Category: Quiet your mind

“The human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth.” Earl Nightingale

Over the span of thousands of years, ancient philosophers, psychologists, spiritual teachers, and scientists have attempted to understand and theorize about how the human mind works.

Science is now finally catching up to validate many of the old truths of ancient wisdom.
One of these is that whatever our mind focuses on becomes our reality.
Our brain cannot differentiate between what we think and what is actually real. We now know that when our mind rests upon imagined threats, it over activates our fight or flight response. This leads to an imbalance of our central nervous system and a myriad of health issues in our body.

We have an average of over 60,000 thoughts per day! Most of them are worries. Yet only five percent of what we fear actually happens.

Quieting our mind is simply the practice of observing our thoughts and putting them aside. Through this practice, over time we can learn how to use our mind to change the physical connections in our body and transform our physical, emotional and social wellbeing. There are now thousands of studies that show the tremendous benefits of practicing mindful attention to what our mind rests upon. Regardless of your religion, skill, or beliefs, your mind is your most powerful element to achieving well-being. And this power is 100% within your control to harness. I can show you how to do this.

November 27, 2018

Practical Ways To Love Yourself More

In my last article, I provided an overview of scientific literature, which supports that self-love plays a foundational role in our well-being.

But how do we begin to do the work of cultivating the quality of love for ourselves that can literally transform our lives?

If being hard on yourself has been “the norm” throughout the course of your life, it may seem impossible to imagine how you can transform the stance from which you typically tackle life.

This may be the case even more if being a drill sergeant to yourself has resulted in “status quo” success. My commitment to excellence, at the cost of my work-life balance, allowed me to synthesize cancer drugs, lead teams from the bottom to the top in performance, and win a myriad of corporate and other awards. It was all great until I fell apart!

The truth is, when I burned out, far from feeling love for myself, I felt like a complete failure. I perceived my burned-out state as a sign of weakness and felt very disappointed in myself. How could a once top performer—someone who synthesized cancer agents and was an athlete— fall apart like I did?

Yet somehow, I allowed my discomfort to become my motivation and discovered the ultimate path to freedom. We can experience amazing joy when our efforts are fueled by self-appreciation and driven by our own values instead of by external approval.

Here are some of the most effective ways, which I learned from prominent researchers, that we can use to tap into cultivating a better relationship with ourselves, flaws and all.

These science-based strategies not only helped me find my way back home to better health, but they also help me now to transform the lives of my clients when they became too burned out to succeed.

1. Become your own best friend.

If your best friend came to you while facing a challenge, how would you support them? I am certain that you would speak to them kindly, listen to them attentively, perhaps make them a warm cup of tea, and hold their hand through their difficulty. Why can’t we be as compassionate to ourselves? The world’s most prominent researcher in self-compassion, Dr. Kristin Neff, has revealed that when a friend fails it presents no threat to us. However, our own shortcomings present as a real or perceived threat to our self-concept. And any threat short-circuits our thinking brain and activates our stress response, which compromises every part of us, including our compassion for ourselves.

But why not use this knowledge to instead make a commitment to extend the same love and support to ourselves as we would to a best friend? Become your own best friend!

According to Dr. Neff, we can teach ourselves to be our best friend by incorporating the three essential components of self-compassion, which are Mindfulness, Kindness, and Recognizing our Common Humanity.

To illustrate how this might work, let’s pretend you were just passed up for a job promotion. Or you could pick your own example of a current or past difficult situation.

The first step is to bring Mindfulness into the situation, recognizing how difficult the situation is.

You can use any words that are comfortable and natural for you. You could say, “This is really tough,” or “I am feeling rejected,” or “This is a moment of suffering,” or “It is not going to be easy for me to accept this.” The key here is to choose how we relate to the experience without taking it personally, so that we can deal with our emotions from a calm, balanced state. We need to avoid judging either the situation or ourselves. We would never respond with judgement and blame to our best friend, would we?

The second step is to invite Kindness in.

This can be something as simple as setting the intention to be kind and supportive to ourselves. Think of the words and the actions you would use to comfort someone you love if they were going through a similar experience. Include terms of endearment, the warmth of human touch, and soothing vocalizations. For example, you could hold your face in your hands and say something like: “Aww Tzeli, I am so sorry you have to go through this right now, my love. But I am here for you.” Don’t worry about looking silly. No one is watching. Remember, your brain does not know the difference between what you are saying or thinking and what is happening in reality. By role-modeling compassion, your brain registers safety. This keeps all of your body’s organs and functions working at optimal performance levels, which allows you to respond beautifully to difficult life situations.

The third step is recognizing our common humanity.

As we go through the ups and downs of life, we may find it hard to be on our own side. This may be because of the false perception that everybody else is managing life just perfectly and we are alone in our discomfort. The truth is, not a single one of us is perfect and failures, mistakes or moment of self-doubt, are all part of being human. In moments of doubt, it is important to remind your self of our common humanity. You can comfort your self by telling your self something like, “It is normal to feel disappointed, but there are many others going through similar situations,” or “Discomfort is part of life. I am here for you. I’ve got your back.”

Research reveals significant benefits in investing your energy into becoming your own best friend. Some of these benefits are greater resilience in the face of challenges and faster recovery from physical or emotional traumas.

2. Reconnect with your values.

When our never-ending pursuit of happiness is driven by social norms and the wants and needs of others, we lose a really important source of power: The power of our own values!

When we are taking actions and creating things in life that are not aligned with our values, we experience discomfort and difficult emotions. This in turn leads to coping mechanisms that sabotage us. However, when we turn to what is most valuable to us, we can find strength, motivation, and energy to invest in meeting life goals that are rooted in love, rather than fear.

To re-connect with your values, I invite you to run an experiment with yourself for the next seven days.

On the first day of your experiment, set your alarm ten minutes earlier and begin your day with a short, guided meditation. You can use a guided meditation of your choice, or you can receive one in your inbox by joining the Myndzen community- bit.ly/JoinMyndZen
Once your mind is clearer, give yourself few minutes to write a list of single words that represent what you value most in your life in the present moment. For example, some one-word values are adventure, community, love, friendship, integrity, tradition, equality, and so forth. What do you value most? When you have completed your list, review it and choose the three values that make you feel the most joyful, happy, and powerful when you think about them.
Then, at any point throughout the course of your day, when you recognize any of your actions causing you frustration or discomfort, pause and challenge yourself to identify what is driving your action. If one of your top three values is not behind your action, this may be the cause of your discomfort. Select a small step you can take to nudge your response to a new action that is more aligned with your values. For example, if your top value is family and you were asked to participate in a weekend work meeting, you could suggest that you participate remotely via an online meeting app instead of physically attending the meeting.
Focusing on the top three values you identified, repeat the process of aligning your actions with these values over the next seven days. You might want to keep a list of your new actions.

By the end of the seven days, you will have a list of different actions you can choose to keep you in sync with your top values. These new choices come from a place of self-trust and self-appreciation as opposed to self-judgment. You will be amazed at how much energy you will free up when you choose actions that are aligned with what you care about the most.

3. Befriend your inner critic.

A part of you will always rise up to sabotage your efforts, especially when you are brave enough to step outside of your comfort zone. For example, you may have decided to improve your work-life balance to support your value of family by working less. Then your boss challenges your commitment to your work because you are not working late as much. At this point, you may hear an inner voice that sounds something like: “Who do you think you are challenging the status quo?” We call that voice our Inner Critic.

We have historically viewed the inner critic as an antiquated parental voice, which we have been advised to ignore. However, newer models of therapy such as Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems model, suggest there may be a more effective way to relate to our inner critic. Instead of ignoring it, we can befriend and work with our inner critic. If you really think about it, our inner critic, as annoying and frustrating as he/she may be, is only trying to protect us. The voice and the inhibiting actions it tells us to take are attempting to protect parts of ourselves that have been hurt in the past.

For example, if speaking up and standing up for yourself was punished in your early years, you may experience a lot of resistance from your inner critic when you are braving assertiveness. It will criticize you to prevent you from taking any risks that might cause you pain. This causes discomfort and your inner critic may then lead you to numbing actions like eating or drinking alcohol.

To release ourselves from the voice of our inner critic, we can make ourselves less vulnerable to whatever it is that the inner critic thinks we need protection from.

For example, you can find a safe space to practice speaking up with no consequences, like joining a Toastmasters group. Your inner critic will soon learn that you are not in danger or vulnerable when you speak up. You can also begin recognizing your inner critic as a valuable part of you and engage in journaling practices where you can honor it instead of resisting it. You can use this new relationship with your inner critic to learn more about your vulnerable parts. Here are two sample journaling exercises to help you become friends with your inner critic.

Inner Critic journaling Exercise 1

Identify a recent challenging situation. Then take a few moments to talk with your inner critic in your journal about this situation. Let’s pretend that the challenging situation is that you are trying to decide whether or not to apply for a management position. The dialogue might look something like this.

Inner Critic: You can’t be serious about applying for a management position. You aren’t leadership material!

You: Look, I know you are worried about me struggling as a manager. What are you afraid will happen?

Inner Critic: Being a manager will be too much for you. You’ll become anxious and irritable and you will fail.

You: I understand your concerns, but I have grown a lot. I know how to love and take care of myself now. And I am not afraid of failing. Trust me.

Review what you have written. Pay attention to what words your inner critic uses to criticize you. What is she afraid of? What does she want to protect you from? And how does your current self tell her that you are no longer vulnerable or afraid?

Inner Critic journaling Exercise 2

Use Dr Neff’s three components of self-compassion to let your compassionate self approach your inner critic. Remember that the components are Mindfulness, Kindness, and Recognition of Common Humanity. In your journal, write a letter to your inner critic. It might look something like this:

“Dear Inner Critic,

My dear, I understand that you are telling me that I will fail if I take on this new promotion because you are trying to prevent me from make a choice I will regret. But however well-intentioned you may be, you are causing me pain, which is not helpful to me. All of us make choices that sometimes don’t work out. But I am confident that I will be able to determine the best course of action if things don’t go according to plan. Do you want to work together as I pursue this new promotion.”

Working with your inner critic and not beating him or her up is a great way to reinstate a sense of trust in yourself, which is required to break the spell of the past.

Final Thoughts

I know all too well how hard it is to shift responding to life in ways that honors you and your values first. – Especially if being hard on yourself has been your “lifetime companion.” It was mine too!

However, by becoming your best friend, getting to know your inner critic, and re-connecting with your own values, you can reclaim precious energy that you are currently losing to unnecessary stress.

You can then use that energy to light up the path to a life that is meaningful to you and aligned with your true values and purpose.

And that light, my friend, will not only allow you to live a life free of the cumbersome symptoms of stress, but will also illuminate your relationships, your workplace, and your world.

November 12, 2018

The One Love Affair that Can Reduce Stress

#SelfLove — Photo by http://yuliyajul.com

When the glaring reality of stress shows up in your life in the form of anxiety, exhaustion, or irritability, I bet love is the last thing on your mind.

However, considering that our relationship with stress defines every other relationship in our life, I want to tell you a little secret about a special stress-reducing kind of love: The love you have for yourself.

In this article, I want to share with you why cultivating self-love is a gateway to effective stress-reduction as well as the ultimate path to the gifts of optimal health, performance, and happiness.

Why is self-love so critical?

If you are skeptical about the stress-reducing properties of cultivating self-love, let me share with you some data from scientific literature.

The most vulnerable populations for compassion fatigue and burnout are:

Highly-dedicated individuals –the best and the brightest (Killian, 2008; Meyers & Fine, 2003),
Drivers and high-achievers (Shanafalt et.al., 2012),
Individuals with high expectations of self (Figley, 2012).

Although on first glance you may think that the above individuals’ dedication indicates a great degree of love for one’s self, I invite you to reconsider. Could their dedication be driven more by perfectionism than by self-love? An endless striving for perfection harbors a great degree of self-judgment and a loud inner critic, rather that self-love. Which would explain the high vulnerability of these individuals to compassion fatigue and burnout.

In fact, Dr. Brene Brown’s robust research on vulnerability has uncovered that perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval. Most of us who have a hard time saying no, who push ourselves to the limit and sacrifice self-care and work-life balance for success, know all too well the cost of perfectionism. It is linked to depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders, digestive issues, and so much more.

When I found myself falling from my top performer pedestal to the tight grip of burnout and illness, I had an invaluable epiphany: The endless chase of perfectionism and the adverse effects of stress may have meant that I had forgotten to love and honor one important person—myself.

How do you know when you don’t love yourself enough?

Until we love ourselves whole-heartedly, we are stuck in this never-ending chase for love, approval, and security from external sources.

I call this state the “bottomless pit.” You know you are in that state when nothing ever seems good enough and you are your own worst critic. Regardless of how much you accomplish, you are never fully satisfied. Perhaps this is because of the way accomplishments were rewarded in your early life. You may have established an identity that is derived from your achievements if you got “love” from others for your performance. You then forget all about your well-being or what makes your heart sing. You begin living your life to meet other people’s expectations, judgments, and perceptions of you.

How stress shows up when we don’t love ourselves enough

Stress is a state characterized by all the changes our body makes to meet the demands from our environment. However, although it is considered to be the epidemic of the century, stress is essentially what summons our resources to rise to the occasion as needed in different aspects of life.
In fact, up to a certain level, stress is defined as eustress (good stress) and it is what gives us the superpowers to ace a presentation, pass an exam, get through a family Thanksgiving dinner, or solve a complicated problem.

There is nothing wrong with being committed to performance excellence, but there is a big problem when our efforts are driven by the fear of not measuring up to others’ expectations. When we push ourselves to the limit to get approval, safety, and security from others, we are running away from this fear instead of going after something we value.

Giving control of how much is enough to others will push us past the good level of stress into the bad level of stress, called distress.

It is well documented in scientific literature that operating too long at the level of distress, compromises every aspect of ourselves. Our body systems malfunction and we enter a state of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual impairment.

It is at that point that we experience exhaustion, irritability, ineffectiveness, and so many other symptoms of stress-coping mechanisms.

And as I learned all too well from my personal experience of burning-out and suffering a musculoskeletal disorder, this can lead to extensive damage in organs and body tissues, broadly described by the term allostasis.

How self-love transforms our relationship with stress

One of the most important lessons I learned from burnout is that meeting the demands of life from a place of worthiness and love for ourselves is a game-changer. It took a serious illness for me to discover self-love and to know how amazing being on my own side feels, but I am grateful for all I have experienced and the new direction of my life’s purpose: To translate all the lessons I learned from science and my healing journey into guideposts and strategies on how we can actually be successful without burning out.

Here are some examples of what living from a place of self-love can look like:

We may stay up late to meet a deadline, but we do so from a space of deep satisfaction, which re-charges our batteries with ample energy to conquer the world the next day.

We charge toward a goal that is aligned with our innermost sense of purpose and values.

We feel self-sufficient in being our own source of love, approval, safety, and security. And from that beautiful, calm, balanced state our relationships transform at work and at home. We no longer cling to people, situations, and things, relating to them in a dysfunctional way that is rooted in fear. We trust that people, jobs, and all good things in life will be available to us as long as the energy exchange remains balanced and healthy. We also have the courage to step away from energy drainers. We don’t think it is the end of the world to give up a larger paycheck to work for an amazing leader or a company that lives their values. We appreciate everything with a healthy dose of gratitude and we don’t play the martyr. We don’t take things personally, and we establish healthy parameters of giving and receiving while making appropriate adjustments when necessary. We have no reservations about setting healthy boundaries and we are proud to be a role model of work-life balance. We are able to follow the advice of Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Final thoughts

Stress is an inevitable part of our modern life that none of us gets a free pass from.

However, the quality of love and trust we cultivate with ourselves greatly determines how resilient we are and the impact that stress will ultimately have on our well-being.

Until we become the source of love, trust, and safety for ourselves, our relationship with stress will continue to be problematic.

Our efforts will be tainted by an endless pursuit for approval and a hidden sense of fear.

We will then engage in dysfunctional patterns of being and relating, which often lead to reducing our optimal performance. Then we experience the adverse consequences of stress.

However, when we choose to cultivate a different quality of love for ourselves, we begin to do things that are aligned with our values. Then the magic begins to happen.

No matter what curve balls we have to deal with in life, we are able to trust in our ability to set our own parameters to deal with these difficulties. We do this with a sense of purpose and equanimity while growing inner strengths along the way.

Although you may be skeptical of the stress-reducing properties of increasing love and kindness for yourself, there is so much science that proves it!

But don’t take my word for it. Regardless of where you are in life, if you are not where you want to be, you can begin the only love affair that can change that.

I will share science-based strategies on how to cultivate more kindness and love for your self in my next article. If you would like to be notified when it will be published and begin to tap into the transformative power of Self-love, Join my loving community: bit.ly/JoinMyndZen

March 8, 2018

Five Simple Science Based Pathways to Happiness

Do you feel happy?

If your answer to that question is “yes but…,” I would like to invite you to consider some unconventional pathways to happiness. After all, among all the things we search for in this life, you could say that happiness is the one pursuit that is universal! In addition, scientific research clearly substantiates that happiness is linked to unimpeded well-being, peak performance, and professional success.

If you would like to experience more happiness, here are five practices based on secrets from the neuroscience of happy people that you can use:

Question and redefine the important elements of your life.

Our beliefs, definitions, and values come from our familial, societal, and cultural history. These become our models of the world, and they affect our patterns of behavior and habits. For example, maybe we were raised with the belief that “to be successful in the corporate world you have to pay your dues and sacrifice your personal life.” That belief can lead to us working late evenings and weekends, which will eventually lead to complete imbalance between work and life. We can free ourselves from our history and create the future we want by carefully redefining the important terms in our life. For example, we could redefine success as “having a healthy work/life balance.” And what about our definition of happiness? Have you considered that the way we define happiness may determine whether or not we will be able to attain it? If we define happiness in an all or nothing way, for example, “I will be happy when I am a millionaire,” that sets us up for being unhappy until or if we reach that goal.

The practice: To identify definitions that inadvertently take you out of balance, a good practice is to dedicate time to observe and change beliefs that we have adopted from our environment that affect us in a negative way. Take a moment to create a list of your top three causes of stress. Then, in a second column, list the beliefs and values that are related to those elements being stressors. What terms do you need to redefine so that you can get closer to wholeness and balance? When I was a starving student in a Northern England university, I was one of the people who thought happiness was “having a million dollars.” Today I define happiness as “the ratio between expectation and outcome.” That way, I have an ongoing list of variables I can adjust to improve my sense of happiness, which lowers my level of stress.

Quiet your mind.

Does mindfulness seem like a mystical practice that you are not sure you are capable of performing? What if we look at mindfulness in a way that takes the mysticism and mystery out of it? Mindfulness is simply the practice of directing our attention to the present moment. Although simple, this practice is the most robust and scientific evidence-based practice for health, productivity, and happiness. Several decades of studies show tremendous structural and functional benefits in the brains of fellow humans who have a regular mindfulness practice.

The practice: Find a small slot every day (5-10 minutes) to keep your attention only on your breath. When you notice your attention wandering off (to a negative interaction with your spouse, what you will cook for dinner, or anything else), simply notice it and bring your attention back to your breath. Little by little, you will be happy to realize that after all these years, much of your suffering was a byproduct of your thoughts and emotions. You can find my favorite guided meditation here to help you get started: https://myndzen.com/the-solution/quiet-your-mind/

Nurture your body.

We have decades of data reflecting the incredible benefits of healthy foods and exercise on our cardiovascular health. But did you know that exercise has been proven to have another significant effect? It can make you happier! Exercise has been studied as a treatment for depression for the last thirty years, ever since Professor James Blumenthal (Dept. of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University) noticed the inadvertent benefit of exercise on reducing symptoms of depression. A more recent review (2013) by the non-profit Colchrane, a leader in gathering and sharing evidence-based medicine resources, concluded that exercise is as effective a treatment for depression as pharmaceutical treatments.

The practice: Take a few moments to plan out your week so you can slowly, but surely, add regular intervals of exercise into your busy schedule. Can you listen to a conference call, your favorite Podcast, or a TED talk while you are taking a walk instead of sitting at your desk? Although at first it may seem like a challenge to fit one more thing into your busy life, I can promise you that if you stick to it for at least three weeks, you can create a new habit for life. The positive impact on your mood of “feel good” chemicals (like glutamate and GABA) released in your brain through exercise will make you so happy you did!

Turn toward what matters.

Whether we turn to neuroscience, psychology, or human experience, the evidence is clear that strong social connections are one of the most important predictors for longevity, health, and happiness! I hear sometimes that we “don’t have time for relationships” in our busy world. As it turns out, having strong relationships that act as a safety net makes us so much happier. Social connections not only flood our system with oxytocin, which reduces fear in our brain, but also create the solid core from which we can conquer the ups and downs of life with increased well-being.

The practice: Add taking the time EVERY DAY to connect with the important people in your life to your to-do list. Ask yourself what you appreciate about them and take the time to let them know. Maybe you can even put a love note in their briefcase.

Cultivate the positive perspective.

Depression is the most common mental disorder in the world affecting more than 300 million people. Prominent scientists around the world have invested a significant amount of time and effort in understanding it. Today, with the insights we have gathered from the way depression affects the brain, we know exactly which parts of our brain we need to affect to build a happy brain that is resilient against depression and anxiety and we know how to do it. For example, we know positive thoughts can build the part of our brains that reduce depression and increase happiness. Best yet, we don’t have to be neuroscientists to benefit from this knowledge.

The practice: Whenever something happens to you that elicits negative emotions, acknowledge the validity of those feelings and redirect your attention to uncovering five positive elements of that experience. For example, if you were just laid off, recognize the legitimate concern about this event. Then focus your attention on how this unforeseen circumstance could perhaps provide you with a much-needed reset space to reconsider your next career move, or with time with your family, and so on and so forth.

FINAL THOUGHTS Beyond the euphoric emotions that we all associate with being happy, there are also many evidence-based benefits to our well-being when we are feeling happy. Being happier not only makes us more open, approachable, hopeful, and optimistic, but also increases our immune function and our ability to calm down in the midst of chaos.There has never been a better time to employ self-compassion and accountability toward nurturing the real sources of happiness in our life.

After all, scientific research has proven that the conventional things we historically go after, fail to make us happier. For example, a relatively recent Princeton University study by Nobel-prize winning economist, Angus Deaton, and psychologist, Daniel Kahneman showed that once one’s income level reaches $75,000 per year, no matter how much more we make, it makes no difference to our degree of happiness!

It appears that beyond the short bursts of primal happiness from having nice material possessions, enjoying a lovely meal, or making love, there is one type of happiness that is internal—one that we carry with us always regardless of the size of our bank account or the type of car we drive.

That kind of happiness hinges upon our ability to maintain a calm nervous system, even when experiences we are having are not pleasant.

Almost six decades of scientific data are illuminating significant clues on how to accomplish having a calm nervous system. We can free ourselves from past limiting beliefs that hold us hostage, redefine the important elements of our life, quiet our minds and nurture our bodies, connect with our loved ones, and focus on the positive, thereby harnessing our incredible nervous system for our health and well-being.

When we establish this sense of internal safety, we will be able to perceive the world and our life as a positive experience.

And that kind of happiness, my friend, is 100% within your control!