When we compare ourselves to others, want what they have, and feel bad, we have turned comparisons against ourselves. We take the measure that we observed and judge ourselves for the lack. We make it mean something bad about us. This is the comparison trap. Similarities and differences are no longer used to provide opportunity for self-improvement but rather self-deprecation.

The human brain is always active, collecting and sorting information for rapid recall. For me, “I’m alone” triggered a set of thoughts that all felt the same way, and when triggered, they came flooding in.

The human brain is designed to have default patterns of thinking ready to activate should the need arise. If you were in actual danger, you would now be ready to attack or run and hide.

But what if there is no danger?

Mantra For When Things Light Up

“The contrast is on purpose, look for what lies beyond the fireworks.”

Using compassionate curiosity to look deep enough to see how it’s for you.

What happens when we feel anxious is our brain perceives the experience of big emotion as a threat. This response comes from a place of protective strength from within our brains–the amygdala–a tiny but fierce “warrior” that prepares us to fight or flee danger — even when we don’t want its protection.

We passed two sets of red adirondack chairs – yes, not one but two, and both were painted red – set in this beautiful meadow for guests to take a rest along their journey. But we kept walking. We were looking for a sign… literally.

Mantra to Stay Anchored When In-Between

“Here is where hope has a chance to float up.”

Self-compassion is what makes things feel difficult, instead of impossible.

This is the magic of your story, you can tell it however you choose. Telling it in a way that serves you generates emotional energy that supports you to grow, evolve, and expand. When you tell your story in a way that doesn’t feel supportive, you contract. What started out as a thought you had about something on the outside, it quickly becomes the material you identify as the cause of your suffering — on the inside.

Being diagnosed with cancer was the catalyst for me to understand that we are not our emotions and alternative therapies and body work supported my awareness that we store unprocessed emotions in our bodies and how we can get in the way of our own healing. Learning how to allow our emotions, whether they appear on the surface or are stored in our bodies, is the path to mental and emotional wellbeing.

We automatically assume the worst case scenario, and we are not only trained to by the world around us, we are actually wired that way. And so we live that way, by default. Infatuated with how my brain works, I have been working on unpacking my people pleasing tendencies and I am sharing my notes here, in case you are interested.

There is a part of us that can imagine, think about what is possible, that can see the world from a unique perspective. This part of us has the ability to believe in new things, before there is any evidence. This is where our dreams are born, and we wouldn’t have these dreams if we didn’t also have the ability to bring them into reality.

From believing my story, to changing my story— how Overwhelm kept me from my story.

What I didn’t anticipate at the time were all my thoughts about my past, expectations based in the outside world, and judgments about my ability to do so. I believed them. I felt them. I even acted them out. As a result, I sat at my computer with the plan to write about how we are not our thoughts all the while believing my own thoughts about how I can’t.

What if you are not your emotions in the meta sense but rather have emotions that you experience. And so it’s not what or how much you have to experience, but rather what you DO with it - that matters. Here is where you can truly affect your life.