I would a beloved friend or family member. I forgave myself.

I delved into my values, defining what was important to me and what no longer served me. I aligned my thoughts, feelings, and actions to those values. This meant that in any relationship interaction, I was guided by my inner knowledge rather than outside pressures.

Because I was tired of feeling discomfort, anxiety, and other negative feelings in my relationships, I developed practical processes, steps I could take in any relationship interaction so that I could always feel proud of my behavior.

And I did all this work without having to change other people. I didn’t change my alcoholic boyfriend. Or my parents, siblings, friends, or colleagues. All I did was focus on my inner work.

Eventually I cleared the old patterns of codependency and reliance on others to feel worthy and built a strong foundation in self-love, self-care, and self-worth. I learned how to put myself first so I could be there for others, how to stay calm and steady in the face of relationship challenges, and how to feel safe, comfortable, and serene in a world I can’t control.

Today I know and love who I am. I feel good about my relationships, and I love serving others seeking to find peace of mind in their relationships – with themselves, with others, and with the world. It’s my passion. I believe that as more people know and love themselves and learn to build healthier relationships, the world will be a better place.

If you’re ready for change, I’m here to share what I learned. I’d love to hear from you about your situation and offer help and guidance toward finding peace of mind.

Photo by Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash

It is possible to find peace no matter what your circumstances. You live with an alcoholic or other addict. You’re alone and looking for a life partner. Your family has deeper rifts than the Grand Canyon.

No matter where your source of pain, if you commit to this one surprising truth, you can have peace at any point:

Know yourself, heal yourself, love yourself.

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Does that sounds selfish? Unrelated? I mean, your loved one might be disappearing on week-long benders and you’re supposed to focus on yourself? How does working on yourself help you find a life partner or heal family rifts?

It might seem counter-productive to solve those thorny relationship problems by focusing on yourself. But here’s another truth:

You have no control over anything except your own thoughts, feelings, and actions.

And sometimes not even those!

So the only way to find healing is to take action where you do have control. The better you know and can manage your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, the closer you are to finding peace of mind with any life circumstance.

How does self-knowledge and self-love help us heal relationships and find peace?

When you change, every relationship around you has to change. It’s like any formula - A+B=C. When you change A or B, then C also has to change.

So get to know you. The more you know yourself, the more you can work on accepting yourself. The more you accept yourself, the more you can work toward loving yourself. The more you love yourself, the healthier your responses to others will be.

It’s not an easy process. Or even a quick one. It’s slow, it’s incremental, and it takes time.

And what do you get for your investment?

The ability to stay grounded in yourself when tough things come up. You know your thoughts, your feelings, and what kinds of behaviors feel good to you. You know your values and how to stay in alignment with them. You know how to stay calm rather than fly off the handle and say or do things you’ll regret.

You become your own true North. You aren’t easily swayed by others’ words, emotions, or attitudes. You don’t overreact, you decide for yourself how you want to respond. You speak and act out of knowledge of your values, out of your integrity.

If you do slip and make a mistake, you know how to bring yourself back to center. You know how to look at your part, apologize, and make amends if needed.

What does it look like?

When the addict in your life does what they do - whether it’s disappearing, passing out at a family party, or even stealing from you, you stop focusing on their actions. Instead you look at what you have control over. You.

You can stay calm. You can look at your part. You can make changes with or without them. You can tap into your network when you can’t find them and need support to stay calm and decide what if any actions you can take. You can let them handle the consequences of embarrassment at the party. You can take their name off the credit card.

When you’re single and wishing you could find a partner, you focus on what you have control over. Instead of getting frustrated if nothing is happening in your dating world, focus on what you can do.

Know your needs, take care of them, do things for yourself to nurture and heal yourself, find ways to be kind, loving, and supportive of yourself - these all put you in a better frame of mind. You can still take steps toward dating, but you’re shifting your perspective so that you’re happy with yourself and not reliant on finding a partner.

How have I applied this to my life?

Early in my childhood, I learned to stuff my feelings, and I struggled with depression and anxiety. I developed self-hatred and turned to romantic relationships for validation. But I always had a drive to feel better, to find a healthier way to live, inspired by my father who suffered from mental health issues but stayed optimistic and always looked for a way to heal. Even through my worst experiences, I sought help through a wide range of modalities, and did some healing along the way.

I really hit rock bottom when my codependence led me to a relationship with an alcoholic/addict and I shocked myself with the depth of my self-destructive behavior. But the worst point was when I finally got out of the relationship because then I had to face the real problem. ME!

Rather than being discouraged, I was instead intensely motivated to go to any lengths for my serenity. It was not easy, but I dug really deep, dredging up all the old hurts, wounds, and patterns that led me to my self-destructive behavior. I admitted it all, shared it, and let it go. I gained huge relief and was able to start fresh. I accepted myself fully, warts and all, and learned to love myself.

From that point, I met my now partner and have a healthy relationship, had a child later in life, beat breast cancer, and have been working for over a decade to share my knowledge and help others to find their own inner serenity and peace of mind. Life keeps happening, so I always have opportunities to practice what I’ve learned and continue to grow.

Are you ready to find peace at any point?

No matter what is going on, you can find that inner peace and serenity to meet the challenges with grace. It starts with that commitment to yourself. To get to know, heal, and love yourself. Give yourself time, forgive your mistakes, and just keep going.

What’s getting in your way today?

A friend recently asked me how to reduce her reactivity. As someone who used to (and occasionally still does) overreact to emotional triggers, I needed to learn this lesson.

When I was younger, and I lost a game to my siblings, I would throw a tantrum and knock over the game board. Later, when I was dating an alcoholic/addict, I would have rage reactions to his unacceptable behaviors (irony of ironies). Even now, as mom to a young child (those beings who are SO good at listening to their parents [!]), there are times I feel the reaction rising and I have to take action to nip it in the bud.

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So here’s a 5-step process to follow when you want to stop your knee-jerk reactions to triggering behaviors and instead respond more calmly and maturely.

1. Awareness

   
   Become aware of your triggers or stressors. What behaviors in others push your buttons so quickly that you can’t control your reactions? Also, what factors affect your ability to manage your reactions? Try considering HALT - are you hungry, angry, tired, or lonely? When you’re vulnerable, it’s harder to control those instant reactions.
   
   When I was with the alcoholic, his lies could get me going (how do you know if an alcoholic is lying? If their lips are moving), because no matter how clear the truth was (no, I called the credit card company and you DID charge a set of drums to my card without permission), he would deny it. It was enraging. But your reactions are specific to you, so the first step is tuning in and identifying when you’ve reached your limit.
   

2. Pause
   
   When the trigger happens, start building in time to pause and think. You need a pattern interrupt. The point is to give yourself time to avoid the reaction and have at least the possibility of a more measured response. Try counting to 10, or use an acronym to short-circuit your reaction - like “WAIT - why am I talking” or “THINK - is it thoughtful, honest, intelligent, necessary, and kind.” Come us with some way of interrupting your own pattern.
   
   When I was first working on this, it helped me to imagine physically zipping my own lips. Slowly, over time, I was able to insert the pause between my knee-jerk reaction and how I would really rather respond. Behavior patterns are persistent so don’t get discouraged if you keep having the same reactions for some time, even after you commit to making change.
   

3. Give Yourself Options
   
   I call this developing a repertoire. You want to give yourself choices about how to respond to the triggering behavior. If you’ve thought about it ahead of time, maybe made a list (mental or written), you at least have the possibility of doing something different.
   
   I developed lists of alternative behaviors through brainstorming on my own, talking with friends, writing in my journal, going to support groups, and gathering ideas as far and wide as I could. Just having other ideas floating around in my brain gave me a chance to change when I was in the midst of an emotional crisis.

4. Practice
   
   A friend of mine used to say, “If it’s a problem, you’re going to get another chance to deal with it,” meaning that in a relationship, the dynamic keeps coming up until it’s resolved or the parties give up. So practice your newfound options. When the triggering behavior occurs, try responding differently. And if you’re not able to, that knee-jerk reaction just happens again, that’s ok, you’ll get another chance! The more you remember you have options, the more likely you are to actually put one into practice.

   Especially in my relationship with the alcoholic, I kept doing the same things over and over again. I kept getting angry every time he promised something and couldn’t deliver. Over time, I would try different responses, until eventually, I really did have conscious choices. It takes a lot of practice for new ideas to trickle down from your head to your heart, so give yourself grace. Which leads to the last tip.
   

5. Be Kind to Yourself
   
   This is a process, and you’re not going to nail it right away. So, no matter how many times you slip into reactivity, be kind to yourself! Treat yourself as you would a good friend going through the same thing. Ok, so you reacted again, it’s understandable. Remind yourself of your options, your choices, your new repetoire to try something different. Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up!
   
   It took practice to be kind to myself, since I was much more used to criticizing myself. But kindness is much more motivating than cruelty, so over time I was able to turn to myself as a friend and comforter rather than a judge and jury. When you’re trying to change behavior, remember it took a long time to develop the way you respond, and so it will similarly take time to unlearn the reaction pathways and replace them with something else.

What are you reacting to these days? What triggers you and how have you tried to make change? What would be your ideal response to the offending behaviors? If you’re at a loss, try implementing these steps and see what happens. I’d love to hear from you.

When we learn to say no to what we don’t want, we open a path to what we do want – to our “yes.” You can say no AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT.

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Many of us learned early to say yes when we really wanted to say no.

We learn that we should put other people’s needs first. That we should please others before ourselves. That other’s happiness is more important than our own. That their feelings take precedence over ours. That self-care is selfish. That self-sacrifice is heroic.

These beliefs override our natural tendency to listen to our thoughts and feelings as a guide to making decisions. They train us to ignore our instincts to say no, to take care of our own needs, to listen to what we need for self-care before helping others.

By the time we reach adulthood, we are entrenched people pleasers who say yes when we’d rather say no, feel guilty for wanting to take care of ourselves, and carry a load of resentment.

I used to say yes when I really preferred to say no, and it led to tremendous unhappiness, frustration, and discontent. I felt my time was not my own and I resented the people and activities I engaged with.

I finally realized that saying yes when I meant no not only didn’t serve me, it was not good for those around me. I was not fully present with people who innocently wanted me around and I trailed negative energy and discontent that no one invited or deserved to be around.

Here’s the thing: if you can stand up for yourself and say no when you want to, you preserve your focus and energy for the activities you DO want to participate in.

Saying NO opens the door to YES. What do you really want to do in a given situation? Listen to yourself, honor the answer, follow your gut. The more you say no when you mean no, the more you have time and energy to say yes to what you really want.

Saying NO allows you to follow your path to YES.

It’s definitely not easy, especially for us people pleasers. Just remember that it is kinder to the other person to be honest. Because then you are not spending time when you don’t want to and bringing negative energy to it. When you say yes, you really mean yes, and you bring good, positive energy to the interaction.

Here are 6 steps for learning to say no when you mean no, and feeling good about it.

How to Feel Good About Saying No

1. Pause before you answer the request

2. Listen to your gut

   • How will you feel if you say yes?

   • How will you feel if you say no?

   • Which feels better? Or “least worst”?

3. If the answer is no, let the other person know factually and kindly

4. Don’t overexplain your decision

5. Stay calm no matter what their response

6. Let go

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Want to know the secret to healing the world of CRAZY?

First of all, it starts with you. And me. Every one of us, as individuals.

Because you know what contributes the most to an insane world? People with less than sane approaches to life.

I’m not talking about the whackos. I’m talking about you and me. We ALL have our insanities, and we all contribute to a crazy world.

Here’s the BIGGEST secret to healing the crazies:

YOU have the power to start the healing. How?

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Love yourself so well, it pours out of you into the world.

Get to know yourself so intimately, it’s like you’re living inside your own skin.

Oh wait, you already are? Of course. But are you comfortable in your skin? Are you at peace with your thoughts? Do you welcome and accept your feelings (all of them, even the ugly ones)?

Do you not only know your own weaknesses, but have compassion for them? Or do you beat yourself up every time they show up?

Do you laugh at your idiosyncracies? Allow yourself to cry over the silliest things?

Embrace yourself for your beauty and talent? Comfort yourself when you make mistakes?

The more you truly love yourself as if you were your own lover, mother, sister, brother, spouse, child, the more you can extend love to others.

The more you accept your differences from others with kindness and without judgment, the more you can accept others.

How you treat yourself is how you treat others. Flip side: how others treat you is how they treat themselves. Instead of taking offense, lead with compassion.

The more you talk to yourself with gentleness, with compassion for all those glaring flaws, the more you will speak to others with kindness.

So how much do you love yourself? Put aside ego. Acknowledge what you’re good at and what you suck at. They’re just facts.

Once you really know what you’re working with, you can increase your strengths and work on reducing your weaknesses.

Love yourself in all your pain and glory, for all your wounds and worry. You are a complex work in progress. And so is everyone else.

When we can bring our self-kindness and self-compassion out into the world, we spread that energy in ways that encourage and inspire others.

What kindness can you give yourself today, and then look around to share with someone else?

Photo by Rhand McCoy on Unsplash

I’m in Paris for the week of an unusually early and long-lasting heat wave. Every day has been nearly 90F with blinding, blazing, record-setting heat.

With my 87-year-old mother. Who needs a walker to get around.

Yesterday, we spent 4 hours to get to the Rodin Museum.

The traffic was horrific, they closed the roads for the Indonesian president, and we had to walk the last mile.

We not only made it, we did it without fighting, melting down (literally), or otherwise losing our minds. And then we enjoyed the heck out of the museum!

How?

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Paying attention - I tracked the map while the Uber driver’s GPS slowed to a halt and saw how close we were and that we could probably walk the last bit.

Accepting the situation - It is what it is. There’s no sense railing against reality. We reviewed options as we went - get a cab and just go back to hotel? Keep going with rests? Get another cab to the museum? In the end, we kept going.

Being patient - We went at her pace, stopping when she needed to rest, making sure she was hydrated (and me, too!), believing we would get there eventually.

Keeping a positive attitude - We were dripping with sweat when we arrived, but we were determined to make the most of it, even when there was no air conditioning in the museum and the lift was broken!

Focusing on the goal - We wanted to see the museum and sculpture gardens as planned, and we just focused on the outcome, not the discomfort along the way.

Persevering - My mother raised me to be resilient - no one can rescue me but myself, and anything worth doing takes time and effort. We both pushed through the discomfort and remained calm and focused.

My mother is not a complainer and neither am I. I’ve learned that my serenity is more important to me than the relief of expressing unfiltered feelings - that usually leads to regret.

So, we made it to the museum and we enjoyed our visit. It helped that the museum totally lived up to its reputation. Throughout, we remained calm, coated in sweat, and collected.

How do you stay calm under pressure? Let’s share ideas.

What if cultural norms we live by turn out to be wrong? In my personal development journey, I’ve found so many that work against us. If we want healthy relationships with ourselves and others, we need to recognize and counteract some of these pernicious beliefs.

Here are 5 surprising paradoxes of personal development that flip the script on what actually helps us to have healthy relationships and find peace of mind.

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1. Powerlessness is Powerful

I grew up thinking I had to make my life what I wanted it to be. Self-will ruled! The attitude was a natural outgrowth of a family with immigrant roots – one has to work hard to advance in the world; no one else will hand you success.

Unfortunately, this led to believing that not only should I control my destiny, but those of everyone around me and all of my life circumstances. I thought I was all powerful, and expended a lot of energy trying to force things and people to go my way. As you might expect, this led to much misery and disappointment.

In fact, quite the contrary, it is in recognizing where we’re powerless that we actually become powerful. Giving up the illusion that we control others’ decisions or the wider circumstances of our lives helps us focus on the things we really can influence – our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

For example, we can’t make someone give us the job we want, but we can present well at the interview and maintain a positive attitude in all interactions, whether we ultimate get the job or not. We are powerless over the decision to hire us, but we have the power to do our best and believe that whatever the outcome, it’s for the best.

2. Putting Yourself First Makes You a Better Friend to Others

This seems counterintuitive – isn’t it selfish to focus on myself? How can I be there for others if I’m thinking of myself first? In truth, unless we do think of ourselves first, and take care of our own needs, we will not have what it takes to be a good friend to someone else.

For example, people with low self-esteem may use their friendships to boost their ego. Such a person might give to his friends, do for his friends, be there for his friends, but with an expectation that they will appreciate him, stroke his ego, and return the favors. If they don’t reciprocate, he’ll be angry with them, never realizing that even if they gave him their approval, it would not make him feel better. He must generate his own self-esteem. Then he will be more able to truly see the other, and what they need from him as a friend, rather than projecting his needs on them.

It is only knowing and liking oneself that one can believe in one’s value without needing others to reflect it back. This makes generous, selfless friendship possible.

3. Self-Care is Not Selfish

We’re taught to put others first, to think of others needs before our own. And that taking care of ourselves first is selfish. Unfortunately, the down side is that we end up draining our own energy to be there for others, giving too much when we may not have it to give. This approach also leads to looking outside ourselves for approval and self-esteem, which again is an impossible order. We will seek forever unless we turn inward.

The only way out of this conundrum then is to focus on building our own self-respect and worth, and the best way to do this is to practice self-care. Every human being has needs – from the basics of physical survival up to spiritual fulfillment. We cannot expect others to meet those needs for us – just as we cannot meet them for others. When we make sure we have what we need first, we are much more available and energetic in our support of others.

4. Give Up and Get What You Want

Ironically, the best way to get what you want is to give up striving desperately for it. I’ve experienced this in many areas – buying a house, finding a life partner, shifting my life path.

Here are tips for giving up on having to have something but not letting go of hoping for it:

• Recognize what you’re holding on to – what is it you feel you have to have in order to be happy, healthy, or whole?

• Go to the worst place – what would happen if you never got it? Acknowledge and accept your fears.

• Go within – if you don’t get what you think you want, can you still feel good about yourself?

• Turn to trust – can you trust the universe to take care of you if you don’t get the outcome you desperately want? What has been your experience to date?

• Look at the past – when something hasn’t worked out the way you wanted, were you still ok? Did something better happen instead?

• Work for what you want, but detach from the results – you may find your dream comes true in a way you would never expect.

5. Helping Can Hurt

Again, we’re taught to help people in need to be a good person. But there is a difference between helping someone and enabling them to continue self-destructive behavior. True help is best offered to someone who is taking personal responsibility, who understands that all consequences are their own, and who will use the help in healthy ways. Enabling actually hurts the person, because it takes away their ability to be responsible for their own choices and face their own consequences.

For example, say a friend just lost a job and can’t pay their rent. It might be helpful to offer to pay their rent for a month. But it might just be enabling. It all depends on whether the person you’re helping is working hard to find a way to pay their rent or sitting back on their laurels, sure others will help them through the rough spot.

How do you know if it’s helping or hurting?

• Look at the other person’s level of responsibility – are they working hard to meet their own needs or do they depend on others to carry them?

• Look at your motives – are you helping with good intentions and belief that they are also working to take care of themselves, or are you playing savior, thinking the other will fall apart without you?

Have you fallen into any of these unhealthy personal development traps? Or any others? How have you worked your way out?

Photo by Buddha Elemental 3D on Unsplash

Taking care of you IS taking care of your loved ones.

Don’t listen to anyone who says it’s selfish. That’s an old model. It leads to fatigue, resentment, and depression. The old model says “I’ll take care of you, if you take care of me.”

That doesn’t work because it’s handing off responsibility for meeting our needs to others. Other people, no matter how much they love us, will never be able to fully know or understand our needs as we do.

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The old approach also leads to codependence. Focusing on others and taking care of them leads to unhealthy connections to their moods, whims, attitudes and actions. We get obsessed with helping them feel better instead as a step toward feeling better ourselves. In the process, we often end up neglecting ourselves.

So, it’s time to flip it. Go direct from knowing your needs to taking care of them. No middle man, woman, or child. You know your needs, you are best at determining how to meet them. When you take care of you, you don’t have to rely or expect others to do it. When you take care of yourself, you have more time, attention, and energy for those you love.

And you model this for your family, especially your children. You give them permission to take responsibility for their needs and meet them to the best of their ability for their age.

It’s time: Give yourself permission to take care of yourself. Let go of the old messages of selfishness. Instead, embrace your needs, meet them, and don’t apologize for it. Take a positive and healthy approach to self-care, and you will be much more capable, present, and energized to help others.

Everyone has heard of the analogy of putting on your oxygen mask first before hlping others. But here’s another way to summarize the concept:

When we commit to self-care, we build up our stores of energy, and beyond, generating “extra.” Then we’re much more able to give from a place of abundance rather than scarcity, neediness, and depletion.

Here are 7 reasons to turn conventional wisdom on its head and put yourself first to help others:

1. When we have enough, it’s easier to give – Giving from a negative place – neediness, guilt, lack – does not serve us or the other person. Visiting with a sick friend or older relative out of obligation not only damages our spirit but can hurt the person we’re with. If we have low energy or a poor attitude, the other person can usually feel it at some level. Giving to a romantic relationship that is one-sided or unbalanced means a drain on our energy. When we take the time to care for ourselves, we value ourselves, and don’t need to seek anything from others. Giving when we feel good, happy, and fulfilled is a much more beneficial experience for all involved.

2. Knowing ourselves reduces expectations – Many of us focus on helping others as a way to avoid ourselves. We may even have an expectation that the other person will appreciate the help and thus feed our egos. This is especially true in romantic obsession – we give to our partner thinking they will provide love, appreciation, and validation in return. Do you know what you need for your emotional, physical, and spiritual health? By putting ourselves first, we begin to gain clarity on these questions. Are you looking for your partner to make you feel better, or do you know how to self-soothe? The more we know ourselves, the less we have to hope the other person will make us feel better.

3. Clear motivations support healthy relationships – Putting self first can provide us the opportunity to examine our motives. Are we helping that friend move because we have the time and energy, or because we are afraid they won’t like us if we don’t? Asking ourselves why we are helping and answering honestly leads us to give from a healthy rather than a needy place.

4. We take the pressure off others – One of the convoluted reasons we put others first is because we think that by taking care of them, they’ll reciprocate. We’re looking outside ourselves for a way to take care of ourselves. When we stop pushing our needs on others, we take back the power to care for ourselves, and also free up others to be more authentic with us. Ironically, often when we stop pursuing our love interest so intensively, but instead step back and take care of ourselves, they are drawn to our strength rather than repelled by our neediness.

5. What we give to ourselves, we can offer to others – Whatever we’re seeking from others, consider that we can give it to ourselves. This is true for love, self-worth, compassion, gentleness, kindness, consideration, sensitivity, anything we’re seeking from others. When we practice self-care and offer ourselves these kindnesses, we nurture and comfort ourselves. From a place of serenity and strength, we are then much more able to offer them to others without strings attached.

6. Being less needy allows others to be themselves – When we know how to identify our needs and have a range of options for fulfilling them, we do not have to rely on others, especially a romantic partner, to do it for us. We can see others more clearly, be with them without wanting something, and open ourselves to real exchange. They feel less pressure to perform or provide for us, and can also be themselves.

7. We become role models for others – Especially when we have children in our lives, we can demonstrate that self-care is actually a way to care for others. When we are in a good place mentally and emotionally, we are much more equipped to deal with the demands and emotional upsets of others, less reactive, and more compassionate. All of these are key to healthy interactions with others.

Are you giving from your extra or from your essence? What are you doing to put yourself first today and how can that help others?

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Are you struggling with a relationship in your life that keeps you up at night? Your loved one has a substance use problem, your parents have high expectations and express their disappointment in you every time you talk, your sister has a mental illness and needs help but won’t accept it from you…

You stress out over the problem and keep trying to solve it. You think you can fix it if you just think of the right thing to say or do. You try to help. You try to mold or shape yourself into what you think they want you to be. Or you avoid them or even cut them off to protect yourself. But still the conflict, the worry, and the stress eat at you.

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You want to be on better terms, you want to know how to handle the issues that keep coming up over and over. You want to help the situation, you want to solve the problem. And you think about it all the time. Obsessively. Too much. But don’t know how to stop.

And this constant focus on the problem gives you stress and anxiety. It keeps you up at night, it haunts you during the day. You feel upset, restless, at loose ends, unable to focus. You’re worried, so focused on others you lose track of the present. Relaxing isn’t an option. Peace of mind feels a million miles away.

I’ve been through many relationship conflicts that felt unmanageable and drove my anxiety levels sky-high. Living with an alcoholic/addict, reparenting myself to heal the hole in my soul, realizing a friendship no longer served me and I would have to let it go, accepting reality about relationships where I thought we were close when in fact we were not.

And through it all, this is what I learned:

Healing my relationship pain has everything to do with me and very little to do with the other people involved.

This is both the good news and the bad news. Good in that I don’t have to rely on anyone else to participate with me in healing the pain. Bad in that the work is mine to do, and it’s not always easy.

Ultimately, though, I learned that I do have the power to heal the relationship. And so do you.

Relationship pain can take so many forms - parents of adult children who have asked for no contact, family members of someone with an addiction or mental health problem affecting their life, adult children looking to heal parental relationships, strained sibling relationships, difficult friend relationships, and so many more.

So if you’re struggling with relationship pain, Insanely Serene is here to offer simple, practical tips and tools to help you heal, with or without the other person.

Know this: You have the power to heal, to release the pain you’re carrying, and to find peace of mind on your own terms.

The steps are simple, though not usually easy.

1. Heal your relationship with you. This is not an easy, overnight process. It does take time. But there are steps you can take toward healing.

2. Take steps to heal the pain in specific relationships. Pain takes many forms but can include:

   • Being hypervigilant

   • Overthinking conversations

   • Feeling hurt by others’ actions

   • Focusing on resentments

   • Replaying past conflicts

   • Breathing shallowly

   • Having trouble sleeping or fully relaxing

   • Feeling guilt for wanting distance and guilt for staying

   • Walking on eggshells

   • Constant worrying

   • Focusing more on the other person than yourself

   • ____________________________ [You fill in the blank]

     There are many practical strategies for addressing these issues to help you let go of negative and stressful behaviors.

3. Prevent future pain. Beyond the focus on the immediate conflict that might be bothering you, you can take the next step of looking at how to prevent future conflicts and how to sustain the serenity and peace of mind through other relationship challenges.

I’ll be sharing more on the strategies and practical tools we can use to start the self-healing process in a series of blog posts coming up.

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So many of us are walking around carrying burdens of past pain. Wishing we had received something from someone else, thinking we missed out on a critical ingredient to our health and well-being, expecting our happiness to come from outside ourselves.

This kind of pain feels deep-seated and hard to dislodge. It feels like something you have no control over, a hurt that occurred in the past, that you carry with you, and that you have no power to resolve.

But here’s what I’ve learned: You CAN heal the pain you carry from past hurts in any relationship where you still carry deep-seated negative feelings - and you don’t even need to talk to the people who were involved! You can heal the hurt on your own terms - with a little help from a trusted community or group of friends. Instead of carrying the pain forever, you can find peace of mind and serenity.

I went through this myself. As I was growing up, I wanted to share my feelings with someone who understood and could provide the emotional support I needed. For years, I carried both sadness and resentment. I sought after relationships of all sorts to provide what I felt was missing. It felt like a core ingredient was missing from my early life, and I could never feel right without it. I allowed the anger and hurt from the past to color my present interactions with people, perpetuating the dynamic.

After many years of looking, I finally found a method for healing myself and the pain I was carrying around. It’s simple, just a short list of actions to take, but it does take a commitment to inner emotional work and to repeating the effort over time. It does NOT, however, require disclosing your goals or methods to the person with whom you hope to heal the relationship.

Ultimately, this practice heals the pain, allows you to let it go, and leaves room for peace to take up residence inside. You can let go of the pain, resentment, and sadness, and embrace serenity.

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Here are the steps to take:

1. Give Yourself What They Couldn’t Give You - Rather than expect the other person to somehow miraculously provide something they clearly could not and cannot, give yourself whatever it is. Treat yourself the way you wanted them to treat you. That makes it sound easy - it’s not. It’s a big effort to turn away from resentment, and focus on pouring love and acceptance on yourself. You have to practice. You’ll forget and then remember and then forget. Keep persevering to change your own behavior and taking full responsibility for giving yourself what you missed and expected others to give. This is also why you can’t do this in a vacuum, you have to take the next steps as well.

2. Surround Yourself with a Community that Loves You - To help support you in giving to yourself, it’s incredibly helpful to have a loving community around you. People who understand what you’re going through, who bring no judgement to your experience, and who love you anyway. This way, you have access to support and understanding, and you’re not just giving out what you don’t have in Step 1. You’re learning how to receive the missing ingredient from loving friends around you, and this gives you a foundation for offering that same missing ingredient to yourself.

3. Accept What They Can Give You - If the person is still in your life, you can look for the signs of love that they can offer; it might be different than what you want or expect, but it’s still a gift. As I let go of my expectations from past relationships, I learned how to see how they were giving me love and acceptance - in their own way. I read about “love languages” - the different ways that people express and receive love - and that greatly shifted my perspective. I learned to see the way they shared love and to be grateful for it.

4. For Ultimate Healing, Give Them What You Wish They’d Given You - Giving yourself what you feel you missed out on is very healing, especially when surrounded by others who are able to support and love you through the process. When you live in kindness and care, you can let go of past hurt. And as you heal, consider turning full circle and giving to the person whatever it is you felt you missed out on from them. Since you’re fueling your healing from other sources - your community, loving friends, yourself, you’re building up reserves of love and acceptance. You might be able to then share some of that “extra” with the person in question. When I was able to let go of past hurts and heal my past pain, I was able to offer back to my relationships that attention, understanding, acceptance, and emotional support that I had wanted and needed from them.

Over time, my relationships improved. I was able to let go of past hurt, focus on the other person, pay more attention to growing our connections, and listen for the love that was available, offered in the way they were able. I let go of expectations and accepted the love and connection that was actually available.

Letting go of the burden of past hurt is such a relief. You can release those old feelings and beliefs and welcome in emotional freedom.

I hope this helps someone struggling with a relationship they wish was different! I’d love to hear more about your situation and what has worked, or not, for you.

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Are you struggling with a conflict in your relationship that you just don’t know how to resolve? A friend who suddenly seems distant, a parent you’ve argued with, an adult child who seems angry with you all the time? You’re looking for relief, and resolution, or at least to stop worrying about it all the time.

The good news is, you can have peace in your relationships with or without the other person! Below I share my 13-step process to healing a relationship conflict.

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Conflict can take many forms – from a minor disagreement with a friend to a deep-seated conflict with a family member. Feelings around it might include anger, resentment, discomfort, anxiety, rage, or sadness. If you have negative feelings or discomfort of any sort about a relationship, you can use these steps to feel better.

Try them!

Inner Work First

First you need to understand what happened in the relationship that is making you feel uncomfortable or upset. Taking responsibility for our own “stuff” is key to resolving the problem either internally or with the other person.

1. Understand the trigger and your reactions.

This is about understanding the situation and your response to it. Look at why you’re triggered, without blaming the other person, and ask yourself why you’re having the reaction.

2. Process your feelings.

Before you do anything, make sure you acknowledge and assess your reaction and feelings about the conflict. Get clear with yourself and process with others if needed so you can get to a calmer place.

3. Be honest and take responsibility.

What is your role in the situation? Look closely at your own behavior. Be honest about how your words and actions contributed to the conflict.

4. Decide what action to take.

You may or may not need to do anything more than the first three steps. If so, you can choose to keep it internal. If you want to express your feelings to the person, apologize and make amends, and/or tell them what you need in the relationship, you can choose to prepare and then talk with that person.

Choice 1: Keep It Internal

If you don’t feel you need to go further and talk with the other person, stop here and use what you’ve learned for the future.

5. Brainstorm a new repertoire.

Once you’ve understood the situation, processed your feelings, and identified your part, you can take one more step - determine what you might do differently in similar situations in the future. Brainstorm different reactions and responses, give yourself a new repertoire. Decide what thoughts, feelings, and actions align with your integrity, and make a plan for how you can change your behavior. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. It’s up to you to determine what feels best.

Choice 2: Prepare for Talking with the Other Person

If you have decided you want to re-engage with the other person in the conflict, follow these steps to take responsibility for your part and release any lingering negative feelings that you have.

5. Get clear on what you need to say and your motives.

If you want to re-engage with the other person, decide why – what do you want from the interaction? And get clear on how you will express yourself.

6. Practice with someone safe.

Talk it out with a trusted friend so that you can be clear and direct without blame or expectation of a particular response. Expecting someone else to respond in a specific way is a recipe for resentment.

7. Come from a place of clear intention and good will.

Focus on your motives and make sure they are self-focused, not outcome-focused. Let go of expectations for the other person, and keep working on intention until you feel you can approach the person with good will.

8. Express your feelings with no blame for the other person.

When you meet, express your feelings clearly and keep the focus on yourself. Take responsibility for your part in the conflict. Avoid assuming anything about the other person.

9. Make amends for your part in the conflict.

This is more than apologizing, it is explaining how you plan to change your behavior to avoid future conflict. This is a big piece of letting go of the conflict.

10. State your need or request for future interactions.

Ask the other person to consider what you want or need in the relationship to reduce this particular conflict or possible future conflicts. Let go of whether they actually do it.

11. Stay detached from the other person’s response (good or bad).

It is important at this point to allow the other person to have their say. If they blame or judge, refrain from further reaction or escalation. If they want to resolve things, too, stay focused on your goal of expressing your feelings and asking for support in meeting your needs.

12. Stay centered in good intentions.

Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Refrain from any reactions or overreactions, and try to remain as neutral as possible. Your goal is resolution, to feel good no matter what their response.

13. Let go of the outcome.

This is perhaps the most important step—and the one that will give you peace no matter what the other person does. If you have done all the previous steps well, and you let go of how the other person responds or how the situation resolves, then you are clean and clear of the conflict. You can release the situation.

Let me know if you have questions about this, or want help applying it to a current situation.

Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay

I want to hear from you - what is your worst relationship pain right now? The problem that, if you could resolve it, you would feel huge relief?

It could be anything:

• Dealing with your difficult adult child

• Worrying about your troubled sibling

• Letting go of someone who won’t change

• Forgiving someone without reconciliation

• Finding a way to be okay when a relationship is broken

Or anything - you tell me what you’re dealing with.. you’ve tried to address it, solve it, talk it through, find healing and peace, but you’re still feeling upset or uncomfortable or anxious about the relationship. That’s where I want to help.

I’m looking for your input so that I can put together a step-by-step guide to walk you through the issue and what you can do about it to find healing and peace despite the problem.

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I used to struggle with relationship conflicts and difficulties, holding onto the pain, worrying about it endlessly in my mind, and trying all sorts of tactics to change the other person.

I dated an alcoholic/addict whom I just knew I could help if he would just listen to me. For 4 long years I tried. And nothing worked. Finally I realized that he might never change, and I didn’t like who I was in the relationship.

And that’s when the true healing began. I had to let go of the relationship and put the focus on the core of the problem: me. I found tools and techniques that helped me understand myself and my own patterns that were contributing to the dysfunctional relationship. I found ways to feel better about myself and let go of the relationship, mourning the loss, accepting the reality.

And in the process I let go of old patterns that caused me pain in that relationship and really in any relationship. I found new pathways to dealing with the pain and finding the peace that is always available to us if we look in the right places.

I want to share the tools I learned and now share with you and others struggling with painful relationship issues. You CAN find peace, no matter what, and with or without the other person.

So take this poll, or drop a note in the comments, to share what relationship issue is causing you the most pain. Tell me why you would really like to heal this pain and what you’ve tried already.

I’m going to develop a tool for those who respond, to help you find peace within and with the relationship, whether the other person changes or not, and whether the other person even participates or not.

Peace is possible, and emotional freedom is entirely within your reach!

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Someone recently asked me for advice on several sibling relationships. Was there anything he could do to help the sister who struggles with mental health issues but won’t accept help and in fact barely speaks to him? How about the sister who had a conflict with his wife and who, though he addressed it and made amends, remains distant and nonresponsive to his outreach?

As someone who has had issues with siblings, I have found a path to peace of mind despite the conflict. Try these 6 steps toward finding and keeping your own peace of mind, no matter what your siblings do or don’t do.

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1. Look Within

What is going on for you in this relationship? What is your part in the conflict? Do you feel good about your interactions and behaviors with your sibling? How have they responded? Have you reflected on events and interactions to identify what you might have contributed to the current difficulties?

This exercise is about you - looking at your part in the conflict in preparation for cleaning up “your side of the street.”

Write out your understanding of the relationship and the conflict as it currently stands. You can write about your sibling, but try to focus on yourself. Write out your thoughts, feelings, actions. Get clear on your contributions to the relationship and the conflict.

• What happened?

• What was your contribution?

• How did you feel at the time? How do you feel now?

• What are your thoughts?

• What would you like to see happen?

• What can you do differently next time?

2. Identify Your Ideal Goal

You may want to resolve the conflict. Or improve the relationship. Or just have peace with the situation. Since there’s much we cannot control (see #3), we need to focus on what is ultimately in our control: our willingness to work on ourselves, do what we can to bring healing, and be willing to let go of the outcome. If we focus on ourselves, we’re much more likely to find that peaceful, calm acceptance of the situation, no matter what the other person does or doesn’t do.

3. Accept What You Can and Cannot Change

While it is hard to watch someone else, a sibling or any loved one, take less than optimal care of themselves, we have to be realistic about what is within our control when it comes to another adult. If the other person is not willing to accept help, we can’t force them. Likewise, if the other person seems to have resistance to a closer relationship, we can’t make them talk to us.

So what can we do? What is in our control? We are in control of only one thing: ourselves - our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We need to accept this and let go of the other person, their thoughts, feelings, and actions. How can we gain more clarity on our part?

4. Process and Let Go

Processing our thoughts and feelings begins with writing or talking it out. From there, it can help to share it with trusted friends and loved ones before deciding whether to address the person we’re in conflict with. When we share, it’s easier to let go of the feelings. Letting go of feelings we’ve carried for too long is a relief and leaves us in a better place if we’re going to address the issues directly with our sibling.

After we understand and have processed our thoughts and feelings, and ideally come to some level of acceptance, we can consider action.

5. Decide What Actions to Take (or Not)

Action may or may not involve direct contact with your sibling. You do not have to communicate with them to find your own peace of mind. Go back to your goal. Is there something you want or need in the relationship in response to the conflict? Do you want to apologize or make amends for the way you behaved? Perhaps you can resolve your feelings without re-engaging. Or do you feel that it’s important to express your feelings to the person? Be sure you know what you want before you decide what action to take.

If You Choose Direct Contact

Get clear on what you need to say and your motives. These go hand in hand – determining what you need to say is tied closely to your motives for saying it. Are you driven by hurt and the desire to punish the other person? Consider how that would impact the interaction. It might be less inflammatory if your motive is to express your hurt without blame and let the person know how you were affected in order to improve potential future interactions.

Practice with someone safe. Before talking to the other person, run through what you plan to say with a trusted friend or coach. If we just go in cold, we may blurt out things we’ll later regret. Plan and practice your approach and your words, so that you know you can stay centered and “say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.”

If You Decide NOT to Take Action

If you feel clean and clear once you’ve gone through the processing of your feelings, you may not even want or need to bring it to your sibling. The key is your inner state - do you feel any unresolved issues? Any confusion? Conflict? Discomfort? If you are clear, and you feel peace, then you may be fine without direct contact about the issue. From here you can decide how to be in the relationship, how much contact to have, how you want to respond to the person in future.

6. Prevent Future Conflicts

Now that you’re through this conflict, how do you prevent more in the future? With the sibling who won’t take care of themselves but also won’t accept help, look at what you have control over. You can offer help, and if they decline, work on accepting their choice.

Put into practice any changes you identified for your own behavior so you aren’t contributing to future conflicts. Were you too heavy handed? Pressuring the other person? Insisting on helping or being in touch or resolving the issue? Make sure that you make a plan for changing how you approach the relationship in future and keep reminding yourself to stick to it.

Remember that we don’t have control over other adults and their actions, and while it might be hard to watch them experience the consequences, there’s literally nothing you can do. You can choose to agonize over it, or you can work on accepting your siblings’ choices, and their right to their choices. You can let them know you care, you can let them know you’re there, but let go of any pressure, and definitely let go of expectations.

Sometimes when we back off, other people see their lives more clearly and can make different choices. But whatever they do, it’s ultimately out of our control. Focus on your part - showing you care, offering help, letting go - and stay centered in acceptance. You will experience much more peace of mind.

Ultimately, this practice is about finding peace within, staying centered there, and accepting that other adults are responsible for their lives. It’s difficult to watch others make what we think are poor choices, but it’s their prerogative. And it’s difficult to accept that our siblings may not want to be as close with us as we wish. All we can do is our own inner work, offer our love and presence and help, and then accept their choices to respond or not.

What do you think? Have you been in similar situations? How have you handled it? Do any of these tips ring true? Want to try them out? I’d love to hear from you about your sibling challenges.

Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

I was at the grocery store with my daughter, buying her birthday cake. We were waiting in the cashier line when I noticed the woman behind us. She had one item and seemed a little bit anxious.

I asked her if she’d like to go before us, and she said yes, so I made room for her to slip in front of us.

After the person before us finished paying (with four different gift cards), the cashier had to call his manager for an issue with his drawer. The woman lost it, threw down her cash, grabbed her jar, and ran out the door.

Before she did, she told the cashier to give me the change. I smiled at him, and we went on, barely registering a blip in our day. I projected calm and kindness, we were able to let go of her bad attitude, and she left with an appreciation thrown our way.

Of course it helped that we were not in a rush. But I’ve learned over time how to maintain a peaceful attitude even in the face of other people’s bad energy and tantrums.

It feels good to choose kindness and calm. Thank you for the reminder!

This week I received the highest compliment from one of my kids after we had a disagreement. He told me I was the reason he can identify his feelings and express them almost immediately to resolve potential conflicts.

This is why I do what I do! Helping people gain emotional intelligence is my purpose, my mission, and my passion in life. I truly believe that when we take responsibility for our feelings, we change our relationship with ourselves, and because of that growth, we can’t help but improve our relationships with others.

Here’s what happened.

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We were in the car and we had a disagreement over a political topic. It felt like a potentially relationship ending conflict. You know how things are these days - it seems like disagreements can turn into lifetime family rifts, right?

He withdrew. I’ve learned enough on the journey of growing my own emotional intelligence to stop talking. I let him be, let us both settle with our thoughts before going on. I was very stressed. I was worried, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to address things to work toward resolution. But I knew to be quiet in that moment.

A little while later, still in the car, he opened the topic again and asked a question that was different from what I thought was the issue. And I found I could easily agree with his real concern.

And that made all the difference. He realized what he thought was a betrayal on my part, was not actually, not at all. In fact, there was not really a true disagreement between us. And we could address the other issues - that I thought were major but turned out to be minor - at another time.

The bottom line was, we were able to open the topic again, address our feelings, express our feelings, acknowledge each other, and move on.

And here’s the proof that it’s working: he gave me he credit for his learning how to identify his feelings and express them directly and in a timely manner - not days or weeks later but that day, within the hour.

And we were done. We were good. We could move on, and in fact we had strengthened our relationship in he process.

This is why I write and share what I’ve learned. I truly believe that in helping one person at a time increase their emotional intelligence - including their ability to take responsibility for their own feelings - we can truly change the world. It has a ripple effect. When we each make healthy changes, we affect those we interact with, not through force of will but by the simple power of example.

Today I just feel so fulfilled.

Here are 5 steps to help you understand and process emotions.

1. Get to Know Yourself

Finding peace in your relationship begins with having a good solid relationship with yourself. How well do you know yourself? How well do you care for yourself? Treat yourself as you would your best friend if they were struggling with these issues. Ask yourself how well you understand your own needs. Look at your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. Write them out. Reflect on them. Consider how you can meet your own needs in each area.

2. Identify Your Feelings

The more you understand your feelings and learn to manage them, the more power you have over your own reactions and ability to manage being in relationships with others. How good are you at identifying your feelings? Do you know in the moment what that rush of blood is? Is it anger, embarrassment, resentment?

There are so many feelings to sort through. The more we know our own reactions and where the emotional responses come from, the quicker we can identify our feelings as they come up. At first, it’s all about awareness. Just become more aware when you have an emotional reaction. Don’t judge yourself, just observe.

3. Process Your Feelings

Processing feelings is personal. The first step is to allow yourself to feel them! Don’t judge them, let them arise, let yourself acknowledge them, let yourself feel them.

Once you identify the feelings, you are the best expert on how to best express them. Do you need to sit with them? Take an action? Make sure your responses are appropriate and don’t hurt yourself or others. You might need a good cry. Or a run in the park. Or a scream alone in the woods. Do whatever helps you express what you’re experiencing.

Processing feelings can take minutes or it can take longer. There’s no time limit, and everyone is different. The key is to accept yourself while in this process. No judgment, no negative self-talk, just allowance, acceptance, acknowledgment. Be kind to yourself. Ask others for help to talk things through if that helps.

4. Share Your Feelings

Sometimes it helps to share how you’re feeling with others. If the feelings are related to a specific person, you don’t necessarily have to share or work things out with them directly. The first step can be to talk with a trusted friend or advisor. Talking things through can help you better understand the feelings - what they are, where they came from, why you responded as you did - and also what you want to do about them.

Sometimes all you need to do is understand and express the feelings privately. Sometimes the feelings are telling you something about a relationship or situation that guide you toward an action. Sharing with someone you trust who won’t judge us can help you determine your next step.

5. Let Go

Ideally, you’re now ready to let go of the feelings. Neuroscience has shown that a feeling naturally arises and passes away in 90 seconds. It’s only when we don’t have a way to process feelings that they get stuck and we carry them for longer.

The healthy response is to acknowledge, express appropriately, and let go. If you find you can’t let go, then circle back to the beginning - you may have more processing to do. Letting go helps you reset so that you can return to a more peaceful baseline.

The better we understand and process our emotions, the less anxiety and more confidence we have in our relationships - with ourselves and others.

I’d love to hear how you deal with feelings and what you’ve learned on your journey!

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This is a piece I wrote out of my experiences during my diagnosis in August 2018, then treatment, and recovery from breast cancer, originally published in November 2019.

What is the worst news you could get? A cancer diagnosis is way up there for many of us. In 2018, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it was terrifying. But while there were definitely some dark days, one year later, my life is BETTER than before I got cancer!

I never thought I would get breast cancer because I have no family history; then when I did, I never thought it actually improve my life. Don’t get me wrong, it many ways it totally sucked. Chemotherapy fatigue drained my energy. I developed depression and thought I was going to have to check into a psychiatric ward. I went through surgery for a double mastectomy followed by six weeks of radiation, and I didn’t fully recover my energy until a year after my diagnosis. But all told, I’m grateful for the experience, because I learned so much and made some significant improvements in my life.

Here are six ways that having cancer has led to life improvements for me. They can be applied to any life challenge.

1. Live One Moment at a Time

I had often practiced “one day at a time,” to get through difficult times, but cancer drove me down to living minute to minute. The fatigue from chemo was something I never experienced before, and it scared the crap out of me. I couldn’t move my body without major effort, and my mind slowed to a sluggish crawl. Getting through a family event meant taking several breaks to lie down and sleep. Living with cancer means living with a lot of uncertainty: tests, waiting, conversations with doctors that later need research to understand. And in the middle of chemo, which happened last fall as light and heat departed from New England, I was hit hard by depression, a demon I thought I’d put to bed many years ago.

To get through all of these challenges and more, I had to live just minute to minute. If I thought about the next moment, the next chemo session, the next test, even just getting through in the next hour, I would fall off a cliff of terror, doubt, and darkness. So it was a matter of literally staying present in this second, then the next, and so on. I made it through chemo fatigue this way, as well as waiting, and especially through the depression.

What did that look like? Driving home from work in the dark telling myself, “I’m driving, I’m ok, I can get through this minute,” and then the next and then the next. And that’s how I survived until medication kicked in and helped me back to mental security.

How do you get through extreme negative emotions?

2. Gratitude as a Path to Positive Thinking

I’ve practiced gratitude for many years, writing lists of things I’m grateful for several times a week and sharing them with friends. But I really stepped it up with cancer. I found that whenever I would get bad news, I could always see the positive side of it. Sometimes it happened immediately, sometimes it took a few days and some extra effort. But eventually I could accept the situation and make the best of it. Here are some examples of turning things around:

Bad news:
You have breast cancer, and it’s in the lymph nodes.

Gratitude:
We’ve still caught it early enough that it’s ‘only’ stage 2A, and so it’s curable.

Bad news:
You’re going to lose your hair from chemotherapy.

Gratitude:
Hair loss is temporary, and my friends sent me fun head coverings to keep me warm.

Bad news:
Chemo can cause neuropathy.

Gratitude:
I researched and found a way to potentially prevent neuropathy and used it during the sessions. I had minimal neuropathy.

Bad news:
Chemo didn’t eliminate the tumor, there’s still so much DCIS (early indicator) that a lumpectomy is not sufficient, and you need a mastectomy to be sure to remove it all.

Gratitude:
This means I can now ask for the double mastectomy I wanted to be sure we remove every future possibility of cancer in the breast tissue.

Bad news:
You’re going to lose body parts.

Gratitude
I can say thank you and farewell to those parts; I’m going flat and I’ll never have to wear a bra again!

Practicing gratitude starts to become automatic. When something happens that seems like bad news, we gain the skill of looking at what good might come out of it. We might react at first with upset and other negative emotions, but over time, it becomes easier and faster to recognize the silver lining.

For example, after I got through all the breast cancer treatment, I was diagnosed with coronary artery heart disease. At first I was thrown for a loop and needed about a week to adjust and accept the situation. But then I turned to gratitude. Thank goodness I discovered it now (through a test related to joining a clinical trial, which I would never have otherwise had) and can address it before I become symptomatic. I can research treatments and make the best decisions for my health. I can look for medical help to integrate recommendations across all my health conditions.

Can you identify the silver lining in a current difficult situation?

3. Stronger Community

Having cancer was an opportunity to reach out for help. As I tapped into the love around me, I realized how many people surrounded me with care, and that I could do more to strengthen those connections. I could not have gone through cancer so successfully without my family and community.

It’s not always easy to ask for help, but we needed so much support when I was incapacitated from treatment. We reached out in many ways and asked for help – through an online community, our religious and local communities, the workplace, the medical community, and many other resources.

We were so lucky to have so many friends and families put their arms around us. My medical team was warm, kind, and caring. I had company at every chemo session, many friends and family babysat for our little one, people came and helped us clean, a family member stayed with us when I went through surgery, I received unending messages of support, and the list goes on.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have friends and family thinking and praying and sending good vibes for health and recovery. I love that a friend of mine named Amy who has been going through breast cancer has a community that called themselves “Amy’s Army.”

So whatever your challenge or struggle, don’t hesitate to call in your army!

4. More Motivation

There’s nothing like a brush with death to give one motivation for life. Although I was fairly healthy before with diet and exercise, getting cancer was a huge motivator to change everything for the better.

My partner and I took to the research and started sorting through the recommendations for a healthy lifestyle, from diet and exercise to mindset and environment and everything in between. I have changed my diet completely, I stretch and work on lymphatic drainage every day, I exercise regularly, we’ve eliminated household toxins, and I keep researching and reading about health.

As someone who never loved shopping or cooking, I’m becoming fascinated and excited about food and how to prepare it. I read everything I can on anti-cancer diets and love trying new things as well as sharing them with my family and friends. Now I like to say, “Health is my new hobby.”

What motivates you to make change in your life?

5. Deeper Determination

When faced with a problem, my motto has become “be willing to go to any lengths” to find solutions. Any time I hit bottom, whether mentally or physically, I’ve learned that being willing to try new things is key to learning, growing, and healing. When I got cancer, I wanted to know as much as possible, and draw from whatever resources were available. That meant tapping my medical team, certainly, but also doing my own reading and research, listening to my partner’s knowledge and experience (he is also a cancer survivor), and talking to as many knowledgeable people as possible.

If I wanted to avoid neuropathy, and my doctors weren’t able to offer any help, I went to online support groups and others who had been through it. If a friend mentioned they knew a breast cancer survivor, and did I want their number, I always said yes, and then I called and spoke with them. I wanted every bit of information I could get so I could weigh it all and make the best decision for my health. I say never stop asking questions. The doctors can’t possibly share everything they know with us, but they can try to answer our questions. If they didn’t have answers for me, I just went to other reputable sources until I felt I had enough information to make my decision.

Are you willing to go to any lengths to solve your current problem?

6. Home is in your Head

There is no way to feel “at home” in your life unless you feel “at home” in your own body, heart, and mind. No “outside condition” can make you feel solid and secure. My doctor could tell me they got all the cancer, or that radiation gives me a better chance to avoid recurrence, or that my cholesterol has come down 100 points. But none of that in itself gives me comfort. It all depends on attitude, beliefs, and perspective.

For now I am healthy. I focus on staying centered, grounded, “at home” inside, so that no matter what happens in external circumstances, I can find peace inside. As each challenge arises, I might pop out of that place and into fear and anxiety, but it’s momentary, and I can return to a peaceful internal state fairly quickly. Having that home base is crucial to coming back to sanity and balance, especially when we’re in the midst of a crisis.

Fear of cancer recurrence still haunts me. I hope one day it will fade, but even so, I can still feel at peace and internally secure. We can’t control what happens with disease or other life challenges, but we can stay steady and secure inside, so that we can always “come home” to a peaceful internal place.

A Satisfied Life Starts with a Satisfied You

It’s not the outside conditions that determine if we have a satisfied and satisfying life. I could have cancer, or be free of cancer; the determining factor in a happy life is how I feel inside. I could be happy with stage 4 cancer, or miserable with no evidence of disease.

How satisfied are you with yourself? Do you like yourself? Do you see yourself as a friend? Are you comfortable in your skin?

Cancer made me realize that satisfaction is not about external circumstances. I’m so grateful I have no evidence of disease right now, but my true security is internal. Through this experience, I know I have the strength and skills to handle hardship in a positive way for both me and those around me. It’s about how strong is my attitude and mindset. Can I see the positives, what can be gained or learned from an experience? Even with a serious, life-threatening illness, I’ve learned I can use my internal strengths to handle the difficult times. Feeling happy and secure in who I am is the best tool I have for any other future challenge.

What life challenges are you facing right now? What tools are you using to handle them?

Having conflicts with others is inevitable, and facing them head on to work them out is hard enough. But what do you do if a direct resolution isn’t possible? Can you still find peace?

I used to torture myself over conflicts with others and spend a great deal of energy obsessing about the situation to the point that my peace of mind was greatly disturbed. Over time I learned how to address conflict directly, and that often helped me come to a better place in the relationship.

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But some relationship issues can’t be addressed head on - the person may not agree to work it out, they might be unavailable because they live far away or don’t have technology to connect, or they might even have passed away.

I’ve learned, however, that even if the person we’re in conflict with is not able to work it out with us, we can still find peace with the situation. Here are 8 tips for fostering serenity and peace of mind when we can’t work out a conflict in our relationships:

1. Understand your feelings and reactions
   It’s very important to understand your own feelings about what happened. Are you angry, sad, frustrated, fearful? What are you reacting to in the conflict? Is it stemming from something in the past, an accumulated build-up between you? Is it from your own past? See if you can identify your feelings and where they came from.

2. Identify your role
   Remember that you are responsible for your feelings and reactions, no matter what the other person has done. Try to avoid blaming them, and instead look at what you contributed to the conflict. What part did you play? Is this a continuing pattern that you recognize? Can you identify the trigger? What do you regret? Acknowledging your contribution to the conflict is difficult, but can be a relief. Can you admit the part you played?

3. Determine if amends are necessary
   Decide if you need to make amends for your part. Since we are focusing on a situation where it’s not possible to directly work with the other person, let’s talk about how you can make amends that are indirect. If you’re still having contact with the person, your amends might be an inner commitment to change your reactions in similar situations. You can work on how to modify your reactions to triggers, methods for staying calm when you want to engage in conflict, and other techniques. Changing behavior is a form of amends.

4. Express the feelings
   The goal for all of this processing is to clarify for yourself, and then express to a trusted friend what you learn and understand about your response to the situation. How you felt, what caused your reactions, what is your part, what indirect amends you want to make. And what you will be doing differently in future to prevent similar conflicts from happening again. Sharing the feelings helps us process them and prepare for the last step of letting them go.

5. Let go
   After you’ve processed your feelings, reactions, and next steps for changing your future behavior, prepare to let it all go. There’s no point in hanging on to any lingering negative feelings. Check in with yourself and see if you’re ready to put it all in the past and move forward. If you’re still mulling things over, go back through the first 4 steps again until you feel complete and can let it slide into the past. There are also a few suggestions in the last step below. Now the focus is on your indirect amends, and making changes to your own behavior moving forward.

6. Keep your serenity
   Ok, now after all of that, how do you STAY peaceful after you’ve let go? How do you stop yourself from picking up the worry or thinking about the conflict again and again? Here are a few suggestions:

   1. Stay in the moment. Being present is the best antidote to worry or obsessive thinking. Use your senses to bring your attention to where you are. Focus on what’s in front of you as the next thing to do. This will help your mind from wandering into the past or future and keep you grounded.

   2. Focus on yourself, not the other person. keep reminding yourself to bring your attention to yourself and what you need to do next. It’s a way of getting present with yourself, and pulling your attention away from worry or obsessive thinking

   3. Call a friend. Talking with someone else is a good way to vent thoughts and feelings, and then let them go. Sometimes you need a little help to keep your thoughts from falling into the rut of worry and revisiting past conflicts and issues.

   4. Meditate. If you have a method, use meditation to calm your mind. Meditation is a way to reduce the noise in our heads - let go of worry and negative thinking and connect with the breath or a mantra or any method of your choice.

   5. Pray. If you pray, you can pray for yourself to stay peaceful and serene with the situation you’ve worked through. If you want to push yourself, consider praying for the other person as well.

   6. Put first things first. Focus on what you need to do in the moment. Taking care of ourselves and our business keeps us from drifting into negative thinking. Finish a task, and move on to the next. Keep reminding yourself of your goals for the day and keep yourself moving forward productively.

It is possible to have peace of mind around conflicts with other people even if you don’t address it directly. You have a more internal resources that you can develop and draw on than you might think.

I would love to hear what conflicts you are dealing with and whether these tips help you. Tell me which of these suggestions you’d like to hear more about and I’ll expand.

Just when you’re least expecting it, life throws you a curveball - someone gets ill, your partner breaks up with you, your employment changes - something sends you into an entirely new life direction.

Sudden and unexpected events can churn up uncertainty, anxiety, and all kinds of fear and other negative reactions. And that’s actually good, it can be helpful to have a driving emotion toward addressing and dealing with the change. The trick is to not let the negative emotions overwhelm us but to remind ourselves to come back to peace and serenity as much as possible in the chaos.

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Last week, I had a sudden change in employment. It took me by surprise, and it’s taking time to process on many levels. I’ve had so many emotions, including sadness, fear, and even some excitement. It’s scary, but it’s also an opportunity to reflect inward and determine my next step in alignment with my purpose.

As I go through the adjustments, I keep serenity front and center. Staying calm, finding peace and serenity even in upheaval, is my core focus. Knowing how to find my way back to that serenity, in the moment, or for the day, or with the situation, helps me to deal with the inherent uncertainty.

Here are some key tools I’m using to remind myself to return to serenity in this current life change:

1. Be good to yourself - Don’t take it personally, don’t overreact to life’s curveballs - you are going to be ok, and the first thing to do is to make sure you take care of yourself. Whatever your feelings and reactions, allow them, and be kind to yourself. Maybe you have a part in whatever life is throwing at you, but often these things are just out of the blue unexpected occurrences, and either way, there’s no point in beating ourselves up about it. If we need to take responsibility for our part, we can do that. Just take every opportunity to support yourself. Self-care at all levels will help us move forward.
   
   For me, I need time to myself to process big changes. It helps me to take walks outside, look at the beauties of nature, journal, and drink comforting cups of tea. I might as well rest and reflect on the best next steps rather than panic myself into unconsidered action.

2. Practice patience - Along with being kind to ourselves it’s important to be patient with ourselves and others. Responding to changes takes time and consideration, and the more patient we can be in the process, the better for all involved.
   
   I notice that when I’m stressed, feeling overwhelmed, or anxious, my patience level goes down. I have fewer calm and patient reserves to fall back on and am closer to irritation and reaction. When I start reacting to others, especially my 8 year old, with impatience, it’s a very good indicator that I need to look at my stress level and work to bring it down. Impatience alerts me to the need to return to my serenity tools and techniques.

3. Get present - It’s said depression is a result of staring back into the past and anxiety is worrying about the future. The antidote to these twin threats is smack dab in the middle - finding ways to get and stay present in the moment. For me, being in nature is a nearly sure-fire way for me to get present. I go for a walk and look around for the wonders in the woods, light through the leaves, white clouds against the brilliant blue sky. These sights bring me back from the worries into a centered and present place where I tap into my inner calm.

4. Look for the positives - If we get bogged down in the negatives in the situation, we risk overwhelm, depression, and despair. While it’s important to be realistic about the issues - the loss of a relationship, the death of a loved one, a forced move, a shift in employment - there are also bright spots along the way. Look for the positives.
   
   I now have employment uncertainty, but I have many people who care about me and reach out to offer support. I don’t know what the future holds, but I can still take steps each day to improve my situation and even enjoy the day and what it holds.

5. Ask for support - Good friends who listen without judgment are a great support for processing through all the thoughts that come with a big life change. Having a safe place to share feelings, talk things through, consider options, or just vent is so essential to letting go and moving forward with more clarity.
   
   I don’t know what I'd do without my trusted friends and family, their support is just so important to my ability to go through the thoughts and feelings so I can get to the next steps and decisions.

6. Believe in yourself - A sudden life change can be a knock to our confidence. But one of the only things we can actually control is our attitude. At first, we may have initial reactions and even meltdowns and that’s ok, and from there, we can look at how we want to handle things. If we can believe in ourselves, we can let ourselves have the feelings, and then decide what we can do to help ourselves and others in the situation. Knowing we’ve made it through other challenges in life helps remind us of our core ability to persevere.
   
   I am letting myself feel all the feelings, and I’m still taking the steps to keep myself moving forward. Because I know I’ve gotten through similar challenges before, and I can do it again.

7. Take the small steps - A big change can feel overwhelming. We want to solve the problem immediately, but then we might bite off more than we can chew. The trick is to take small steps, and in between, give ourselves credit for each one. Give ourselves credit for checking off that one task. Because it all adds up. And we can be kind to ourselves as we do it, we’re taking action, we’re making progress, and each small step adds up big time. Look at what we can control, the small actions, and give credit for every tiny effort.
   
   I love checking things off my list. And in this big change, some of those items are going to be self-care actions, in between addressing the employment issues. One small step at a time, I’ll move into the future that best aligns with my hopes and dreams.

You can try these tips, too, when you’re facing a sudden or unexpected life change. Drop a comment below to share what you do when hit with unexpected life events.

Apologies are not the same as amends. An apology is a statement acknowledging our wrong-doing. It is a way to face and admit a behavior in ourselves the we regret and that might have hurt someone else. An amend goes farther. An amend acknowledges the shortfall in our behavior, and takes a step toward rectifying what might be a fault in our character or at least an engrained behavior we’d like to change. Making amends is an effort to grow and change, so that we can prevent making the same mistake in the future. Are you ready for growth?

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You might notice this difference if you find you are apologizing repeatedly for the same behavior, perhaps in the same relationship or across a number of relationships. If we keep doing the same thing, however, we are not really changing the root cause of the behavior. Making amends means looking more deeply at why we behave the way that we do. It’s an opportunity to reflect on our own habits and patterns and how they lead to actions we end up regretting and wish we could stop.

Sometimes an apology is all that’s called for - if it was a mistake or a misunderstanding and you’re sorry for something you did. But if your action stems from a deeper source, and are leading to repeated behavior that you regret, then you might want to consider if amends are called for.

September is a good time of year for reflection. For those who practice Judaism, September is generally the month of Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashana, when we look back on the year and acknowledge our sins, or regrets, or mistakes, however you want to categorize them. It is also the 9th month, when many 12 step groups study the 9th step relating to making amends. Both of these traditions are meaningful to me, and I try to take the time to look within and address my regrets from the year.

Here’s what became clear to me: I have been indulging in obsessive thinking and collecting negativity toward people in my life. Also, I struggle with irritability and impatience that spills over into my closest relationships. These are the people I most want good relationships with, yet I allow myself to react and snipe and lash out much more frequently with them than anyone else in my life.

One of the rituals of Rosh Hashana is Tashlich, where we take a trip to the river and throw bread or seeds into the flowing water to represent releasing and letting go of our regrets. I discussed some of my shortcomings with family before we participated in the ritual, but much of what I threw in the water was private. I was committing to not only letting go of the negative patterns, but also to changing my future behavior.

Because what good is an apology if we keep demonstrating the same behavior?

Afterward, I felt cleansed, and ready for a fresh start to the year, with a commitment to changing how I respond.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself to shift from apology to amends:

1. Can you identify the behavior you regret?

2. Is this an ongoing pattern of behavior? Is it something you’d like to change?

3. Do you understand your own motivation for the behavior? What’s behind it?

4. What triggers the behavior, how much control do you have when it emerges?

5. Is it always with the same person or people? Or is it generalized across many?

6. Do others in your family demonstrate the same behavior? Do you know where it comes from?

7. How does it feel when you have the behavior? What do you most regret about it?

8. Can you brainstorm some alternate responses when the triggering events occur?

9. Do you have trusted friends in your life you can share with to talk it through and come to some ideas for making a change?

10. Do you take responsibility for your actions or do you blame others?

11. Are you willing to admit your part and take a close look at yourself?

12. Are you willing to try different behaviors to change your engrained reactions?

Just deciding to change our actions doesn’t always work. Making amends means being willing to try different behaviors. Generating a new repertoire of possible responses. It means we stop blaming others for making us feel a certain way or do a certain thing.

So the next time you do something you wish you hadn’t and realize you owe someone an apology, ask yourself: is there more to this than meets the eye? Is this pointing to something in myself that I need to learn from, to grow from, the address and change? Then consider making the deeper amends of working on yourself.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

I believe we are all born with an innate self-confidence. We believe in ourselves. We are connected to ourselves. We love ourselves. Why wouldn’t we? It takes time to develop self-consciousness, so in the beginning, we just are who we are, our true essence, our true selves. It’s only through our dawning awareness that we are separate from others and the world and through our experiences that it becomes possible for us to become separated from ourselves.

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This innate connection to self is the driver of self-confidence. Once the connection is lost or broken, the road to repair can be long and arduous, very personal and often unpredictable.

Because I lost my connection to my true self as a child, which led to low self-esteem and self-hatred that took years to heal from, I was determined to give my daughter a different experience. My goal was not to teach her to be self-confident, but to:

1. stay out of her way, and

2. support her growth toward her potential

It’s a bit of a juggling act, to both avoid throwing up roadblocks to her natural self-connection while also fostering her growing self-knowledge. There are many aspects of self, but I organize by these general categories:

• Emotional

• Mental

• Physical

• Spiritual

Emotional

The emotional aspect of self is perhaps the most important determinant of self-confidence and self-love. The quickest way to separation from self is for a child to have feelings but no adult to help them learn how to manage them, or worse yet, adults with unhealthy responses to emotion.

There are many ways this can manifest - from ignoring feelings to downright denial. If children don’t have help to identify, process, manage, and let go of feelings, they will run into problems later.

For me, my adults didn’t intend to hurt me, but they did not know how to manage feelings and could not teach me. So I had many feelings of sadness, anger, and despair that I tried to express and they tried to understand, but simply couldn’t. Ultimately, I shoved them down to avoid the pain and became numb.

With my daughter, I work hard to hear her emotions, encourage her to express them, work with her to manage them appropriately, and let them go. Research shows that in a normal setting, it takes 90 seconds for a feeling to arise and pass through. It’s only when they aren’t acknowledged or processed that feelings get backed up, stuck, and carried for days, months, or years.

It took me well into my 30s to find methods to unpack, process, and let go of the old feelings of sadness, pain, and fear that I’d been carrying around for decades. Now I have the skills to manage my own emotions, and that’s essential for helping a child to learn them. Children learn not from what we say but from what we do. If they see us going through the same process of managing emotions, they have a role model. They see that no one is perfect and everyone has feelings they need to manage, and they can draw inspiration.

A child who can identify their feelings, process them, learn appropriate ways to manage them, and let them go, is powerfully prepared for life. They have tools for knowing themselves and taking care of themselves, free from the drive to look outside themselves for emotional validation. Processing through our feelings returns us to an emotional baseline where we can respond thoughtfully to life rather than overreact based on old, unprocessed emotions.

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Mental

There are many aspects of the mind and thinking that contribute to self-confidence, but I’m going to focus on resilience and persistence. Resilience is the quality of bouncing back from potentially negative experiences.

Things that could be experienced as setbacks, mistakes, or false starts can be discouraging. It’s important to acknowledge the reality of these experiences, but to push through, bounce back, and try again. This ties into persistence - that quality of determination, being willing to try again, to practice, practice, practice.

Again, the best way to teach this is to demonstrate it. When children see others around them making mistakes, admitting them, and going back to try again, they have a role model to follow.

Kids - and adults! - need to be motivated to keep trying at something - it has to be a goal they find worthy, fun, enjoyable.

We offer my daughter a range of opportunities and experiences so that she can find the things she most wants to explore and learn about. That’s part of helping her find her way and then cheering from the sidelines while she does the hard work of learning.

Sometimes she’s discouraged by her mistakes and wants to quit. If we think it’s an important topic, like math, we’ll encourage her to keep going. Sometimes she’s so driven by the excitement of learning that she’s willing to practice over and over again, for example with her circus aerial fabric skills. When she masters a calculation or a circus maneuver, the reward is innate.

Physical

My daughter has always been a climber. From toddlerhood on, she’s been fearless when it comes to any climbable object. I had to find the balance between letting go - letting her explore - while giving her boundaries and offering a safety net.

My approach was to give her the power - if she wanted to climb a rock or tree, I always encouraged her and reminded her that it was up to her to sense if she could get both up and down safely. I would help her when she got stuck, and then remind her to take in the experience, learn from it, and use the information for the next time (in kid-friendly words!).

In this way, she learned to trust herself in physical settings. She built on her natural confidence, and today, she jumps off swings, climbs aerial fabric to the top of the 25-foot ceiling, and flies down hills on her bike.

Spiritual

This one is so personal; everyone defines their own spirituality. For me, it’s a connection to something greater than humankind, a consciousness and energy both within and beyond that connects us. I believe we’re all born with a connection to this greater energy. We can nurture that connection or ignore it, but if we choose to foster it, it can bring comfort, peace, and meaning.

At the very least, I want my daughter to know she is an important part of the world, a part of the fabric of the universe, part of something greater. Having that connection can help us in times of trouble, giving us a source of support and faith that we can get through anything. Having a community, a practice, a connection to prayer and meditation, these are supports to lean on and to remind us of connection to the universe, to other people, and to ourselves.

When we’re cut off from a belief that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, we lose an important source of confidence - in ourselves and the greater world.

My goal for my daughter is that she have a connection to awe, to faith in something greater than herself, to meaning in the universe that at some level has a personal connection for her. So that she knows she’s not alone in the universe, ever. Even when it might seem like that.

What If the Connection is Lost?

What if a child is already disconnected from that essential sense of self, the inner connection and knowledge of self that drives confidence?

When I say it can’t be taught, I mean that it’s not a topic that can be addressed directly. Telling a child, “you’re awesome,” won’t work when they already don’t believe it. Just like an adult, they will need to find their own way back to their core sense of self, the self-knowledge and belief that forms the bedrock of self-confidence. And that’s very individual.

As parents and as adults who care, we can seek help, find resources, and offer modalities and ways to help a child find their inner wholeness. I believe if we keep trying, no matter our age or life circumstances, we will eventually find the pathway back home to ourselves.

I’d love to hear how you’re raising kids to be self-confident and self-loving. Share in the comments below!

Photo by Krzysztof Kowalik on Unsplash