Last month my nephew died of a massive heart attack -- on his 31st birthday. 

As shockingly tragic as his passing was, we take heart knowing his life had been well-lived:  he lived and taught in Korea, traveled the world, embraced his creativity, connected with people, and fulfilled his purpose during his very brief lifetime.

How many of us can say that we are living full lives? 

A lifetime may seem long but is lived day by day.  The wise thing to do is seize the opportunity that every moment presents us. 

A full and fulfilled life arises from living each day wholeheartedly.

• Welcome change – change teaches us flexibility, brings growth and strength, and reveals opportunities.  Embrace new ideas and challenge yourself to experience something different e.g. say hello when you would normally be quiet.  Set and try to achieve new goals.
• Forgo perfection – give up on the idea of becoming perfect and instead embrace mistakes, failures, and disappointments as opportunities to expand your experience.
• Live with inspiration – identify people who inspire you and try to follow in their footsteps. Or connect to your own inner guide and try to live from this ideal self.  Let your values guide you to live from your highest self.
• Don’t criticize others or yourself – we gain peace by changing ourselves and our attitudes and not from making others do our bidding.  Respect yourself and others.  Give up your expectation that others  behave the way you want.  
• Express and Practice Gratitude – let others know how you feel about them and share your gratitude for them.  Enjoy and be thankful for everything you have in your life. 
• Live More Consciously – practice calming your mind (meditating, deep breathing) for even a few minutes each day.  To empower yourself, reflect on your life experiences and work on clarifying your blind spots and inner obstacles.
• Practice Kindness -- help others, forgive yourself and those around you, release past grievances and unhappiness.  Remember all beings, like you, want happiness and not suffering.

 
If you are just beginning this journey, then choose one or two of the above suggestions to practice every day. Be gentle with yourself in this process.  

May you live this day and every day with heartfelt joy and gratitude.  

On KQED’s show Forum this week, they discussed the psychology of gift giving. One thing jumped out at me: gift giving is meant to strengthen relationships and is about being kind.

With the holiday season of giving and sharing upon us, we can use the opportunity to practice kindness.    

Kindness is the attitude and behavior of being compassionate and selfless.  Most simply it is being nice or sharing your best self with others. 

Research shows that the gift of kindness is directly linked to the level of our happiness and contentment.  Japanese studies showed that happy people were kinder, and that counting our acts of kindness actually led to more acts of gratitude and kindness.

The benefits of gifting kindness are:

• We feel better and the recipient feels loved and cared for, which causes them to be kind to other people. This causes kindness to spread;
• It releases neurochemicals that give us a sense of well-being (a state of being happy, comfortable, and healthy);
• It reduces pain, stress, anger, anxiety and depression;
• It boosts immunity and calm;
• It increases feelings of self-worth.

So this season in addition to giving toys, gadgets, and goodies, we can share the following heartwarming gifts:

• Try and cheer someone up;
• Have your children help you buy and wrap gifts for foster or orphaned children;
• Smile and say hello to an elderly neighbor/stranger;
• As a family, help an elderly neighbor set up their Christmas decorations;
• Lend a helping hand to a coworker or friend;
• Allow someone to go in front of you in a queue;
• Offer to babysit for parents who rarely get out;
• Give someone the benefit of the doubt;
• Take your child to a homeless shelter to help feed the hungry.

Mother Teresa said “we cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love.”

May your holiday season be filled with many acts of kindness and love for those around you.

The other day, I was at a checkout stand waiting to pay when I sneezed.  The woman who was ahead of me and the cashier automatically said “bless you.”  I suppose my lack of a response caused the woman to nervously say, “I don’t even know if I can say that anymore.”  Her concerned expression made me feel sad for the loss of our common decency and connection simply as human beings to each other.  I replied, “we can all use blessings.”  The cashier and she chorused a relieved “Yes, we can.”

With Thanksgiving gatherings in a few days, how do we converse and remain caring and connected with our family members and those around us?      

Connection happens quite easily when we express care for those around us.  Expressing care is not only through our words but through our tone, facial expression, and body language, and in being interested in and showing empathy for the other person.  

The first thing to determine is if you genuinely want to connect with the person/people with whom you disagree.  Knowing the importance to you will guide your future conversations with him/her or them.

To bridge the gaps in our relationships, we can do the following:

1. Take note or make a list of what you value and/or love about the person you most struggle to connect with.
2. Remind yourself of our shared human condition that nobody wants to suffer and we all just want to be happy.  You could create a little mantra: “just like me _______ wants to be happy and does not want suffer”; and repeat this mantra to yourself. 
3. Decide whether you are interested in understanding where he/she is coming from with regard to the disagreement you have with the person.   If it matters to you, then become curious about their point of view.

Remember that conversations about controversial or concerning situations are as temporary as the situations themselves.  That is to say that nothing lasts forever.  Everything changes.

Prioritizing love, connection, and compassion during these gatherings will ease tension, and help you communicate more deeply with each other.

We have a lot to be thankful for, and reminding ourselves of the importance of the people in our lives is a good beginning point.

Happy Thanksgiving.  

I was reflecting on the difference between egotism and self-confidence.  It is easy to confuse the two, and even more difficult to develop a healthy balance of being confident, but not overly confident or cocky.
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Egotism or arrogance is the habit of thinking oneself as being more important than others; of boasting, being self-absorbed, and conceited.  An arrogant person neglects others' opinions and suggestions thus alienating them, and conversely overestimates his or her own abilities.   

Whereas self-confidence is knowing oneself and trusting in one’s own judgments, beliefs, and capabilities in dealing with daily challenges and demands, and in one’s ability to succeed.  Being confident attracts people and earns their trust. 

The willingness to learn about oneself and one’s life is key to developing healthy self-confidence and trust.  The most effective way of doing this is to reflect on experiences, thoughts, emotions and feelings, and to process and understand our reactions, actions, thoughts, and speech arising from these experiences.

One can also cultivate habits throughout the day to grow belief in oneself. 

Habits to Boost Self-Confidence:

1. A realistic self-image will reveal your skills and capabilities, your thoughts, beliefs, and values.  It will expose areas for growth and additional learning.  This is the best way to overcome a negative self-image or blind self-confidence. 
2. Study what you need to know.  Being well-versed in a subject, and well prepared for an upcoming project, will make you confident and feel empowered to take risks. Self-confidence arises from good preparation and leads to success.     
3. Begin and finish small projects.  Finishing something gives us a sense of achievement.  Set small accomplishable goals for yourself. Over time these small gains add up to big achievements and greater confidence.
4. Pretend confidence.  Even if you aren’t feeling it, do something you’ve been avoiding. Convince yourself that you will be able to complete it to the best of your ability. Boost your determination by looking at past completed projects.  Pretending confidence will eventually lead to genuine belief in yourself. 
5. Help others by sharing your gifts, skills and time.  Volunteering will remind you of your talents and skills. Witnessing your ability to change another person’s life will increase your confidence and gratitude, and will help you feel better about yourself.
6. Engage with others.  Speak slowly and clearly and avoid talking too much.  Try to relax, be present, and really connect in a calm, relaxed way; this will increase your confidence and cause others to gravitate to you.
7. Dress the part.  Being well groomed and dressing with care projects the image of a presentable person who cares for and respects themselves.  It grows others' confidence in you, and your own self trust. 
8. Supportive Company.  Keep the company of people who encourage you to live from your highest self and your values.  Foster these relationships to help you on your journey to establishing this new habit.

 
Growing self-confidence is a contradiction because it requires you to act as though you are already confident.  So the only thing to do it is to begin acting the part.

May you have much success in your journey to a happier confident you.

,Sometimes no matter how much we try to meet our goals, we struggle to follow through and do what it takes to succeed.  Something keeps us from success despite our goals being clearly defined and realistic.  
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Self-sabotage is the conflict between our logical clear thinking mind (the voice urging healthy eating and careful spending) and our subconscious emotionally driven mind (that indulges midnight snacking and frivolous purchases).    

This self-destructive habit causes us to think and act in ways that derail us from our goals.  It’s a self-protection mechanism that is rooted in fear of failing, succeeding, or being humiliated or rejected.  Self-sabotage prevents us from taking action, fixing problems, changing behaviors, developing new habits, and living our dream life. 

However because these behaviors become ingrained habits, we fail to recognize them as the culprits blocking us from success.  So we overlook the destructiveness of actions like always being tardy, not organizing our schedule, or FOMO – fear of missing out - so we never commit to an action or invitation.  Recognizable behaviors are procrastinating, drowning problems with substances, stress-eating, and self-injuring.

The following list will shine the spotlight on some of these self-limiting behaviours to help you become unstuck:

Repressing Thoughts & Emotions
We stuff our thoughts and feelings because we are ashamed of them, and fear that they make us into awful people. As long as we avoid and repress our feelings and thoughts, we’ll remain in fear of them. 
 
To free yourself, begin to reflect on your life.  Detachedly observe your behavior, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs, and examine them to understand which ones are helping and which are harming you in the pursuit of your goals.  Acknowledge and process them with an attitude of interested curiosity to make them more workable.
 
Self-Criticism
We constantly judge and insult ourselves and don’t let go of past mistakes.  This is the voice that is always warning us to hold off, rethink decisions, and saying we can’t do something. It traps us in inaction and indecision.
 
Notice when this mindset steps into the picture.  Become intimately familiar with it so you can quickly replace its voice with a positive affirming one. A powerful antidote is to practise patience and kindness towards yourself.
 
Procrastination
We squander the time we do have believing we’ll have time later to do what we need.  So we toss aside hours in which we can finish or chip away at a project by thinking it will be better to just start the next day when we have the whole day.  Or we wait until the last minute to begin a project and then we aren’t able to present our best effort. 
 
To change this habit, we can motivate ourselves by first doing something that energizes and calms our mind and then tackle the task at hand.  Or you can set a mini deadline of 1 hour each day to work towards meeting your objective. 
 
Perfectionism 
We don’t take action towards living our dream life because the time isn’t right, or we feel we don’t possess every skill necessary for success. Striving for perfection is an unattainable goal and will cause us to discard every opportunity that presents itself to us.   
 
Reflect on your previous successes and then create a list of attainable goals.  Begin with small easily achievable goals to boost your confidence.  Think of all your strengths and skills and remind yourself they are responsible for your attainments.  Remember too that you are in control of your actions, thoughts, beliefs and use these reflections to inspire you to take action that will move you in the right direction.   
 
To overcome the habit of self-sabotage, it’s absolutely vital that you reflect on your life.  Awareness of your underlying beliefs and motivations will reveal why and how you trip yourself up in your life.  As you undertake this self-examination be kind to yourself and create a list of positive affirmations, mantras, or visualizations to encourage you.  Then begin to change those behaviors, and situations that don’t support your goals.  Make a plan of how you will proceed every day. 
 
May you succeed in attaining your life goals

It is the human condition that we occasionally suffer some fear and self-doubt.  Our inner critic, to keep us from making complete fools of ourselves, will caution us against breaking out of our comfort zone. 
 
But when fear or the need for perfection becomes overwhelming, it can paralyze us and keep us from living a life of contribution and meaning.
 
These feelings keep us from trying new things, making mistakes or failing,  saying no, standing up for ourselves, and making changes.  We become trapped in a cycle of trying to please others and in the limbo of procrastination.  Stuck in this safe and familiar cocoon, we live less than fulfilled lives where our dreams and goals are slowly stifled. 
 
To overcome indecision, procrastination, hesitancy, or uncertainty, practice the following techniques:

Self-Compassion – remember that self-doubt is a normal part of being human, and try to accept these feelings as temporary unfolding experiences because nothing lasts forever.  Instead of fighting it, acknowledge the part of yourself that is trying to keep you safe, thank it, and then assure it you are capable of coping with life’s challenges. Gentle acceptance lessens fear and helps us regain control.  

Mindful Attention – make a strong determination to notice and then to stop your doubting thoughts.  Play devil’s advocate and challenge your inner critic who says “you can’t” or “you shouldn’t” or it “isn’t wise”. 

Stop Comparing – avoid social media sites that cause you to compare yourself to others and their accomplishments. Researchers are finding that Facebook users are becoming increasingly more depressed. Our doubts and feelings of inadequacy grow when we look at others who always seem to be having more fun, attending fancier parties, and doing so much better than we are.  The fact is all of us are struggling to be relevant, seen, understood, and admired.  

Listen to your Instinct – weigh the pros and cons of any situation, and then follow your first thoughts to make your decision.  Constantly flipping between “should I” or “shouldn’t I” merely keeps us stuck in limbo.  It is important to reassure yourself that you can always make changes after beginning.  

Ignore Other’s Opinions - Like all thoughts, opinions aren’t fact or truth.  So what others think of you is merely their opinion.  If you choose to listen to other's opinions, know that their wishes and ideas can influence your decision, and cause you to hold back when you should be taking a chance or making a change.  Ultimately the decision is always your own. 

Let Go of External Validation - on the flip side of listening to others’ opinions, stop asking for reinforcement or validation from others.  Seek advice, but avoid doing this too frequently as this habit will eventually weaken your belief in your own decisions. 

Resolve to Take Risks - decide to try something new and assure yourself that you will cope with the challenges.  Each day or week, set yourself a tiny goal that will challenge your fears; do this especially for things you’ve been putting off. 

Broaden your Perspective - if you are struggling to justify doing something, then think of the people who will benefit from whatever activity you would like to undertake, and then --  do it for them.  This expansive
heart-warming reason is an extremely powerful motivator that will keep you persevering. 

​Start where you are right now.  Begin by examining your life and noticing where you are holding back from living the life you envision for yourself.  Then decide to do what it takes to pursue your life’s goals.

May you overcome your self-doubt to live a happy, fulfilled life.

I’ve been thinking about the destructiveness of self-hatred or self-anger.  Then I happened to hear a wonderfully clear presentation on this topic by Venerable Thubten Chodron (abbess of Sravasti Abbey in Washington State).  I’ve pulled her main points to share with you.

Anger at ourselves comes from self-criticism.  This habit of picking on ourselves habituates us to criticize others.  In other words, when we practice negative self-talk, we will find it easy to think badly of the people we come into contact with.

Self-hate can also manifest in the belief that we are responsible for things going wrong for ourselves and others.  Not only is this kind of thinking ignorant but it is also arrogant.  We aren’t so powerful, nor are we in control of the innumerable factors that need to come together to give rise to a situation. 

The Buddha taught that everything is a dependent arising; this means that every single experience and phenomenon comes into being, functions, and ceases as a result of many causes, conditions, parts, and a mind that labels the experience or situation. So thinking that we alone can make things go wrong is completely unrealistic.

According to Thubten Chodron, anger at ourselves arises because we take responsibility for things that aren’t our responsibility, and deny responsibility for things that are our fault.
 
Taking Responsibility
As an example, you advise a friend who is about to go down a path that will cause her pain.  Your intention is to help your friend avoid a problem.  But your friend misunderstands, and angrily accuses you of judging her and not being supportive. Feeling bad about damaging your relationship, you begin judging yourself for having spoken too quickly and not agreeing with her.  You blame yourself for your friend’s unhappiness.

In this case: we need to remind ourselves that our intention was to help our friend and wasn’t meant to cause her pain. Her anger and misunderstanding is more to do with her state of mind, beliefs and expectations, internalized anger, or perhaps a sensitivity that easily triggered her.   This next point isn’t easy for us to always remember, but it is nonetheless important for us to ponder: her anger doesn’t make us a bad person and shouldn’t cause us to loathe ourselves.

We aren’t responsible for her unhappiness nor her happiness.  In fact we can’t make anyone else happy. The challenge with attempting to live our lives trying to make other people happy is almost impossible because people and the things that will make them happy are always changing from moment to moment.  We can only ever make ourselves happy.    
 
Solution
We can remind ourselves of our positive intention and then try to move on.  We can accept ourselves as we are.  If we can, we should resolve to ask friends if they’d be interested in hearing our thoughts before sharing them.  
 
As much as we aren’t responsible for someone’s happiness, we are, however, responsible for our own actions. 
 
Denying Responsibility
Anger at ourselves can worsen when we don’t take responsibility for our actions where our intention may not have been honorable.  For instance, we say to our brother, who is sensitive about being overweight, that he looks healthy and must be eating well.  Even though our words seem innocent enough, our intention was to deliberately antagonize him. When he gets upset at being criticized, we pretend innocence, and say we didn’t mean anything by it, and accuse him of being too sensitive. 
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So even though we may get away with deceiving others of our motives, within ourselves we feel unease because we know our devious intention.  This inner discomfort contributes to our self-loathing. Oftentimes we struggle to admit to ourselves our own meanness or ill will, but denying it can create guilt.
 
Solution
We can confess and acknowledge our guilt to the people we’ve harmed.  Or we can make amends to them and decide that we’ll change our unhelpful behavior.  If we aren’t able to change right away then we can set the intention for the next hour, week, or year etc. to not act in this way again.  We can also set the intention to be mindful in situations that are likely to bring out this tendency of ours.  And we can forgive ourselves for our human failing.
 
May you be fearless in freeing yourself from self hate

We all go through smooth sailing days when we feel good about ourselves.  But we also experience challenging stressful days when it isn’t easy to be gentle and forgiving of ourselves.

In spite of all we do and have accomplished in our lives, we struggle to remain connected to a sense of our basic goodness that remains untouched by the cruel or shameful things we occasionally say, do, and think.  Our human brain, according to Psychologist Rick Hanson defaults to calm caring contentment when it is undisturbed by fear, pain, or loss.

To keep our brains in this state of serenity, and to practice feeling good about ourselves, follow these guidelines.

1. Actively notice and savor (let the experience fill your mind and body) the moments when you are appreciated, thought of, valued, honored, and loved.

2. Trust in your intelligence and inner coping abilities to deal with the challenges life throws at you. 

3. Rely on your strength and adopt the attitude that everything – good or bad -- that happens to you is something you’ll not only survive, but actively learn from to benefit yourself and others. 

4. Monitor your thoughts.  Recognize and let go of negative thoughts and instead shift your focus to new ideas that will lead you to peace.

5. Focus on being patient, persevering and expanding your perspective; use difficulties to grow your self-knowledge and esteem.

6. Check your expectations about yourself and others.  Remember that life is filled with disappointments, deal with your feelings, and then use the situation to empower yourself.

7. Pay attention to your good intentions, actions, thoughts, and speech which arise from your basic goodness.  These can be moments when your heart is touched, you bite your tongue, and you are generous, helpful, loving, and patient. When people aren’t “being cooperative”, rather than thinking they are out to get you, choose not to be insulted, to not get angry and lash out or react. Instead ask yourself what your good-natured self would want to do in that situation. 

8. Acknowledge your fears, and remind yourself that by facing and overcoming fear we become stronger.  
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9. Recognizing other people’s goodness reminds us of our own good nature.  It can be as simple as this story I recently heard.  A woman was driving a teacher to a class and they were running late.  They came to a STOP sign and as she impatiently waited for their turn to move, she heard the teacher gently remark on the kindness of all the drivers for stopping.  
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This story illustrates the importance of every small act of kindness adding up to create a world of greater safety, peace and joy for all beings and the planet.  It all begins with not harming others or ourselves, and recognizing our basic goodness.
 
May you become familiar with your true nature. 

With our lives being as busy as they are - long to-do lists, overflowing in boxes/baskets, and never-ending repetitive tasks - how many of us feel comfortable taking time to rest? 

Personally this is a huge struggle for me. As I always feel I have courses to update, classes to plan, a business to market, and articles to write, I usually debate with myself on whether I can afford to take a nap, or simply sit and just enjoy a cup of tea.  My habit is to force myself to keep going despite being fatigued in mind and body.

Years of perpetuating this habit has revealed its futility:

• Denying ourselves much-needed rest is detrimental to ourselves, those around us and our jobs.
• When we are running on empty, we are less efficient and effective at whatever we do, and, even worse, we are less patient, flexible, and resilient. 
• Thinking that we’ll rest when all our work is complete is unrealistic.    

 
What is Rest?
True rest and relaxation means completely being at ease without planning or striving, feeling pressure, or worrying about what needs to be done.  Resting or simply doing nothing heals our overall being.

For those whose racing mind won’t let you put up your feet when your inbox is full, Psychologist Rick Hanson urges reflecting on your beliefs or fears about resting.  Some common mental and emotional obstacles to rest are:

• we’ll disappoint others,
• the job won’t get done,
• we’ll look like a failure,
• we’ll lose our edge and not be as competitive. 

To undermine the mindset that associates rest with failing, ask yourself:  What am I afraid of?  Whose approval am I seeking?  Does being busy make me feel useful? Does a busy routine really keep me on top? Am I really useless when I take time off?

The benefits of relaxing or napping I can speak of personally.  I’ve noticed after a nap, I wake up refreshed with a clear mind, energized, optimistic, and confident that I can cope with my work load, and be ready to face whatever comes my way.
 
Ways to Rest:

1. For some time each day, give up social media and your phone.  Playing electronic  games isn’t restful because your mind is still working.
2. Take a nap (my favorite rest technique).
3. Do something creative.
4. Before napping or going to sleep for the night, give yourself permission by saying to yourself, “I’m going to rest now”.  To get myself into this habit, I stuck a post-it note with these words on my head board. 
5. Take a few minutes each day to use your senses in an intentional way:  notice colors, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, smell the coffee or flowers, savor the taste of your food, lie on the grass or ground and feel its grounding, centering energy.
6. Meditate on your breath in your belly to calm your mind and separate from your thoughts.
7. When you finish a task, take a few minutes' break to reflect on your achievement and celebrate it before continuing with the next task.
8. Each day sit quietly doing nothing with mindful awareness noticing all that is happening inside and outside of yourself. 
9. Review your work load and consider carefully before taking on new commitments. 

 
Try resting at least 5 minutes every day. But if you don't do so, be gentle with yourself as the simplest way to unwind is to practice self-compassion.   When our minds are peaceful we feel rested.

May your rest heal your mind, emotions, and body.

Self-compassion is challenging for many of us.   We often find it easier to be kind and forgiving towards others for their mistakes, or to be moved to help others in need, but struggle with practicing gentle friendliness towards ourselves. 
 
Some people believe that being harshly critical of their shortcomings and inadequacies keeps them disciplined or motivated.  Self-compassion is about accepting that we aren’t perfect, and that like all human beings, we struggle with difficulties.  Dr. Kristin Neff suggests that personal changes like wanting to be healthy or happy should be motivated by the mindset of caring for oneself, and not from the belief of being unworthy or in wanting to be perfect.   These beliefs cause us to suffer.
 
The Buddha talked about the 2 arrows.  The first arrow is the actual event that causes pain or distress.  The second arrow is the rumination or emotional reaction i.e. judgments, denials, blaming -- in short the stories we tell about the experience, which increases our suffering.  The first arrow has happened, but the second is avoidable. 
 
The way to avoid the second arrow is through contemplating our experiences and practicing self-compassion.
 
3 Step Self Compassion Meditation (Dr. Kristin Neff)
Each line of affirmation offers three different wording options.  Use the one that feels most comfortable for you.

1. Begin by placing your hand on any part of your body (heart, belly, face) where that touch feels comforting and soothing.
2. Breathe deeply.
3. Silently repeat in a warm and kind tone: 

              This is a moment or suffering/I’m having a hard time right now/This hurts,
              Suffering is part of life/Everyone feels this way sometimes/This is part of being human,
              May I be kind to myself in this moment/May I love and support myself right now/May I accept myself as I                    am,
              May I give myself the compassion I need/ May I remember that I’m worthy of compassion/May I give myself                the same compassion I would give to a friend.
 
The wording is designed to bring mindful awareness to the hurt we are currently experiencing.  It reminds us of our shared suffering and thereby alleviates our isolation and stress.  In the midst of the pain, we are gently reminded to practice self-kindness.  And we consciously set the intention to behave in a kind way towards ourselves.
 
Memorize the lines that feel most soothing to you.  Practice even when you aren’t in distress.  That way, when you notice you are judging or beating yourself up, these words will easily come to mind. 
 
May you be filled with self-kindness.