Our relationships with others are one of the most important and fulfilling aspects of our lives. Relationships bring us joy, meaning, and support. They increase our quality of life and help us get through difficult times. They are a vital part of being human. But relationships aren’t always easy. Sometimes we have conflict with those we love. We disagree, we want different things. And this can feel scary. Especially if we have had negative experiences with conflict in the past. But conflict is normal and healthy. In fact, working through conflict is one of the healthiest things we can do for our relationships. It is when we try to avoid conflict by repressing our authentic selves that things become unhealthy. We so deeply need love that we sometimes end up sacrificing parts of ourselves in order to receive it. We bury our preferences, we bury our anger, we bury anything that feels messy in order to secure connection. This is how we try to protect ourselves, to protect each other. But ultimately it only gets in the way of everything that makes relationships worthwhile. 

We live in an age of distraction. Our lives are busy, we play many roles and juggle countless tasks. It gets hard to keep track of it all and multitasking starts to feel like the only option. It becomes more of a struggle to keep our attention on the present moment. Whenever our minds begin to wander, we have limitless ways to distract ourselves. Boundless information, ideas, and entertainment compete for our time. The more we engage in these patterns of wandering attention, the more deeply ingrained they become. Distraction makes it difficult to focus on the things we care about. Our minds feel muddled and overwhelmed. We are less present with our relationships and the things that bring us joy. It gets harder to take care of ourselves and pay attention to what our bodies need. Our busy minds make it difficult to find rest, peace and sleep. And the more stressed and fatigued we become, the more difficult it is to focus.

Human beings need kindness. We need to feel valued, cared about, and seen. This world can feel cold and dark at times. We are bombarded by so much negativity on a daily basis, online or otherwise. We are more isolated than we should be, facing problems that feel much bigger than us. It can be hard to remember the good. To feel the beauty, connection and love that also fill our world. There is very little we can do as individuals to turn the tide on any sort of large scale. We don’t have much control over the big problems our world faces. But we can be forces for good in many small ways. We can show as much kindness as we can everywhere we go. We can help ease the pain of those around us. We can be sources of light for them and hope it ripples out. In this way, we can help fill the world with beautiful things. 

To grow is to face discomfort. Pushing past our previous limits isn’t easy but it is the only path towards positive change. Our bodies require the discomfort of building strength and endurance in order to feel our best. Our relationships require the discomfort of vulnerability or hard conversations in order to build closeness. Our minds require the discomfort of facing our fears or sitting with difficult emotions in order to cope in a healthy way.  Discomfort is the doorway to our inner power. It is through it that we access joy, peace and fulfillment. Without it, we stagnate.

Overthinking can feel like it’s helping us. Like if we only tried a little harder, we could find a solution and avoid uncertainty and pain. Overthinking only takes us out of the present moment. Rumination pulls us into the past, our minds replaying situations again and again. We look for all the ways we went wrong or where things could have gone differently. Worry pulls us into the future. We try to control the uncontrollable, to anticipate all possible pitfalls so we can keep ourselves safe. We think and think about the same things, hoping to land on some kind of resolution. But we never get there. Overthinking never helps. The more we engage with our obsessive spiral of thoughts, the more stressed and foggy our minds become. We end up depressed, anxious, and cut off from our lives. Letting go of overthinking can be feel like giving up control. But taking that leap of faith is our first step to peace.

It is easy to believe that we have more control than we do when life is going our way. We start to forget that life is bigger than we are. That it is wild and unpredicatable. Life doesn’t always follow the rhythm we think it should. Sometimes we don’t get what we want. Sometimes we lose the things we cherish most. In these moments it can feel like we are spinning through space, with no ground to stand on. Accepting the situation or sitting with the uncertainty feels impossible. So we spend more and more time in our minds. We try to figure out ways to control the uncontrollable, to solve the unsolvable. We close ourselves off from life in an attempt to figure out how to keep ourselves safe.

Self-trust can feel like a scary thing. So often trust in ourselves has been damaged by messages from society or others telling us that we need to be different than we are. Messages that we should be thinner or more productive. That we should be making more money or spending more time doing things for others. We have been told over and over again that we need to live according to outside rules or influences and, eventually we start to believe it. We begin living out of alignment and stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage. We try to force ourselves to live according to the rules, but then rebel and end up burning the whole thing down when it starts to feel like too much. This rebellion seems to prove the point and the idea of trusting ourselves starts to feel dangerous. It feels like if we don’t force ourselves to live according to external rules that we will only end up doing things that hurt us. Our self trust is broken and we begin to lose connection to our inner cues. We are living by rules that don’t resonate with us but we don’t know what else to do. We have lost our inner power and feel out of control.

Our thoughts make up a big part of our life. We spend a great deal of time in our own heads. Some of our thoughts are helpful. They allow us to solve problems, make plans and organize our lives. We use our minds to learn about and interact with the world. They help keep us alive. But they can also hurt us. Our thoughts may be self-critical or unnecessarily negative. They can be overwhelming and harsh. They can fixate on the past or future, stealing our peace and connection to the present moment. Negative thoughts can damage our relationships and our self-worth. They can lead to anxiety and depression. They can cause self-sabotaging or harmful behaviors. They can keep us stuck. Our minds are wonderful servants, but terrible masters.