How To Conquer The Fear Of Failure

Living In Constant Worry, Doubt And Fear Makes Your Life Miserable And It Takes Away All Your Joy, Fun And Happiness.

It seems like, worry, doubt and fear is a very widespread “illness” in our society. Almost everyone seems to worry that this and that may happen. A lot of people are worried about their future, their financial situation, that their husband or wife may leave them, that they may get ill, have a terrible accident… and there are surely hundreds of other worries and fears.

Are you one of them? Do you worry too much as well?

How much of it did actually come true? Probably very little. On the other hand, things may have happened you didn’t even imagine or think about.

So, why spending weeks, months and even years worrying about something that probably never happens? It just doesn’t make any sense to torture yourself because of something that only exists in your mind and has nothing to do with your current reality.

Let’s say, because of certain events and circumstances your logic tells you “things don’t look good…” and you start worrying. Here is what happens: 

• Because of your worries and fears, you will start feeling worse and worse.
• Whenever there is an event you would normally enjoy, those nagging fears will take away most of the joy.
• Staying for a long time in the emotion of worry and fear will not only make you tired, but it will also make you more prone to illness.
• As within, so without. If you spend most of your time in worry and fear, you will also create unpleasant events and circumstances in your life that correspond with the energy of fear. In other words, there is a good chance that you will actually manifest what you are so afraid of – just because you constantly think and worry about it.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing good that can come from spending only even 1 second in worry, doubt or fear.

If I Could See At Least 1 Tiny Advantage You Could Get Out Of Worrying, I Would Say: “Yes, Every Now And Then Worry For A Few Minutes, Because It Is Good For…” But, There Is Absolutely Nothing Positive About Those Negative Emotions And That’s Why I Suggest You Simply Banish Worry, Doubt And Fear From Your Life.

That’s right, you no longer need those emotions, you are done with them, so, just let go of them.

But, bad things happen to people every day…

Of course, unpleasant things happen to all of us. BUT,  to constantly worry about what could happen won’t prevent unpleasant things from happening. Quite the contrary, that’s actually a very efficient way to attract more unpleasant things into your life.

Yes, unpleasant things happen. But when they happen, we simply deal with them, we find a solution and we grow through them. We become bigger, wiser, better…

And believe me, tackling those challenging situations is far easier from a positive mindset than from a mindset that’s entrenched in worry, doubt and fear.

Also, you may have already realized that being in the middle of a storm and dealing with a challenging situation actually feels better than the state of dense fear that only exists in your imagination and is created out of the constant worry that something bad MIGHT happen sometime in the future.

So, I think we can agree that spending even a minute in doubt and fear won’t add anything positive to your life.

But, the big question is how can you get rid of your worries and fears?

You say, those emotions just overtake your life and it isn’t much you can do about it. That’s wrong because those worries and fears are simply the results of unhealthy thoughts and beliefs you engaged in over and over again – thousands of times.

The Exact Same Way You Created Those Fears, You Can Also Get Rid Of Them And Replace Them With Much Better Feeling Emotions. All You Need To Do Is To Change Those Core Beliefs That Lead To Negative Thoughts, Which In Turn Create Your Worries And Fears.

You may smile about the child who is afraid of the green monster in the closet, but most of the worries and fears of us adults are not any more real.

Just think about some of your fears – right now, they are only a product of your imagination. Once something unpleasant happens, you are no longer afraid of it, because it already happened and you have to deal with it. But then you may be afraid of what could happen next. And again, at that stage, “what could happen next” will only exist in your imagination.

”Awareness Is The First Step In Healing”

” Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Progress is progress. This has to be one of my favourite mottos ever, and as we start another new year, I thought it was important to remind everyone.

No matter your current circumstance, no matter your destination, a step forward is a step forward. It doesn’t matter how small because it’s still a step. You are closer to your goal.

Situations in which this rule can help you will vary. It could be something as simple as exercising. If you ran out of time for a half-hour run, do a five-minute one. Every single time your legs move, you still progress further. A more difficult situation can be overcoming an illness, whether it’s cancer or anxiety, but every time you smile or feel better just for an instant, you’re improving.

Do NOT get caught up in making massive steps. If you’re trying to lose weight, it usually takes a while. If you start dropping off heaps of weight quickly, that can be very unhealthy, especially if you’re starving yourself to make it happen. Take it slow and have fun doing it. Exercise when you have time and eat right when you want to. There’s no rule that says you absolutely have to weigh sixty kilos before February. Take it easy. You’re the only one who will be disappointed if you don’t get there, and you can forgive yourself in a split second.

Appreciate the steps, too. Finish the day and say to yourself: “I have gained from today. I am proud.”

A quote that goes hand in hand is: “Sooner begun is sooner done.” This encourages us to just get started. You don’t need regular commitment. Just whenever you can, spot the small things you can do to benefit yourself, and do it. Don’t worry if you don’t have time to keep it up. One step here and there is still going to affect you in the most subtle way. You’ll be much better off and not even know it.

Another thing: You don’t need a beginning of a year to make resolutions. You can be sitting in your bed on a Tuesday morning in August and think, “I’m going to follow that dream,” or, “I want to improve myself,” and you can jump straight on that. This whole “New Year, New Me” thing is unnecessary. It’s not the last day on Earth; it’s a day like any other. So why wait? And why rush?

To summarize, this year, take your resolutions with a pinch of salt. If you want to work hard toward them, do it. But remember: If you slack off, it’s okay. Every bit of effort toward your goals is a step in the right direction. Take it easy. Be kind to yourself. You are doing great. Keep it up.

”Reshimo- “Who In The World Am I? ”

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” …

Why are we living in this world?—Every child asks this question beginning around the age of five, and this is because within us is found a Reshimo (reminiscence), a spiritual gene that must be developed. It pushes us from within.

This gene, this desire, requires fulfillment, an answer to the question, “What are we living for? What is the meaning of life?” Later, we forget this question, and in our pursuit of life, we no longer return to it since we don’t have time to think about it and regard it as a useless thought.

However, we see that this question constantly draws our attention in all kinds of situations throughout our lives, and considering how many people are in despair, get divorced, need drugs, and require antidepressants, we see that in spite of everything, this question still is very strong.

This gene is planted in us because at the end of our development, our evolution, we need to reach a state in which all of us ask the question, “What are we living for?” Why live?” “What is the meaning of life?”

It is possible to ask this question in another way: “Why does nature, which is so perfect and purposeful, create a person with such great potential, but leave him without an answer to the questions of how to build one’s life,  and what to achieve in life?”

We see what tremendous wisdom is latent in every cell, in everybody, in the connection between us, and we see how much information we haven’t yet discovered! However, even from what we have discovered with the help of science, we see such a wonderful wisdom hidden in all of this rich mechanism, and yet, we who are at the summit of this science, at its peak, don’t see any meaning in our lives. How is such a thing possible? Without a doubt, there is a purpose to our existence, but we don’t know what it is and we need to discover it.

”How To Increase Your Willpower.”

”The willpower response is a reaction to an internal conflict. You want to do one thing, such as smoke a cigarette or supersize your lunch, but know you shouldn’t. Or you know you should do something, like file your taxes or go to the gym, but you’d rather do nothing.”

Okay, we know that we only have so much willpower and as we go about our day, stress and normal self-control deplete our resource. Let’s see what options we have for increasing the pool of willpower we have to draw from.

Increase your capacity for pressure: Learn how to manage stress

To start with, we need to manage our stress levels. Being under high levels of stress means that our body’s energy is used up in acting instinctively and making decisions based on short-term outcomes. Our prefrontal cortex loses out in the battle for our energy when high-stress is involved.

It is said that stopping to take a few deep breaths when we feel overwhelmed or tempted can be a great start in managing our stress levels and improving our willpower.

Encourage yourself to stick to your plan:-

To make it even easier, it appears that self-affirmation can even help you to have more self-control when you’re running out, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. A good example of this is the difference between telling yourself “I can’t” and “I don’t.” Taking back control of the situation using the phrase “I don’t” has been shown to be more effective at helping you to stick to your plan and break bad habits:

So try telling yourself that you don’t do that bad habit, rather than punishing yourself by saying “I can’t.”

Get more sleep to help your brain manage energy better:-

Getting enough sleep makes a big difference in how efficiently our prefrontal cortex works:

Luckily, It also cites studies that have shown we can make this work in our favor by ensuring we get enough sleep:

And if you’re wondering how much sleep is enough, here’s a rough guide: one of the most acclaimed sleep researchers, Daniel Kripke, found in a recent study that “people who sleep between 6.5 hours and 7.5 hours a night, live the longest, are happier and most productive”.

 Meditate (for as little as 8 weeks)

Meditation has also been linked to increasing the reserve of willpower we have available, as well as improving attention, focus, stress management, and self-awareness. this can even give fast results.

Better exercise and nutrition: The most ignored route to higher willpower

Another great way to train the brain, that is often easily ignored or undervalued, yet can make you a lot more resilient to stress, and thus boost willpower, is regular physical exercise. Both relaxing, mindful exercise like yoga and intense physical training can provide these benefits, though points out that we’re not sure why this works yet.

As I mentioned earlier, what you feed your body affects how much energy the prefrontal cortex has to work with. This is why nutrition is so important:

Not only will exercise and good nutrition improve your willpower, but they’ll make you feel better as well. Exercise, in particular, is known for making us happy by releasing endorphins.

Postpone things for later to gain focus on what’s important now:-

Postponing something you really shouldn’t have can be effective if you’re trying to break a bad habit. In Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Roy F. Baumeister explains that people who tell themselves “not now, but later,” are generally less tormented by the temptation of something they are trying to avoid (his example is eating chocolate cake).

”Love, Attachment, Or Sexual Desire”

“The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.” 

From time to time, our romantic relationships can be difficult to understand. Part of this confusion stems from the fact that our relationships are influenced by three powerful, yet separate, emotional systems.

Often these three emotional systems work together to create satisfying outcomes. But that’s not always the case.

Sometimes these three emotional systems compete with each other—leading to mixed feelings and confusion.

Love

The First emotional system entails love. And love, in and of itself, is composed of a complex set of feelings. Love often entails feelings of closeness, genuine appreciation, and concern. But, the experience of love is not the same for everyone. For some people, love is delusional and needy, or based on emotional game playing, or experienced as the desire to take care of another person.

Attachment

The second emotional system involves attachment. Attachment is the feeling of security and comfort we get from being close to someone else. Attachment provides a sense of stability, certainty, and safety—the feeling that someone will always be there for you in a time of need. And, as with love, there are individual differences in the experience of attachment.

Sexual Desire

The last emotional system is sexual desire. Sexual desire involves the lustful, sexually passionate feelings people have for each other. Sexual desire is a very intense and powerful emotion; it can cloud one’s judgment and prompt risk-taking. Sexual desire is often based on physical appearance, novelty, and the chemistry between two people. And while sexual desire motivates a lot of our behaviors early on in a relationship, intense levels of sexual desire are difficult to maintain with the same person over the course of time.

Again, these three emotional systems can work together to produce a healthy and satisfying relationship. Sexual desire can turn into feelings of love, resulting in a lasting attachment.

However, these basic emotional systems do not necessarily work in sync over time. Long term, it can be difficult to find one person who consistently satisfies all three needs. In many cases, these three emotional systems work against each other—creating competing desires and interests.

For instance, it’s possible to be attached to one romantic partner, be in love with someone else, and have sexual desire for yet another person.

Being aware of these competing emotions, and that not everyone experiences love and attachment in the same way, often helps us to make sense of the problems that arise in our romantic relationships.

How I Finally Moved On From My “Non-Relationship”

 

”I searched for years I found no love. I’m sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.”

Ending a relationship can be incredibly difficult no matter how toxic it is. Part of this is for simple biological reasons, as some scientific studies have shown that being in love activates the same areas of the brain as being high on cocaine.

Brain scans of lovers and people experiencing cocaine addiction both displays increased activity in the pleasure centers of the brain (most notably the dopamine centers) and decreased activity in the frontal lobe, which is the area responsible for cognition. This means that while falling in love can make us feel good, it can also profoundly affect our judgment.

It is for this reason that love can sometimes be compared to an addiction. In love, much like an addiction, there may be negative side effects such as abuse or gaslighting. But despite all of those bad circumstances, it can still be difficult to kick the romantic attraction and feelings of love.

If you find yourself feeling trapped in a relationship you know is not healthy, consider these tips for letting go of it for good:

1. Trust In Your Emotions: If you are feeling, more times than not, insecure and ill at ease about your relationship, you need to pay attention to this perception. You are not overly sensitive, insecure, needy, and irrational all of the time. People tend to tell themselves these things so as to push their negative emotions away and avoid confronting the possibility that a relationship may not be sustainable. Instead of criticizing yourself for your feelings, take them seriously and try to directly talk with your partner. If your partner habitually dismisses you, rejects you or turns the tables by blaming you for your feelings, this is an indicator that this relationship may simply not be workable. Manipulation through guilting you, telling you are overly sensitive, needy and turning the tables are key signs of a toxic union.

2. Trust In Reliability: The basis of healthy love and friendship is believing people are going to do what they say they are going to do. It means something if your partner often leaves you hanging, shows up late or doesn’t show up at all. We all have off days or events come up that are out of our control, but most of the time your partner should be reliable. If you live with anxiety about what’s going to happen next or whether he/she is going to let you down, there is a major issue in your relationship. If you live off small crusts and crumbs of pleasure with your partner, then consider that this relationship may not have enough sustenance to keep you happy and healthy.

3. Trust In Intuition: Have you ever had a hunch about someone but then talked yourself out of it, only to later have your original hunch confirmed? So often when partnering up we want so badly to believe in a person or in love that we dismiss our intuition. We know something is off or not quite right about our new partner but choose to ignore or push away these insights in favor of getting swept up in romantic love. Sometimes people push their intuition away for years or even marry, only to eventually have it all come crashing down when they can no longer ignore what they have always known to be true. When you have a hunch that something is off with your partner, talk with him or her about it, but when you continue to have the same sense that something’s not quite right, don’t push your instincts away. Your intuition is telling you that this particular person may be a lemon and that it is time to discard.

4. Trust In Your Experiences: It means something important when most of the time you’re around your partner you feel ill at ease, uncomfortable or worried about tripping a switch to a fight. For things to be going well in your relationship, most of the time you should feel safe, at ease and comfortable with your partner and with bringing him/her around your friends and family. Remember when things start off poorly, they are unlikely to improve with time and hard work.

 

5. Trust Insecurity: Take full notice that you have a major issue if you feel insecure most of the time about how your romantic love feels about you or about what their level of commitment is to you. It’s not your fault when this insecurity wells up. Talk with your love about your feelings, your worries, your concerns and see if you feel better after this talk. You may have things you need to work on as an individual, but you should be able to talk with your partner about these things. Once your partner knows what the buttons are that make you insecure, he/she should not continue to push them. You should feel safe and secure with your love, not worried about if you are going to feel insecure in their presence.

Cutting Addiction: Why Do People Cut Themselves?

“In case you didn’t know, dead people don’t bleed. If you can bleed-see it, feel it-then you know you’re alive. It’s irrefutable, undeniable proof. Sometimes I just need a little reminder.”

Today, people stand proudly against being fat-shamed or slut-shamed, but it’s harder to find someone who will stand up and disclose their own cutting or other self-injury. Self-harm is one of the last things people feel ashamed of, despite it being far more widespread than you might suspect.

Cutting and self-harm can be a way of coping with problems. It may help you express feelings you can’t put into words, distract you from your life, or release emotional pain. Afterward, you probably feel better—at least for a little while. But then the painful feelings return, and you feel the urge to hurt yourself again. If you want to stop cutting or self-harming but don’t know how, remember this: you deserve to feel better, and you can get there without hurting yourself.

What is Self-Harm?

Self-harm is a way of expressing and dealing with deep distress and emotional pain. It includes anything you do to intentionally injure yourself. Some of the more common ways include:

• Cutting or severely scratching your skin
• Burning or scalding yourself
• Hitting yourself or banging your head
• Punching things or throwing your body against walls and hard objects
• Sticking objects into your skin
• Intentionally preventing wounds from healing
• Swallowing poisonous substances or inappropriate objects

Self-harm can also include less obvious ways of hurting yourself or putting yourself in danger, such as driving recklessly, binge drinking, taking too many drugs, and having unsafe sex.

Regardless of how you self-harm, injuring yourself is often the only way you know how to:

• Cope with feelings like sadness, self-loathing, emptiness, guilt, and rage
• Express feelings you can’t put into words or release the pain and tension you feel inside
• Feel in control, relieve guilt, or punish yourself
• Distract yourself from overwhelming emotions or difficult life circumstances
• Make you feel alive, or simply feel something, instead of feeling numb

But it’s important to know that there is help available if you want to stop. You can learn other ways to cope with everything that’s going on inside without having to hurt yourself.

The technical term for cutting is non-suicidal self-injury, and it’s defined as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction of body tissue. But keep in mind two important facts: first, cutters aren’t trying to kill themselves. By contrast, they often self-harm to feel alive rather than numb. Second, it’s“for purposes not socially sanctioned.” So, no matter how you feel about your daughter’s nose or belly button piercing, it doesn’t count as self-harm. But cutting, burning, carving words or symbols into one’s skin, painful hair-pulling, or literally banging one’s head against the wall certainly do count.

So what’s going on? To an outsider, self-harm may seem incomprehensible, even crazy, but if you go with the truism that each person copes as best as they can with the resources they have at the time, it might be a little easier to understand. With that, here are four reasons individuals self-injure:

Reason #1: Physical pain takes away emotional pain:- The physical pain of cutting not only diffuses negative emotion, but it also creates a sense of calm and relief. Because it works almost instantly, cutting is highly reinforcing—some even say addictive. Individuals who cut describe the sensation as an escape or a release of pressure, similar to how people suffering from bulimia describe purging.

Eventually, the brain starts to connect the relief from emotional pain with cutting. This creates a strong association, or even a craving, that can be difficult to resist. And while most people who self-injure do so for two to four years, there are many who continue on well beyond that time frame. The frequency of self-injury also varies; some do it daily, while others can go weeks, months, or even years between episodes.

Reason #2: People who cut are their own harshest critics:- A study asked college students who cut themselves, plus a control group of non-cutters, to keep a daily diary of their emotions for two weeks. The biggest difference between those who cut and those who didn’t? People who cut reported feeling dissatisfied with themselves much more often than non-cutters. This dissatisfaction manifested as harsh self-criticism. Indeed, anyone who self-injurers is really hard on themselves, and they sometimes carve their criticisms into their skin: “fat,” “stupid,” “failure.” Interestingly, a study showed that harsh self-criticism is most strongly related to self-harm, rather than other, more indirect forms of self-injury, like eating disorders, drinking or drug abuse.

Reason #3:  Cutting can be a way to stop feeling numb:- In particular, individuals with a trauma history may self-harm to take control of their own pain, and feel something other than numbness.

Reason #4: It’s an alternative outlet for emotional pain. Kids raised in a household where sadness, hurt, or disappointment gets invalidated or mocked start to believe that it’s not okay to feel bad. They turn to cut as an “acceptable” way to feel pain—if they’re not allowed to feel it emotionally, they’ll let it out physically.

In short, think of cutting and self-harm as any other unhealthy coping mechanism like getting drunk, binge eating, or getting high; it’s a way to feel something other than what you’re feeling, or it can be a way to punish yourself for not measuring up.

It goes without saying that cutting is dangerous. Even when suicide isn’t the intention, it’s all too easy to cut too deeply. In fact, individuals who cut know it’s unhealthy– they go to great lengths to hide their behavior, not to mention their scars.

How to Prevent Self-Harm:-

In a study, researchers asked people who formerly cut themselves why they stopped. There were many answers, but there were three big ones. First, almost 40 percent said that they stopped cutting when they came to realize that they could handle feeling crappy for a while and that they would probably feel better soon. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) stopped because they felt someone loved or cared for them—they may have entered a loving relationship or their friends made them feel worthy and cared for. And a full 27 percent said they simply grew out of it.

But if those things don’t come into your life, what are some concrete methods to stop?

First, it’s important to match the solution with the reason for cutting. If cutting is a way to feel deep dark emotions, experiment with ways to feel those emotions safely: listen to music that matches how you feel, have a good cry, or write out your thoughts in a journal, even if you just write page after page of profanity in big black letters. If cutting is a way to release tension, move your body—visit a boxing gym or go for a long, pounding run.

If channeling your pain into another activity doesn’t work, simulating cutting might help. It won’t be as satisfying, but it’s safer. Squeeze ice until your hands hurt or draw on your skin with a red marker instead of cutting it.

Finally, you can try to wait it out. It will be excruciating, especially at first, but the urge to cut will eventually pass. Promise yourself (or someone who loves you) that you’ll put at least 10 or 20 minutes, or however long you agree on, between the urge to cut and actually doing it.

Cutting can be notoriously difficult to stop on your own. If you’re struggling with self-injury, do the strong thing and reach out to a mental health professional for support, help, and accountability. No one should suffer such emotional pain they feel the need to self-injure; a good therapist can help you get back on track.

To wrap up, cutting can be a hard habit to break—that harsh inner critic is a  voice not easily silenced.  It will take time and courage, but know that that inner critic can slowly be edged out by something you didn’t even know you had: inner strength.

”The Year We Fell Apart And That’s Okay”

“Look for something positive each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.” 

Not because I don’t think it will be (because, okay, it will be). But because that’s not helpful to you where you’re standing right now. That’s a thing we say to each other when we can’t find any other words.

It will be fine. It will be okay. Everything will work out.

These are all real and true statements that apply to you, no matter where you stand. I have enough trust and faith for the both of us that everything you and I are walking through at this moment, we’re both going to come out the other side wiser and happier than we ever thought possible.

But the truth is, those words don’t help. Instead, they usually cut us on a level we didn’t know pleasant words of comfort had the ability to cut.

Because even if it’s true that it will be okay… it’s not okay right now, and sometimes that’s all we can see and feel and hear. Sometimes that’s all we can register inside our weary bodies.

It’s not okay that someone you loved is no longer living and breathing and giving their gifts and presence to this world. It’s not okay that everything is falling apart around you, that your world is imploding more and more every moment of every day. It’s not okay that the bank accounts are at zero, or possibly into the negative, with no sign of relief. It’s not okay that someone was nasty or cruel to you in ways that shattered your heart. It’s not okay that you’re exhausted to the point you can’t make it through a single day without curling into a sobbing ball on your kitchen floor. It’s not okay that you’re swimming in failure or shame or a grief like you’ve never known.

Whatever it is for you… it’s not okay right now.

So we tell each other it will be okay… because we don’t know what else to say, and we don’t know how to climb into the sh*t with someone and just hold their hand while they cry or scream or rage it out.

I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be okay:-That everything is going to work out.
I’m not going to tell you it will be fine or to buck up.
That you’ve got this and you’ll see it soon.

Instead, I’m going to tell you that I see your pain:- I understand how much it sucks right now. How your heart is heavy and your spirit is weary. How it’s taking everything you have just to get through the day. I see you. I feel you. I love you. I know… I get it, I really do. And I also know exactly how much willpower it takes to not punch someone in the face for telling you it will be okay. Especially when it feels like “being okay” is completely out of reach, no matter how hard you fight to find your footing and dig your way out of the darkness that’s nearly consuming you. I see your pain and I’m holding you in my heart with all the love I have to give. Because it’s okay that everything is not okay right now.

I’m going to tell you that you’re stronger than you know:-Because you are, my friend. You are powerful beyond measure whether you know it or not. You have a purpose and a contribution to this world that only you can make. I know it doesn’t feel like it when all you can do is find a way to get yourself out of bed each morning when the hours begin to weigh on your chest like a ton of bricks and breathing becomes more difficult the longer you’re forced to be awake and upright. But you’re doing it, love. It may not be at a rate or pace that you want, but you’re doing it. Just by getting out of bed and finding a way through the next moment that smacks you in the face. And you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.

I’m going to tell you that trust and faith go a long way:-I’ve never tried to pretend that trust and faith are easy. They’re not. Not even a little bit. But they are all we have when nothing is okay and everything is falling apart. They are all we have to make it through to what’s next. I say this from a place of walking through some seriously dark life chapters.

Chapters filled with depression that nearly killed me by my own hand, with being so broke that I owed the bank money and was being threatened with losing my house. Chapters that ripped someone from my life in the most abrupt and tragic way, and that have torn everything known and stable and secure from my hands. Somewhere along the lines, I found trust and faith, and I’ve never let go, regardless of the chaos around me. Trust and faith. It’s all we have, and they go a very long way when everything feels impossible.

I’m going to tell you that you’re not alone:-Even though I know it feels that way like you’re the only person in the history of the world who has experienced this much loss and pain and struggle. Even the happiest and successful people have been through some sh*t, or are probably walking through their own storms right now.

You’re not alone. You do not have to do this alone. If ever there was a thing that lifted me out of the depths of grief, it was being reminded that I wasn’t alone. That I didn’t have to do this alone. You, my friend, are not alone.

I’m going to tell you that I love you:-Because I do. Because you’re here and you’re having a bad day. Because you’re human and that makes you beautiful and messy and all things lovable.

”How I Stopped Feeling Trapped in a Life I Didn’t Want”

 

 

“Happiness is never found in materialistic things; it exists in things that cannot be physically possessed. Therefore, happiness is priceless. It can never be purchased.”

Money can’t buy you love. It can’t buy you happiness either.

Today’s materialistic world often urges us to buy the coolest gadgets, the trendiest clothes, bigger and better things, but research shows that possessions and purchases don’t buy us happiness.

So while we are being pushed towards materialism, it’s for monetary gain by corporations, not for our own happiness. Unfortunately, it’s hard to escape the trap of materialism, and find happiness in other ways than buying stuff online or finding joy in the mall.

But it’s possible. Here’s a guide to finding a materialism-free life and discovering true happiness.

Escaping Materialism
All around us, there are messages telling us to buy stuff. On the Internet (blogs included), we see continuous advertising trying to get us to purchase a product or service. It’s the main reason for television, and movies are continually made with products placed throughout, so that we aren’t always sure what is advertising and what was put in there by the director.

Flip on the radio or open up a newspaper or magazine, and you’re bombarded my more advertising. Go to a shopping center/mall, and the urge to buy comes from every direction.

This message to continually buy, buy, buy … and that it will somehow make us happpier … is drilled into our heads from the days of Happy Meals and cartoons until the day we die. It’s inescapable.

Well, almost. You could go and live in a cabin in the woods (and that actually sounds nice), or you could still live in our modern society, but find ways to escape materialism.

 

Here are some suggestions:

• Limit television. Do you really enjoy watching TV for hours? Think about which shows you really, really love, and only watch during that time. When the commercials come on, go do something else. Or use Tivo to watch TV. You can even give up cable TV entirely, if you’re brave — I have, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.
• Eschew the news. Journalists will never tell you this, but if they’re completely honest, they’ll confess that the most important part of any news company, from TV or radio news to Internet or print new, is the advertising division. It’s the division that pays the paychecks of the rest of the company. The news is important in driving traffic to the advertising. So when you’re watching or reading news, you’re really being sucked in to advertising. Try this instead: boycott the news for a week. I’ve done it for about two years, and it hasn’t hurt me a bit. In fact, it’s helped me a lot.
• Limit Internet reading. I’m not saying you should cancel your cable Internet subscription or anything. I love reading blogs. But find just those that you truly love reading, that give you the most value, and limit your reading to those. And just do it once a day, for 30 minutes or so. If you can do that, you’ve gone a long way towards tearing yourself away from advertising.
• Give up magazines for books. Magazines are also designed with advertising in mind. And they rarely give you much value. Try reading an ad-free book instead. It’s a much better use of your time.
• Don’t go to the mall or Walmart. The only purpose of these places is for you to spend money. If you just want a place to spend your Saturday afternoon, find a place where you don’t need to spend money to have fun — a park or a beach, for example. If you need to buy something, go to a single store (not the mall) and go in and get what you need. Don’t browse and walk around looking at stuff. You’ll get sucked in.
• Monitor your urges. When you’re online, or watching TV, or at a store, keep track of the number of times you want to buy something. Keep a little notebook or index card, and just put tally marks. Once you become more aware of your urges to buy things, you can start to control them. If you could control them, limiting your consumption of media (see above tips) isn’t really necessary — although I would argue that it still gives you a better quality of life.
• Use a 30-day list. If you still really want to buy something, put it on a list, and write down the date you added the item to the list. Now tell yourself you cannot buy that item for 30 days. It might be difficult, but you can do it. When the 30 days have passed, if you still want it, then buy it. But you can’t buy anything (besides essentials like groceries) without putting it on the list for 30 days first. Many times, our urges to buy something will pass during this waiting period.
• Declutter. I find it pretty amazing to see all the crap I buy over a period of years, when I go through my closets and other possessions and start getting rid of stuff I don’t use or want anymore. It’s a gratifying process, and at the same time, it makes me realize how useless all our consumer shopping is. I don’t need any of the stuff! When you do this, you may be less likely to buy more stuff. Especially if you enjoy the decluttered look of your house as much as I do.
• Find other forms of entertainment. There are other things to do besides watch TV or movies or read magazines or newspapers or the Internet. Try playing sports or exercising, or playing board games or creating art or writing or reading a book. Try doing fun things with your kids or visiting relatives and other loved ones. Try volunteering with a charity. I’m sure you could come up with 100 free or cheap things to do.
• Buy used. When you get the urge to buy something, and you’re convinced that it’s needed, try finding it used instead of new. Look in thrift shops or garage sales or flea markets or similar places.

 

A True Path to Happiness
So, if you’re able to escape materialism, how can you find true happiness? There are many ways, and each of us is different, but here are some things I suggest trying:

• Grateful list. Make a list of things about which you’re grateful in your life. Give thanks for them daily.
• Think positive. Try eliminating negative thinking from your life, and thinking positive instead.
• Small pleasures. Make a list of small things that give you great pleasure. Sprinkle them throughout your day. Notice other small pleasures as you go through your day.
• Kindness. Practice random acts of kindness and compassion. Do it anonymously. Help those in need. Volunteer. Make someone smile.
• Love. Make an intimate connection with your loved ones. Develop your friendships. Spend time with them, converse, understand them, make them happy.
• Health. Exercise and eat healthy — it sounds trite, but it can bring great happiness to your life.
• Meaning. It’s often useful to find meaning, either through a church or spiritual way, or through those we love in life or through the things we’re passionate about. Give yourself a purpose.
• Flow. Eliminate distractions, and really pour yourself into whatever you’re doing. If it’s writing an article, like this one, really put yourself into it, until you forget the outside world.
• Know yourself. Become attuned to what brings you happiness. Study yourself. Learn about what you love, and about your ability to love. Increase your capacity for compassion.

”Banish Your Guilt Demons”

I feel like I don’t deserve to be here because I let everyone down. I just want to slink into a corner and keep my eyes on the floor…Or maybe just quit and go home? I even feel guilty about feeling guilty!

For many of us, guilt is like a certain kind of old friend — someone whom we willingly let in the door, and then can’t kick out.

Guilt shows up when we act in a way that doesn’t sync with our goals and values — whether procrastinating, or breaking a promise, or taking credit for someone else’s work. At its best, guilt acts like a moral compass, prompting us to reflect on what we’re doing (or not doing), and then make constructive change.

But when guilt settles in for the long haul, serving up daily helpings of blame and shame without adding anything constructive to the mix, we find ourselves living with a parasite. Guilt shadows the good things in our lives. It whittles down our energy and self-worth. That’s when we begin cheating ourselves of our personal dreams and needs. We make a habit of putting ourselves second, feeding our guilt, and starving our self-esteem — making it harder and harder to be our fullest, brightest, most creative selves.

There are three common forms of guilt that can rob us from living fully — if we let it. Instead, let’s kick out the guilt, rather than repeatedly kick ourselves. Here are some ways to start.

THE GUILTY-PLEASURE PARADOX
“Guilt-free” is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot: guilt-free TV, guilt-free desserts, guilt-free shopping… It seems that wherever there’s pleasure involved, there’s guilt to be had. We often don’t allow ourselves to do what we want because we believe we haven’t earned it. And, even when we do say yes, that guilty little voice in our heads spoils the fun of a nightcap at the close of a hard day, or that beach getaway with friends.

Ironically, research shows that guilt is a pretty ineffective way to control behavior. In a 2013 study published in Appetite, psychologists found that people who linked chocolate cake with guilt rather than with celebration had more trouble losing and maintaining weight. Instead of acting as a positive motivating force, guilt actually leads to feelings of helplessness and lack of control.

While it’s healthy to have rules for responsible behavior — a glass of wine with dinner is one thing; a bottle of wine is another — unrealistic expectations of never ever indulging set you up for failure. And a dull life.

Try these tips:

1. Let go of borrowed beliefs. If you feel that something you want to do is undeserved, ask yourself who said so. Does society say that it’s wrong? Your mom? Your childhood baseball coach? Then ask yourself what you believe — and respect your own judgment.

2. Calculate the consequences. What’s the fallout if you indulge? And what can you do to mitigate it? For example, if the consequence of ordering dessert is falling off your diet wagon, how can you counterbalance it? A morning trip to the gym, perhaps? (Although you probably don’t want to make this a habit.)

THE TRAP OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE

A guilty conscience can be your personal Alcatraz — rocky, labyrinthine, and impossible to escape. But punishing yourself with thoughts of what a terrible person you are doesn’t help you make amends for that terrible (or perhaps not-so-terrible) thing you did. Instead, it makes you self-absorbed and self-protective. You stop putting your best foot forward — cheating not only yourself, but other people in your life.

The thing is, guilt without behavior change is a cop-out. If you did something wrong — even if the victim is no one but yourself — acknowledge it, try to repair the damage, and commit to not doing it again. Once you emancipate yourself from your guilty slammer, your world will get brighter and fuller with possibility.

3. Forgive yourself. Okay, so you did something you’re not proud of. That’s part of being human, but it doesn’t define who you are. Forgiving yourself requires new perspectives. Talking through your guilt with someone else often lightens the burden. When you speak your thoughts out loud it usually removes much of the sting — though it may not happen in a single conversation. You might also try talking to yourself as if you were another person. What would you say to someone else who is in your position?

4. Break up with your guilt. Once you’ve made honest efforts to make amends, box up your guilt up and get rid of it. Try creating some kind of ritual that helps you divorce your guilt — such as writing a positive affirmation or letter to yourself, or burning or throwing away a physical artifact that represents your feelings of shame.

THE GUILT-INDUCING MYTH OF PERFECTION
The bogeyman of perfection plagues us throughout our lives, and guilt (perfection’s enfant terrible) rears its ugly head when we fall short of what we think we ought to be — whether it’s the woman who “has it all” or the straight-A student obsessed with the highest score.

Often, this guilt is shaped by fear of disappointing others: You’re a rotten parent because you missed a school play; you’re a bad friend because you forgot a birthday; you don’t deserve to be happy because your traditional-minded family says you make poor choices…Every time you fall short of the impossible, you beat yourself up a little more.

To lessen the loathing, try to shift your thinking to what’s truly achievable — the tips in last week’s Unstuck post “The secret to work-life balance” can help — and create tactical ways to juggle and prioritize life’s many demands. Because when guilt leads, you try to please everyone, ironically, you please no one — particularly yourself.

5. Mute the peanut gallery. When you feel lessened by guilt because you couldn’t do everything perfectly, replace the negative voice with a positive one; for example, instead of “I served dinner 15 minutes late,” shift to “I spent extra time getting the sauce perfect, and I know my friends will really appreciate that.”

6. Own your failures. Mistakes only diminish us when we don’t learn from them. Use our Failure Analysis Checklistto reflect on what went wrong, and to surface important lessons that will help you prevent the situation from happening again. The mistakes we make can make us wiser, smarter, and more compassionate — but only when we stop palling around with guilt and embrace constructive change.