Well over a decade ago, I was playing an in an adult softball league and I hit an infield ball and took off towards first base. In this particular league, we did not wear helmets which the shortsightedness of suddenly came into full view when the third baseman, in an attempt to throw me out at first base, hit me in the head with the softball promptly knocking me out cold. Nothing like a good faceplant and sliding into home unconscious to really stoke one’s ego.

As I came to and I was escorted back to the dugout, I was overcome with all of these emotions bubbling beneath me wanting to come out. I was embarrassed, I was in shock, I had adrenaline rushing through me, and yes, my head was a bit sore. The only thing I wanted to do at that moment, was burst into tears and let all of the emotions out. I wasn’t in pain so much as I was just overcome with all these warring emotions that wanted to burst out of me in an hurricane of tears. But the junior high little girl in me that had been told not to cry and that everything was OK held back those tears and pushed all of the energy back down into my body.

I remember that moment so distinctly because the desire to burst into tears were so palpable but also the desire not to cry was also incredibly persuasive. I didn’t want people to judge me. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I didn’t want people to think I was a baby.

I think about that experience a lot and wonder: when did it become so wrong for us to experience emotions?

I see the origins of my own experience and watching other children participate in sporting activities. When someone falls and hurts themselves or skins a knee, one of the first things people around them say is, “You’re OK. It’s fine. Everything, is fine. Don’t cry.”

Why do we do that?
Does it make us a lesser human being to experience those emotions? Why are negative emotions “embarrassing”?

There are a lot of reasons why we feel like we need to hide our emotions. Sometimes, just to get through the day, we tell ourselves that we can deal with our emotions later, or that those feelings aren’t worth exploring, or we hide them because we think it will make the relationship easier – I don’t want to tell this person I’m mad at them because it will upset our dynamic and cause more trouble than it’s worth. When we bottle up those emotions, it feels safer than experiencing them. What’s more, it allows us to “maintain” a façade of perfection and unflappability.

Implicitly, we prefer to show up as unfeeling Stepfords as opposed to humans with a full range
of emotions.

But simply because we don’t let the tears fall or let our anger escape, it doesn’t change the fact that those emotions are there raging below the surface. Wouldn’t it be better for our physical and energetic bodies just to simply release the energy in tears?

Is it really good for our bodies to lock down all of that energy and keep it stifled within ourselves and to not honor what we’re actually experiencing? A good cry can be cathartic and letting that energy escape and honoring our experience can be incredibly empowering. Unfortunately, the embarrassment that often accompanies emotional expression, even in private, is a social construct and something that we were taught over time.

It’s not just about whether we show emotions in the middle of a difficult work confrontation, but more importantly are we aware that those emotions NEED to be released and honored at some point? That choosing to hide them while at work is one thing but choosing to ignore them in your own solitude is another.

Many of the professionals I work with have a lot of discomfort around showing emotion and processing negative emotions. In honor of that discomfort they gravitate toward perfectionism and people pleasing — because if we are perfect, and keep everyone happy, we never have to experience the pain that comes from failing or disappointing others, or the discomfort of vulnerability. Overtime, this can be incredibly isolating and lead to the belief that others just don’t “get” you (after all, how can anyone truly understand you if you continually hide your truth?) and that breeds anger and resentment which only further isolates us.

Not only is this ultimately detrimental to our relationships — because we end up hiding who we really are, walking on egg shells so as not to upset anyone — but it is also detrimental to our bodies. There is evidence that bottling up emotions can manifest in physical
stress and even disease. If we can think about emotions simply as energy bouncing around in side of our bodies, it can be easier to understand why it’s essential to honor that energy and allow it to move through us as opposed to bottling it up. If our emotions are simply energy, when we bottle them up, aren’t we simply putting a lid on an already boiling pot of water? Aren’t we further ensuring that the pot WILL boil over at some point and likely cause even more damage to its surroundings? Wouldn’t it be better to remove the pot from the stove and let that energy run its course? When we think of emotions as energy, it becomes easier to imagine the damage that energy can do it left to continually build pressure within our bodies. In that context, we can understand why bottling up those emotions never resolves them, it simply forces them to build more energy until we completely boil over. Consider what impact that bottled energy has on your body and nervous system.

Our emotions are a signpost to what is happening in our lives. They are the purest means to find your true north and connect with what you are really thinking about the events in your life. It’s not about being “emotional,” it’s about letting those emotions plug you in to your deepest thoughts. If we could see those negative emotions that pop up during the day as signposts for life, would we continue to bury them and their roots?  Would we strive so hard to be perfectionist and to please others if we were perfectly comfortable experiencing the full range of emotions?

The next time, you feel challenged by negative emotions during your day — anger, resentment, sadness, disappointment — ask yourself what those emotions are trying to show you about your experience. Consider making time to explore them instead of ignoring them. What impact would that have on your relationships and even your physical health?

The only way to truly succeed in the legal industry is to develop a deeper understanding of your brain and your emotions. Through that work, we are able to understand and dismantle the cycle of meltdowns and fully take control over our success. Join us. It all starts with a free consult.

Photo by cottonbro studio

How am I going to get all this done?! Where do I even start?! Why is there a random meeting in the MIDDLE of my afternoon? How can I get anything done if I’m ALWAYS IN MEETINGS?!

As I was thinking through the items on my calendar, I realized that this particular meeting was one that I could potentially cancel. I realized that the issue at hand was one that had been resolved by another team over email several weeks prior. So I emailed the meeting attendees the prior correspondence and indicated that I did not believe our meeting would offer anything in addition to the items already discussed and resolved in the correspondence I re-shared with them.

Sweet relief rushed in — I have more time to actually accomplish something today! I stood up for myself and my time. Job. Well. Done!

I should note that one of the individual that called the meeting was known for being a little bit persnickety and had a reputation for being a bit of an overthinker. Regardless, I felt good about my reasoning and my plan of attack and felt strongly that the meeting was no longer necessary given that the impacted parties had already resolved the legal issue.

As most of you have probably already guessed it, shortly after my emancipation request, the meeting organizer responded confirming their desire to continue with the meeting. They felt that there were underlying business considerations they wanted to make a case for.

Immediately I felt my chest and face flush and my blood pressure rising. As legal counsel, there was no need for me to be involved in any rambling meetings about business rationale and business decisions!!

From my point of view I was simply the wrong party to play audience to these requests and I was busy, GDI! Stop wasting my time!

I found myself railing against them in my head and imagining how this meeting was going to play out — them making their case, me sitting there annoyed, arguing with them in my head and anxiously awaiting my opportunity to shut down the meeting and end it as early as possible. I could see myself politely informing them that I was not the proper party to be hearing these business concerns but rather it would make more sense to have other business team members in the discussion.

This all occurred in the first 10 minutes of my day… So there I was hoping for a productive day yet boiling in frustration before anything had began.

I realized in that moment that the reason I was dreading the meeting was because I knew how frustrated I was going to be as I sat there and endured the discussion. I was making this 30 minute meeting into something monstrous and unbearable. Thirty minutes of my life! That was all they were asking. The amount of energy I was wasting fuming over this innocuous exchange was almost laughable! If I had directed that energy to my real work, I could have checked everything off my to do list already!

Furthermore, whether or not that meeting drove me crazy or not was completely within my control. As I felt my blood pressure rising and spinning about WTH I do this job, I realized that I could let this exchange sour my entire day or I could take my power back. I could decide that I would attend the meeting that had become an inevitability and I could show up with curiosity and observe what they had to say and be prepared to have an open mind. I could decide not to let a 30-minute meeting that I could not reschedule ruin my day.

If this resonates with you and you find yourself vacillating between frustration and irritation all day long, schedule some time to visit with me and let’s see if we can get some tools in place to move away from frustration and start taking control of your emotions and your career. Life is so much more fun when you do!

The power to be annoyed and irritated with the meeting and its organizer was 100% within my control. I soon realized that there was no need to be frustrated and let this simple exchange turn a day full of opportunity into a day full of irritation.

I resolved that I would stop thinking about the meeting and view it as another opportunity to learn from those around me and be open to the possibility that just maybe there was something useful to the client that would come out of this discussion. If nothing more, it would afford me the opportunity to observe myself and take control of my mind and the drama that it was offering me. And that is always time well spent.

Besides, if an annoying 30-minute meeting was as “bad” as my day was going to get, I would take it. In the grand scheme of yin and yang, if this meeting was my “darkness,” life really wasn’t so bad after all.

Photo by Yan Krukau

Many of the things we do (or don’t do) in our lives are because we are chasing (or avoiding) a feeling.

We get married because we want to be happy. We don’t volunteer to speak up because we don’t want to feel embarrassed. We don’t ask for more money because we don’t want feel ashamed if they say no.

We spend a significant amount of energy in our lives calculating how certain events may or may not make us feel and we then choose to act based upon those estimates. It seems logically self-protecting. Why would we set ourselves up for a failure or embarrassment? Why would we take any action that would make us feel terrible?

This recently came up when I had a client tell me how she blew an important deadline. She was overloaded and low on sleep and it just slipped her mind. Despite the fact that is wasn’t a career-ending mistake and was completely salvageable, my client felt terrible. She was overcome with disappointment in herself — I should have been more organized, this shouldn’t have happened, I let everyone down. She explained to me that, in the days that followed, she just kept trying to shift her thoughts to a “better” thought. To one that didn’t make her feel so terrible, but it just wouldn’t stick.

The problem was that my client was resisting her feelings of disappointment. She was trying to cover them up by manufacturing prettier thoughts. She was running away from that experience and, not surprisingly, it wasn’t working.

Why? Because she was disappointed. She didn’t want to feel good about her oversight. The truth was that she WANTED to feel disappointed (but she didn’t really want to FEEL disappointed). She didn’t want to feel good about it but she didn’t really want to experience the disappointment either.

Whenever we have an experience that we don’t want to feel good about, we cannot give in to the temptation to try and cover it up. We must allow the feeling of disappointment to be there. To run its course. We can’t try and cover up the 50% of our life experiences that aren’t sunshine and roses.

There will be hard days and we cannot simply write off half of our lives.

Half of the time it’s going to be hard and painful. We have to practice accepting that. We also have to practice processing emotions.

When we resist negative emotions and try to bury them with better feelings, the negative feelings simmer below the surface and compound. They will eventually make their way to the surface. It might not be today but it will likely be at some inappropriate time–when you are stuck in traffic on the way to meet a friend for happy hour and you burst into tears….when your spouse asks you what time you will be home for dinner and you bite his face off.

Those feelings will find a way to get out and whomever is on the receiving end likely doesn’t deserve it.

Aside from the fact that resisting those emotions is futile, there is a practical reason for allowing yourself to feel the disappointment. If we don’t accept that negative 50% of our emotional experience, we never get good and experiencing those emotions and moving on. Instead, we create patterns where we resist and avoid those emotions so we start to believe that we can’t handle them.

When we spend our whole lives avoiding those negative vibes, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn how to experience them. To learn that they won’t kill us. To learn that we can experience those emotions and keep moving. Think of it as emotional aversion therapy — we have a hang out with those emotions so we are no longer afraid of them.

When we create a pattern where we fear those emotions, we spend our lives trying to avoid them. It makes perfect sense that we would avoid those emotions that aren’t familiar and that we don’t understand. Of course, they would seem scary! But what if you could explore and come to intimately understand those emotions? What if those emotions were no longer so scary?

Consider what you would do with your life if you weren’t afraid to feel embarrassed? What would be different? What would you accomplish?

As I mentioned at the outset, we spend our entire lives taking actions or not taking actions because we are chasing or avoiding certain feelings. Those feelings are just vibrations in your body. They won’t hurt you. They are created by your thoughts and you have complete agency over those thoughts. But rather than using your brain to try and erase negative emotions, what if we allowed ourselves to experience negative emotions when it is warranted? What if we became practiced and comfortable with those emotions we typically avoid? Then our lives become a series of actions we take simply because we want to; because we know that whatever the outcome, whatever the feeling or negative result, it doesn’t matter because we have no reason to avoid it.

Allow yourself to experience the 50/50 that is our lives. What other choice do you have?!

As attorneys, I know that some days, weeks, and months can feel more like 80% negative and 20% positive. If you need help working through the yin and yang of your life, set up some time to get some free coaching. What do you have to lose?

Photo by Alex on Unsplash

One of the drawbacks of living in a society where everyone is so interconnected and everyone’s lives are constantly on display, is that it blurs the lines of reality.

If a Martian were to observe our society solely through the lens of Instagram or Facebook, they would believe that all humans are incredibly beautiful, happy, and blessed. They would believe that on our planet, we have wide variety of products that we can buy to solve all of our problems: products that will make our bodies beautiful and thin, our bank accounts fat, and our love life abundant.

Not only do these outlets influence our beliefs about ourselves but they perpetuate the belief that we should be happy all the time. If we are not happy all the time, we are out of the norm. Think about it — anytime we see someone who is visibly sad, our question to them is invariably:

What’s WRONG?

As if being unhappy in any moment means that something is wrong with you. Something must be fixed. In fact, you can probably throw some money at that unhappiness and “fix” it.

When we buy into the notion that we are supposed to be happy all the time, we freak out anytime we are not happy. We don’t know what to do with those emotions so we avoid them, we resist them, or we react to them. We get into a mad scramble to get rid of them ASAP.

For some people, negative emotions means that someone has done something to them. Someone else is to blame. They lash out with anger and defensiveness which seem much more productive and valid than feeling guilt or shame. Instead of recognizing their role in anything and feeling shame, they reject that emotion. They reject the idea that they are faulty and lash out at those around them. They react to the negative emotions in a way that creates more negative ripples in their life.

They REACT to and RESIST negative emotion and in turn just amplify their problems.

Others spend most of their time avoiding the negative emotions. They reach for anything they can to self soothe and dull the emotion. Bad day at work? Feeling like a failure? Go for that extra glass of wine and a piece of chocolate cake. You deserve it. You’ve had a bad day.

They AVOID negative emotions and bury them in substances or actions that generate dopamine. This eventually creates more problems (excess weight, overdrinking, overspending etc.)

We’ve all been guilty of an impulse splurge.

But what is really at work is our desire to NOT feel those negative emotions of shame, self-doubt, or fear.

Instead of experiencing them, we bury them in dopamine hits from sugar, alcohol, shopping, sex, whatever. Or we throw the negative back at those around us — they are the problem, not us.

This approach only works for brief periods of time. Like a boomerang or a beachball held under water, eventually both will gain force and resurface even stronger.

Once we are done with our little excursion of avoidance, those emotions are right there waiting for us.

Only now they are stronger because we have over-consumed, gained weight, feel hungover, made poor decisions, etc. and we have to face those consequences ON TOP of the negative emotions we were trying to avoid.

Around and around we go ultimately only increasing our negative experience through out acts of avoidance, resistance and reaction.

I recently had a free mini-session with a client who believed she was “fine”. No problems, no negative emotions to deal with. Every time we identified a negative thought and tried to discuss the associated emotion, she would immediately shift and offer the other pretty thoughts she was thinking instead. She immediately shifted to positivity any time a negative emotion came up:

I’m not always thinking I’m a horrible person and a failure, it just pops into my mind sometimes. I really think I’m a pretty good person.

Then, two weeks after our first session she had a complete burnt out meltdown. She fell into a black hole and eventually had to take time off work to regroup.

She had spent so much of her energy ignoring all her nagging, self-judging thoughts and suppressing the associated emotions, that eventually it blew up in her face.

It is not sustainable to paint over the ugly parts of our feelings and just pretend like they are not there. 

Now my work with her focuses on examining those negative emotions and thoughts and truly processing them rather than resisting them.

The point is that our lives are supposed to be an equal balance of positive and negative. Good emotions and bad emotions.

We know we are happy because we have experienced the emotion of sad. We know we are excited because we understand how it feels to dread something.

If we don’t open ourselves up to experiencing the negative, we can’t ever truly understand and appreciate the positive.

When we convince ourselves that we are supposed to be happy 100% of the time, we set ourselves up for failure. We set ourselves up to avoid, react to, or resist our negative emotions to “fix” them. In the end, all of those approaches only serve to make us more miserable! None of them resolve anything. They simply magnify the misery in the long run.

What I offer as a solution is to simply co-exist with negative emotions and understand that they are a part of the human experience.

Be open to experiencing all that is available to us in this life — the good and the bad.

If we can stop freaking out every time we have a negative emotion and we can simply experience it, it will diminish in power and eventually will pass. We can adjust our thinking to stop spinning in toxic thoughts.

Fully experiencing the bad days is so much more productive and easier than patching up the relationships we destroy when we react with blame and anger or losing the 15 pounds we gain when we avoid emotions through food or other outlets.

Recognize how you are handing your negative emotions and ask yourself: What is the worst that could happen if I just experienced this disappointment right now?

After all, it’s just a vibration in your body.

Whenever you catch yourself reaching for the chocolate cake or buying needlessly on Amazon, examine your predominant thought and emotion. Are you trying to make yourself “feel better”? How is that working out for your waistline and your bank account? What is you just experienced the emotion and journal about it instead of eating or shopping?

I spend a significant amount of my time supporting my clients to process their negative emotions and examine the impact their choices to resist/react/avoid are having on their lives and I challenge you to do the same.

The process isn’t hard, it’s what you discover once you start doing the work that might surprise you.

Photo by Austin Guevara from Pexels

Whenever we experience a negative emotion we can take comfort in knowing that it is simply a part of life. That negative emotion allows us to fully experience the positive emotion and vice versa.

If we were happy all the time, we wouldn’t have the reference point to identify the emotion of happiness. To experience happiness,  you must also have an understanding of sadness.

On it’s face this is not a wild proposition.

But whenever we have a “bad day”, whenever we are feeling less than, this notion goes out the window.

In those moments, most humans look for something outside of themselves to feel better.

Ever reached for a glass of wine (or two) after a “really long day” to “take the edge off” or “wind down”? Ever plow through that whole package of Oreos because you were feeling lonely on a Friday night?

Those actions are intended to bury that negative emotion. It is our attempt to buffer the negative feelings of loneliness or disappointment. We may even be consciously thinking, “A glass of wine will make me feel better,” or “having a piece of cake will cheer me up.”

The problem with buffering is twofold:

once that cake is gone, the feeling will still be there.

Furthermore, this pattern will create only more negative emotion when your clothes fit a bit more snugly or the mirror reminds you that you aren’t happy with your body.

Buffering only leads to more negative emotion. Naturally, we attempt to buffer that emotion and on and on the cycle goes.

We are not taught as children to take ownership of our feelings. We are not taught to experience negative emotions as a part of life.

As children, we are often asked “Did so-and-so hurt your feelings?” “Let’s make you feel better. How about some ice cream…or a new toy?”

It’s completely acceptable in our society to believe that other people “cause” our feelings and that when we feel badly, we need to “fix it” (typically with external things).

It’s no wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this country and offices filled with people who drink too much, shop too much, or indulge in other unhealthy ways.

I support my clients to develop habits of acknowledging and fully allowing negative emotions. Had a “bad day” at the office? How about owning it and recognizing that you feel disappointed and frustrated and just experiencing those emotions?

When your life offers you the “bad” part of the 50/50, just take it and experience it.

Rather than drinking too much wine or eating too much cake and paying for that tomorrow or later on the scale, we work to recognize the yin and yang and life and allow ourselves to experience the darker side of life.

Negative feelings are like your childhood boogey man.

In the dark they seem so threatening and we are paralyzed with fear. We just want them to go away! But when we flip on the light switch we can see that it was just a coat rack and there is nothing to be afraid of.

Similarly, when we run and hide from negative emotions through buffering, they will always seem scary, like something we should avoid and cover up. When we can shine the light on our negative emotions and allow them to pass through us, they quickly fade.

By continuing to allow yourself to experience negative emotions, you no longer have to buffer. The fear of those emotions diminishes.

Imagine what you could do with your life if you were never afraid to experience fear, loneliness, sadness, inadequately, or guilt? How freeing that must be.

Are you buffering negative emotions with food, alcohol, shopping, etc.?

How would your life be different if you were able to eliminate over-drinking, over-eating or over-shopping?

What negative emotion are you covering up? Let’s find out. You might be surprised.

Last month, most of our children were in school. We were at work…in an office…wearing grown-up clothes…with other humans. We didn’t second-guess our toilet paper usage. We planned vacations. We didn’t obsessively track the stock market.

Life has dramatically changed for all of us.

People are scared and feeling lost.

Binging on Netflix

Drinking too much wine

Avoiding work

Ignoring your diet

Skipping workouts

Eating all the ice cream in the house

Any of these sound familiar?

We are struggling. We are gaining weight, we are ignoring our best laid plans, we are skipping workouts, overeating, overdrinking and feeling blah.

Lately, my clients have been coming to me and they want help to stop these behaviors. They want to work on getting focused and motivated. They are pissed at themselves for “falling apart…falling off the wagon…letting themselves go” they are irritated that they aren’t sticking to their plans, that they are unwinding everything they had been working for, why can’t they get it together, GDI!?

As a coach, my job is not to help you learn how to control yourself. My job is to help you understand yourself.

When you are busy beating yourself up and trying to force yourself or guilt yourself to change or stop eating all the things, you are ignoring the dis-ease. You are focusing on the symptom.

In order to truly stop these behaviors, you have to stop berating yourself and look at what is really going on!

Are you avoiding work because you are afraid you are going to lose your job so your work today won’t matter?

Are you drinking that bottle of wine because it feels good and you’re scared about what will happen to your aging parents?

Maybe you are skipping your workouts because you just don’t care how you will look in a bathing suit during quarantine? It’s not like you will be going on vacation anytime soon!!

Are you binging on Netflix because it allows you to escape the news and ignore what’s going on outside?

Would you yell at your best friend for diving into a box of Oreos after a horrible breakup? Of course not! You would empathize with her. You would love her. You would understand why she was feeling terrible. You would be compassionate about her efforts to self-soothe. The last thing you would do is tell her she needs to stop it immediately and explain to her how she was ruining her diet and needs to get it together.

Extend that same compassion to yourself.

Life is getting real right now and it’s kinda scary.

Instead of getting angry at yourself because you are not acting like you are “supposed to”, explore what is really going on. What are you thinking when you turn off the work computer and zone out on Netflix? What is going through your head when you decide to bake that cake?–for yourself, of course.

We are all experiencing some pretty ugly thoughts these days.

What if my parents get sick and I can’t be there with them?

What if we have to quarantine for several more months?

What if we run out of diapers?

What if I get sick?

What if I die?

What if I lose my job?

You have every right to be afraid and upset and worried. Stop beating yourself up for trying to feel better. Stop being such a harsh critic.

It’s okay to be scared and it’s okay to worry about what our future holds. It’s okay that you are grasping at straws to self-soothe. That is human nature.

Life is meant to be 50/50. We are living in the 50% that sucks. Pure and simple. Stop trying to talk yourself out of feeling those rotten feelings. You are a human. That is part of the deal.

Recognize that you are struggling and have some compassion for yourself.

Once you can see how your actions are merely attempts to make yourself feel better and to buffer the discomfort, you can start considering how to shift out of those thoughts and create a new result for yourself.

You can start recognizing when you are feeling freaked out and seeing how your biological reaction is to seek pleasure and soothe yourself. Once you see that, you can start looking for other outlets for those emotions. You can’t do that when you are busy telling yourself you are a terrible person for eating all the Doritos!

The bottom line is that beating yourself up for acting out during times of grief and panic is counter-productive. Have some compassion for yourself. Just as you would do with your friend: let yourself have a good cry, a good ice cream binge, a night on the couch. Recognize the feelings driving those actions, then gently work with yourself to find a healthier outlet for those emotions.

The goal is not to find a solution to erase those feelings. The goal is to recognize that those feelings are PART OF LIFE. They are okay. And it is okay to experience them. They won’t kill you.

You can keep moving forward while feeling all the feels. That is how life works.

See the emotions fueling your destructive behaviors. Acknowledge them. Experience them. Learn to make better choices, despite the feels. Carry those worries with you but keep. moving. forward. consciously.

Now more than ever, people need support. If you need additional support, schedule a free session, I would love to help you move through this chaos.

You have a job that pays the bills. You have a home. You are healthy. You have family and friends who care about you.

Despite seemingly having all the ingredients to live a satisfied life, you just can’t seem to find happiness.

It always feels like something is missing or you catch yourself constantly wondering is this it?

Most of the women that I work with come to me to work on this very issue. They want to be happier, they want to feel better.

They believe that I can help them complete a task of some sort that will lead them to the elusive happy-land they have been seeking.

Unfortunately, when we learn to understand why we feel the way we do, we also come to realize that there is nothing that I can do to make you happier.

There is nothing anyone can do to make you happier.

You are going to have to go this one alone.

In our society, so many people blame their unhappiness on things outside of themselves:

I’m unhappy because I hate my job.

If my spouse was more affectionate, I would be happier.

I’m unhappy because I don’t make enough money.

I’m unhappy because I’m always broke.

Circumstances outside of us have no way of imparting feelings upon us. There are no magic feeling zappers that other people use to control how we are feeling. People cannot reach out and inscribe emotions onto your brain.

Your feelings are created by your thoughts and the often-times nasty things swirling around in your head.

If you are unhappy, it might be because you spend 99% of your time thinking about how much you hate your job, or how your partner isn’t good enough, or you don’t have enough money. Those thoughts feel terrible.

Those thoughts will never create happiness.

People are so incredibly wed to this notion that circumstances create our feelings. When I explain this concept, they get so defensive. They want to tell me how terrible their boss is or how broke they really are, because once I really understand their circumstances, I will get it. Then I will see that their bank account balance is what is making them unhappy.

Nope. Your bank account balance is just a circumstance. When you see that balance and think how am I going to pay the bills, that thought is what is creating unhappiness. That thought only leads to worry and a whole parade of terrible emotions, insecurities and does not create any good results.

If circumstances were able to change the way we felt, then we would all feel the same way about your bank account balance. But we don’t. There are undoubtedly people on this planet who would see your bank account and think wow, that’s a lot of money or I wish my account was that big. They might feel jealous or envious of your bank account based upon the thoughts that come up for them. The point is, the circumstance is neutral. Your thoughts about it create your emotions.

The same is true for happiness. If you want to be happier in your life, take a look at the thoughts you are carrying with you. Do those thoughts invoke happiness?

If your thoughts are breeding negativity and pain, it’s important first to understand that your brain is just running some old patterns, rinsing and repeating thoughts it is comfortable with. That is what brains do—they want the easy route, the neural pathways that they know and are good at running.

Second, try to shift how you are viewing and characterizing the circumstance. Instead of agonizing over the job you hate, consider thinking I am a good employee and you are going to miss me when I’m gone or I am using this opportunity to learn how to use my voice or this job is a stepping stone to get me one stop closer to my dream job.

I call this truth shifting. Find a better truth to focus on and ditch the old one. The key is that the thought has to be something you believe: something true.

Any of those thoughts will create feelings of motivation, inspiration, focus and excitement. Spend more time in that space and less time in the space where you are feeling depressed and unhappy about your job.

Imagine what you could create and who you could become if you learned to create positive emotions instead of letting your brain keep you stuck in a mental rinse and repeat cycle of negativity.

The next time you find yourself wanting to be happier, think of it as an opportunity to sit with yourself and examine your thoughts that are creating those emotions. The truth might surprise you.

Need support? Schedule a free coaching consultation and learn about how to take this basic concept to the next level.

She wanted me to say Yes! I have made her life a dream. I can solve ALL of your problems too, I promise. I can make you happy. I can make your life happy.

But that wasn’t the truth. There is no happy ending. There is no happily ever after.

The truth is that even when we achieve our dreams, we still feel like crap half of the time.

I remember when it first set in for me. I had a job at a big, fancy firm, and I was riding the elevators one evening and I realized This is what I went to law school for. This is what all those late nights and missed parties were for. This is what my life is going to be like for the next 50 years. I will never forget the feeling I had that night as I rode the elevator down to the first floor. It was such a heavy and depressing reality. I thought becoming a lawyer would feel differently. I thought I would feel different. That I would feel happy and successful and confident. I didn’t.

I didn’t feel any differently than I had always felt.

It was a such a poignant experience. I was faced with the reality that my big accomplishment did not change anything. I felt the exact same as I did all those years prior.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

James Oppenheim

Our happiness is not created by achievements or by people and events outside of ourselves. Accolades do not create happiness. What we think about ourselves having received that accolade is what creates happiness.

Consider this: If you won an Academy Award for your role in a movie that you were never in, would that award make you feel happy? Of course it wouldn’t because it wouldn’t generate any positive thoughts for you other than confusion. But if you were in that movie and received an Academy Award, you would feel happy because you would be thinking I have finally made it. This proves that I am an amazing actress. The award itself conveys nothing—if it did then even those who had no relationship with the award would feel automatically happy once they receive it. The happiness comes from what we are thinking.

The problem is that when we look for happiness externally, it is fleeting. People will forget who won Academy Awards and years later, few people will think of you when you think of that award or accolade. So the cycle begins again.

The cycle of finding another external goal to re-create the feeling of happiness.

It is a never-ending cycle. I see it so often in my clients who achieve massive goals to become doctors or lawyers or acclaimed scholars only to find that they still aren’t happy. The achievement didn’t bring them happiness.

Happiness comes from within. It comes from how you think about yourself, your relationships, and your life. Achieving a goal will not suddenly make you happy. It won’t solve all your problems.

You will still be a human and your human life will always come with its own struggles, at least 50% of the time.

So, the truth is that no, I don’t have clients that achieve all their goals and are suddenly happy. Rather, I have clients who achieve their goals and completely miss it. They are so busy looking for more and still trying to feel something different that they don’t even take notice of all they have accomplished. They don’t take time to celebrate how far they have come because it was never really about the accomplishment. It was about how they thought they would feel once they got there. When they don’t get that feeling, when they don’t suddenly feel happier, they just keep on moving and searching. They don’t even notice the accomplishment.

As a coach, part of my job is to make sure that you take a breath and celebrate all those victories and all those goals. Celebrating yourself with loved ones can bring its own happiness and good memories—maybe even more so than the goal itself.

If you are striving toward some big goal, make sure that you have not convinced yourself that goal will make you happy or will make your life easier.

In order to find happiness, you have to look within and develop that relationship with yourself.

Without that relationship, no achievement is ever going to make a real impact in your happiness. If you aren’t doing your inner work, all that outer work will go un-noticed and will leave you feeling deflated. Learn how here.

Lately, I have been finding myself barking back and asking “Why?”

Why do we often reach for a glass of wine or another piece of cake when we are feeling stressed or had a bad day? Why is it so ingrained in our culture that having a glass of wine at the end of the day is how to best find relief from the day’s stress? 

On the one hand, there are certainly some cultural pressures that have conditioned us to believe that this behavior is acceptable, even normal. But have you ever asked yourself why you pour a glass of wine at the end of a stressful day? I did. Here’s what I discovered.

Years ago, when I was again working in a not-so healthy environment, I found myself in the habit of pouring a glass of wine every night after work. Why? I asked myself.  Because it’s been a really long day and I’m tired. Because today was really stressful. Because I deserve it. I worked really hard today. But why? I kept asking because none of these answers really resonated with me.

The more I thought about it and dug into it, I realized that I was coming home at the end of the day utterly spent. Completely exhausted. Feeling a bit depressed. My job was hectic and stressful and at the end of every day I just felt completely out of gas. When I would get home, a new overwhelm would bring up all the things I needed to do at home but didn’t seem to have the energy for. It created a heavy, depressive feeling…like the stressors in my life were never ending.

Like I would simply ride this frantic treadmill until I died of old age or imploded.

So, I would pour a glass of wine. I would pour a glass of wine and sit down and relax and let the booze wash away all those stressors. The dopamine in my brain would skyrocket and I would find some peace and happiness. Finally.

We all do this. Whether it’s with food or alcohol, sex, drugs, shopping, Starbuck’s coffee, WHATEVER. Rather than sitting with our discomfort or accepting the fact that life is 50/50, that sometimes it just sucks, we look to artificial sources to boost those “feel good” hormones.

For me, it was a glass of wine. That glass of wine provided me with an artificial happiness that would vanish the next day. That glass of wine kept me from sitting with my discomfort, accepting the struggle and learning how to take care of myself in a way that didn’t create a deficit the next day. While I wasn’t drinking entire bottles of wine at night, that one glass created a deficit. It delayed the inevitable meltdown that would happen when I couldn’t keep it all together. It’s the equivalent to kicking the emotional can down the road…eventually that can hits an emotional landmine.

Avoiding and buffering negative emotions or discomfort only heightens those feelings. They will come screaming back.

You are avoiding your life and seeking “fake” feelings created by external sources. That is no way to live.

The holidays seem to make this phenomenon even worse. As if our lives aren’t stressful enough, we pile on awkward family dynamics and travel obligations as well. So many of my clients eat because they are uncomfortable around their family. Their families bring up all sorts of old resentments, grudges, and unspoken words and their brains swirl with all sorts of nasty thoughts and cruel self-talk. Eventually, most of us end up face diving into the carrot cake because we want that rush of endorphins, that temporary high to alleviate all our feelings of discomfort.

What would it be like to just sit with those feelings?

What would it be like to just monitor those feelings your body? To become aware of those thoughts that make you so uncomfortable so that maybe you can start to work on those thoughts? After all, feelings are just a vibration in your body. What’s so scary about that?

If we can’t learn to allow and process emotions, we will never learn to stop indulging in those urges and using external things (food, alcohol, etc.) to make us feel better.

This holiday season, I am challenging all my clients to sit with the negative thoughts and emotions that bubble up for them. Observe them. Recognize that life is not supposed to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. Maybe today was a bad day and you are feeling sad. Why is that so terrible? Sadness provides a basis to later experience happiness.

Instead of running from those feelings, I challenge you to do a brain download every time you start feeling negatively. Figure out what thoughts are causing you to feel that way. Are those thoughts factual? Why are you choosing those thoughts? Is that negative feeling really that terrible?

Trust me, if you can learn to experience and sit with negative emotions and stop being afraid of them—fear, anger, jealously, sadness—nothing will ever be scary ever again. Think of what you could accomplish and who you could be.

Coach with me and I will show you how.

Get. Uncomfortable.

So off we went on a fishing extravaganza and yes, it was everything he promised it would be. We snorkeled and caught fish and enjoyed fresh seafood on a beautiful and remote beach. Now, as I sit here in my office, waiting for the snow to signal the beginning of winter, I keep thinking about one particular moment.

At one point, our captain took us to another remote beach to do some “seashell hunting”. We threw down our anchor and swam to a distant beach. When I finally got close to shore, thankful to be alive, I found myself pummeled right into the ground by enormous waves. Apparently, it was a bit rougher than usual according to our captain, but we carried on. Just below the surface, our captain promised that we would find the most unbelievable seashells; however, given the waves, this required us to completely submerge ourselves in the hammering surf to escape certain death.

After getting tossed about the sharp rocks and shells on my way to shore, I was scratched and bruised and wasn’t really all that interested in floating about beneath the cruel waves but I decided to be a good sport. Once I dropped below the surface and swam to the ocean floor, I was encapsulated by the silence and peace below. I was completely removed from the danger of the crashing waves and relished a wonderland of beauty. Naturally, as this was not Waterworld, I had to return to the surface to get battered around in the waves once again. Despite this pummeling I was eager to swim back out and dive below to that peaceful scene.

The contrast of this experience reminded me of my first encounters with meditation. I started pursuing meditation as a means to find more peace in my work and home life. As any overachiever personality would do, I downloaded three meditation timers and ordered 10 meditation books and manuals. I wasn’t just going to meditate; I was going to be the BEST meditator. (Move over, Siddhartha.)

If you are reading this, you know that I did not, in fact, become the next Buddha; however, what I was able to find was that place of peace and silence below the crashing waves.

At that time in my life, I was working in a particularly unhealthy practice group where my days were spotted by partners bickering and politicking and at least one attorney crying in her office. Gradually, I started taking a few minutes each morning to meditate. The more I started to meditate, the more I was able to carry that space with me throughout the day. I started to realize that “this job is not my life” “I am not this job; I am not this place”.

My meditation practice helped me to find space and quiet beneath the chaos of my professional life. It also taught me how to be more mindful of my thoughts.

When things got harried, I was better able to focus and be present rather than allowing my thoughts to run mad, creating unproductive anxiety.

Whether meditation is something in your repertoire or not, mindfulness is a skill we all need. How many times have you been in a meeting with a partner or a client and realized you were off thinking about that brief that’s due or the memo you need to finish?

Being present is not only a gift to yourself but it is a gift to others.

Honoring those who are choosing to be with you in that moment not only demonstrates respect and builds relationships, it clearly shows that you are able to weather the storm without crashing on the shore. You can be present and focus even when there are so many “fires” waiting to be put out.

As part of my coaching practice, I work with my clients to become more aware of their thought patterns and how those patterns impact their actions and results. Coach with me and learn how to find space within the chaos that so often contaminates our practice.