Freedom from Attachment

Self-responsibility and self-care are critical to increasing your value. What is self-responsibility? Being responsible for ALL of your words, actions, choices and reactions. People often want to blame outside events and other people, but that makes you a victim. To be valued is to be fulfilled… to be your own best friend. If you take responsibility for yourself, you have power and authority in your life, which means you have value. Other people cannot give you lasting value, only you can by treating yourself with care. Self-care is about taking care of yourself emotionally instead of looking for someone else to do it. It is about healing what ails you.

If you blame your partner for breaking up with you, that speaks to a lack of responsibility. It takes two to tango, so pointing the finger at him/her for all the problems in your relationship is a powerless position. How did you contribute? What can you own up to? You always play a role in how relationships unfold. When you feel the bottom falling out of any situation and want to blame someone or something, stop and ask yourself how you participated in getting here. EMPOWERMENT can only come through responsibility, never through blame. No one can give you something you refuse to give yourself.

When you’re in charge of your choices and taking care of yourself, life is limitless; it can be as amazing as you want it to be. To take responsibility for your life, look at where you are angry or frustrated. Then look at the choices you made to get where you are. This is difficult if you don’t like your choices and have spent a long time blaming others. It’s easier to put that onus on someone else, but that’s not how you reach true happiness and joy. Owning the role you play in your own life is a much more empowering position because only then can you start to change what isn’t working.

Periods of transition (like going from single to married) can be happy and exciting, but also painful and frustrating. You have an expectation about how you should feel—all sunshine and roses, right? How could you be anything but elated to marry the love of your life? So why are you also feeling crappy and confused and anxious? It’s because your expectations are based in fantasy, not reality. They come from what you’re “supposed” to feel. But negative feelings don’t mean you’re moving in the wrong direction; they’re just part of being human. And this isn’t just about marriage. These Jekyll and Hyde emotions can happen with a new job, new house, new baby, etc.

It’s normal to feel both excited and insecure when starting a new job. And moving to your dream home doesn’t mean there isn’t room for sadness over what you’re leaving behind. Some people try to minimize the negative feelings by saying, “But I asked for this! I should be happier!” It’s not black and white, so don’t give them meaning and think it’s a sign to turn back. Pay attention to all of your feelings, and look deeper for the root of the negative ones. Maybe you’re afraid of making decisions because you believe you’ve chosen wrong in the past. When you’re in transition, don’t fight the feelings you have—positive or negative. Accept and allow all of them. You have to move forward in order to grow and learn. Otherwise you stay stuck.

In this episode of “Surviving to Thriving: Overcoming My Darkest Moment,” I talk with money coach, author and educator Leisa Peterson. Growing up the daughter of hippie parents who were always in financial struggle, Leisa thought money was the answer to everything. Rejecting her upbringing where she felt like a misfit, Leisa pursued a lucrative career in finance, married her college sweetheart and had two kids. The outside looked perfect, and although she wasn’t happy, she didn’t question what happiness meant until her father was brutally murdered. This pivotal event sent her diving head-first into Buddhism, mindfulness and meditation… but it actually wasn’t her darkest moment.

Listen in as Leisa shares her journey from lack and emotional disconnect to one of abundance (which has nothing to do with money). Today she runs a thriving business and money coaching practice in Sedona, AZ, and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, FastCompany, Forbes and more. Leisa combines 25 years of finance experience with mindfulness practices to help men and women reconnect with their true selves while growing businesses that make the world a better place. You can find out more about Leisa and her WealthClinic at https://www.wealthclinic.com/.

When it comes to dating and relationships, people sure have a lot of timing rules: it’s too soon to talk about marriage, I can’t meet his/her parents until we’re officially a couple, it’s too late to have kids. These rules are fueled by a fear of loss and lack of trust in yourself. They serve as a crutch because they feel safe, but they can also be used to judge yourself, “Things fell apart because I did this too soon!”

Your readiness should be determined by how you feel, not some artificial timeline. For example, when it comes to physical intimacy, instead of following the three-date rule, engage when you feel ready. If you’re unsure, connect with your feelings and ask why you want to (or don’t want to) be intimate. Your answer should come from inside, not from societal “norms” or what other people think is appropriate. When you learn to trust your feelings, they won’t lead you astray. It’s not a matter of when; it’s getting clear on what you want and how you feel that should determine your course.

Each time you impose these external timelines it reinforces your distrust of yourself. If you’re afraid of scaring someone off or appearing needy, you have to ask yourself if you’re anticipating problems based on old stories. Someone who is emotionally available will not be scared away by open dialogue. If you feel yourself saying “It’s too soon for X,” ask what your afraid of losing. Let go of control and break your timing rules by saying what is true regardless of what the other person says or does. Trusting yourself comes from breaking old patterns and learning you can handle whatever happens.

How neat and tidy do you like to keep your life? Do job and relationship issues have to be a certain way, and do people need to fit into a particular category so you know what to expect? Black and white is predictable. Grey is messy and unknown so it’s hard to know how to act. The problem with this neat-and-tidy mentality is that it’s incredibly limiting in how you see the world and the your place in it. It’s really hard to move out of a comfortable existence if you don’t challenge your perception and your need to keep things predictable.

Here is a common scenario: you’re frustrated with someone at work because you believe they’re checked out. You label them as a flake because it’s easier to know how to act around them when that is the expectation. You don’t rely on them for anything, you complain about them to others, etc. Allowing for a grey area where they may have other redeeming qualities is too messy and complicated so you throw the baby out with the bath water. Who cares if they are also great at quickly securing executive approval or clients respond positively to them. In your mind this person is a flake, end of story.

When you find yourself labeling someone, stop and ask yourself why you are limiting the possibilities. What if you were to look at this person with empathy and consider what may be causing their behavior? Maybe they are afraid or in pain. When you approach a situation openly instead of through the lens of: they are a flake, you bring a different energy and allow for things to be different. Categorizing people and trying to keep things predictable doesn’t serve them… and most importantly, it doesn’t serve you.

We all have childhood pain to some extent, but we come up with ways of avoiding it or looking for something to take it away. You may set up your life to avoid feeling it by people pleasing or trying to be perfect to avoid criticism, but it doesn’t work. When you swallow your pain, you tend to strategize to make it go away, but what happens instead is that your emotional reactions are even more painful because you haven’t dealt with those feelings. You don’t realize how deep you’ve buried your pain, yet it manages to rule your life.

If you have a demanding mother who is controlling and manipulative, being around her will likely send you back to your old childhood pattern with her: compliance, keeping the peace, etc. You invalidate your own feelings to fall in line with what you’ve always done. You swallow your pain, but it’s behind your words, actions and reactions. This pain is magnified if she outright denies how she treated you as a kid, leading you to believe you imagined it or overreacted.

If you let your pain drive you, you’ll rely on other people to take it away or numb it, but it won’t happen because other people can never take your pain away. Turning it into blame, especially toward your parents, just perpetuates the cycle of pain. Those angry outbursts don’t actually make it go away. The only way through is to feel it. By allowing your pain to surface and tracing it back to the earliest time you felt it, you can actually let it go instead of keeping it locked inside. Understanding this old, deep pain and where it comes from can actually help heal your current relationships.

People often confuse relief with feeling good, but there is a BIG difference. Relief is external. It’s temporary and doesn’t require you to leave your comfort zone. Relief is going to a therapist as a means of catharsis—so you can vent about everything that isn’t working in your life, then leave. Sure you may feel better immediately after, but how long does it last? And more importantly, what has changed? Feeling good is internal. It comes from taking action and it actually lasts. Talking to a therapist and following that up with emotionally difficult action that stretches you outside your comfort zone may not give you a sense of relief, but it will set you down the road to feeling good.

If you come home from work and your partner hasn’t taken out the trash like he/she is supposed to do, you may be annoyed. So instead of having a conversation to share your feelings around it, you end up taking it out yourself. You feel momentary relief (trash is taken care of), but also build resentment… which is the opposite of feeling good. Relief is a means of staying emotionally lazy. In the moment, it’s easier to let things slide, but there is a long-term cost associated.

Relief comes from a state of reaction whereas feeling good comes from ACTION. It’s important to understand the difference so you don’t chase one thinking it’s the other. Start to notice when you are looking for relief, which is external and temporary, instead of the harder path to feeling good, which is internal and long-lasting. If you are seeking relief, stop yourself and choose a different, uncomfortable action. Feeling good does not exist at the end of a relief chain.

In this episode of “Surviving to Thriving: Overcoming My Darkest Moment,” I talk with yoga teacher and certified health coach, Shayna Hiller. Growing up in an affluent town in New Jersey, Shayna was desperate to be liked. This led to an eating disorder and obsessive/compulsive exercising that lasted for years. When she hit 67 pounds, she was actually proud of her achievement, but it was her mom’s reaction one morning that turned things around. As Shayna laid in bed, her mom shrieked in horror at her skeletal body because she thought her daughter was dead.

From that day forward Shayna dedicated herself to getting healthy, and she has done it holistically. Today she’s a yoga teacher and health coach, leading wellness retreats around the world. Early in her adult life she lived in the jungles of Costa Rica where she experienced her most significant healing and personal transformation. Now she lives and works in Venice Beach, CA. Learn more about Shayna at www.shaynahiller.com.

People often stay in bad relationships because they are afraid of losing their lifestyle—the house, group of friends, money, vacations, etc. It’s not just losing a partner, it’s losing the whole package. The problem is, that fear is often worse than the reality and it’s used as an excuse for staying in a dysfunctional relationship. Staying provides a false sense of security… but do you want a lifestyle or a LIFE?

Maybe you’re in a “transactional” relationship or a quasi-friendship with your partner. You have your routine so it works well enough to keep you there. If you were to separate, it would disrupt your kids’ life or require you to sell the house or leave you as the only single person at social events. All of this is a trade-off for a fulfilling relationship, but you believe it’s better to hold onto what you have because it’s the devil you know. Upsetting the apple cart means treading into the unknown where anything can happen, and when your fearful imagination is in charge, that could mean living in a cardboard box.

When you trade your potential happiness for a sure thing that makes you miserable, you’re paying a pretty high price for the illusion of security that you’ll never actually feel. Is it easy to choose differently? Of course not. But if you’re biding your time, waiting for something to magically change, you need to ask yourself why. Look at where you make excuses and what you’re really afraid of losing. You will never feel differently until you make a choice in favor of you. A lifestyle is not a life.

Compassion is such a nice word but it’s hard to do, especially when you have an attachment to your judgmental feelings. Compassion isn’t about giving away your power. It’s not feeling sorry for someone and it’s not excusing or accepting poor behavior. It’s a state of grace that comes from love. When you practice compassion, you understand other people are flawed with their own patterns and negative beliefs, so you can allow them to be who they are. It’s similar to love in that you must have it for yourself in order to have it for others.

Self-righteousness is much easier than compassion. When someone is defensive or avoids or creates their own misery, telling them what they are doing wrong may feel good in the moment, but it won’t last. Saying, “I don’t agree with you, but I understand you’re hurting and I’m here for you” is compassionate. It’s open and vulnerable and yep… it’s tough. Compassion doesn’t mean you condone someone’s thoughts or actions; it’s simply being there for them and understanding they have their own issues.

When you accept the flaws of others, you feel lighter and less angry. It allows you to connect with your heart instead of your head. Punishing someone for how they may have wronged you is also self-punishing. It deprives you of your ability to let go and feel good. Compassion for others starts with you. You’re imperfect just like everyone else and that’s ok. When you open your own heart, you’re able to keep it open for someone else.