When I was younger, I thought that working hard and getting good grades would lead to a fulfilling job and help me advance up the ladder at work. But now that I’ve been employed for more than a decade, I find myself going through the motions of meaningless work, still facing student debt, and feeling like no matter how hard I work, I’m treading water and not advancing. I could leave, but I worry that every corporate job is like this. What do I do?

Sincerely,
Unfulfilled

Dear Unfulfilled,

It sounds like you’re in a struggle that many young adults share. These are the challenges of modern times, in which you are trying to lay down solid roots and advance in a career. You are frustrated, working away with your wheels spinning in the mud on what seems like a dead-end road. At the same time, you’re working hard to stay employed and chip away at compounding student debt. When we consider all of these factors together, it makes sense that you have concluded that life is unfulfilling and devoid of real meaning and purpose. It all feels rather futile, I imagine.

Nevertheless, there remains an opportunity in this strife to author a meaningful existence for your life. To author one’s existence is an intention that you must choose to live by every day. This kind of existential authorship requires you to be a present, creative, brave, and active participant in your life.

In your question, there is a dilemma in which you must choose between carving out a new path for yourself or establishing meaning in your current situation. Each of these two paths has pros and cons. I invite you to take some time to map those out on your own.

My goal is to give you a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT, as described by Lane Pederson) method to create a more fulfilling life path. This method is rooted in the notion that human beings are creatures of habit and benefit from consistent and predictable routines. Therefore, I recommend keeping your sleep, wake, and mealtimes consistent throughout the week.

However, the shadow side of developing consistent routines is that you can get bored and burn out. If you get too rigid, you will likely rebel against the beneficial structures that you are creating. Hence, according to Pederson, you must also infuse your routine with open space and time during which you can be creative and unstructured.

Related: A Brilliant Way to Organize Your Calendar for Less Stress

You see, within our lives is a tension between the things that we must do to survive and those activities that bring us joy and meaning. To maximize our sense of leading a fulfilling life, these two poles must exist in a balanced relationship.

It sounds like your focus is currently on the “must do” end of the scale, and weight is needed on the “meaningful activities” side. Therefore, a helpful and immediate step forward is to intentionally add back into your life those things that you love to do. If you do not know what those are, then it is a time to be playful and experiment with different activities and see what brings you joy. Be curious and explore!

A straightforward and effective way of protecting yourself from boredom is to put creative playtime on your schedule. During this time, be spontaneous, go with the flow, and do something unexpected and exciting. Also remember that (aside from sleeping, waking, and eating) every day does not have to be identical.

From this general framework of a daily routine, there are other components recommended in this DBT approach, based on Pederson’s work. For instance, part of your structured routine must include a commitment to fulfilling ongoing responsibilities. You will increase your success if you break long-term responsibilities into smaller actionable steps to be completed weekly. So create a daily, weekly, and monthly action plan to ensure you are meeting your life duties.

Be sure your responsibilities are also inclusive of activities oriented toward fulfilling your life values, goals, and plans. By attending to these, you will begin to notice a growing sense of fulfillment. Integrate daily practices that enhance the mind, body, and spiritual well-being. These practices can include many different things, such as meditation, yoga, exercise, and time in nature.

Then consider what rituals or traditions you would like to add to or restore in your life. These can be traditions connected with the seasons, holidays, or simple daily ones like a morning coffee or tea ritual. The possibilities are endless. Ask yourself, what interests me? How can I keep life fresh? What can I do to be playful and engage in something new, even if it’s driving home via a different route? When you identify these, place them on your daily schedule and do these activities often. It is like putting money in the bank that increases your vitality, and you can make withdrawals when you are attending to those “have to” tasks.

Related: 3 Easy Ways to Spark Joy Without Cleaning a Thing

The last component Pederson outlines is to envision a wholesome, full, and fulfilling life. The best advice I have here is to keep your end goals in focus every day, and, at the same time, stay patient, dedicated, and steadfast in your pursuit. You must remember that developing a fulfilling life plan and path takes time and repetition. Forgive yourself when you fall back on old habits, and then get right back at it without any energy expended on judging yourself.

You may consider keeping a journal or notebook that you can use to map out the above components and have a writing space that you can refer to in order to hold yourself accountable.

Life is continuously happening and will continue to do so with or without anyone’s participation. The constant invitation to us is to take charge and dive into life, knowing every moment is precious and tomorrow is not guaranteed. We must never waste a single moment!

I thank you for writing in with your inquiry. It is a question for an entire generation of folks working to carve out a meaningful and fulfilling future. I wish you the best on your journey!

Warmly,
John

References:
Pederson, Lane. The Expanded Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training Manual, 2nd Edition: DBT for Self-Help and Individual & Group Treatment Settings. PESI Publishing & Media. Kindle Edition.

The post Create a Fulfilling Life appeared first on Sonima.

My dad has gone through some hard times with his health in the last year, and it’s really changed his perspective. It seems like he always finds the negative in everything. To be honest, being around him brings me down too. After all he’s been through and at his age, I want him to appreciate the good things he still has. Is there a way to get through to him and change his outlook? And if not, how can I avoid “catching” his negativity when I spend time with him?

Thank you,
Seeking the Positive

Dear Seeking the Positive,

Thank you for writing in. I can feel how much you love and care about your dad. I imagine it is tough to balance holding your care and concern for him while also protecting yourself from his negativity. Your question has a lot of depth, and when I read it, the words of the famous psychologist Rick Hanson came to mind. He teaches that, “the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones.” He further points out that our experiences can be shaded by a negativity bias.

In simple terms, the negativity bias is a research-based concept that suggests we humans seem to be more influenced by negative perceptions than by positive ones. Perhaps this is because, as we evolved, noticing threats served our survival better. Threat monitoring makes it so we can take evasive and protective action to stay safe and perpetuate our species. However, the pitfall in this is that if all we notice is the negative, that is the direction in which our attention and energy will go. Therefore, we must be intentional about discovering and seeing the good that is also around us in moments where we are indeed safe.

If we hold this model in mind when we think about your dad, one hypothesis is that the illness may have amplified his predisposition to notice what is negative over what is good. He is on alert mode and perhaps more attuned to what is wrong internally and externally. I know this sort of insight doesn’t make his negativity feel any better for you, but perhaps developing this awareness can call forth greater compassion for where he is at. It also doesn’t mean that you should not address it or set effective boundaries with him. Maintaining healthy boundaries is an act of love, not a punishment. They protect the relationship.

Related: Help Me Save This Friendship

It is true that the extent to which you can transform your dad’s perspective may be limited. He must want that for himself. However, you do have control over how you would like to be in your relationship with him and how you can let go of whatever negative stuff he puts on or around you. It is on this domain that I offer the following contemplation.

A Practice to Focus on the Positive

The first step is to open psychological space and freedom by sitting in stillness and connecting to deep breathing. So take a few wholesome, long, slow, deep breaths that flow down into your belly and pelvis, and draw up some of the natural good healing medicine from the earth. Carry that up through you to awaken compassion in your heart.

Next, call into awareness a recent event that challenged you. Observe what interpretations you hold about this event with respect to yourself, to others, and to the world in general. Notice where you may be caught in some form of negativity. Does this challenging experience spark any negative statements about yourself, others, or the world? Are you judging? Shoulding? Othering? Craving, desiring, or wanting in a way that is perpetuating further hurt or suffering? If so, can you sit in the space of these challenging thoughts and emotions with a soft recognition that it is OK to have them? Then, can you recognize that this is a moment of hurt for you—and allow it? Take a few moments here and be gentle with the breath.

When you feel centered, proceed by setting the intention that you are going to make a conscious move toward growth.

The next step is to reflect on this same experience to determine if you are neglecting other important details of it due to the negativity bias. What parts of the experience may have some good in them? Do not dismiss this possibility without looking. There is likely something good in the situation, or if not in the situation, in the people involved, how you worked your way through it, or how you may be able to grow as a result of the experience. What comes up for you?

When you have identified some good in this experience, then let it steep. Give yourself permission to pause here, letting yourself savor and embody this goodness. Much like it requires time to let a good cup of coffee or loose-leaf tea steep to maximize the delicious flavor, we can let ourselves steep in our positive cognitions, sensations, and emotions resulting from our experiences. When you feel that you have let the positive soak in, take a moment to set an intention to carry this good, healing energy forward with you.

When you are ready, close out the practice by coming back to the breath and having a good, long exhale through the mouth. An audible sigh is a great way to signify the letting go and completely release the meditation.

As you move forward from this practice and in life, stay true to this intention to do your best to stay alert to the good that is happening around in all moments, and put your focus there. The more you focus your lens, the more clearly you will see.

Thank you again for writing in. I wish you the best on your journey!

Warmly,
John

Acknowledgements:
The author wishes to acknowledge the teachings of Rick Hanson, PhD, and Kristin Neff, PhD, for their scholarly contributions that have influenced this author in his own practice and formulating this article and related practice.

The post How to Deal with Negative People appeared first on Sonima.

I often look back on my life and think of all the regrets I have. There’s a list of things I wish I had done instead of what I actually did. What can I do to let go of the past and accept that I cannot change it?

From,
Stuck in the Past

Dear Stuck in the Past,

Thank you for writing in. I think most of us have thought about our personal histories in the way you describe and, indeed, the facts of the past are not something we can change. However, we can improve our relationship to how we currently hold ourselves and our history, and this is what we will focus on here.

In reflecting on our past, we may fall into a trap known as the hindsight bias. This is our tendency to judge our past experiences from the perspective of our current knowledge and skills. This perspective can cause distress. When we apply our existing knowledge to the past, we may conclude that we should have known better or done something different to prevent the thing from happening.

This type of thinking can lead to false conclusions. These erroneous conclusions do not consider the possibility that the adverse event may have happened anyway, or at a different time. Furthermore, we must consider that most people act with their best knowledge and skill set at the time. Therefore, it is unfair to compare your past self to your current, more developed self.

Remembering and understanding this bias is a path toward making peace with the past and freeing up our energy to be intentional in the present moment. The hindsight bias sounds useful from a theoretical stance, but how can we liberate ourselves from unhelpful beliefs we have developed?

The remainder of this article describes a meditative process on how to let go through self-compassion. You will need a quiet space, a journal, and a moderate amount of time to complete this practice with integrity.

A Meditation Practice to Let Go of the Past

1. Take a few moments to quiet down and observe your breathing.

2. When you feel settled, call into attention a memory or event from your past that you feel able and ready to release.

3. When you have this event or memory in your awareness, notice how it affects you. Record what images, physical sensations, emotions, or thoughts come up for you. Typically aspects from our past that haunt us cause some physical tightening, tensing, or gripping in our muscles. You may notice changes in your breathing pattern or perhaps alterations in your heart rate.

It may be helpful to pause here and record your observations. Then, for now, allow your experience to be as it is. There is nothing to do and nowhere to go with it. For the moment, let it be.

Related: How to Meditate Anywhere

4. Inquire within yourself and determine what other significant events may have been going on in your life that may have influenced your past actions. Do this with compassion and without self-blame or judgment. When you feel that you have gathered all this data, take a moment and write it down.

5. Next, reflect on how this event may be impacting how you think about yourself. How does it change your feelings about others or your relationships with them? How does it affect your current view of the world in general? For example, does this thing that you wish you had done contribute to you believing that you are blameworthy or flawed? Do you think that others think less of you? Does this experience shift your belief that the world is mostly a benevolent place where you can have a meaningful life? Again, pause and record your reflections.

6. Once you get these written down, see if you can challenge them. A couple of helpful questions you can ask yourself include: a) Are these 100% accurate interpretations? b) Are they serving your healing or keeping you stuck? If you conclude that these are false beliefs that keep you stuck, then it is a good idea to figure out an alternative version of them.

Challenging these thoughts will enable you to begin to release them. This process can be tricky. A helpful technique comes from self-compassion teacher Kristin Neff. She suggests thinking about what you might tell a close friend if they were suffering in a similar way as you are. I invite you to enter this inquiry and see what you find. Then, when you feel ready, write the statements down.

7. When you are ready for the next stage, shift toward offering the loving and kind statements that you would say to your friend to yourself. Recite these statements to yourself while sitting in meditation. Notice how offering these more loving phrases to yourself may shift your experience in contrast to where you were at the beginning of this entire practice. Again, notice your thoughts, emotions, and the physical sensations in your body. In what ways did bringing this element of self-compassion into your practice shift your experience? Do you feel more able to release the old, habitual ways of thinking about your past and trust in your new perspective?

You will likely have to work this practice several times over and modify it in any way necessary to increase its resonance for you. Take your time and be patient and kind with yourself.

Thank you for writing in with your question. I wish you the best on this journey.

Many blessings,
John

The post Learning to Let Go of the Past appeared first on Sonima.

“You are going to mess this up. You always mess things up,” they say. “You will fail. You ruined things. You are too old to do that. You are not as pretty as her. You are so dumb.”

They are my inner critic. They sound like a narration behind all my activities, but especially the ones that are challenging, difficult, new, and scary.

Sometimes, when I feel a little stronger, I summon some different voices from the depth to challenge them. Sometimes these voices try and conquer the inner critic by force:

“Shut up! You suck! You are wrong! I will succeed! I am smart! I am pretty!”

Sometimes my inner cheerleader tries to reason with my inner critic:

“Yes, I’ve made mistakes, but this time I really think I can do it. This could all go badly, but I still think I should try? Right?”

During these moments, it becomes an epic back-and-forth conversation between the inner critic and the inner cheerleader. These conversations leave me feeling distracted, frenetic, lonely, and exhausted. All I want to do is escape into my phone or eight hours of Netflix.

Sound familiar? We all carry around inner critics who cause us a lot of pain and suffering. The good news is that Buddhist wisdom offers us a way out of this suffering that is different than running away from it or trying to beat it down with force. The way out is through.

Consider this story from Tibetan Buddhist tradition about a monk named Milarepa: Milarepa lived alone in the mountains. On his way back from gathering wood one day, he arrived at his hut to see it filled to the brim with ferocious demons. Demons were on the table, on the floor—they covered every square inch. Milarepa freaked out. He chased the demons around, screaming and throwing things at them. But they only multiplied and became more ferocious.

Milarepa, terrified, got a hold of himself and switched course. “Okay, fine,” he said to them, “If you don’t want to leave, I will teach you the dharma (path of awakening).” He began to read to them from the Buddhist wisdom texts. After a while, Milarepa peeked up from his book. They were all still there, still terrifying, but now staring at him quietly.

Related: The Fascinating Science of Why You’re So Hard on Yourself

“Okay, okay,” he said. “You win. I surrender. You are allowed to stay. I will try and learn from you. Please teach me what you need to teach me.” One by one, they all disappeared with the exception of one, the largest, most ferocious of them all. Milarepa looked at this demon. The demon looked back, growling and snarling with his enormous jaws and fangs. Milarepa walked up to the demon and slowly laid his head down inside the demon’s mouth. The demon stepped back, bowed low to Milarepa, and disappeared.

Our inner demons are just as ferocious and tenacious as Milarepa’s. We live with them in the tiny huts of our minds, and they make us miserable and afraid. Yelling at them and cursing them out will never work. Reasoning with them by trying to use our inner cheerleader and relentless positivity will also never work. Listening to them and learning from them will get us a lot farther, but ultimately, we have to go deeper. We have to go as close as possible to our scariest demon, our meanest inner voice, and surrender.

What might that look like in real life? One of my life-long demons is jealousy. I have struggled with feeling jealous of other people whom I perceive to have more than me, that get more attention than me, or seem better than me in some way. This mostly comes out in relationships, where I have made many partners feel terrible with accusations and fights.

At the same time, for years, I felt so deeply ashamed of that jealousy and so horrified by it that I tried really hard to repress it (“Stop it, Yael! You are being ridiculous!”), to reason with it (“Jealousy is not helpful in this situation”), and even, begrudgingly, to co-exist with it in times of meditation (which has helped, but not entirely). Like Milerapa, the only times my jealousy has actually subsided in major ways have been when—as lovingly as possible—I went as close as possible to the feeling to see what was there.

What did I see when I got real close and cozy? What was in my jealousy? A tremendous fear of not being enough. The deep well of pain from feeling neglected and unseen as a child. Panic about the scarcity of love and my fear of not getting any. When I looked at these pains and fears, my heart opened to the jealousy and the poor little one inside who was feeling it. I tried to mentally wrap my arms around her. “Poor baby,” I said to myself. “Poor jealousy. I’m sorry I’ve been so cruel to you. I am here for you now.”

What does your inner critic look like? What are your pesky, ferocious, terrible demons? Can you summon the bravery to come closer, put down your weapons, and open your heart?

The post How to Work with Your Inner Critic appeared first on Sonima.

Anytime I need to make a decision, it seems that I ask every single person close to me what they think I should do. I tell myself that I want to be fully informed and not miss any “blind spots” before I make a move. But even after I make my decision, I sometimes end up wondering if I did the right thing. Is this normal? And how do I stop all of this overthinking and think for myself?

With gratitude,

Crowd-sourcer

Dear Crowd-sourcer,

I think most of us can relate to your question in that we’ve likely felt challenged by a daunting decision at some point. What comes to me when I reflect on your words is the journey that every person must make toward trusting yourself and overcoming the fear of failing.

Self-trust is developed incrementally across time through practice and experience. My chosen route toward developing self-trust is mindfulness. In this context, mindfulness involves growing familiar with yourself and clarifying your values, wants, and desires. These critical dimensions of self-awareness are necessary to live a values-based and purpose-driven life. These elements are always alive within, and they are there to be discovered or remembered—we simply need to be awakened (or reawakened) to our inner guide.

The meditation practice is a process of lifting away barriers that we’ve built between our inner guide and our conscious awareness. It involves a quieting down in order to allow your inner guide to be heard. Here is a short and simple mindfulness practice, inspired by the work of American philosopher Eugene Gendlin to help move you toward discovering your authentic self and learning to trust yourself.

A Meditation for Learning to Trust Yourself

1. Find a comfortable, safe, quiet, private place where you will not be disturbed. Choose a relaxing position, whether that is sitting, standing, or lying down. Breathe and, if it feels OK for you, close your eyes. If not, practice with a soft gaze.

2. As you breathe, feel the breath as a doorway to presence. Take a few moments to gather your awareness through these natural breaths. Let the breath be exactly as it is. Feel that there is nothing to do in this moment other than settle in and breathe.

3. When you feel that you have reached a centered place, relax a hand or both hands onto your heart. As you do so, notice what you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally. This is your baseline state.

4. Now bring a situation to mind on which you need guidance. I recommend starting with an easier decision rather than a big one.

5. Visualize this situation and, slowly, one by one, imagine the different actions you could take.

6. As you bring these different possibilities and their related actions to mind, notice what feedback you get. Take mind of the thoughts, images, emotions, and sensations in your body.

7. If you explore a particular possibility and feel nothing, that is an indicator to let that option go.

8. Your body will give you a resounding “yes” when you have hit upon what may be a good decision. Spend a few moments sitting with that decision and confirming that it feels right.

When you feel complete with this practice, intentionally come back to your breathing. Close out the practice with a feeling of gratitude for yourself for taking this time to practice. Intentionally release the meditation with an exhale, and return back to your day.

Related: Find the Confidence to Celebrate Your Successes

The Next Step: Take Action

Now it’s time to put your insight from the meditation into practice. Given your question, I want to share a few reflections on how you can frame this stage of the practice.

As human beings, we must accept that we cannot take in an unlimited amount of data about a given situation. We do not have infinite computing capacities, and in most circumstances we are also bound by time. Overthinking a situation can lead to inaction, as we may become frozen.

But life constantly invites us to act. In that action, we must do our best to hold healthy and ethical intentions, consider the available data we have from all sources, decide, act, and ultimately trust that we can be with whatever the outcome is, no matter how difficult. We must also acknowledge and release what is forsaken in our choices. It is our duty to accept that we may miss the mark and to take responsibility when we do, recognizing mistakes as learning opportunities.

Stepping into responsibility like this can absolutely be scary and overwhelming. However, choice and responsibility are what makes our freedom possible.

Warmly,

John

The post Do You Really Trust Yourself? appeared first on Sonima.

I’ve been a perfectionist my whole life. I feel like I could always be doing better, and when someone else points out a mistake I’ve made, I mentally beat myself up for weeks. Is there a way to stop this rumination and learn to move on after I make an error or disappoint myself?

Signed,

Little Miss Perfect

Dear Little Miss Perfect,

You raise numerous concerns that speak to our need as humans to do our best, be effective, get things done correctly, and please others in the process. Naturally, when things don’t go as planned, we can get caught in self-blame and feel criticized and judged. If left unchecked, this can make us feel stuck and depressed.

It may help to deepen your awareness of how your thoughts, emotions, and related behaviors act in relationship, so I offer the below method, which draws from cognitive behavioral therapy.

The Thought-Emotion-Behavior Triangle

Usually our experience goes something like this:

1. There is an event that happens to us.
2. We have a thought or thoughts about the event.
3. We have an emotion about what happened and the thoughts we’re having about it.
4. Usually these additional thoughts result in more emotions about what happened, which may fuel further thinking about what happened, which then creates additional emotions on top of the original emotions. This can repeat many times over.
5. This entire chain then leads us to engage in a behavior. This behavior, as well as our thoughts and emotions, can be either positive or negative.

This model can be pictured using the Cognitive Triangle.

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In this triangle, the event is in the center, and in response to that event we have think, feel, and do at each point of the triangle. The arrowed lines of the triangle reflect how each corner of the triangle is in a bilateral relationship to the other corners. This means that by exerting changes on one point of the triangle, we can bring changes to the other sides as well. So, by changing our thoughts, we can change our feelings and behaviors, and the same applies to any combination of the three.

The components of your situation are:

1. Event: someone points out a mistake you’ve made
2. Thinking: “I could always do better”
3. Feeling: disappointment
4. Doing: a) mentally beat yourself up for weeks; b) ruminate

Is the Thought Helpful?

Next, you want to examine these components. Ask yourself:

1. Is the thought “I could always do better” accurate?
2. Is it helpful?

To answer these questions, it may help to see if the thought fits any of the following categories of unhelpful thinking styles:

• Filtering out the positive and letting in only the negative: letting your entire view of the situation be tainted by negatives.
• Jumping to conclusions: fortune-telling or assuming we know what will happen in a situation or what others are thinking.
• Taking things personally or taking on more blame than is warranted in a situation.
• Catastrophizing: assuming a situation is much worse than it is.
• All-or-nothing thinking: viewing a situation as either perfect or completely ruined, or thinking a person is either all good or all bad.
• “Shoulding” (in an unhelpful way). For example, “I should always get things right the first time.”
• Overgeneralizing: assuming what was in the past will always be the way of the present and future.
• Labeling: putting ourselves or others in a “box.”
• Emotional reasoning: making decisions based upon emotional impressions only. For example, if you feel bad, then you may think that anything you do will not feel good or be fun. You let your emotions taint the moment for the worse.
• Amplifying or minimizing: amplifying the positive traits you see in others and minimizing the good you perceive in yourself.

If your thought fits one of the categories, that is good evidence that it is unhelpful and is not serving you in a positive way.

Related: The Surprising Upside to Negative Thinking

Shifting Your Thinking

Having taken time to reflect on your thought, is there another way that you can think about your situation?

For example, can you try removing the word “always” from your thought and get more specific to the circumstance at hand? It is likely that there have been situations in which you could have performed better, as well as situations where you gave your all and that was enough.

Notice how I am specifying the situation’s nature of the thought, rather than generalizing the thought to all situations. “Sometimes” is usually more accurate than “always”. The key is to create a more balanced and realistic thought that does not fall into any of the unhelpful thinking styles above. Take time to workshop your new thought.

Once you come up with it, check how you feel after having that thought. Does your behavior shift also? For example, you may notice that you feel relief, and instead of ruminating and beating yourself up, you simply get on with your day with a clearer mind and a relaxed body.

Another approach is to reframe your thinking about mistakes into learning opportunities. Rather than beating yourself up, can you get curious about how this situation is grist for the mill? What can you learn from it that can lead to greater mastery in the future? This helps move you toward a growth mindset instead of a fixed one.

The last point I’d like to discuss is how to get out of rumination when you are in it. Like anything, there are numerous methods that can be utilized. I suggest a very simple concept called objectifying the thought. (This exercise is from The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook by New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.)

When you notice you are caught in rumination, choose one of those worrisome thoughts and objectify it by visualizing it coming into form: What colors does it have? What shape? If the thought had a smell, what would it be? Is it an object that has a sound? Would this thought have a certain flavor or taste?

By putting the thought into an objective form, you can visualize acting upon it to release it. For example, perhaps the thought appears as a storm cloud in the sky that has lightning and thunder. You can then imagine that by connecting to your breath and using deep breathing, you can blow these storm clouds away and visualize sunlight brightening the now open blue sky.

We covered quite a lot of material. Take time to play with these concepts and practices. Approach this material from that growth mindset with your goal being to learn and grow, rather than worry and dwell. You will know when your process has yielded a good enough solution because you will feel better and freer. Trust yourself.

I thank you so much for writing in and entrusting me with your question. I wish you the best on your journey.

Warmly,

John

The post Break the Cycle of Perfectionism appeared first on Sonima.

If a loved one asks something of me, I’m immediately there to help them. Yet I feel that if I asked them for a favor or expressed my true needs, I’d be burdening them. I tell myself I’m fine going with the flow, but then I sometimes feel angst for not asking what I want. What can I do to become more comfortable speaking up about my needs—and not feel like a burden when I do?

Thank you,
A Friend in Need

Dear A Friend in Need,

Thank you for writing in. It sounds like you are a very caring and compassionate person who is there for your loved ones. You are also aware that it is easier for you to give than to receive. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it is difficult for you to ask, and therefore you do not have the opportunity to receive. In either case, I think many readers can relate to your angst.

I can tell you it is no burden for me to contemplate your situation. I also want to reflect to you that writing in about this challenge is a successful step toward moving through your fear. I encourage you to take pause and notice how you feel hearing this feedback. You are not a burden for asking me your question. In fact, reflecting on your question is a growth opportunity for me to think about how I give to others and receive in return.

There are a few areas for you to explore. But first note that usually one’s current belief structure has roots in one’s past. Uncovering that is beyond what I can offer you in a brief article. However, if that idea sparks your curiosity, I recommend working with a psychotherapist to delve into it.

Now, the first area to explore is recognizing that your avoidance of asking for support is essentially robbing you of opportunities to receive the support you need and to overcome feeling like a burden.

In naming the avoidance, the next step is to connect to your courageous self so you can set up opportunities to practice asking others for help and support. Essentially what we are doing here is skill-building, and all skill-building takes practice and more practice until it becomes habit.

Identify safe and kind others in your life of whom you feel comfortable asking. Once you have, it’s best to scale your requests and those whom you ask. This means to start with very small and safe requests from the kindest of people in your life. This will set you up for success that will build your confidence. With each success, you want to raise the stakes by moving up your fear hierarchy to a slightly less familiar person. The result is that you will feel comfortable making requests of whomever you would like.

It will be valuable to track your successes along this path and to use them as counter-evidence to your belief that you are a burden to others. Take time to reflect on the fact that others are responding to your requests positively. Come up with related positive self-statements affirming this new reality that others do care about you and are working to support you. This could be as simple as, “Others care about me and support me.” Then rate the believability of this new statement on a scale from 0 to 10. At first your rating may be lower, but over time, with more success, your rating will likely increase.

Of course, as part of this process you must also be OK when someone says no. The key when we are met with a “no” is not to take it personally. Everyone has a right to say no to our requests, just like we have a right to say no to theirs. Being in relationships is a balance of give and take, so we must be willing to compromise and negotiate in situations where there is not a “yes.” This goes back to the word “practice,” which involves repetition in the service of proficiency and mastery of a skill. Even “no” situations are growth opportunities. They present us with a window into how we work with frustration and how we can channel that energy into further psychological development.

By working with and through your fear, you are strengthening the psychological “muscles” of self-esteem, self-worth, confidence, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness. Each of these domains is important and interconnected to build healthy and meaningful relationships. Furthermore, in learning how to ask for what you need from others, you will unburden yourself and them from the resulting frustration and disappointment that comes with being unfulfilled.

Related: Are You Over-Communicating in Your Relationship?

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. In implementing them, it will be important to practice patience, compassion, and kindness toward yourself and others. If you would like to delve deeper, I would recommend working with a cognitive behavioral therapist who can support you as you navigate this process.

I wish you the best and thank you for writing in!

Warmly,
John

The post Finding the Courage to Ask Others for Help appeared first on Sonima.

The even better news: It’s contagious. In a Harvard University study, researchers discovered what they dubbed the “Mother Teresa Effect”: Simply witnessing acts of kindness (such as those performed by Mother Teresa) may have a positive physiological response, even potentially improving immune function. Who knew kindness could be such a fulfilling spectator sport?

Here are three ways you can incorporate random acts of kindness into your daily life to be more present, release stress, and make a positive impact on others. After each act, journal about what you did and how it made you feel. Soon you’ll have a feel-good book full of inspiration for yourself and others, proving that you can be the joy you wish to see in the world. And keep in mind that these are just a handful of ways you can harness and multiply your joy; the options are endless.

1. Use your voice for good

How many times a day do you admire something about someone—strangers included—and keep it to yourself? Now imagine the impact of expressing those lovely thoughts. People around you would feel good, breathe a little easier, stand a little taller, and maybe even share some of their own kind words with the world. And you’d likely experience what psychologists call the “helper’s high,” a state of euphoria based on a theory that giving releases endorphins in the brain, leaving us with an emotional high.

Try it:

• Carve out time for “appreciations” in a work meeting or at the family dinner table. Verbalizing what you’re grateful for in others will have exponential returns.
• Go out of your way to offer thoughtful compliments to those around you, taking care to be inclusive to those who may be easily overlooked in today’s youth- and beauty-obsessed society.
• Scroll through your social media feed and, instead of playing the comparison game, choose to champion others by dropping words of encouragement in the comments.
• Show the love. Write LinkedIn recommendations for colleagues or Yelp and Facebook reviews for your favorite small businesses and entrepreneur friends.

2. Give from a place of abundance

They say it is better to give than to receive; a study from the University of Texas at Austin and Duke University reported that people who practice kindness by volunteering experience less anxiety, depression, and pain, and those 55 or older were 44 percent less likely to die.

Sometimes we may think that we don’t have enough time or financial resources to be generous with others, but random acts of joy don’t need to take a lot of time or cost a thing. This is where creativity comes in. When we give from a place of abundance, knowing that there is more than enough for everyone, we receive so much in return, better health included.

Try it:

• Connect with your local Buy Nothing group to give your unwanted items a new home. This is also a great way to meet your neighbors and build community.
• Store some small bags with fresh socks, protein bars, bottled water, and personal care items in your car. Offer them along with a kind smile to people in need as you encounter them. It feels so good for them to be seen.
• Gather the children in your life and set up an old-fashioned lemonade stand with a twist: Thirsty customers may pay only in jokes. Giggles abound.
• Show up at a nearby ball game or school graduation and cheer loudly, especially for the kids who may not have anyone present.
• Form an unofficial welcoming committee and hold up a banner in the arrivals section of your city’s airport. This is especially fun to do during the holidays when there’s an abundance of travelers.

Related: A Yogic Meditation on Love and Kindness

3. Play well with others

During heavy times and full weeks, play is the perfect anecdote to adulting. The ever-popular hashtag #SundayFunday is a weekly reminder that so many of us just want to let loose. Playful people are reported to have less stress and more coping strategies to adapt to life’s changes. So channel your inner child and get nostalgic about the things you loved to do when you were younger. Once you’ve decided on your shenanigans, it’s time to invite someone to come outside and play.

Try it:

• Bring coloring books, play-doh, and board games to your local senior center, and witness the wondrous sparkle in their eyes.
• Use sidewalk chalk to write encouraging phrases or draw hopscotch squares in a public place and watch to see who jumps in.
• Use an extension cord to move your TV outside, pop some popcorn, set up blankets, and invite your neighbors to watch some good ol’ cartoons.
• Share your most treasured books and volunteer to read aloud to patients at a local hospital.

The post 3 Easy Ways to Spark Joy Without Cleaning a Thing appeared first on Sonima.

Meditation Posture Tip #1: Keep your back straight

You’ve probably heard that you should sit as upright as possible when you meditate, and there’s a good reason for that: When we shut our senses off through meditation, we take our energy inward. That energy connects with and enhances the energy of our chakra centers. These chakras line up along our spine, so in order for them to be aligned, the spine needs to be straight. This also allows energy to flow freely through the chakras. In addition, keeping your back straight enhances your breathing, as you’re able to maintain smooth, relaxed inhalations and exhalations without any extra effort.

Meditation Posture Tip #2: Sit on the floor

These days there’s a lot of flexibility in where we sit for meditation—you can sit in a chair or even do meditation in bed. But to get the most out of your session, you should sit on the floor. This allows your root chakra at the base of your spine to be grounded into the floor and connected with the earth’s energy. What’s more, a seated position allows energy to flow upward from the earth, through your spine, to the crown of your head.

Many people use a cushion to make sitting on the floor more comfortable. Wood is a bad conductor of electricity and does not let you connect with the earth’s energy, so if you have a wooden floor, using a cushion is especially important. The cushion material you choose also matters. Wool and silk are preferable, since they accumulate and possess the energy of the animals they came from. Cotton is the next best option.

The color of the cushion can make a difference, too. If you want an active, energized meditation, a red cushion is best. If you want a more peaceful, tranquil state of meditation, sit on a white cushion. And if you meditate for material gains and prosperity, choose a yellow cushion.

Meditation Posture Tip #3: Bring your legs into lotus pose

Lotus pose is a yogic asana, or position, and has its own physical benefits. The yogic texts say that blood circulation is very gentle but effective in this position. It’s said that if you sit in lotus position for about 20 minutes, you have a complete circulation of blood through every part of your body.

There are two variations of lotus pose—full lotus, where you cross your legs and pass them through each other, and half lotus, where you simply cross your legs. If full lotus is uncomfortable, half lotus is okay. If neither position works for you, you can take the support of the wall. Stretch your legs out straight in front of you and place a cushion behind your back to keep it straight and comfortable.

Related: A Simple Guide to the Complex World of Meditation

Meditation Posture Tip #4: Find a meditation spot

It’s not always possible, but meditating in the same place every day—in the same corner, in the same room, with the same cushion, at the same time—is beneficial. As much as possible, keep whatever elements you can the same on a routine basis. This helps to accumulate more energy in your environment and within yourself for a deeper, more grounded meditation practice.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Meditation Posture appeared first on Sonima.

I have great anxiety around the passage of time. I suppose you could call it “fear of missing out”. The days, months, and years seem to be passing so quickly, and I feel like I haven’t done all the things I assumed I would do by now. The thought that I’m wasting my life keeps me up at night. Why do I feel like this? How can I break free of these thoughts?

Signed,

FOMO

Dear FOMO,

Thank you for writing with a question that I think many readers will identify with. I think of your question as being an existential signal that something important is happening in your psyche right now that needs attention. Further, rather than trying to “break free” from these challenging thoughts and feelings, I propose that you listen to them and engage with them to determine what they are trying to communicate to you.

The feeling you’re having is an invitation and an opportunity for you to notice—without judgment—if something in your life is off course right now. Or if in some way you have disconnected from the creative and authentic part of yourself that is longing to be expressed. If so, then now is the time to redirect your energy back to what is important to you.

In his book To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, John O’Donohue writes, “Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”

You are an artist, and now is the time to reestablish integrity and awareness so you can fulfill your heart’s desire. The contemplative process below is something that we all should do from time to time to keep ourselves grounded in our values and to direct our lives from these values.

In the following meditation practice, we will begin with a reflection from a “bird’s eye view,” and then you will further workshop what you discover in your meditation to create actionable steps. Of course, only you can decide exactly what steps you would like to take based upon what you discover in this process.

A Meditation for Meaning and Purpose in Life

1. Clear a space for practice. Turn off your devices and put them away. Tell anyone in your living environment that you are entering a sacred space and are not to be distracted or interrupted. If you tell yourself, “I don’t have time for this” or “I can’t do it,” then you are not ready to take this step. That is OK. Other things will need to happen first in your life to be open to this path. This time that you are creating—not finding—for yourself is the most important executive meeting of your life. This is the kind of helpful intensity that is needed to live on an authentic, spiritual path.

2. When you have your space established, take time to get comfortable, whether you choose to sit, stand, or lie down. Settle into a natural breathing pattern. There’s nothing to do and nothing to change; simply let things be.

3. Intentionally feel your body connected to the earth or whatever is supporting you. Place one or both hands on your heart. Connect to your heart and recognize this heart space as a place of inherent and bountiful love and acceptance.

4. When you feel that you have reached a place of stillness and center, pose to your heart (your wisdom body): What is needed most for me right now to (re)connect to meaning and purpose in my life?

5. Now simply observe what comes up from this question with utmost curiosity. Note: Please recognize that in this type of process, everything is relevant, from thoughts that make no sense to spontaneous discomfort in the body, to ancient memories or flashes of images in the mind, to even what is happening around you. For example, you may sit down to do this meditation and the construction crew starts jackhammering away outside your window, and suddenly you’re upset, distracted, and have lost the practice. This is all “grist for the mill.” You must love everything and embrace all the obstacles as essential parts of the practice. Sit with everything that arises and take note of it all; you are data-gathering.

Related: How Making Mental Space Can Unlock Your Purpose

6. When you feel that you have gathered ample data for this session, connect back to your breathing and make a gentle and intentional transition out of the meditation. I prefer to use the energy of an exhale to release the contemplative state.

7. Once you come out of the meditation, write everything down in a journal right away so you don’t lose anything. Do not worry about grammar, punctuation, or completing sentences, just put the data down.

8. Analyze what you wrote, keeping in mind that this analysis is more creative than scientific. Play around with putting things in a different order or ranking them. You may order things from more “broad” or “global” insights that pertain to your life in general to more “specific” data points, such as items that point to one domain in your life, such as family.

9. Translate these items into action items that need to be taken in your life to address the question “What is most needed right now?” If you have trouble figuring out how to arrange your “findings” write out “goals” that address the domains of mind, body, spirit, relationships, and vocation. For example, a goal that addresses the mind might be to take time for a simple breathing meditation for a few minutes each day to enable the opportunity to release mental “clutter.” This goal may address something like a feeling in meditation that your mind is everywhere and can’t stay focused. A body goal may be to exercise for X number of minutes per day to address feelings of physical fatigue in meditation and restlessness at night.

Related: What Does the Universe Want from Me?

10. After you write out all of the above, it is time to summarize what you found in a kind of mission statement for your life. I recommend keeping it simple, actionable, and measurable. If it is too complex, you may never begin. If it is too theoretical, you won’t know what to do to bring it to fruition. If it is not measurable, how will you know you are accomplishing your goals?

11. Please be willing to repeat this practice as many times as needed or vary it according to what works best for you. Please do not be discouraged if you try it a few times and nothing happens. Patience is part of the path. I suspect that as you work, this practice will reignite the purpose-driven life that those challenging thoughts and feelings may have started to diminish. Recognize them as helpers. They are your friends calling out to you to come back to yourself.

As we close out, I pose to you the question that the poet Mary Oliver gave to us all at the end of her poem “The Summer Day”:

… what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

I thank you for writing in, and I wish you the best on this journey.

Warmly,
John

The post Live With No Fear of Missing Out appeared first on Sonima.

Whenever I accomplish anything or something exciting happens to me, I find that I downplay it to my family and friends. I feel embarrassed when they ask me about any successes that I’ve had because I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging—even about normal things like a small promotion or buying a new car. Is it something that I should change? And if so, how?

Thank you,

Humble Brag

Dear Humble Brag,

Thank you for writing in. You ask an important question that is tied to a psychological need we all have to appropriately feel good about ourselves and confident in our talents, abilities, and contributions to the world.

You are right in implying that most people do not want to be considered a bragger or be thought of as overly boastful or arrogant. The very fact that you are sensitive to how others perceive you leads me to believe that you are not likely at risk of being these such things. Furthermore, your discomfort is a familiar feeling that many folks have, so rest assured you are not alone.

In response to your question, if your hesitancy to share your success is something to change, I sense that you are aware that this behavioral trait limits your happiness and fulfillment in your relationships with family and friends. Therefore, let’s explore how you can grow more confident about celebrating yourself.

Meaningful and sustainable change in many cases is built on a foundation of self-love and self-acceptance. Existing in a state of constant self-judgment and blame robs one of the vital life energy that is needed to put one foot in front of the other and take the first step toward transformation. Therefore, the foundational work is to hold a compassionate and loving space for oneself and say “yes” to life’s challenges. This is counter-intuitive to our more instinctual tendency to avoid the hard stuff. The moving toward what is real is a mindfulness practice.

The mindfulness practice that I would like for you to try involves four steps. The first two steps are contemplative and include meditation, and the last two are about putting the discoveries of that meditation into action.

1. Quiet down in meditation. (If the concept of meditation is new for you or sounds too esoteric, sit down in a quiet space where you will not be distracted and focus on your breathing.) When you feel settled, bring into awareness a recent experience that you feel comfortable working with in which you had a success or accomplishment, such as those examples you gave in your question like getting a small promotion. When you have this experience in your awareness, let it be there and move to the next step.

2. Connect to how you feel about your accomplishment. Spend a wholesome amount of time really savoring how amazing this experience is. This is a counter move to what I am guessing you usually do, which is gloss over your positive feelings and/or minimize them or dismiss them outright. Pay careful attention to how you are experiencing these positive emotions, feel this beautiful sense of fulfillment, and take note of and let yourself have the full array of pleasant thoughts and feelings. Becoming familiar with and allowing yourself to celebrate you and your accomplishments are vital steps to being able to share those very things with your loved ones. Once you have practiced this step several times over and feel confident, move to step three.

3. Use your findings from step two to share your accomplishment with a trusted family member or friend. You may find it helpful at first to rehearse this on your own or have a script to follow. I recommend including something like, “I am so excited to tell you about this amazing thing that I did…” Develop your own authentic language about your achievement. Remember that this step is a practice and it does not have to go perfectly. It is OK to fumble or stumble over your words. We must recognize that whenever we are trying to take a growth step, it takes commitment and practice, which means repetition and a non-judgmental attitude. After you have told your loved one about your experience, you are ready for step four.

4. In the presence of your loved one, truly enjoy and relish the positive feelings of what you achieved. Celebrate yourself even if your partner does not respond as you expect. Feeling good about yourself and your positive accomplishments is a healthy and vital part of your development.

Repeat the above practice as many times as feels right for you to solidify this new way of being in the world. It is essential to celebrate yourself and your achievements to keep up your excitement and zest for life.

Many blessings,
John

Related: A 5-Minute Meditation to Start Building Your Practice

The post Find the Confidence to Celebrate Your Successes appeared first on Sonima.

My entire life—when choosing a college, starting a career, deciding to get married and have children, etc.—I’ve found it hard not to compare myself to everyone else. But as I get older, I am seeing the timelines and expectations for what life should look like get less and less clear. Some of my friends are wildly successful, some are having babies, others are traveling the world. I find myself out of sorts without an obvious next step. How do I figure out what I really want from my life?

Thank you,
Nothing Compared To

Dear Nothing Compared To,

Thank you for writing in. At times we all get caught in the trap of comparing ourselves to our peers. We tend to think that our accomplishments and our life stage should be on par with or better than theirs. But it’s not only OK to be exactly where you are; we can transform ourselves much more efficiently if we operate from a place of acceptance.

With that in mind, your more salient question concentrates on how to identify what you want from life, so I want to give you a contemplative practice for this goal. You will create a vision across each of the different yet connected areas of your life.

A few areas to consider are your physical health, emotional and mental health, spiritual well-being, and sense of meaning and life purpose. There are undoubtedly other categories that you can think of or subcategories of these. However, I recommend keeping it simple at first. You can always repeat the exercise and further elaborate your meditation to include a broader or more specific focus.

The entry point into a contemplative practice is to clear out a physical, mental, and emotional “space” so that you can bring your entire being into the meditation without having to work extra hard to ward off any distractions.

When you have your space established, read through the instructions below in full so you understand the flow of it. Then come back to the beginning to initiate the practice.

1. Take a comfortable seat or lie down on the floor. When you feel settled, begin a practice of relaxed breathing. It may be beneficial to do a few rounds of a breath-counting practice to center more fully into the breath. A simple way to do this is to place one hand on your belly and one hand on your heart. Do your best to focus on delivering the breath into your lower hand and expanding the belly for a count of three to five or more, whatever feels most comfortable for you. Exhale for twice as long as the inhale and completely empty the breath from the belly, lungs, and chest.

When you feel that you have established a state of relaxation, let your breath return to its more natural cadence.

Related: I Don’t Have a Best Friend. Am I Normal?

2. Since this meditation intends to unearth your true desires for your life path, I invite you to place your hands onto your heart, which is a traditional place of feeling and wisdom. Next, initiate a dialogue with your heart by asking yourself what you need most in your life right now, and in the future, in the following areas:

• physical health
• mental and emotional health
• career/vocation
• relationships (family, friends, romantic)
• existential and spiritual well-being (life meaning, purpose, higher power, and ethical and moral direction)

During your meditation, take pause and spend an intuitive amount of time in each area. You will likely know when the process is complete for each domain through a felt, intuitive sense. If your meditation time is limited, you can focus your practice on one area at a time and complete additional meditations over several days.

3. As you complete your meditation session, consider taking a few conscious breaths with your hands on your heart to practice gratitude. Offer this gratitude for all of the wisdom and discoveries you made during the practice.

4. Lastly, when you complete your meditation, it will be advantageous to record your reflections in a journal so you do not forget what you learned.

You can come back to this practice as many times as needed to feel complete in the process and periodically to check in on your values to determine if you are in fact living by them.

I wish you the best with this practice and on your journey!

Warmly,
John

The post How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others appeared first on Sonima.

But whether or not you consider yourself a “creative” type, you can still reap the benefits of tapping into your innate creative energy because, along with love, happiness, and several other essential elements of life, creativity is one of the fundamental rights of human beings.

We are all creators in some way. We just express it differently. We want to make our mark, leave our footprint on the world, or make an impression on the planet. Even if we aren’t creating art or even coming up with ideas, we’re constantly creating our world, our destiny, and our karma. Believe it or not, even having children is a form of creativity.

If you pay attention, you’ll see that everyone is creating something, all the time. And for each person, the meaning of creativity (and the result of their creative energy) is unique.

Using meditation to connect with this energy doesn’t mean that you’ll suddenly become an artist if you weren’t one before. However, if you are a singer, tapping into your creative energy will make you a better one. And if you’re a manager creating a business strategy? Connecting with your most basic nature will help you be creative with your plan.

How to Meditate for Creativity

Sometimes we don’t exercise our creativity enough, block it, or put it on the back burner in favor of other skills and emotions. This might result in feeling stuck, uninspired, or unmotivated. When this happens, meditation can bring you back in tune with your creative aspect by compelling you to go inward. It allows creativity to flow more clearly and in a more expressive way, which means it’s easier to apply to your everyday life and tasks.

Related: A Meditation on the Creative Process

Any general meditation or mindfulness practice will help you connect to your creativity because when you’re in a meditative mode, you’re connecting with your energy center. Your energy flows where your awareness is, so it becomes much easier to have whatever you’re focusing on manifest outwardly in your life. In this case, it’s creativity.

If you want to go a little deeper, I’d recommend a more specific type of meditation. Human beings have seven chakras, and the second one from the bottom (in the sacral region) is called Svadhisthana. This second chakra is specially connected to your creative energy, and when we meditate on it, our creativity amplifies.

For the most profound benefit, focus on and breathe into the second chakra during meditation to enhance and open it. As a result, you’ll be better at creating your own world with more clarity.

The post How Meditation Makes You More Creative appeared first on Sonima.

Seeing these effects first-hand inspired Christopher to take action. The animal-loving student started by printing out flyers on the family computer. Then, with his parents’ and brothers’ help, he organized a fundraising bicycle event for kids and raised $3,700. After researching a nonprofit to receive the funds, he settled on the Everglades Foundation without realizing the organization created his school’s field trip. (The 501(c)(3) non-profit creates school curricula and uses research and advocacy in an effort to restore and protect the Everglades.)

Today, when Christopher isn’t in his eighth grade classroom or competing in gymnastics, the 13-year-old is senior Everglades policy advisor at Ramos Boys Save the Everglades. Their mission? “Educating and motivating young people to advocate for the benefit of this one-of-a-kind national treasure.”

Along with younger brother Ryan, 11, public relations manager, and older brother Paul Michael, 15, director of science and policy, the family has raised close to $35,000 for the Everglades. As a bonus, Christopher’s met with influential policymakers, Jimmy Buffet, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and even then-President Barack Obama as he visited the Everglades on Earth Day in 2015.

The Ramos boys’ dedication to the #NowOrNeverglades movement is a vibrant example of what can happen when a child is inspired to make a change. And sometimes, all it takes to light that fire is a field trip to the great outdoors.

The Power of School Field Trips

Most of us remember at least one school field trip from our youth, and if you do, there’s a good chance it took place outdoors, whether it was lifting up logs to search for beetles and millipedes at a nature preserve, tackling a trust-building rope climb at a nature preserve, or petting a leopard gecko at the local zoo.

As Christopher experienced, these school field trips have the power to affect students in ways that differ from classroom learning, providing “opportunities for exploration, discovery, first-hand and original experiences,” as one academic review put it.

Research shows that nature-based field trips, filled as they are with intriguing stimuli, have the ability to grab kids’ attention in a novel way. Scraping tree bark, casting critter footprints, and chatting with a bison-savvy park ranger captures our attention in a deliciously non-taxing way.

“Think about the way you zone out at work around 3 p.m. You can only do certain things for so long before you lose attention,” says Marc Berman, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. “Nature provides a really good break because it’s inherently fascinating. Nobody ever says, ‘I can’t stand looking at that waterfall.’”

Related: How Nature Impacts Our Health

And the outdoor world not only commands, but replenishes, our focus. “It’s not about intentional learning. Just let the kids interact, and they come back to school refreshed,” Berman says. (But hold off on giving them a quiz on the plants seen that day. Adding a stressful cognitive component can dampen the positive effects, he notes.)

It’s also not uncommon for students to leave with a spark of passion or curiosity that leads to further exploration and, as in Christopher’s case, ties them to the environment in ways that can “move the needle and protect the earth for generations to come,” says Jennifer Diaz, director of education for the Everglades Foundation. A survey of Finnish university students revealed that school visits to science centers played a strong role in the decisions of some to eventually pursue science careers.

Alysia Halpin experienced this drive after participating in the Nisqually River Environmental Project (NREP) through her middle school’s Science Squad club in Graham, Washington. Sampling creek water, planting trees, and tossing frozen salmon carcasses into the stream to replenish nutrients showed her that “our environment is hurting,” she says. “The water quality testing we did made me very self-aware that our marine environment is in danger of dying out.”

Now a high school freshman, Alysia has been working with friends to lobby their State Legislature to ban plastic bags to reduce marine pollution. The bill passed in the State Senate in early March 2019.

“Giving students the opportunity to go outside and go do experiments is so important because it helps us realize that science isn’t just bookwork; it’s labs, it’s hands-on experience, and it’s amazing what we could do with just a few hundred more students who want to be in a STEM career,” Alysia says.

Combating Nature-Deficit Disorder

Environmentalism aside, nature-based field trips have perhaps never been as vitally needed as they are today, when screen-hungry children spend less time outdoors than ever before. A study published in Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that only about half of U.S. preschoolers enjoy one parent-supervised outdoor play session a day; the other half lacks such experiences. (Girls and non-white children were particularly deprived.) And a recent UK study found that children spend half the time playing in nature as their parents did.

The outcome of so little vitamin N: a slew of health and behavioral issues—childhood obesity, attention difficulties, higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses—that, together, have been dubbed “nature-deficit disorder” by Richard Louv, author of the national bestseller Last Child in the Woods.

“The more we separate children from nature, the more sensory issues we’re seeing,” says pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children and founder of TimberNook, which offers nature-centered developmental programming camps in the U.S. and abroad. “Teachers are noticing their students fall out of chairs more, have a weakened pencil hold and poor balance, and have a harder time paying attention in class.”

Related: 25 Beautiful Places in the World to Find Peace of Mind

But given the chance to spend time in a living classroom, kids—and their senses—thrive. Consider the annual Sagawau Environmental Learning Center field trip taken by students at Chicago’s Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School. During a river hike, “they have to be completely zoomed into their surroundings, paying attention to mossy rocks that might be slippery, plants and creatures that can’t be stepped on, and water of different depths to decide where to safely step,” explains lower school science teacher Cezar Simeon.

Besides acting as an antidote to nature-deficit disorder, this adds a mindful aspect to the excursion; undistracted by smartphones and laser-focused on the task at hand, students are quiet and able to take in the sounds of the river, the scent of the soil, or the feel of a sharp rock.

Building a Lifelong Bond

Simeon recalls that when he first began teaching in Chicago, an employee at a nearby nature center told him that sometimes city kids would visit the butterfly haven and “freak out” when a butterfly landed on their shoulder. “It was colorful and beautiful—a harmless creature. But if they’d never had that type of encounter with an insect before, it was very intimidating; they couldn’t connect to it,” Simeon explains.

To help foster a greater bond with Mother Nature, he’s intentional about the field trips he sponsors, as well as his complementary in-class curriculum. He brings the outdoors in, with live leopard frogs, corn snakes, tiger salamanders, and more—all native to Illinois—plus a tarantula for a little good-for-the-soul “ick factor”.

Third graders spend their school year studying birds, culminating in a trip to a local bird sanctuary where they have the opportunity to observe and even touch the European starlings, morning doves, and northern flickers they recognize from their books.

“Because they’ve developed mastery in identifying these birds, they leave the field trip feeling more connected to nature,” he says.

So far, only one student has expressed a sincere lack of enthusiasm for the bird outing. But even that student benefited, Simeon says. “You learn, ‘This isn’t in my wheelhouse, but I can do it. Even if I’m scared of something, I can survive it.’ It gives a sense of empowerment.”

Simeon is dedicated to continue encouraging students to view the outside world as a living lab. “For many of them, this is first time someone has told them, ‘Yes, step into the river, get your feet wet.’ And they love it. They’re happy and joyful to have permission to get dirty. There’s just a level of connectedness to our world that happens when you go outside.”

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My best friend is competitive with me. Whenever anything good happens to me, she becomes aggressive and defensive. I love her and value our friendship beyond measure, so I let these uncomfortable moments pass without comment. But sometimes her nastiness simply hurts my feelings. How do I gently set boundaries without losing her friendship?

Sincerely,
Boundless

Dear Boundless,

Thank you for writing in. Having challenges in friendships is a concern that so many have, and finding a healthy way to address them is a path toward more fulfilling relationships.

I agree with you that your friendship would benefit from healthier boundaries and increased communication. It is a positive and a strength that you feel there is a foundation of love from which these new qualities can grow. Your love shines through in your desire to be gentle in how you approach implementing a new way of interacting in your friendship.

We must also recognize that no matter how hard we try to be delicate, ultimately, we cannot control how others choose to respond to us. There is a risk that your friend may be hurt. Therefore, I recommend that you focus on clarifying for yourself what an authentic approach and language would be in this situation.

Determine What Matters Most to You

One way to connect to authentic language is through quieting down in meditation. The intention of the meditation I will guide you through below is to clarify your values and wants for this specific friendship. I suggest you read through the steps before engaging in the meditation to develop an understanding of the approach, and then come back to the beginning to initiate the practice.

1. Find a safe and comfortable space to practice where you will not be interrupted.

2. Sit comfortably and lie down.

3. Connect to your breath. Focus on belly breathing, concentrating on cultivating long, steady, slow, and deep breaths. You can check on your breathing by putting one hand on your low belly and the other on your heart. Breathe down into the belly hand and feel it rising more than the heart hand. Once you have established that depth, then proceed.

4. Place both of your hands onto your heart and imagine you can breathe into your heart.

5. When you feel settled, ask yourself these question or similar ones that resonate with you more completely: What do I want and need most in this friendship? What matters most to me? How can I best communicate this to my friend?

6. Listen for the answers. They may come in the form of flashes of images in your mind or felt sensations in the body; you may mentally hear or see a word or words; or you may receive your answer through some other channel of awareness.

7. Allow yourself to stay open to receiving all these teachings from within your heart or your inner guide until you feel complete. That may be a short period of time, or it may be longer.

8. End your meditation session with a feeling of gratitude, and use an exhale to release the practice. Spend a few moments journaling about your experience so you do not forget your insights.

Related: Don’t Let Others Push Your Buttons

Turn Your Meditation into a Conversation

The next step will be to convert your journaling toward language that you can gently and assertively communicate to your friend. Here are a few guidelines to assist you in creating your statements.

1. Review your “script” and ensure that your language is precise and descriptive. For instance, rather than saying something like, “I notice you get aggressive toward me when I have a success,” instead try saying something like, “I notice that when I told you about X accomplishment, you did not congratulate me, and you starting talk about Y.”

2. Check to see that you are clearly expressing your emotions and what behaviors of hers those emotions are tied to. It will be more effective to convert her “defensiveness” into specific observable behaviors that are clearly defined. This might include how she may deny or counterattack you when you confront her on her “nastiness”.

3. Use as few words as possible to avoid muddying the waters with unnecessary apologetics or filler words.

4. Take additional quiet time, as in the meditation practice, to visualize the interaction with your friend. Focus on a mental image of your friend and try to hold the image in a space of compassion. Then imagine communicating your script to your friend. As you are doing this, again notice what feedback you get through the different channels of awareness (images, words, physical sensations, etc.).

Spend as much time here as needed, and then when you are done, again journal any revisions you feel are needed. You can repeat this process as often as you like until you feel complete in the process.

Be Confident During Your Talk

When the time comes for the actual conversation, do your best to monitor your body language, tone, and physical posturing. It will be important for the non-verbal and verbal to be congruent. Poise yourself with confidence, firmness, and determination. Also, do not get sidetracked if your friend attempts to distract away from the conversation.

Lastly, if you continue your friendship, work on acknowledging the moments when your friend is kind, congratulatory, and complementary. The more the positive is acknowledged, the more weight it will carry, and eventually it will replace the negative style of interaction.

Thank you for writing in. I am confident that you will find the way toward working with your friend to build a more satisfying friendship. I wish you the best on your journey.

Many blessings,
John

The post How to Set Boundaries with Friends appeared first on Sonima.