We’ve all been knocked off center and caught in an experience that feels less than desirable. When this happens it’s easy to feel sad, withdrawn, like we’ve done something wrong, if we were “better” these things wouldn’t have happened to us, or self-blaming like we shouldn’t be having this experience at all. When life is intensely different from normal, we can feel adrift without anything to hold onto.

How do we get through these difficult times? By relying on self-love to guide us to the best way to take care of our needs moment by moment. If you’ve never been particularly good at taking care of yourself when you’re feeling well, let alone when you’re feeling down, here’s an outline of what self-love during a difficult experience might look like.

Alone Time
Often feeling less than optimal can bring about an introverted or isolating process. The pain of sickness, grieving or depression is intense, and many times we wish to be by ourselves. It’s important to follow those inner urges to retreat from many of the normal day-to-day activities and seek solace with our own self when necessary. This down time can be healing as it slows us down, makes us introspective, and allows us to listen within. 

Expression
If you choose to be in solitude, allow your alone time to be healing and expressive. Any media in which you can give expression to deep emotions can be equally healing. Expression such as writing, painting, collage, conscious breathing, or talking aloud to a friend or yourself in a mirror can help clear the subconscious and permit the progression of emotional healing. 

Nature
In addition, when you feel the need to be alone, follow your inner instincts by going for a walk in nature, sitting beneath the trees, or watching the water. Sit with the Earth and let her listen and provide comfort as you softly express your sorrow. Fresh air and a change of scenery can help you breathe, give you access to the healing power of nature, and get you through at least part of the day. 

Reach Out to Others
Withdrawing is sometimes the best answer—and sometimes it’s not. Rest assured that you don’t have to handle your experience or your emotions all by yourself. Even if it feels like no one would want to be around you right now, it just isn’t true. There are people who will listen with acceptance to your feelings and thoughts. 

Many people can offer the type of listening or support you are looking for. A trusted friend, understanding family member, trained therapist, doctor, or religious counselor can offer compassion, nonjudgmental listening, and a safe environment for emotional expression. 

The emotions that accompany the pain of illness, surgery, depression or intense sadness are often messy and can feel overwhelming. Sometimes just having someone sit with you, listening, and quietly holding your hand as you fall apart emotionally can provide the most important healing. 

Even if you don’t feel like talking about anything in specific, sometimes it’s important to spend some time with people and trusted friends who love you. You don’t have to be entertaining or your usual self. Just being in the presence of a friend can lift you up just enough to make it through the day. 

Connect with the Right People
Not everyone is capable of sitting with you in a helpful, reaffirming way. Listening with empathy to a person sharing dark or despairing feelings can be difficult for many people to handle. It’s a normal tendency for people to get nervous and want to talk, give advice, try to fix the problem, or offer solutions. Some people will argue with you about how miserable you feel or insist that you just “snap out of it.” Don’t give up because one or two people weren’t able to provide support in the way that you needed. Consider telling those people what type of listening would be most helpful. 

What you really want is someone who can be present with you comfortably, who can validate your experience, and who truly wants to understand how things are for you right now. If a particular person can’t learn how to be with you, trust your instincts and reach out to someone else. 

When you are in the presence of another person, give yourself a break from feeling responsible for his or her comfort. Making small talk or taking care of others is often an impossible task when recovering, grieving or depressed. Even the thought of keeping someone else entertained requires too much energy. Let someone know that you just want to sit together outdoors, watch television, or read together. Reassure them in advance that you have no need for them to entertain you, and that they don’t have to fill up the silence. 

Human Contact
If being with a friend doesn’t feel right, consider scheduling a series of massage or chair massage sessions. We often delete human contact and pleasure from our lives when we need it most. Massage won’t cure you of grief, illness or depression, but there is something very basic and fundamental about

being in the presence of human compassion and touch. When you’re receiving a massage, you can be with another person—just the way you are—without feeling like you have to smile, be nice, or give anything back. 

Ultimately, there are no preset criteria for when to be alone and when to seek support. Sometimes talking with someone is what you need; sometimes sitting in silence with another person or being alone in nature is most helpful. As you continue to travel through your journey back into health and well-being, trust yourself to discover your own unique balance between using self-help techniques and reaching out to others for support, listening, and validation.

Are you looking for new ways to end depression? Even if you are angry at yourself for being human and have lost all hope, Depression Freedom shows the gentle steps you can take to skillfully lead yourself through depression and restore the joy of living. It is impossible to read this book without being changed by it. The inspiration within these pages will captivate you and be the inspiration you need to stop the reign of darkness and embrace a new celebration of life.

Here in Texas the weather can change dramatically in moments and deliver one helluva slap. Sure enough, a big storm line was brewing. At 10:00 pm the weather guys interrupted and informed us a severe storm was headed our way. They were warning of hail, big hail, and lots of hail. And about a minute later hail it did.

For about the next twenty minutes the hail came down in sheets. First there was pea sized hail, then dime sized hail, and then golf ball sized hail. It hailed so long the grass was entirely covered in white. Although it was 80 degrees still outside, the yard looked like a winter wonderland.

This morning when I woke up, the hail still covered parts of the yard and patio. The most fun part of the this storm was taking Seraphim outside and letting her see her very first hail ever. It’s sort of unfair that this furry fluffy American Eskimo wound up living in the extreme heat of Texas, but for a few minutes she frolicked in the coolness of the ice!  

The good news is that we are probably  now out of our drought conditions (it really hadn’t rained much at all this spring). The tough news was that the spring flowers took quite a pelting. Today is a day for surveying the damage, cleaning up, an some new spring planting. Isn’t nature amazing!

My Husband and Best Friend
I can’t imagine my life without my two best friends Ray and Adrienne. For starters, these two people really get me. The understand my nuances, what makes me tick and what I’m all about. The three of us work together, play together and create bigger lives together. It’s like having my family of angels right here on Earth with me every day of my life! 

My Home
Some people thrive anywhere, but not me. I need to have roots and my home is definitely the center of my world. I LOVE my home. It’s the house that Ray built for us and now it’s filled with so much love that the excess flows out the windows, escapes through the roof and sinks deep down into the ground. I’ve painted almost every room myself and Ray’s eclectic art collection makes our walls come alive. Our home is filled with three soft and adorable kitties (Merlin, Solomon and Ariel) and a gorgeous sweet white pup named Seraphim. I’ve been feeding the birds outside for years and now my backyard is a permanent home to cardinals, blue jays, ravens, wood peckers, ducks, hawks, an assortment of little sparrow sized birds, a ton of playful squirrels, a family of raccoons and the occasional fox or coyote. 

Creative Expression
I have an art room upstairs filled with beautiful messy paints, gorgeous papers, canvases, glue for every type of surface, antique buttons and lace, and so many artsy-craftsy things that all make my heart smile. I love getting my hands covered in ink, looking down to see that I’ve ruined yet another shirt or pair of jeans with paint, and delving into some new artistic creation. This birthday I received a brand new sewing machine and have already begun to explore creating artworks that combine paper, paint, embellishments, cloth, hand embroidery, and sewing. FUN!! 

Yoga
There’s not much time lately for a lot of structured activity, but every Monday afternoon is Yoga day with our personal instructor Candace. This one hour a week provides a calm mind, a happier and more flexible neck and back, time to breath and a sense of balance. 

Morning Walks
Our cute dog-face Seraphim just recently turned a year old and thrives on activity. So the first thing she and I do in the morning is go on our morning walk outside rain or shine, freezing ice or summer heat. We head outdoors together to play, smell the wind and take in the sights and sounds of nature. 

Organization
I admit it, I’m a neat freak. Nothing obsessive or anything, but I love the aesthetics of clearing out anything that remotely resembles clutter and creating a certain type of breathing room. I keep organized kitchen drawers, clean refrigerators and pantries, nothing hidden under the beds, nothing on my closet floors and my clothes organized by season, color and style. Upon reflection, I’m seeing it’s more about maintaining flow rather than organization. When there’s room for flow than lots of new and exciting stuff continues coming into my life. 

My iPhone
An absolute necessity! It helps me find my way through the city traffic, allows me to text and stay in touch during business hours, holds all my favorite music and most exciting of all my iPhone stores lots of pictures. I’m constantly taking pictures of the food I cook, the art I’m currently creating, the beautiful nature sights that I see while I’m walking with Sera and the fun times I’m sharing with my friends. 

Skype
I live in Dallas and my parents and sister live in upstate NY. While there are only so many times we can visit each other during the year, Skype helps us bridge the distance. Now I get to see my families faces, take a peek at what my mom is cooking for dinner, share in their holidays on a more personal level, and look into their eyes more often. Priceless. 

Cooking
One of the things I love about cooking is that it is the ultimate form of creative expression which fills all my senses. Cooking involves creative planning, the wonderful experience of picking out the best ingredients, the peacefulness of chopping and dicing, the fantastic sounds of sizzling, a variety of smells, tastes, textures to fill my body with pleasure and the joy of sharing dishes that makes my loved ones smile.    

Humanscale Freedom Chair
Writing articles for the past 20 years for Eating Peacefully and Loving Miracles, writing the Divine Self blog each week and writing three inspirational books made getting a comfortable office chair a necessity. After much research and test driving, I found my perfect chair in the Humanscale Freedom Chair. It was worth the investment and my back and legs thank me every day. 

There are a million things that keep me happy and I’m often amused by the simple things. What about you? What are some things in life you just can’t live without? Share what makes your life a grand miracle in the comments section

Joshua Bell http://www.joshuabell.com/

For those of us who hadn’t already heard this story, as part of a social experiment Joshua Bell was asked by Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten to play his violin in a Washington DC subway station during morning rush hour.  At 7:51 am on January 12, 2007, a few months before he won the Avery Fisher Prize, Joshua Bell stood in a DC subway station in jeans and a long-sleeve T.  He opened up his case, and started playing his 1713 Stradivarius. 

Here’s how the story unfolds…

Washington, DC Metro Station on a Cold January Morning
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. 

Four Minutes Later
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

6 Minutes
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

10 Minutes
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 Minutes
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. He received $32.17 for his 43 minutes playing, not counting the woman who recognized him and gave him a twenty.  And yes, there were a few pennies in his case.  About two thousand people passed by.  In the hustle and bustle of morning rush, few had even stopped to look at him, despite hearing the music. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. 

The commuters were oblivious to the treat that would have cost them a hefty $100 in a concert hall, if they could find a ticket that is.  And for Weingarten,  he got a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his Washington Post cover story ‘Pearls Before Breakfast’.  To read this fascinating article, CLICK HERE.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100. 

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour “Do we perceive beauty?” “ Do we stop to appreciate it?” “ Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?” 

What place does beauty have in your daily routine?

intense thunderstorms

warm southerly wind

sunlight

starry starry nights

trees

spring

rocks, sticks, stones

self love

creating  art

the beauty of imperfection

water

empty spaces

first cup of coffee in the morning

sense of smell

animal, birds, puppies and kitties

soul connections

unconditional acceptance

inspiration

So these are just a few of the things that fill my every day life with light and make my heart sing. What about you? Leave us a comment and tell us one or two of your daily favorites.

1.  Organize your bedroom so that when you first open your eyes you will see beauty. Consider placing art on your walls that brightens your mood, living plants on the dressers that serve as a reminder that you are a part of the cycle of life, and planting a tree or flowering shrubs outside your bedroom window for beauty. 

2.  When you first wake up take a few long, slow, deep intentional breaths. 

3.  Wake up and remind yourself to live your day as if you’ll die tomorrow, and at the same time as though you’ll live 200 years. 

4.  Even before getting out of bed, say something meaningful to yourself out loud. It doesn’t have to be profound, just a few words that affirm that this is your day to live, to make meaningful choices, and to celebrate. 

5.  Playing music in the morning can set your mood for the day. Consider creating a playlist of your Top 20 Feel Good Songs. Soothing music can help relax, while rhythmic beats might get you dancing in the shower, and party beats can provide a sense of fun. 

6.  Be mindful of the quality of air in your bedroom. Open the windows often to let out the stale air and let in air that is fresh and full of oxygen. 

7.  Turn your bedroom into a serene oasis where the worries of the day melt away, and the grand potentials of life greet your eyes in the morning. Choose luxurious bedding, elegant sheets, perfect pillows, and a quality mattress. You deserve it! 

8.  The colors in your bedroom can have an astounding effect on your mood. Choose a color scheme for your bedroom that creates the type of mood you are looking for. Cool colors such as blues and greens tend to evoke serenity and peace. Pink is extremely calming. Shades of red are energizing and intimate. Pale shades of yellow will reflect light and make the room feel airy and bright. Earth tones are gentle and can create a cozy feeling. 

9.  Develop a pleasant morning routine that makes you eager to get out of bed. Try going for a light morning walk before showering, meditating, doing some light yoga stretches to get your body moving, or writing in a journal. Experiment and find a routine that works best for you. 

10.  Have something to be excited about today. When you wake up, think about one specific action or nice thing you can do for yourself that day… then make a solid decision to do it. When you have something you are excited about, you are more likely to get out of bed alert and looking forward to the day. 

If you tend to wake up feeling groggy, grumpy, or even sad, consider using one or more of the above tips to help boost your morning mood. These easy ways to perk up help you take charge and feeling more confident to face whatever the day may bring.

Today’s column offers 10 valuable tips than can help you have a more creative and fulfilling relationship with yourself and life in the New Year: 

1.  Become observant and be a witness to yourself. Observe your breathing, the way you hold yourself, the actions you take when alone or with others. The more watchful you become, the more conscious you become. It is only when we are conscious that we are then able to become free to make new choices. 

2.  Treat yourself with respect and make careful deliberate decisions that feel right to the core truth of who you are. 

3.  Listen to your intuitive heart and really hear what this divine part of yourself has to say. Then honor your wisdom and take action in the direction of your truth. 

4.  Stay focused on what’s most important to you by putting personal priorities on the front burner. 

5.  Ask yourself what you can do each day to invest in improving the quality of your relationship with yourself. 

6.  Make time for yourself, noticing what you need and giving it to yourself. 

7.  Make yourself happy and more filled with joy by choosing and actions that feel good to you—both in the present moment and in the long-term. Actions that feel good only short-term but cause guilt, grief or regret long-term may provide a moment of comfort, but will not serve to increase the overall level of joy available to you in this life. 

8.  Talk to yourself. Open up and clearly articulate the thoughts that typically run through your mind. Whether using a journal or talking to yourself aloud in a mirror, voicing the thoughts that tend to spin in your mind helps you notice your patterns. There’s no need to train your mind to “think positive” thoughts. Instead, the decision to bring thoughts out into the open helps disempowering thoughts resolve and allows us to place attention on thoughts that affirm the beauty of self and life.  

9.  Taste and savor your food. Bringing greater consciousness to your eating brings you into greater connection to your body, to the planet and to the universe at large. Conscious eating is powerful because it expands awareness of our right to true enjoyment and our right to belong to this world.

10.  Become conscious of what is in your closets, drawers, and storage spaces. Letting go of excess clutter and redundant clothes, tools, and objects can raise energy levels to new heights. Clearing space is a sign you are ready to open up to new potentials! 

Becoming more conscious of thoughts, feelings and patterns can help bring your relationship with life and with yourself into balance. No matter where you are in this New Year you have the ability to make changes in your life and make constructive choices when opportunities arise. Best wishes to you!

Can Emotions Harm Us?

While diverting attention from an overwhelming emotion is sometimes a healthy coping mechanism, it is not a long term solution. There’s a saying that goes, “What we resist, persists.” This expression is true when it pertains to the intense emotions that depression can bring in awareness. 

No matter how it feels, an emotion cannot harm us. No matter how intense, raw, or extreme an emotion is, it cannot kill us. We may believe ourselves to be unsafe during an emotional situation, and we may be uncertain how to cope with the intensity of what we are experiencing, but the energy of an emotion is just that—energy. 

Expression
Healing depression requires learning new ways of expressing emotions and emotional energy. This doesn’t mean analysis, figuring out why you are feeling what you are experiencing, or looking to the past to see who is to blame for why you are feeling so bad. 

What is needed is pure, safe, authentic expression. This means finding new ways to allow the energy inside to get outside. Because when energy is given awareness and expression, it ends up seeking its own resolution. Healing depression and emotions isn’t about finding mental solutions to a problem—healing requires bringing into conscious awareness the expression of the painful beliefs and stories held within. Once we are consciously aware of the beliefs that no longer serve us, then and only then, are we able to make new and different choices. 

New Ways of Healing Emotions and Depression
Instead of resisting emotions, ask yourself what the best way is to allow a safe expression of the emotion. Sense inward for the choice that is right for you—while you’re feeling deep emotions. Do the best you can to allow the intense energy of emotions to release in a way that is natural and safest for you. Keep breathing. Feel into your inner self and ask, “What is the best thing I can do for myself right now while this process continues? What is the best form of expression I can give to my pain to help myself heal?” 

If you don’t get an immediate answer, take a few deep breaths and wait a while until you have a sense of what direction to take. If you still don’t know what to do to help express yourself, just try something. Listed below are a few ideas to get you started. 

Emotional expression comes in many forms. For instance… 

• do you need to listen to soothing music,
• scream in the privacy of your car,
• carve your emotions onto the crisp white pages of a journal,
• wail your painful story to a friend who will listen,
• sit in the warm sunshine,
• or take a walk in the cold night? 
• Do you feel the need to take a shower or a bath?
• Perhaps it would be more fitting to draw it,
• sculpt it in clay,
• or make visual images? 
• Another approach is to take the emotion or feeling into movement or sound. 
• Or perhaps you feel the need to cry?

If so, go ahead and let it out. Cry, curl up in a fetal position in the corner, and be aware of yourself having the experience. You don’t need to know why or what the tears are about. Get out of your head, and stay with yourself as you cry. Hang on until the emotional wave passes. If a painful story does come up, continue breathing and use some form of expression to get the story  outside of yourself. 

Gaining Trust of Yourself During Depression
Moving things out into conscious awareness provides new perspective and healing. You don’t have to act on emotions, but they do require awareness through some form of expression. 

There’s no standard “right” answer to what you are supposed to do. There’s no fixing the emotion. There’s just you breathing, sensing inward for the best way to express yourself, keeping yourself safe, and allowing your process to come into completion. Things are complete when there’s nothing more to express, when you run out of steam, or when you notice you’re expressing the same things repeatedly and there doesn’t seem to be an inner reason to continue with the expression. When you reach that point, take a few deep breaths and let the process be complete. 

With learning new coping mechanisms of how to safely be with seemingly unsafe emotions, we enter into a new level of trust for life and for ourselves. We learn that we are safe even during the windstorms of intense emotions. 

Are you looking for new ways to end depression? Even if you are angry at yourself for being human and have lost all hope, Depression Freedom shows the gentle steps you can take to skillfully lead yourself through depression and restore the joy of living. It is impossible to read this book without being changed by it. The inspiration within these pages will captivate you and be the inspiration you need to stop the reign of darkness and embrace a new celebration of life.

There is simplicity in solitude
No expectations, no judgment
No need to distort feelings
Time to cultivate forgiveness
Become my own best friend 

Within this sacred place
Freedom to break through layers of resistance
Liberation from fears and doubts
Unlock the doorway of misguided beliefs
Step into the power deep inside 

Embracing inner truth and insights
I make my choices, select my direction
Allowing joy and pain
To pass through an opened heart
The journey of liberation and emergence 

Annette Colby 2010

To help you challenge your beliefs about what you can and cannot do, here are 20 empowering truths to help you ride out the longing to smoke and stopping smoking for good.

Achievable
Coming off cigarettes, changing your way of life—it’s not easy. But it’s not impossible, either.

Accountability
Hold yourself accountable for your actions. At the middle of each day, take a direct and honest assessment about whether or not your current choices feel good to the heart and spirit of who you are. 

Adventure
The road into creating change is quite an adventure. It’s not just about what you are moving away from, but the life, strengths, and empowerment you are moving toward. 

Balanced
Before moving forward, stop, breathe, and let the frustration dissipate. Nothing good comes from having the stress of frustration in the lead. 

Body Care
Coming off cigarettes is an enormous change for your body. Follow through on those gentle nudges to take more care of yourself. Eat healthier foods, drink plenty of water, walk in the sunshine, and breathe. 

Breathe
Make conscious efforts to take slow, deep breaths and practice blowing your troubles away without the smoke of cigarettes. Long, slow, and relaxed. Inhale life, exhale tension. Let go, relax, and repeat. 

Caring
Shift your focus away from “not smoking” toward new ways of loving yourself, taking care of your needs, articulating your desires, and allowing yourself pleasure. 

Change
Quitting involves a change in perspective, attitude, and lifestyle. Give yourself time and opportunity to learn new skills, develop new patterns of behavior, adopt new habits, and build new relationships. 

Choice
Stopping smoking is a very personal matter that ultimately rests on a quiet and private decision you make inside yourself. Nothing can happen without that decision, and everything can happen with it. 

Creativity
Write, dance, sing, draw, design, or decorate. You are much more likely to overcome an urge to smoke when you actively connect your physical body with your creative spirit.   

Dependability
Keep your promises to yourself. Acknowledge excuses as excuses and discover new creative ways to move beyond them. Show yourself that your personal choices are important.    

Destiny
You can change your stars; you can be successful. You are the master of your own destiny, free to make choices today that lead to the life you will lead tomorrow. 

Diversion
When the urge to smoke gets bad, have something to do. Keep your mind busy. Keep your hands busy. Read a book. Write in your journal. Call a friend. Do whatever it takes, but delay, delay, delay. 

Emotional Healing
If you’re using your smoking habit to deal with difficult emotions, such as sadness, depression, or anxiety, then most certainly you’ll find yourself with emotional side effects from quitting smoking. 

Empowerment
Believe in your inner ability to carry you through this challenge. No challenge or obstacle has the power to defeat the inspiration and determination within you. 

Encouragement
Get excited!! Find a way to elevate yourself. Take a higher road.  Rally your inner power when you are at your lowest points by getting excited again about what you want and what you’re moving toward. 

Enjoyment
Smoking is often a desire for carefree enjoyment. If you’re going to give up smoking, you’re also going to have to look for new ways to enjoy yourself. Do not put off joy—do whatever you can to feel good now. 

Expansion
Is it fair that you have to go through this withdrawal period? Maybe not, but fair is not the point. The point is that you want something more for yourself, and what you want is worth your effort. 

Flexibility
Cut back on cigarettes gradually or quit smoking “cold turkey.” Find the method that works best for you. If one way doesn’t work, do the other. 

Focus
List all the reasons you want to quit. Every night before you go to bed, remind yourself of the big picture and the life you are choosing to live.

Remember, millions of people have quit smoking, and you can too! If you are  ready to give up smoking, Quit Cards: Mastery of Smoke Free Life are a perfect inspirational tool to empower your ability to stop the smoking habit. 60 beautiful cards, each with a powerful reflection designed to inspire change and action. Small enough to carry around with you all day long! 

When an urge to light up hits, reach into your pocket, purse, or desk drawer—where your cigarettes used to be—and pull out a card instead. Each intensely inspirational and practical card will help you remain centered and focused so you can kick the smoking habit with grace and ease. 

The healing wisdom contained on each card was carefully selected to activate a large number of habit-changing techniques required to say goodbye to cigarettes forever. Enjoy the freedom of being a non-smoker!