Sometimes you realize you’re being held hostage by someone else’s instability, mental illness, or addiction. This can only happen if you care deeply in the first place; that is, if you’re invested in the relationship, or if this person is in your life and it’s not easy to extricate yourself from all communication or connection (your boss or colleague, for example). Often, we meet people and they may present one face to us, but inside it’s a whole different story. It takes time to get to know people, and even time won’t get the job done if a person wants to keep things from you. We only ever know the interior world of another person if they give us access to it.
If you’re a warm, trusting, open person, you probably project and assume that other people are also that way. That’s what we all tend to do, we make assumptions about other people based on how things are for us, and that’s a great way to have your eyes opened, but it probably won’t feel very good because we can never assume, and we can never project. We all have our various upbringings, experiences, ways we were supported or neglected, different tendencies and dreams, varied emotional lives, relationships, things that are driving us consciously or unconsciously, heartbreaks, levels of resiliency, disappointments, achievements and fears. How things are for me is not how they are for you, but we exist in this same world. We just cannot expect other people to see what we see, even the things that seem totally obvious to us.
People with addictive personalities are usually very good at hiding their addictions or tendencies, and I don’t say that without compassion and understanding. It’s awful to be a slave to a numbing agent, to feel like you have to have access to your “fix” at all times, whether we’re talking about drugs and alcohol, or sex, or the internet, or shopping, or eating disorders. So you might observe erratic behavior in someone you’re getting to know, but think it’s just an “off day” here and there. Mental illness can work the same way. Maybe you’re dealing with a personality disorder that renders a person unable to consider how their actions impact the people around them, but unless you’re a target, you might go a good long while before feeling like something isn’t right.
Sometimes, in order to be close to someone, you have to accept their version of reality. Maybe you’ve known people like this. I once had a girlfriend who had a serious drinking problem. When I’d try to talk to her about it, she’d say she was a social drinker, and I was over-worrying, but I poured her into a cab enough times to know this wasn’t something to sweep under the rug. I talked to her mother about it, but she wasn’t ready to face it, either, and when I refused to be quiet about it, my friend wrote me off. In certain situations, there’s nothing you can do but walk away and hope a person decides to get help before it’s too late.
There are many people attached to their stories about what’s happened in their past, and why things are the way they are, and why they are the way they are. I lived that way during my late teens and early twenties, and it was awful. Blame keeps you stuck pointing, when you really want to be digging. You’ll find most people living this way are angry or bitter or depressed, and probably all three. I once became friends with a guy who had story after story about how he’d been screwed professionally. First by this company, then by another, and I believed him, I believed he’d been unfairly overlooked, unappreciated, and mistreated. Then he went to work for close friends of mine, and I watched him blatantly sabotage every opportunity he had to grow. He was more attached to the sad story than he was to writing a new one. When I tried to point that out to him, he became enraged. Sometimes people cling to their stories because they aren’t ready to take ownership of their lives yet. They use their anger like a shield, and anything you try to say or do bounces off. It’s understandable. We all have our coping mechanisms, and you can’t make a person be somewhere they are not.
If you’re attracted to the “walking wounded”, you’re probably going to encounter people like this, and I’ll just remind you in case you need to be reminded, you cannot save anyone. You can love people and you can try to get them help and support, but you can’t make another person happy, or compassionate or kind or loving. You can’t make anyone fall in love with you. You’re not going to change the way someone moves through the world. This is all inside work; everyone has to do their own journey. You can decide who you want to bring close, and who you want to keep at a distance. Often, you won’t have to make these decisions, they’ll be made for you. If you back someone against the wall and ask them to be accountable for what they’ve done, and they aren’t ready to do that, they’ll head for the hills, anyway. Pay attention to your tendency to draw people close who aren’t able to do anything but hurt you. Don’t participate in someone else’s instability. You can’t fix it, but it also doesn’t help when you enable it. It doesn’t help them, and it doesn’t help you. Create boundaries where necessary, and defend them when you must. You can’t control what other people do or say or feel or want or need, but you can control the way you choose to respond. Just keep your own side of the street clean, the rest will take care of itself.
Sending you love,
Emotions create sensations. When we say we’re enraged, we’re describing the feelings that are flooding through our bodies—maybe our blood pressure is rising (thus we’re “hot-headed”), or the breath is shallow, or the jaw i
Most of us know what’s true for us long before we act on it, especially when we’re talking about making huge life shifts. Sometimes we agonize for weeks, months, or even years, because so much hinges on maintaining the status quo. This can happen in our personal and professional lives. People stay in jobs that crush their souls for all kinds of reasons. Some are practical—they need to keep a roof over their heads and food in their refrigerators, or they need health insurance for themselves and their families. Sometimes the reasons have more to do with low self-esteem, or a lack of self-respect. People tell themselves every day that they are not good enough, that they don’t measure up, that they should be thankful for what they have, because who are they to think that things could be different? Who are they to pursue their dreams? There are all kinds of reasons we convince ourselves we’re stuck, and when you’re speaking about the necessities of life, of course those are real. But if you’re in a job that’s sucking the life out of you, I wouldn’t accept that as “the way things have to be.” I’d do everything in your power to seek out another opportunity somewhere, because 80 hours a week is a lot of time to spend feeling like you want to scream.
Sometimes people get really clear on what their tendencies are, but that’s as far as they go. Maybe you know people like this. I used to date a guy who was brilliant in this regard; if something came up between us and I talked to him about how I felt, he would focus and listen and completely own his end. He could tell me what had driven him to do what he did, or say what he’d said. He would acknowledge that he understood why I would feel the way I did, and he’d apologize, and I’d think, awesome. He really heard me. We understand each other. We’ve had some really good communication. But then the next time a similar situation presented itself, nothing at all would change. It was like “Groundhog’s Day”, only not funny.
Whenever you find yourself trying to force or control an outcome, it’s time to perk up and take a look at what’s happening within you. We’re all going to be attached to certain ideas; this is the nature of being huma
When you start to live in alignment with what’s true for you, life becomes so much simpler. It’s easier to say no when you mean no. It takes away the murkiness between people and around situations that might have left you scratching your head in the past, because now, you can just open your mouth and say, “I feel really weird. What’s going on?” It gives you the power to direct your energy, because you know what you want, and so do the people in your life. You don’t have to waste time or energy making excuses for yourself, or anyone else.
One of the worst things you can feed is a victim mentality, and let’s get right to it—sometimes horrendous, heartbreaking things happen to kind and beautiful people. Maybe you grew up in an unsafe environment and spent most of your childhood trying to be invisible or indispensable. Maybe you saw things and experienced things no one ever should. Maybe you grew up and had a terrifying interaction that turned everything you thought you knew inside out, and maybe you’ve endured a loss that feels impossible to comprehend. These things are all possible. I hope none of them have happened to you, but they’re all possible.
We all have our plans and our ideas. We have a picture in our heads of “how things should be,” or “how things will be”, but most of us get the lesson early that life just doesn’t work that way. I know very few people who can say that everything has gone according to their plan. In fact, I don’t know one person who can say that.
Yesterday morning I woke up from a nightmare that I was on a plane with one of my best friends, and the plane suddenly started plummeting toward the ocean. Alarms were going off, things were falling from the overhead compartments, oxygen masks dangled in front of us, and people were screaming. My friend grabbed my arm, and I said, “We’re going to have a water landing.” Which is hilarious in retrospect, because if that isn’t a euphemism we’ve been taught, what is? All I could think of was my children. I woke up as the nose of the plane hit the water. Needless to say, it was not a great way to start the day.
Often people think of their weaknesses or mistakes as failings or short-comings, when really, they’re just places where there’s still some healing or growing to do. If you notice patterns in your life, repeated choic
Fear can hold us back in so many ways. It’s a completely natural feeling that we’ll all experience, but as with everything, it’s what you do with your fear (or don’t do), that matters. The root of the word “courage” 
It seemed like a a good day to write about freedom. When we haven’t done the work to heal, and by that I mean, get real with ourselves and seek help if we need it, we are owned by our pain. If we have doubts about whether we are truly lovable, worthwhile, special, unique…that doubt and fear will permeate everything. Following your heart takes enormous courage, and in order to be courageous, you have to believe in your ability to shine; to offer up something only you can. So many people are owned by the idea, “Who am I to chase my dreams?”, or, “Who am I to color outside the lines?”
Once when I was about sixteen, I was walking up Columbus Avenue with my dad. We were having a conversation about something I can’t remember, and suddenly, my dad lashed out and hit me on the side of my head with the back of his hand, hard. I was completely stunned, because I hadn’t said anything of note, and I turned to him and asked why he’d done it. It turned out he’d misheard me, and had thought I’d said something disrespectful. I know he’d take that moment back if he could. It’s one of those things I hope he’s forgotten, but to me, it stood out. The other thing that stands out for me is that I squelched my feelings about what had happened. I didn’t want him to feel any more terrible about what he’d done than he already did, so I blinked back my tears, and tried to make my voice sound normal, but I had this wave of deep pain, as low in your body as you can feel something. Even though our conversation continued, part of me was back in the middle of that block, getting smacked on the side of the head, again and again. Like instant replay in slow motion, my brain and my heart trying to make sense out of it.
Sometimes we can get really caught up in someone else’s drama. There are all kinds of people in this world, and many of them are suffering in some way or another. You really have no idea about the interior world of another human being unless they choose to share it with you. There are people coming out of abuse, neglect and abandonment. People trying to overcome betrayal. People clinging and trying to control whatever and whomever they can so they don’t feel so afraid. People with personality disorders, people suffering from depression, people grasping onto their anger like a shield, people numbing out so they don’t have to feel anything at all. If you get too close, you’re going to get some spillover. It’s just the nature of things.
Being kind and understanding is very different than allowing yourself to be abused, mistreated or disrespected. Sometimes there’s a thin line between compassion for other people, and abuse of self. Being spiritual does not mean we allow ourselves to be injured, dumped on, taken advantage of, or treated like a doormat. When you’ve lost your self-respect and you’ve allowed your tender heart to be handled in a reckless way, you’ve betrayed the most vulnerable part of yourself, and that’s the source of your light and your strength. There is no true spiritual practice that demands you hand that over.
When it comes to relationships of any kind, honest communication is everything. If you want other people to know you, you have to be willing to show yourself. It’s not realistic to expect others to read your mind, and as much as you might think you have someone pegged, the only way to truly know how anyone feels, is to ask. Sometimes we repress something we need to say out of fear of hurting someone else, and other times we don’t ask questions when we’re afraid of the answers, and what they might mean for our tender hearts.
Sometimes the gift is getting what you want, and sometimes the gift is not getting what you want. It’s fairly easy to celebrate when things go our way, but it usually takes a lot of effort to unearth the beauty in having some of our desires remain unfulfilled. I’m not an “everything happens for a reason” yogi, and I don’t believe everything is positive. I don’t go for platitudes like, “If you don’t get what you want, it’s because something better is planned for you”, but I do think there’s the potential for growth in every experience.
When was the last time you told your story? You know, the “story of you” and how you came to be the way you are? I think it would be so brilliant if we could hear our take on ourselves at fifteen. If someone had recorded a conversation with us at that point, asking us about life, how things were with us, what our struggles seemed to be, why we were the way we were, that would be so interesting to hear later. Maybe again at twenty-five, and then we could all pay attention to the way we present ourselves currently. Hopefully the story would change, at least to some degree, or we would change the moments upon which we place importance.
Getting over a toxic relationship is like breaking an addiction. Something in the interaction had or has you hooked, and that something is connected to a place deep within you that is unhealed and in need of your kin
Sometimes we develop coping mechanisms in childhood, and we keep using them as we grow, even if we’ve removed ourselves from those situations that made them necessary. If you learned to push your feelings down as a c
Clear communication is so important when it comes to understanding and being understood, but for many people, it isn’t easy. There are all kinds of reasons we don’t always say what we mean — maybe we don’t want to admit what it is that we want, because we feel 
Once when I was about seven years old, I left my mom’s house and headed to school for a field trip. My parents got divorced when I was four, and I went back and forth, four nights at my mom’s, three at my dad’s, the following week four at my dad’s, and so on and so on. For whatever reason, I woke up that morning and didn’t want to be away from my mom for the next few days, and I cried my way through The Museum of Natural History, past the elephants and tigers and bears, the scenes of Native Americans, the giant whale and the dinosaurs. I went to an after-school program, and I cried my way through that, as well. When my step-mom came to pick me up, the director pulled her aside and said I’d had a really rough day. She let her know my teacher said I’d been crying at the museum, and that it had continued, and that she felt my step-mom would want to know.
It’s brutal when someone we once loved beyond words can no longer see us for who we are. Breakups are often agonizing for people on so many levels. There’s the loss and the grieving, even if you’re mourning something that didn’t exist. Sometimes we look back on a thing with rose-colored glasses, or we rewrite history, or we dwell on those times when things were good, and edit out the pain, neglect, abuse, betrayal, or disappointment. We cling to some idea we had, or still have, of how things could be, or might have been, if only. Sometimes our “if only’s” are insane. If only the other person were completely different at the core of their being, for example. We torture ourselves over the idea that this person stopped seeing us clearly, or has rewritten history in some way that reflects badly on us, as if their version holds weight, and maybe it does, or maybe it doesn’t. You know how you showed up. You know what you did or did not do, and hopefully, you know no one is perfect. If you’ve owned your end, if you’ve apologized for those times when you disappointed yourself, or the other party, if you know in your heart you did the best you could, at a certain point, you have to let that be enough. If their version doesn’t resemble any reality you recognize, why continue to feed it power by fighting it?
When we refuse to accept the truth, we set ourselves up to suffer. There’s no doubt that there are times we’re confused and things are unclear, but sometimes we know the truth of a thing, and just don’t want to face it. This can happen professionally and romantically, and it can happen internally, too. There are truths about ourselves that are not always easy to accept and integrate. Denying what’s real for you and rejecting essential parts of yourself is a prison full of pain.
Sometimes we hold on to all the wrong stuff; ways we’ve been hurt, wronged, betrayed, disappointed, abused or neglected, conversations or memories that feel like a knife in the heart, something someone said or did in anger, or because they were thoughtless, or drunk, or because their head happened to be up their own a$$ in that particular moment. I’m not saying any of that is okay, I’m just saying human beings can be lost and confused and lacking tools to show up for us in a loving way. Sometimes we’re so focused on holding on to that stuff, because we want to use it to justify our feelings, our version of events, our way of being, our stance…and maybe the stance isn’t serving us. Let’s just say for a moment that your version is totally accurate (it probably isn’t, but let’s just say that it is). Does it matter that you’re “right” if you’re miserable?
Nothing breaks my heart more than a child in an unsafe environment, whether we’re talking about physical or emotional violence. If something happened along your journey that made you feel terrified and powerless, my heart also goes out to you. You do not have to let your past dictate your present, though, and I hope this comes across in the most compassionate way possible, but I believe it’s your work to heal. I think that really needs to be your priority, because if you don’t, you’ll never uncover and share your gifts, and you’ll also take other people down with you. You won’t mean to do that, it’s just that when a person crosses your path, and they see the beauty within you, even if you can’t see it yourself, they’re going to want to stop, and they might even fall in love with you. If you’re still struggling with things that happened to you, through no fault of your own, through nothing that was or is lacking within you, believe me when I tell you, those people who love you and see you will suffer and you might even hate them for it.
There’s the good kind of “losing yourself”, and the kind that isn’t so good for you. When we lose ourselves in something we’re doing, when we cease to think, categorize, or judge, but are simply immersed in the joy of what we’re doing, that’s beautiful, powerful, and liberating. The ability to join the flow, to forget about the small self for a time, the one that’s so attached to “I, me, mine”, and just to breathe and to open and to experience, that’s one of the greatest joys we have as human beings. To lose yourself because you’re trying to be something other than what you are…that’s the opposite end of the spectrum. You’re not in the flow, in fact, you’re swimming against it.
One of the great gifts of an intimate relationship, and by that, I do not necessarily mean a romantic one, is that it constantly offers us the opportunity to grow; anyone you’re close to will challenge you to show up as your best possible self, for you and for them. That’s part of the joy and the pain of having people in our lives who know us and see us clearly. These people may be your parents, your siblings, your best friend, your children, or your partner. The most intimate and enduring relationship you’ll have in your whole life, though, is the one you’re having with yourself.
Few things in life feel worse than being rejected, misunderstood, ignored, misjudged or betrayed, but we’ll all go through moments when we feel at least some of these things, and maybe all of them. Sometimes when I write about these very human experiences, someone will comment that this is just the mind; it’s just our thoughts about these things that are making us suffer and if we didn’t identify with these thoughts, we’d be fine. That’s wonderful. If you’re in that place, you don’t have to read further. Most of us, myself included, will have to grapple with uncomfortable feelings and thoughts from time to time, before we can bring ourselves 
Love is not about control; that might seem obvious, but sometimes it’s good to get really clear on that concept, because we’re all only human, and when you love someone, whether it’s your child or your parent, your partner, sibling, or best friend, you become vulnerable; there’s no point fighting that reality. You have a body with an unknown expiration date, you have a gorgeous heart which is capable of incredible love. Human beings are designed to need each other, and to reach out, so loving is part of the equation, as is the inherent exposure to loss and suffering that go along with loving. We never know how much time we have, or how much time anyone else has. We never know what will happen next.
The tendency to look around comparing and contrasting our lives, accomplishments, and troubles against someone else’s is not always easy to break. Those feelings of being on the outside looking in, of thinking other people seem to be having an easier time, of wondering whether we measure up, can be brutal. I get so many emails from people in pain; people who have a dream they don’t pursue because some voice inside doubts they could ever pull it off.
We all have our moments when we don’t show up as our highest selves; choices we’d make differently, given the opportunity to choose again. Times when we were tested, and failed in our efforts to handle it well. We have people we’ve hurt, hopefully unintentionally, but also sometimes because we were young and thoughtless, or careless or selfish, or simply didn’t realize who we were yet, or the ramifications of what we were doing. Most people, given the chance to talk freely and safely, will tell you they carry shame around something. It could be the way they parent sometimes. It could be the way they show up in relationships, or don’t. It could be around a specific incident, when they had a choice to make, and regret their course of action. It could be that something happened to them and they feel broken or ugly or marred in some un-fixable way. This is life, this is being human; it isn’t easy, it isn’t always pretty, and sometimes we need help in order to see things clearly.
We tend to think of “home” as the house or apartment where we grew up, and “family” as the people with whom we share a bloodline; those people who were in that house or apartment before we got there. See also: those people who were supposed to love us and protect us and nurture us. When it works out that way, it’s ideal and such a gift, but it doesn’t work out that way for so many people.
Attachment to a particular outcome and fear of abandonment are such huge issues for so many people. This is only natural; we love people with our whole hearts, and we want to know they’re ours to keep. We want to know our children will grow up safe and happy and healthy, and that they’ll still want to hang out with us long after they don’t need us to drive them around, or read to them, or make their lunches for school. We fall in love with someone and want to count on that happy ending. We want things to go the way we want them to go, and we think if we just try hard enough we can bend life to our will, but every day we’re reminded this isn’t true or possible.
Most of us struggle with control and attachment to some degree, thinking if we just try hard enough, we can get life to bend to our will. We start dating someone and want this to be “it” before we even know the other person, before they know us. We’re ready to have a baby, and expect to get pregnant on the first try, or the second. If it hasn’t happened by the third month, we start to get upset. We have our plan, and life needs to get with it, right? Or we want our kids to do well, but maybe our idea of well, and theirs, is different. We want to be promoted, we deserve it, but our boss is a fill-in-the-blank.
If you want easy and comfortable, forget about intimacy, because in order to be truly known by another person, you have to be willing to be honest, even if that means shining light on some part of yourself that isn’t fully healed. If you want to be understood and seen, you have to be willing to show yourself, and in order to do that, you really want to feel safe.