When I read your emails, I have full-body responses: I cheer, I shout, I wave my hands. Always, I feel fortunate that you trust me with your truths. This week, a reader email featured big traumas and losses. The writer struggled with feeling that everyone was mad at her. But it was the last line that made me gasp: "I will be free someday, not on this earth but hopefully in heaven." Those words were like a punch to the solar plexus, a hard-hitting example of emotional bypassing. When I caught my breath, I spoke out loud: "Oh, hell no." But...
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On new year's eve I took our two and a half year old to the park. She needed to run off some energy while the baby stayed home with dad. So there we were, me and my toddler, climbing the jungle gym as night fell. The park where we played was across the street from an event space, where people in fancy clothes were arriving for a new year's eve party. As I looked out at the merriment, I felt soul weary. For a moment I wanted a different life. Even after the years I spent yearning for a child...
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Have you ever been enchanted with a story in which the heroine either doesn't know, or doesn't remember, her true identity? (Yes, I get that this is not the typical lead-in to a post on embracing imperfection. It's probably pretty weird. But go with me for a minute here.) When I was younger I was fascinated by the animated movie Anastasia. In the (fictional) narrative, Anastasia is a princess who has had amnesia for years. When the movie starts, she's impoverished and alone, with no idea that she's royalty. If you love Harry Potter or The Lion King or even...
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I started living a double life early on. Starting in elementary school, I needed to be one person at school, and another person at home and at church. The demands of the doomsday cult known as the Worldwide Church of God and the demands of public school were very different, but as a confirmed good girl I did my best in both worlds. But I still remember the day that those worlds collided...the same day I realized that living someone else's life might get me into trouble. Me and my younger brother on the swings, in our church service...
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When I was younger, it used to make me so mad when I'd hear trusted coaches, therapists, and mentors say, “Just love yourself.” They meant well, but those words were not enough for me! At the time, "just love yourself" was too abstract, too much of a foreign concept. What did it mean? What did that look like in real time? As a childhood cult survivor, I needed more guidance than the average bear in this area. When I was asking about how to forgive yourself for past mistakes, I wanted an exact process. I was hungry for practical instructions...
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The biggest myth about how to find your purpose is: I'll get there by adding more to my plate. I'll add new habits, and become massively productive! I'll add new virtues, and become a better mom/wife/sister/friend/human! By adding more, I'll have a better life, then I'll finally be happy. We've run this experiment, though, you and I, and it simply doesn't work. The constant pressure leads to overwhelm, exhaustion, and burnout. But if adding more isn't the solution, what is? How do we build a life that feels meaningful and on-purpose? The secret is subtraction. The most effective way to...
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I will never forget the day Nora told me what was really going on. When we first started coaching together, the person I'll call Nora had thousands of emails maxing out her inbox. She was getting close to 400 incoming emails a day! Nora knew that this mountain of email clutter was holding her back from the peaceful life she wanted. But digging out, deleting, and unsubscribing was hard for her. It meant facing up to false guilt, which is hard for all of us helper-types. Have you ever had the thought that you just can't delete emails, "just in...
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I had my first anxiety attack in the first grade, when the teacher returned my paper with See Me written in red ink instead of the usual Excellent. That perceived failure felt so devastating, I almost couldn’t breathe. What causes perfectionism in a child that young? What makes a six year old to get that stressed out? What causes perfectionism? The root cause of perfectionism is very simple: it's fear. Perfectionism arises because when we were small, we didn't feel protected or loved unconditionally. At some point early on, we learned to be afraid. At its core, perfectionism is just...
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Whenever I run across one of those productivity-culture articles about how to master your time, gain control of your life, and develop a perfect 5-year plan, I always think about whether or not the author has "been through in it" yet. Have they ever had an unexpected disaster wreck their best-laid plans? Have they ever sat in silence, stunned by a betrayal? Have they ever mourned a devastating loss, thinking, "My life is falling apart" ...? If you have, then you know: It changes you. Maybe for you it was losing a loved one through death, divorce, or dementia. Maybe...
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I used to have so much trouble spending money "just for me." It had nothing to do with how hard I worked, or how much I had in the bank. Back when I was an undergraduate at Vassar College, I worked three jobs, volunteered, and tithed hundreds of dollars to my cultic church...yet I couldn't pull the trigger on a $15 gift for myself. Self denial was ingrained into me at an early age, and by that point, it felt like safety. Before I graduated, I wanted to buy a coffee mug from my favorite cafe, but I just couldn't...
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