I’d been worried that my pap smear would show I had cervical cancer after my abnormal results the past two years, but I was so relieved to discover it is now normal. Tuesday I started to worry about the nerves in my back as I began to have worsening right leg pain and now numbness and tingling in my right foot. Yay.

Wednesday night I was put in a compromising situation in which I felt completely violated and totally confused. Thursday morning I had to deal with the complete shit show that was Wednesday night and deal with the consequences of my presence in that shit show. Thursday evening ended in a blow up between my parents. 

Friday morning I was told my parents may be separating (which may be a false alarm??) The gnawing anxiety started to set in on Saturday and Sunday. It said to me, “You need to get your shit together!! Things are falling apart around you and you need to protect yourself!!”

I’m having to combat that feeling. When it comes, I feel the need to push myself harder, do more, take on more. But most of the time that doesn’t really help me. It just adds to the chaos and increases my stress rather than relieving it.

Brené Brown talks about how when we’re overwhelmed we just need to STOP. It makes sense, but I feel like I’ve been in a state of overwhelm for the last two years of my life. And I do stop periodically, but the waves of overwhelm come back again.

I suppose that’s life though, right? Like I wrote about earlier, life isn’t just linear. It’s cyclical too. We figure some things out, and feel like total noobs in other situations. It’s just the way of life.

One of the things I need to deal with is the fact that I tend to sabotage myself in the face of success, especially when it relates to my own goals. I had a fitness coach once, a wonderful woman who I think about often, who told me I seem to have a fear of success. She noticed that every time I was kicking ass and doing really well in my fitness journey, I would start to sabotage myself.

I’ve seen myself do the same thing in other areas of my life too. I wish I could tell you why. Part of me doesn’t think I’m deserving of success. Part of me is afraid it will add more to my plate– that people will want even more from me when I’m successful. Maybe it has to do with my trauma from when I was a child. 

I really don’t know the full reason why I do this. But it’s a habit I have. And I’m fighting it right now. 

I want to build a space for people who struggle to believe they’re enough to be able to come together, support each other, and work through that crap. I have gifts I want to share to help people love themselves, just as I’m working so hard to love myself. Because I believe that is what truly matters the most on this planet. We all have worth as humans, no matter what package we’ve arrived here in or how that package changes over the years. 

And yet that judgy asshole in my head can’t help but yell, “Who the fuck are you to do this? Why should people listen to you? You want them to give you MONEY to do this kind of stuff? You’ve gotta be kidding yourself!”

That voice finds validation in the random comments from people off the internet: “This woman is clearly insecure. She’s in no condition to be coaching people!” or “Wow, her bio reads like one long self-congratulatory statement.”  Yeesh.

Despite the judgy assholes in my head and online, despite my insecurities, my flaws, my imperfections, I’m pushing forward. Because it’s not about me. It’s about the value of fighting for people to be themselves. 

That’s what I am doing. Sometimes not in the most eloquent way, but I’m fighting for other people (and myself) to be themselves. Their whole selves, not just the parts society likes. I’m fighting for the ugly parts, the parts people are afraid of, disgusted by, and indignant about. 

Because we all deserve to be seen for who we really are. We deserve to live our lives in a way that honors our own journey and lived experiences. That’s what I’m fighting for.

Self-sabotage be damned. I’m pushing forward and will do the very best I can to deliver on this vision of creating a space for people to feel loved, valued, and accepted exactly as they are.

Whether we realize it or not, we talk to ourselves all of the time in our heads. Sometimes we even talk to ourselves out loud. This is totally normal! 

Have you heard the saying you are your own worst critic? This is where self-talk really matters. When we criticize ourselves for every mistake we make, call ourselves stupid, fat, ugly, or whatever other number of horrible things we stay to ourselves, it tanks our self-confidence. 

Imagine if someone said the same things to you that you say to yourself. Would you ever talk to them again? Would you trust them to make decisions for you?

Part of building trust in yourself involves speaking kindly to yourself. This is actually one of the key components of practicing self-compassion. Practicing positive self talk can help you to respond more calmly in stressful situations, bounce back from difficulties, and build confidence. 

Ok, so how do you start incorporating positive self talk in your life? Psychologist Kristen Neff recommends you start by noticing you’re saying mean things to yourself. Before you can change how you talk to yourself, you have to notice that you’re doing it!

After you notice that you’re beating up on yourself, think about what you might say to your best friend or a loved one in the same situation. If this feels weird to you, you can start by writing it down.

Here’s an example of working towards positive self talk. Let’s say you trip and faceplant on the sidewalk. After the initial sting wears off, maybe your normal response would be to think “God, I’m such a clutz! I’m so embarrassed! Why am I so uncoordinated?!”

Now imagine if you saw this happen to your best friend, your mother, your child or whoever. You might instead say to them, “Oh sweetie, are you ok?!” And if they said to you, “I’m such a clutz.” Maybe you’d say back, “Don’t worry about it! Everybody trips sometimes.”

It may feel awkward at first, but the more you practice positive self-talk, the more it will become automatic. After a while, your first reaction to something bad happening will be a comforting word to yourself rather than a criticism or insult. 

The key is to be patient with yourself and keep coming back to it. You’ll still say crappy things to yourself from time to time. But you’ll catch yourself sooner, and reframe it more quickly.

Here are some other examples of negative self talk versus positive self talk to the same situation.

Now it’s your turn. Let’s say you’re out to dinner with your friend and you accidentally spill your drink all over their lap. What would you normally say to yourself and how can you reframe that as positive self talk?

The funny thing though, is that by hiding my dreams from other people, I tend to hide them from myself too. The little seedlings sit neglected in the attic, away from the sun, and I forget to water them. Just the fear of being shut down by others leads me to squash my own dreams before they’ve even had a chance.

Alright, so I’m facing my fears here and I’m sharing some of my dreams. In day 3 of my journaling, I mentioned that one of my dreams is to open up a community coffee house/art  studio someday. Today I am going to open up about a different dream that I am actively working on, although they are related in some ways. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up having to stuff my emotions to help adults in my life manage theirs, and I learned to prize achievements and hard work above my own health. But along this path, I became very interested in what people call “self-help”. 

I’ve read countless books over the years in this category, taken virtual classes, listened to podcasts and cds. I’m fascinated by our capacity for change. To grow up in one way, and gain knowledge and tools to live a different life. 

And in all the years that I’ve been exploring these things, I continue to come face to face with one observation over and over again. To live our best life we have to get right with ourselves. 

A lot of self help stuff focuses on the tools that may help us on our journey, like mindfulness, mantras, and goal-setting. And while these are great, and they can be very helpful, they are the MEANS to the end. Not the end itself.

What do I mean by that? The end goal is to be satisfied living in our own skin. To feel like we are able to face whatever comes. To be able to pick ourselves up when we fall down.

Those other things are tools to help us get there, but they are not what we’re after. Ok, so how does this relate to my dream?

I’m on this journey to love all the parts of myself because I want to have a great life with myself. I want to feel comfortable in my skin and actually like the person that I am. And I want to invite others to come with me on this journey.

I want to share what I’m learning, to learn from other people who are on the same journey, and provide a space for us to do this work together. Because I think it is the work that actually matters. The work that could change the world. 

We can’t fix all of the world’s problems when we barely tolerate ourselves. Think about the energy that comes when people are actually psyched about being alive. It’s contagious! 

So that is my dream. To continue on this adventure of radically loving myself and to bring as many people along with me. This is how we overcome the chaos of the world. 

I don’t know the first thing about building a community, but I’m open to feedback from all of you. I’m open to hearing what you need as we embark on this journey. Let’s learn together and fall in love with all of our parts.

If you’re interested in joining me, subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, Love Your Life. I don’t have all the answers, but I believe we can figure this out together.

Antidepressants don’t work well for everyone, but when they do work, they’re a godsend. Especially when you combine them with therapy and making changes to your thoughts and actions. Healing happens when we allow ourselves to rest, surround ourselves with low-stress, nonjudgy people, and take the time to listen to what we really need. 

We have to get out of the overwhelm before we can start healing. For those of us that judge ourselves for “being lazy”, this part can be the hardest. We want to go go go, but that’s not what our bodies and minds need when we are overwhelmed. You have to just STOP.

One of the things that sucks about PTSD is that it will creep into your day when you’re least expecting it. Yesterday my brain made the connection between the word Park and one of my former attendings. Suddenly I was back in that program. 

Once the triggers start, they tend to keep pulling other memories and feelings. But I’ve been learning not to judge myself for it. When those moments happen, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m not in that hospital anymore. 

I remind myself that I never have to go back to medicine or work at another hospital if I don’t want to. Then I take stock of the good things in my life and think about how far I’ve come already. I try to ground myself in the present moment. 

It’s getting easier. The more I keep gently coming back to the traumatic memories and untangling the connections with my childhood, the more I heal. One little baby step at a time.

Going back to the creativity bit, I want to share one of the thoughts I had yesterday. I know I’m kind of all over the place today, but who cares?

What if shame (along with guilt, embarrassment, and humiliation) is something we learn rather than being born with it? I’m no Brene Brown (the master of shame research), but hear me out.

When we look at little kids, they experience a whole bunch of emotions: anger, fear, sadness, joy, envy. But what about shame? I don’t think so. 

I think shame is something we learn. It’s something we’re socialized to experience. Shame is used to control people: from kids to adults.

There is a difference between learning there are consequences for our actions and learning to be ashamed of our actions (and even thoughts!) Shame keeps us in our place and prevents us from being too much or from asking too many questions. 

So who benefits from shame? Systems and people in power with authority. They benefit from people being weighed down by shame. 

Because when we decide to let shame go, what might happen? We might be more creative and innovative. We might demand better. 

And all of that leads to disruption of the status quo. Which is bad for those who want to keep the status quo humming along at its mediocre level. They benefit from keeping the rest of us small. 

I invite you to do a thought experiment. How does your shame help you? Can you think of any one good reason it benefits you? 

And then I’d like you to ask yourself, what would you do if you weren’t ashamed of anything? Who would you be? How would your life be different?

I’m really interested in what you think about shame and what your answers are to those questions. Leave a comment and let’s talk about it!

I woke up this morning and saw in the headlines that Neena Pacholke, a 27-year-old news anchor in Wisconsin, had died by suicide. In the article title it said, “She Radiated Love and Positivity”. After reading through the article, I knew it was time to journal about the stigma surrounding suicide and suicidal ideation.

Many of us have heard that when the news talks about suicide, it puts other people at risk who are thinking about suicide of completing it. What I don’t think we talk about is that, by placing a stigma on suicidal ideation (having thoughts of not wanting to be alive), we actually further alienate the people who are struggling with those thoughts.

When society tells you that you are wrong or bad for having suicidal thoughts, and slaps a label on you as being mentally unstable, it wouldn’t surprise me if many people are less likely to seek help. Because while you may be having thoughts of not wanting to be around, you probably have other pressures that scare you about coming forward for help.

If you are seen as the competent, optimistic person who everyone else goes to for help, it can feel impossible to find someone else to rely on. Even worse, when you do reach out for help and your request is rejected, you sink further into feeling alone with the weight of the world on your shoulders. 

I had mentioned at the end of my first journal post that I was struggling with suicidal ideation after moving to Rhode Island. At the time, I turned to my best friend to try to talk through these things. But she started to tell me she didn’t have time to talk, or would put my phone calls to voicemail. 

When I talked to my parents about needing help, they were fearful it would go on my permanent record and jeopardize my future job opportunities. I was terrified to approach my program director about what was going on in my life, but I knew my brain was struggling and I needed to advocate for myself. 

After joining the partial program, we had daily group therapy sessions. On one day, the topic of suicidal ideation came up. I remember my shoulders going up to my ears and fearing that we would all be immediately sent to the hospital for talking about our thoughts.

What happened was a phenomenal conversation about people who were struggling with something that was seen as taboo, and had a safe space to discuss it with each other. I was struck by how many of the people in this group were the go-to person for others in their life.

These people were the ones everyone else turned to when they needed help. They were the “responsible ones” who had to have it all together all the time. Many of them felt like they had to be strong and put on a happy face for their friends, family, and coworkers. 

And yet they were struggling the most. Because when you’re put in the position of having to be everything to everyone else, it often feels like there is no one to help take care of you when you need it. 

No one notices that you are struggling because you’re so good at masking. The burden of getting help falls on you, even when you can barely get out of bed in the morning. 

If you identify as one of the people, this is my message to you:

I could see the space in my mind’s eye. The art studio was partitioned from the coffee shop with a glass wall. Patrons in the shop could have a glimpse of the ongoing classes while the students on the other side would have a sound buffer from the busy happenings of the coffee shop. 

I could see all kinds of people coming into the coffee shop to gather. A group of bird-watching enthusiasts got together weekly to share stories and photos. Two mothers caught up over coffee while their kids stayed occupied at the kids’ table. College students studied for their exams while professionals worked from their laptops.

There would be open mic nights and other events held on evenings and weekends. The studio space could be used for a variety of classes. It was a place for all people to feel welcome and safe. A place to exchange ideas and foster community.

This dream kept me going through my year in general surgery residency. It probably says something that what got me through that year was dreaming of this community coffee house rather than being excited about becoming a surgeon.

During my year in surgery, I actually started a website with plans to grow my community coffee house online first. I looked into drop-shipping coffee and reached out to one of my favorite coffee houses in Sioux Falls, SD ask about a partnership. They said yes!

The funny thing is that the coffee bag design is what stopped me. At that point, the trauma of my year in general surgery was taking over, my confidence took a dive, and I began to question my ability to do things. 

The more my trauma response started to kick in, the deeper into survival mode I went. Like I mentioned in day one of my journaling experience, it took me down so low to the point of not wanting to be alive anymore. And although I’ve since quit residency and had a few glimmers of directions I could take in my life, my confidence is still shot to hell.  

When you endure trauma and watch other people in your life endure the same trauma, it can feel like all of the light and hope has been sucked out of the space you live in. It fucks with your brain and robs you of your self-trust. 

How can I trust myself when I led myself down that path for so long and let myself be abused? Ah, here we have another narrative. The narrative that says that I am solely responsible for the bad things that happen to me. That it must be my fault. 

I am afraid to be angry at other people when they harm me, because I grew up feeling unsafe around anger. If you’re angry, things will be taken from you, perhaps even love. Anger makes people say unforgivable things that leave permanent scars, right? 

That’s what I used to think. But I recognize now (at least on an intellectual level) that anger is totally appropriate and a valid expression of our experience. It’s how we express that anger that can be healthy or harmful. 

So as messed up as this may be, I have a hard time being angry with the surgery program for treating me and my colleagues the way they did. It was easier for me to feel like I had done something wrong than to see how bad up their mistreatment was. 

That’s also why I’ve had a hard time recognizing how much my PTSD has actually affected me. I blamed myself for my lack of motivation or my reluctance to get a new job, rather than recognizing these are residual effects of my PTSD. 

I’m not advocating that we blame everyone else for our trauma or that we adopt the role of a victim. But what I am saying is that we also shouldn’t blame ourselves for the shit that happens in our lives. 

Blame is not helpful. It keeps us stuck. We can try to look at our trauma with curiosity rather than judgment in order to understand how it is affecting us and to look at ways that may help us move through it.

I can be angry at what has happened to me, I can even be angry at people for what they have done to me, but to live in that space of blame keeps me from healing. It doesn’t turn back the clock and prevent me from experiencing the trauma I went through. 

As frustrating as it is to not be able to be back into my state of optimism about the future, I recognize now that I have to focus on healing first. My dream community coffee house will still be waiting for me. And whatever dreams come to life in the future will be all the more beautiful for my resilience and the deeper connection to myself that I’ve built.

It’s hard to not feel a sense of complete and utter despair when you look at the variety of things plaguing people today. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of monkeypox, new cases of polio in the US. 

Polio?! For f*ck sake, we had eradicated polio! There’s a vaccine that works very well to prevent polio!! Why add more suffering into a world that already has plenty of it?

But I digress. I get sucked into feeling helpless when I look at everything happening, especially in the United States (since I live here). 

The overturning of Roe v Wade and loss of critical health services for many, the invasion of privacy. The attack on indigineous people with the overturning of Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta. 

The assault on transgender and nonbinary individuals, leading to increased risk of mental illness and suicide as their existence continually gets denied and threatened. The ongoing climate crisis, with solutions within reach such as regenerative farming practices but not enough companies willing to make the changes needed to turn this ship around. 

My brain continues to tally the mountain of chaos happening in the world and I start to spin. 

I almost ran for office right after moving to Washington because I discovered there were two unopposed positions. But then I realized that I’m still struggling with my own PTSD, am financially unstable, and maybe it’s best for me to actually focus on my own health.

I’m a doer, so this past year of trying to just focus on myself has been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. What do you mean I should just focus on healing? Not achieve things or try to fix other people’s problems? Have you seen the state of the world?!

For months I resisted caring for myself. After I quit residency, I had a falling out with my family and ended up moving in with my then boyfriend and his dog. I essentially became a live-in caregiver to my now ex, but that’s another story for another time. 

While living in CT, I also started a non-profit that ultimately went nowhere because I was pulled in too many directions. I would run in one direction at full steam, face plant into my PTSD, and then switch directions and run at something else.

It felt like I kept moving from the fire into the frying pan. I broke up with my boyfriend, lived with a friend for a month, and then packed up all my things and drove my dog and my bus to South Dakota. On my drive to SD, I wasn’t really sure where I was going to be living. 

I worried about what I would do with my reactive dog, Lola. She couldn’t live with other animals, and I didn’t have anyone I could stay with longterm in SD that would also be able to accommodate her. 

My bank account was dwindling down to the dregs. Every time I thought about getting a job, my PTSD would rear its ugly head. 

At this point I was exhausted. I was finally willing to acknowledge that I couldn’t keep trying to ignore my PTSD and depression by just staying busy. It wasn’t working. 

After a lot of thought, I decided to swallow my pride and move to Washington to live with my parents. I struggle to accept help from people. In my mind, if someone helps me, I now owe them. Otherwise they have something they can hold over my head in the future.

I don’t feel worthy of someone just helping me to be nice. There has to be a price to pay for that kindness. Nothing is free, right? 

Last week I flew to CT to get my car and drive it back. On my drive to SD, I realized this was a narrative that’s been playing in the background. I’d been listening to Warrior Goddess Training on CD and Heather Ash Amara talks about these agreements we unconsciously accept throughout our lives. 

What I’ve realized is that I am at a time in my life where I can’t do things by myself. I need help to get back on my feet. My old narrative is that I am not worthy of help and that I must always give something back for everything I get or that I should feel deeply ashamed. 

That old narrative is actively hurting me right now. It’s time to toss it in the trash and start fresh. If someone chooses to help me, I can be grateful for their help, but I need to let go of thinking I am obligated to find a way to pay them back.

If someone chooses to hold that over my head later and say, “Well you owe me because I did x for you,” that is their choice. I am not obligated to feel guilty or ashamed. 

Unless there are terms of agreement about how someone gives you help, you don’t owe anyone for what they have chosen to freely give you. And if they try to make you feel otherwise, that’s on them, not on you.

So right now, even though it sometimes feels like everything is going to hell in a handbasket, I’m trying to give myself the grace I need to heal. If I don’t allow myself to prioritize my own health and wellbeing, I won’t be any help to anyone else. 

As someone who values authenticity, I want to share my stories with all of their bumps and scars, not just my highlight reel. 

The last two years have had me on a crazy journey. In 2021, I hit rock bottom. Since then I have started to rebuild myself from the ground up.

I was on this trajectory to become a general surgeon. I’d graduated from medical school with my MD in 2020 and started my intern year in general surgery. I was so freaking excited until I had all of that excitement and enthusiasm beaten out of me. 

What I didn’t fully realize is that I had grown up feeling like I had to be an efficient, achievement-driven machine, to sacrifice my own wants and needs for the sake of others, and to avoid making mistakes at all cost. I unconsciously feared punishment, rejection, and the threat of having love withdrawn from me. 

This led me to mask in public, have different personas I would pull out in different settings,  and to squash the parts of me I thought other people didn’t want to see, hear, or know. 

With that programming in my back pocket, I started residency at a place that abuses their residents. Nothing you did was ever good enough and it was always your fault. 

You worked more than 80 hours this week? That’s because you’re not efficient, not because you had too much work on your plate. You didn’t know something? Well clearly you didn’t study or prepare enough. 

You think that patient is having a problem that we aren’t adequately addressing? You’re wrong. Your supervisors always know better than you. 

After routinely getting yelled at or sworn at just for asking questions, my curiosity became a liability. Questioning anything became dangerous and grounds for punishment. 

My fear of making mistakes shot through the roof. I had patients’ lives on my hands and little support from anyone. Not to mention we saw some of the most horrible things happen to human bodies.

I now know what “human roadkill” looks like. One man who was very dead was brought in by EMS after he had been run over by a semi-truck at high speed. I’ll save you the gory details, but it was surreal to see a human body be that completely broken.

There were so many more people I helped care for that had been shot, stabbed, burned, or had their limbs ripped off in motor vehicle crashes. That year I had the responsibility of having to do a “death exam” and pronounce three different women as dead. 

The first woman I pronounced as dead was younger than me. A photo of her four-year old daughter was taped to the wall across from her bed. It was brutal.

There were never any debriefs, never time to process the horrific things you saw. I didn’t have a PCP or dentist for that entire year, let alone a therapist.  

It felt like I lived off adrenaline during those twelve months. I was on edge all the time, waiting for the floor to fall out. One day I had a panic attack at the start of my shift in the emergency room when I learned my co-intern was put on remediation. 

Even though I had decided in October that I was going to leave the program, I felt like I had to protect myself at all costs. Internally I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but externally I had a huge smile plastered on my face. 

Masking all the time was exhausting. I lied about why I was leaving, and pretended like everything was fine. But watching my colleagues be punished day in and day out for just being trainees was heartbreaking. I felt so f*cking helpless.

When I moved across the country to start my second year as a psychiatry resident, the PTSD started. I saw my former colleagues everywhere in the faces of hospital employees in blue scrubs and scrub caps.

Every Tuesday I was on edge for the lectures, fearing I would be called out and ridiculed for not knowing the right answers to questions. I worked my ass off to be as efficient as possible, especially since I hadn’t studied psychiatry for the last two years.

After the excitement of my first month, the depression started to creep in. That same hopelessness was triggered a few times when I was required to perform care plans I feared were not in the best interest of the patient. With each moral injury, I felt like a piece of me died.

Every day was a challenge to just get out of bed in the morning. I dreaded going to work and began pulling away from my new colleagues. I’d make excuses not to attend social gatherings. 

Gradually thoughts of not wanting to be alive kept popping into my head. For a while, caring for my dog was the only reason I kept living. If I hadn’t adopted my dog when I did, I don’t think I’d be here today.

That’s when I knew I had hit rock bottom and needed to get some help. So I reached out to my program director and asked her if I could take some time off to focus on my mental health. I was very honest with her about what was going on, and she encouraged me to attend a partial hospital program.

I was terrified to be on the other side. To be a provider on the same side as the patients I’d been treating. But my desperation to feel better pushed me to accept the help being offered to me. 

If you’re struggling with depression or thoughts of not wanting to be alive, please reach out to someone who can support you. Call 988, the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also see a list of mental health resources put together by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

At some point I learned to just be quiet, to do my best to tiptoe around my family when they were on edge, and to try not to rock the boat. I learned to bring my parents things they would be proud of rather than problems for them to solve. It took me until I was in high school to squash my anger, but by the time I was in college I rarely got angry. 

Anger in particular seemed like a dangerous emotion to me. It caused people to say horrible things that cut like tiny pieces of glass and stuck with you forever. Anger made me feel unsafe and out of control.

This warped into me being an upbeat, enthusiastic people pleaser. No was not in my vocabulary, unless I said it to myself. I took on more and more, always trying to be someone my parents would be proud of.

But I was never proud of myself. No matter what award I had won or accomplishment I had achieved. It was never enough for me. 

My senior year of college, I took a literature class that exposed me to one book that changed my life. Bird by Bird, written by Anne Lamott. Lamott was funny and irreverent. I was shocked by her raw, blunt expression of her life and all of its dysfunction.

This book was a gateway for me into more irreverent, funny books about unapologetically owning our experience and taking responsibility for our lives. At some point, in one of the many books I read, I learned the lesson that we alone are responsible for our own emotions. 

Sadly I can’t presently remember which book really cemented this idea for me.

One day I was waiting at a drive-thru coffee kiosk for them to take my order. There was only one vehicle in front of me and they’d already driven around to the window. I waited and waited and waited. No one took my order. 

I even backed up and pulled forward again to make sure they knew I was there. Someone said, “We’ll be with you shortly.” They never took my order…

Angrily, I drove forward to leave. At just that moment someone said, “What can I get for you today?” I left in a huff without any delicious coffee and thought to myself, “God! They made me so angry!!”

Immediately after this thought popped into my head I burst out laughing. They couldn’t make me angry! I chose to get angry in the face of this situation, but nobody made me angry.

Blaming other people for how we feel prevents us from taking responsibility for our lives. It actually robs us of our own power. How we feel is up to us. 

This also means that we have no control over how other people feel about us. You’ve probably heard the quote by Paulo Coelho: “What other people think about you is none of your business!” It’s a tough pill to swallow sometimes, but it’s true.

When you grow up in an environment where you can’t express your emotions without fear of making things worse, it makes sense you might learn to distance yourself from your emotions and also feel responsible for other people’s emotions. But the truth is that you are not responsible for anyone’s emotions except for your own. 

And none of your emotions are bad! Anger isn’t bad, grief isn’t bad, envy isn’t bad, lust isn’t bad. They are all normal human emotions that all of us experience in our lifetimes.

What’s important is that we are responsible for what we do with these emotions. The words that come out of your mouth or the actions that you take when you are angry are your responsibility. You cannot blame those behaviors on anyone else but yourself. 

It’s taken me 29 years to learn this, but I am not responsible for my mother’s sadness, nor am I responsible for my father’s anger. I’m not responsible for disappointing my family or anyone else. Those emotions are theirs to own, and my emotions are mine. 

What I am still learning is that I am responsible for my own happiness. It’s up to me to experience more joy, gratitude, curiosity, and wonder. It’s my responsibility to treat myself with greater kindness and compassion. No one can do that for me.