Happy And Healthy Lifestyle

“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am.” ~Caitlin Japa “You’re making people uncomfortable,” my mother would say. “Stop being so sensitive,” she would then quip. I have always been sensitive for as long as I can remember. Now I understand there’s a name for it: highly sensitive person (HSP). The scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). As it turns out, 15-20 percent of the population has this trait. As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system filters less information. I take in more from my environment. It’s theorized this can often be a survival mechanism set up during early developmental years—particularly if the environment the baby is in does not feel safe. Often, this can be due to the emotional state of the parents, especially if they exhibit emotional unpredictability or volatility. This isn’t always the case, but it’s very common. It was the case f...

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in with wind? Or, more, how do we live with the hard things that blow our way? This research can shed some light. The Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment in the Arizona desert conducted in the eighties and nineties. A vast (and I mean massive) glass dome housed flora and fauna in a perfectly controlled environment. It held all of nature: trees, wetlands, deserts, rainforests. Animals, plants and people co-existed in what scientists’ thought was the perfect, optimal envi...

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.” ~ Oprah Winfrey When I was a little girl, I made many wishes. At first, I believed all of my wishes would come true, just like in the fairy tales my mother read to me before bed. However, slowly but surely, life changed my attitude, stole my optimism, and I stopped wishing. My parents fought a lot, and their unhappiness made me believe that I was not good enough. Poverty replaced my birthday wishes with socks, the bible, and sheets for my bed. When my parents divorced, my father abandoned me and I was sure I was broken and unworthy; after all, I believed that if a father could leave his own child, then it must be my fault. My mother’s hurts turned into bitterness. Criticism, disappointment, and blame replaced her nurturing voice that used to calm my fears. The few wishes I held onto faded into the fog of confusion, fear, self-hatred, and catastrophe. Instead of wishes, I believed that bad things woul...

“Lean into the discomfort of the work.” ~ Brené Brown Anxiety was the core of my existence for decades. When I look back at my life over that time, what comes to mind first is the constant tension in my chest, a knotted stomach, and a lump in my throat. From the outside, my life looked great. I was college-educated, had a good job, was in a relationship; I lived in a nice place, had a decent car, and enough money to buy organic food and a gym membership. But I was miserable. Not only was I anxious all the time, worrying that people would judge me , I felt like I couldn’t feel happiness. Even when the situation around me was a happy one—a surprise birthday party for me, getting gifts on Christmas, a lazy Sunday morning with nothing to do but enjoy a nice cup of coffee, or a hilarious scene in a comedy movie—true happiness never seemed to surface. Those were all my favorite things, but I couldn’t feel the happiness in my chest and my gut. I felt like I could only intellectualiz...

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt It’s natural to think that we’re always in the spotlight. We think that people care about the way we dress, but they don’t. We think that people notice our nervous habits, when in reality, they’re worried about whether people are noticing their own. We tend to go through life as if our every move is being watched, judged, and evaluated on a moment-to-moment basis by the people around us. Here’s a reality check—you’re not that important. I don’t mean that in a brash way. This shouldn’t make you feel small or inferior, it should liberate you. And if it doesn’t, I have a feeling that what I’m about to talk about will. The Truth About Funerals As you guys know, a funeral procession is broken up into two parts: the funeral and the burial. During the funeral, spiritual leaders read various snippets from religious texts about the meaning of death, and close family member...

“If we can see past perceived limitations, then the possibilities are endless.” ~Amy Purdy Nature inspires me. There are hidden messages consistently on display. On my daily walks, I find myself interpreting these messages in relation to my life. One day, near the end of my walk, I was paying attention to the trees. A giant one caught my eye. Its magnificence was portrayed as morning sunlight peeked through the branches and bright green leaves. I noticed the enormity of its trunk, and then I saw the crooked fence. The giant tree trunk had grown so big that it pushed a section of the fence up off the ground. The fence barely had any balance left and looked as if it could topple over at any moment. As I watched all of this, I remembered another tree I had seen on one of my walks. The tree’s branches had grown so long and so thick, they struck through the slats on a metal fence. Big brown wooden knobs stuck out, encapsulating the thin wires. I was in such awe, I reached out and touc...

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass In an eighteen-month window, I had a landslide of firsts that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I ended my first long-term relationship with someone I deeply cared for but did not love. She had borderline personality disorder, and I was not mentally strong enough nor mature enough to be what she needed in a partner. Within five minutes of me saying our relationship was over, she slit her wrist as we sat there in bed. This was the beginning of it all. Drug overdoses, online personal attacks, physically beating me, calling and texting sixty-plus times a day, coming to my work, breaking into my home to steal and trash the place, and general emotional abuse followed over the next ten months. Day after day, week after week, month after month. My heart started racing, and my breathing spiked every time my phone went off, and I mean EVERY time. I woke each morning to multiple alerts that someone had tried to hack my...

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~Steve Jobs I was a sensitive child growing up, and I felt everything deeply. Unfortunately, my childhood home was dominated by chronic tension, fear, and anger—not an ideal environment for anyone, let alone a perceptive and empathic child. My father was rather authoritative and controlling, and he disciplined us harshly. I was raised to obey without questioning and punished for mistakes or not falling in line. Love was only assumed but never shared, and so I grew up feeling alone, unsupported, and like I was never enough. Craving my parents’ love and attention, I became the good girl, the overachiever, the people pleaser, the caretaker—the chameleon who knew how to morph herself to fit the environment in order to feel accepted. Over the years, I lost a sense of who I was, never really feeling like I belonged. Instead, I felt like I had no voice. My feelings were chron...

“I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.” ~Steven Pinker He was splayed out in the middle of the road. The paramedics had yet to arrive. That was the scene on our way to meet some friends. Over dinner, they relayed the tragic story of their neighbor’s twenty-something son who was killed recently in a motorcycle accident. Two others lost their lives in an instant on a nearby suburban road. An acquaintance told me about the fatal hiking accident of a young man who was making his mark on the world and left it with so much more to give. My friend’s father is fighting for his life against COVID. All of this in the past week. I know what you are thinking. This is SOOOO depressing. I know. But it’s life. Life is fragile. It can end in an instant. I know from experience. My parents were taking care of our young children while my husband and I were on a company-sponsored trip on the other...

“Just when the caterpillar thought her life was over, she became a butterfly.” ~Unknown Change is constant, from small changes like trying a new hobby to big changes like making a drastic career move. Even though change is all around us, it can feel scary. While change could lead you to something great, there are a lot of unknowns with something new, and that can cause anxiety. When I was younger, I used to embrace change. For example, each school year was a new and exciting experience. But somewhere along the way, I started to resist change. What Does Resisting Change Look Like? For some, resisting change might involve remaining in a situation that feels boring or mundane just because taking a different path can feel daunting or like a lot of work. For others, it might involve staying in a situation that’s unhealthy for them because making a change feels scary. I resisted change by focusing on the negative aspects of any new experience I was going through, as a means to protect...

“Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious? Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.” It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “ Something’s wrong with me , I’m flawed, I’m bad, I’m wrong, I don’t belong.” Anxiety can be highly misunderstood because it’s not just a symptom, it often stems from what’s going on subconsciously as a result of past experiences, mostly from when we were little beings. And yes, the body does keep score and remembers even if the mind doesn’t. Anxiety is often a signal/experience that happens automatically from our nervous system. It’s emotions/sens...