If you don’t read the entire post today, walk away with just this: Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.

There were days that I wanted nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely have started heading in that direction. It happened to be that I was through the most major break-up in my life.

For a long time, I was looking for someone to tell me exactly what to do. I’d read a book and it would have an inspiring idea, but then the implications of that idea would make me feel uncomfortable. Still, I’d try it on. After months of struggling, I realized it just wouldn’t fit.

This happened again and again.

I thought there was something wrong with me because other people’s frameworks didn’t fit me like a glove. It wasn’t until I started helping other people that I realized, they’re not supposed to.

Other people’s words can inspire us, inform us, and, at best, give us valuable frameworks within which to place our experiences. But how we fill in those gaps and connect those dots—that’s still up to us.

Self-discovery is supposed to be messy and confusing. You’re supposed to feel like no one has the answers for you, because they don’t. YOU have the answers. At most, you need a guide to help you find those answers, and even then, you always have the final say.

After many tearful conversations with my ever-supportive friends, I would look forward to sitting down on my cushion and experiencing the sadness and pain I was feeling.

I would spend my days intently focused at work, and, when my mind wandered, holding back tears. I would be looking forward to letting those tears flow. I finally became ready to let these emotions live and to acknowledge and accept them, to live with them.

I would walk to my cushion, and sit. I would set the timer. I would pull my head up high. I would collapse, crying. I would pulled myself up again. I would collapse again, bawling.

Merely the thought of pulling my chest up again at that time was exhausting. All day I had looked forward to a moment when I could let these emotions be, and then I found myself feeling too weak to experience them in the manner I thought I should.

Experiencing the discomfort, however, did not seem to be my current problem.

These emotions had something to teach me, and I wanted to learn. When I finally just sat in meditation with the pain I was experiencing, I would begin to understand the lessons. I thought the lessons would tell me what to do and how to move forward. But it wasn’t the silence that brought me to freedom from my wounds.

We all want to be strong and stable (like a mountain). We want to sit with our head high and feel the pain. We want to not be a pile of howling self-pity on our bedroom floors.

But there were moments that I was a weeping mass on my bedroom floor. I was overwhelmed.

In those moments I would reset my timer. Five minutes. For five minutes I would agree that I could cry my heart out. Then, I decided, I’ll get up, cook dinner, eat dinner, drink a glass of wine, and read a book, and then I’ll come back to the cushion.

This new way of thinking started to go much better. I would weep for about thirty seconds, and then I would lay there breathing deeply. The timer would go off and I would get up.

I would remember Pema Chodron’s advice about lightening up, which is exactly what I needed to do. She said, splash water on your face, go jogging, do anything different. I put on some Al Green instead of the cathartic break-up music I was used to playing.

I would dance and sing out loud while preparing dinner. I had my dinner, my wine, my reading. I sat on my cushion. I experienced the feelings that had now transitioned into numbness.

The gratitude I have for that experience, for being able to recognize my needs and provide them for myself, to simply have given myself a positive, healthy break, is immense.

I gave myself the space I needed. I had hoped to sit on the cushion and get that space, but I found it shaking to “Love and Happiness” instead.

It’s not uncommon to want ourselves or our situation to be different. It is the desire to be a better person that pushes us to grow, change, and actually become better people. However, personal growth is often a slow and painful process. There are no miracles. If we keep picking at our wounds instead of embracing them, they never begin to heal. But when we begin to lean into our pain and suffering, when we allow ourselves to feel, that is when our body and mind carefully tells us when it’s sufficient and when to take that break.

The expectation to be something we are not, whether temporarily or permanently, is a form of aggression toward our selves.

The best thing we can do is nurture ourselves and our circumstances just as they are. Listen to yourself and do not try to force yourself or your situation to be something it is not.

When you give yourself a break, you create space. Allowing things to be, just as they are, without judgment or expectation, gives you room to breathe. And that is good for clarity. You will find things start to get better, if you let them.

When we become more willing to rest in a state of confusion, we accept things being “complicated.” There should be nothing disappointing to you about complication; it’s a sign of growth and transition.
It’s hard to see sometimes, but the joy of living is in the unknown.

Letting yourself be weak can give you strength. Letting yourself be confused can give you clarity. Letting your life be complicated can simplify it.

Have a beautiful Wednesday. xo Shelly

Imagine using a new language that prevents you from blaming others, being reactive, manipulating, fearing anything in the outside world, needing social approval, being offended by others, and being controlled or controlling others.

Imagine that these problems were simply eliminated from your life because your new language makes them impossible.

Perception of language engages your tongue and your brain toward a new level of understanding and perception of the way you view the world.

Here are a few guiding principles of what I mean:

Principle #1: There is no out there out there.

We don’t respond to “the world out there.” We respond to our perception of the world.

Perception is formed by beliefs, cultural norms, religious affiliation, genetic factors, life experience, sense of right and wrong, and so much more.

All of these factors combine to filter the information that passes through our senses, allowing us to figure out what things mean. In other words, we don’t ever directly experience anything outside of ourselves. We only experience ourselves.

When I listen to my husband talk, I am actually hearing my perception of his words, gestures and so forth. I am making meaning out of what he communicates based on that. This may or not match the meaning he intends to convey.

If I am offended by him, it is important to understand that I am actually offended by what I did with his words based on how I made meaning out of them. In essence, I am offended by the him-in-me. Not by him, the real person. I can never experience him, the real person, directly.

In essence, I am offended by this person that I have made a part of me by the way I perceive him. In the end, I am offended by none other than myself.

In short, it is not what people do to me that causes problems for me, but what I do with people to cause myself problems.

Here is an example of this in practice: “My husband asked me to calm down.”

This becomes: “I had my-husband-in-me asking me to calm down.”

This way of phrasing acknowledges that I do not experience my husband the way he experiences himself. He is not acting on me. I am acting on myself with my perception of him. When I respond to him, I am really responding to my perception. I am responding to me.

There are huge benefits to understanding and communicating with this in mind. When I really get this principle, a whole new world in me opens up. Suddenly, I don’t take things personally.

I do not get offended very easily. I can listen to criticism with an open mind. I don’t take myself so seriously or believe others have power over me.

Principle #2: I am an active process.

I act as opposed to being acted upon. I am my own agent. It is true that something may well act upon me. A tree may fall on me. A car may hit me. Another person may shove me.

Psychologically, however, I consider it more important how I respond to these events – what meaning I make of them – and I do this actively.
People so often portray themselves as passive or as victims in their use of language.

“She made me feel so angry.”
“My father makes me feel helpless.”
“I am troubled by my past.”

In reality (in me) I am the one doing the acting. I actively create my own experience. I can express myself differently:

“I anger myself with her.”
“I make myself feel helpless when I am with my father.”
“I trouble myself with my past.”

This way of putting words together suggests that I am an active participant in my own experience. I am doing to myself as opposed to having things done to me.
There is a world of difference between “I trouble myself with my past” and “I am troubled by my past.”

If I am troubled by my past, then I see my past as something fixed that is acting upon me. In this view, I might have my past being something back there that actually has power over me. So many of us think, speak, feel, and act as if this were actually true.

In the moment I shift myself to “I trouble myself with my past,” I transform my experience. In this view, I am doing something to myself. I am the agent. Nothing other than myself is acting upon me.

Moreover, I am acting on my past-in-me. In other words I am troubling myself with how I am creating my past. This is a significant distinction.

If I am the one who is taking action, I can stop taking this action. Or, I can act differently. A new world of possibility opens up when I get this concept.

I open a new world of possibility in me. I empower myself, no longer believing that I am a victim of outward circumstance when I “verb” myself in this way.
I am not motivated. I motivate myself. I am not excited. I excite myself. I am not sad. I sadden myself. I am not depressed. I depress myself.

I don’t give power to other people or circumstances or life to do anything to me psychologically. I do everything to myself. What do I want to do to myself?

Principle #3: Everything that is happening is happening right now.

We need to speak in the present tense. Most of us believe that there is a past, a present, and a future. I believe that there is only now.

I can only experience myself right now. While I am contemplating the past, I am doing so now, perceiving the past within me at this moment. My future is similar to my past in that when I think about the future I am creating it right now.

When I speak of the past, I can acknowledge in my language that the thoughts or feelings I’m having about my past are happening now. When I speak myself I want to connect myself with my experience in this moment.

“Tomorrow is going to be a scary day.”

This becomes:
“I scare myself with my thoughts about tomorrow.”
“I enjoyed fishing with my dad when was a child.”

This becomes:

”I am enjoying myself now with thoughts of fishing with my dad when I was a child.”

There may be endless combinations of words to illustrate how to reflect the here and now in our language. When I speak, I want to remind myself continually that I am doing to myself, right here, right now.

The past that I thought was behind me becomes another aspect of how I experience myself now. The future waiting for me in the great beyond is now within my reach.

So, the world I interact with is within me. I actively create it, right now.

When I first started speaking in this way, my world began to shift.

I realized when others judge me, I am actually using my perception of them to judge myself. I also realized that what they were saying was just their perception of me, not me.

I not only got the philosophy that I create my own world, but I had the actual experience, along with others. When these principles are infused with every sentence that comes out of your mouth, it becomes your reality before long.

Language forms the foundation of our perception. When you change the structure of your language, you change the structure and your perception of the world.

See you tomorrow on the sand!