While commuting to work or standing in the unemployment line, while eating sushi or sucking down a shake and fries, while cleaning your room or making it messy, while jogging in the rain or soaking in the bathtub, you can do something profound: you can change your life.
How? By learning. Some of the greatest wisdom the world has produced has been set to audiobook and, with the advent of iPods and MP3 players, we can take those teachings with us just about anywhere.
Here is a brief catalog of ten powerful teachers who have helped millions follow their bliss by overcoming limiting beliefs. Some of these authors will resonate with you, some won’t. Just take a look. When you find one who resonates with you, you’ll know it.
1) Eckhart Tolle
Tolle is best known as the author of the The Power of Now and A New Earth. In 2011 he was listed by the Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world. In 2008, a New York Times writer called Tolle “the most popular spiritual author in the [United States].”
Sample: “So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.” -from The Power of Now
2) Louise Hay
Through Hay’s healing techniques and positive philosophy, millions have learned how to create more of what they want in their lives.
Sample: “For many years one of my affirmations has been: Only good lies before me. It is a comforting thought that wipes out all fear of the future and allows me to wake up each day with confidence, feeling at ease. I am often delighted and even amazed to observe how Life brings my next good adventure to me.” -from Create an Exceptional Life
Video: A Conversation with Louise Hay
3) Marianne Williamson
Williamson is an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer on A Course in Miracles, which she describes as “a self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy.” Six of her ten published books have been New York Times Best Sellers. Four of these have been #1 New York Times Best Sellers. A Return to Love is considered a must-read by many progressive spiritual practitioners.
Sample: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?”
–from A Return to Love
Video: Listen to A Return to Love (part 1)
4) Dr. Wayne Dyer
Dr. Dyer is an internationally renowned author and speaker in the field of self-development. He’s the author of over 30 books and has appeared on thousands of television and radio shows.
Sample: “One of my favorite poets, Robert Frost, is the author of one of the world’s best-loved and most famous poems, ’The Road Not Taken.’ This poem about choosing an independent course applies in all areas of our lives. To me, Frost says be wary of following the pack, and don’t do anything simply because everyone else is doing it.
Also, do what you do in the manner that you perceive it, regardless of how everyone is doing it, or has done it. The importance of choosing your own path is reflected in the poem’s conclusion—that taking the road ’less traveled by’ makes all the difference. Virtually all the people we revere took the road less traveled by, and that is why they were able to make a difference.” –from Your Chosen Path
Video: When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
5) Debbie Ford
Ford is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and an internationally recognized expert in the field of personal transformation and human potential. Her insightful teachings and revolutionary inner processes, combined with her intolerance for mediocrity, have made her an inspirational coach, motivational speaker, and seminar leader. She teaches the Shadow Process, a method based in Jung’s concept of exploring the rejected parts of oneself in order to find balance and wholeness.
Sample: “The evolution of one’s own soul is a process. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not a five day workshop. It’s a lifetime process where we let go, discover and then allow for futures to come into existence. Through connecting to our soul, to our collective heart, we can become congruent with our deepest values and our life mission. We can then allow for the realities which are always available to us to unfold. As we all have heard, love is the answer. Indeed it is, but it’s not just the loving of our good self, of our good qualities. True love is embracing our dark impulses, our imperfections, our mistakes and our heartache. That is when one reconnects and experiences the love that is truly the answer.”
–from DebbieFord.com
Video: On the Shadow Effect
6) Martha Beck
Beck is a writer and life coach who specializes in helping people design satisfying and meaningful life experiences. Beck, who holds two Harvard PH.D.s, is probably best known for her monthly column in O, the Oprah Magazine, guest appearances on Winfrey’s TV talk show, and her best-selling books, including Expecting Adam and Steering by Starlight.
Sample: “Hello! I’m Martha, and if, like me, you’re surfing the Net to avoid work, or have locked yourself in the bathroom with a laptop hiding from your children, or both, I think you’ll like it here. After hanging out at Harvard long enough to get a BA, MA, and PH.D. (700 years), I’ve spent my career helping people experience maximum happiness and meaning. I do that by coaching and writing (bestselling books, a monthly column in O, The Oprah Magazine, restroom graffiti). Whether you’re here because destiny is calling you, or you want to help save the world, or your keyboard is controlled by leprechauns, my tribe and I can help. Come play with us!” -from Martha Beck.com
Video: Finding Your Inner Genius
7) Cheryl Richardson
Cheryl Richardson is the author of The New York Times bestselling books, Take Time for Your Life, Life Makeovers, Stand Up for Your Life, The Unmistakable Touch of Grace and her new book The Art of Extreme Self Care.
Sample: “For the last twenty years I’ve dedicated my personal and professional life to the importance of self-care by teaching from my own experience. In the past, I’ve sacrificed my health and my relationships for work, given to others at the expense of my own needs, and watched my dreams slip through the cracks of a busy life. As a result, I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to put an end to the madness. And, as I grow and evolve, I share the practical tools and resources I use myself, in the hopes that it helps you to improve your own life.” – from her website.
Video: How to finally take action and get what you want.
Caroline Myss
Myss is a five-time New York Times best-selling author and internationally renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, health, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition. In addition to hosting a weekly radio show on the Hay House network, Myss maintains a rigorous international workshop and lecture schedule.
Sample: “Each of us is born with a sacred contract—a reason or purpose for being alive. Your sacred contract is what you are ’meant to do’ during your lifetime. You can also have sacred contracts with other people and learn why you were meant to know them. Let your spirit resolve issues with adversaries. If you can see how that person has helped you grow, you can learn about yourself and discover why you were meant to know that person.”
Video: Being Fearless
9) Dr. Michael Beckwith
Dr. Beckwith’s life is a living testament to building spiritual community. In the 1970’s he began an inward journey into the teachings of East and West, and today teaches universal truth principles found in the New Thought-Ancient Wisdom tradition of spirituality.
Sample: “I believe that you’re great, that there’s something magnificent about you. Regardless of what has happened to you in your life, regardless of how young or how old you think you might be, the moment you begin to think properly, this something that is within you, this power within you that’s greater than the world, it will begin to emerge. It will take over your life. It will feed you, it will clothe you, it will guide you, protect you, direct you, sustain your very existence. If you let it! Now that is what I know, for sure.”
Video: What is Your Pissocity Level?
10) Pema Chodron
Chodron is a leading exponent of teachings on meditation and how they apply to everyday life. She is widely known for her charming and down-to-earth interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism for Western audiences.
Sample: “On this journey we’re moving toward that which is not so certain, that which cannot be tied down, that which is not habitual and fixed. We’re moving toward a whole new way of thinking and feeling, a flexible and open way of perceiving reality that is not based on certainty and security. This new way of perceiving is based on connecting with the living energetic quality of ourselves and everything else.”
-from Start where you Are
Video: YouTube: Living from the Heart
For Paul Pawlaczyk, 61, life is an adventure – a journey toward greatness. He spent a quarter of a century painting and then decided to play the blues. But this isn’t a story about a starving artist who finally found fame in a field that often overlooks its living contributors. It’s the story of a hard-working man who aspired to be different, who always followed his bliss, and who learned some lessons along the way.
“I was about five years old when people started calling me an artist. I used to copy comics out of the Sunday paper; drew house plans; and once made my own comic book. I was greatly influenced by Morton Schamberg and Russian Constructivism.”
Paul also was a gear head, crazy for car mechanics, and painted his first engine at age 19 at college in Boston. The Ford engine covered a 6 x 8-foot canvas because anything smaller “would have had no emotional impact from the power of the machine.”
As he continued his art education in Kansas, he refused to go with the flow and paint flowers and bottles in a still-life class. Luckily, he had a teacher and eventual mentor who agreed that everyone should paint the subject matter truest to him or her. That mentor, an abstract artist named Ronald Slowinski, made a difference. “He made me understand that I should strive more to achieve what I wanted to express from the inside out.”
His first years out of college were difficult—he and his wife lived on food stamps while he sold carpets and kitchen cabinets and painted in Poughkeepsie, New York. Despite the fact that he showed in a small gallery there in 1974, there was no art scene. So with the tax rebate from their infant baby, Paul moved his family to Philadelphia.
He painted on a bedroom drafting table at first and worked in an egg roll truck on Temple University’s campus. Then, he spent most of the 1980s making business presentations—laying out and piecing together slide shows using photographs and slide trays. Once the computer moved in and changed the way the presentations were done, Paul moved on. “I liked to be hands-on and the computer didn’t give me an emotional reward. (On the computer) images existed and then they disappeared forever. This disturbed me.”
The images in his paintings remained, though. Colorful, magnified carburetors and engine components graced his giant-sized canvases. He called his style American Precision. He applied landscape colors to real-life automobile engines so they became the large color fields of geometric shapes. He tried to sell them in auto shops, but potential buyers wanted literal renderings of cars.
His modest house on a cobblestone street in Manayunk boasted hard-wood floors throughout, a painter’s studio in the front room and his original works on the walls of every room. He worked as a freelancer at magazines, newspapers and making graphics for presentations to support his family.
He sought out galleries that displayed work similar to his. He hoped his work would get reviewed, that he would sell something or gain recognition in the art community. He had a one-man show at his alma mater, the Art Institute of Boston and eventually showed at the Rodger LaPelle Gallery and The Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia. He quickly learned the low return on investment though. “I worked like hell to get the pieces prepped for the show and would maybe sell one piece.”
But he kept going. He received a lot of rejections but enough interest to keep him motivated. Eventually his works were showing in 10 galleries across the country in Kansas City, New York City and Washington DC.
He had his last show at the Galleria Savant in Philadelphia in 1991 and, while going through a divorce, painted his last piece in 1993. He had finally lost his muse. “I spent 25 years in the studio working alone and got burnt out on that single creative experience. I couldn’t do any more with the subject matter I had chosen. I felt like I totally explored what I could explore.” In all he had produced about 1,000 artifacts and moved on without regret.
He went on to produce presentations, work with the disabled, teach, take graphic design jobs, move art, and find work as a carpenter. In the mid ‘90s he met his second wife, also an artist, and settled in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. During this time he also rediscovered his love for the guitar and started playing blues.
The Guitar
Paul first played guitar as a teen-aged boy. His father had exposed him to Glenn Miller and he recalled how happy music had made his dad. As he approached mid-life, he participated in open jams in Connecticut and brought the blues to Phoenixville with Paul Michaels & the Blues Recruits – a band that has lost members and gained members which tends to keep it fresh.
“What I like about the music is the instant gratification. You play a song, you get a buzz.” Music helped him see what was in his head. The blues helped him express his personal sadness which stemmed from loneliness. And although the Blues Recruits gets some gigs every once in a while and Paul has a weekly blues radio show on WPAZ Radio 1370 in Pottstown, he still keeps his day job.
For the past three years, Paul has worked as the preparatory for the Reading Public Museum where two of his works are on permanent display. On any given day in the “office” he may handle upward to 125 paintings for a single exhibit including hanging, labeling and reframing them, adding hardware, and adjusting the lighting – a job that allows him to bring together all the skills he has acquired over the years while working with his hands.
“I did everything I could to find out where I stood, which was a continuous, lifelong quest. You can only succeed at something you believe in and that’s all there is to it. You have to follow your heart.”
“We totally get influenced by all that inundates us. Ask yourself – who you are and what you believe. I have to believe that I can play the blues in order to play the blues. Once I didn’t believe I was a painter, I stopped.”
From his humble beginnings which instilled a good sense of the value of working for others, to an adolescent notion of hot rods and an obsession with Fender guitars, Paul finds himself in a happy place – although he admits the journey is far from over.
by Sandy Farnan
Barbara Fredrickson is a world-renowned researcher in the field of neuropsychology, has spent the last twenty years posing the question:
“How do positive emotions affect our human behavior?”
In Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive (Crown Archetype, 2009) Fredrickson shares research data collected by herself and other social psychologists investigating the many aspects of positivity on individual growth and on successful business models.
The first part of the book includes theories on the evolution of human emotions, then provides scenarios to help identify the causes and effects of upward spiraling positivity versus negativity. She also shares case studies to help the reader understand how small changes in positive thinking can create an upward spiral in positive emotion.
Part two of this book includes the “how-tos” for making positive changes. She elaborates on her “broaden and build” theory and suggests the reader use her “three-to-one ratio” (3:1 ratio) as a tool to help create a healthier, more vibrant and flourishing life.
Her self-test is cost-free and easy and can be found at Positivity Ratio. It takes about two minutes to complete and is designed to be self-administered daily for about two weeks. Its purpose is to help you recognize opportunities to keep gratuitous negativity in check, embrace positivity, and see amazing results for both personal and relational growth.
For those seeking a science-based self-help book for making personal positive changes, Dr. Fredrickson’s offering is an excellent choice. She provides many easy methods for embracing positivity: learning how to see and seek new possibilities, becoming more resilient, connecting with others, and becoming the best version of yourself.
by Rhonda Alvarez
Three years ago I moved to Belgium. Since then I’ve toasted steins of beer at Oktoberfest, fallen in love in Copenhagen, run a marathon on the streets of Prague, but always returned to my cozy apartment in Brussels.
There I surrounded myself with people who chose to love me without prejudice. I even created a blog about my adventures, exploring how the city of Brussels rescued me, brought me back to life.
My family and friends, most of them sprawled between Georgia and New York, were much closer now. Two of my best friends had newborns and I was able to hold them in my arms after a cheap two-hour flight from Miami. I can call my mom every morning on my way to work in the same time zone at no additional cost. I can visit my aging father in Upstate New York over a long weekend.
Brussels and I have a beautiful love story. After years of living in places that have given me so many rich experiences, am I ready to pack the memories in a suitcase and create a built-in closet of new ones?
by Jessica DeJesus
Through the process of trial and error, I was able to determine the kind of work and the kind of organization that would fit me. That perfect fit would eventually become my home away from home. But first, there was…
JOB ONE: UNCHALLENGING AND UNVARIED WORK
My first job title was “instructional designer.” Not exactly the position I had day-dreamed about at university. It was all wrong. I was the youngest employee by at least seven years and too immature for Corporate America. While my colleagues prepped for marriage and babies I shopped in the Macy’s juniors department for the latest micro-mini business suits. The work was unglamorous. I formatted continuing education documents. I didn’t even get the chance to edit them so much – just juggle around the information and make it look pretty, but not too pretty.
JOB TWO: NO MUTUAL RESPECT AMONG COLLEAUGES
I found an associate editor’s position at a small operation that published trade magazines. I enthused over my daily tasks of interviewing, writing, reading, overseeing freelance writers, collecting artwork, getting approvals and proofreading — all the skills I had been groomed to do. The work was very fulfilling but the organization was dysfunctional. The staff of 20 was so cold and unwelcoming I cried through the entire first week. I realized eventually it was because our publisher did more to manipulate than to motivate. She didn’t have a degree in journalism, but she did have a degree in crazy, and that was enough to send me packing after two fast-paced years.
JOB THREE: MY CONTRIBUTIONS MADE NO DIFFERENCE
When I landed in my next job with a medical publisher, I settled for an editorial assistant position well beneath my skill set. I had to start on their bottom rung which was okay at first; however, I mastered the skills for my position in the first year, improved on processes, and grew bored. After a few years of rave reviews and no development, I realized the climb up this corporate mountain would be slow and painful. When I tried to engage in activities outside my role, my pleas were squelched by the person in charge. A monkey could have done my job and that’s exactly what I had become for these uptight, stodgy old-timers. I paid my dues and got out.
JOB FOUR: SCORE!
As soon as I started working my fourth job, I realized how much my colleagues relied on and valued my opinion. My duties included writing and editing documents and newsletters but they also expected me to bring ideas and expertise to the table. Four years later, I haven’t left. Because my work is so varied, it never grows boring and I’ve been able to develop wider skills. I’ve taken classes and attended seminars and conferences to improve my knowledge of writing and communication, and I’ve traveled to places around the world as a trusted representative of the company.
So, what makes my current job feel like home?
What jobs 1-3 lacked were so unacceptable to me that they helped me see clearly what I needed and wanted from my work place:
1. Challenging and varied work
2. Sharing mutual respect with my colleagues
3. Knowing that my contributions make a difference
My current co-workers have a high level of integrity but aren’t afraid to be who they are and have genuine fun between all the work and meetings. I feel totally comfortable in my office and am excited to going each day. No one should settle for less.
by Sandy Farnan
Sometimes you miss one niece’s wedding back home, and then you miss the next niece’s wedding, so by the third niece’s wedding you’ve run out of excuses and she’s given you two months’ notice so you go online, you buy the airline ticket, you pack a bag, you fly from California to New Mexico, from late-summer coastal fog to desert lightning storms.
The days leading up to the wedding include everything you hope for in an event with your family — endless pot of beans and pans of red chile, boisterous card games that run late into the night, a house filled with people sleeping on every bed, sofa and bit of open floor, bathrooms rarely left empty, surprise guests who pull up right before you drive to the ceremony.
And at the church, your brother (the father of the bride) is called upon to ask an uninvited guest who once dated the bride to leave. Inside, the air is too warm, the kids too fidgety.
Then the ceremony is over, and, like a flock of birds regrouping at the nest, the cars packed with foil-covered home-cooked food find their way to the reception where a woman takes charge and tells everyone to move food from one table to the next, then, back again.
With your oldest brother, you listen to The Clash while drinking whiskey mixed with soda in the minivan as the heat of the day gives way to a breeze that seems to paint the surrounding sandstone mesas a hundred hues of red and brown.
The deejay plays songs that get people to dance, but it’s still daylight out and before long the music stops, the bride and groom leave. Then you and two dozen others clear the plates, pack up leftover food, fold chairs, collapse tables, mop floors. And when you’re done, you walk out into the dry night. Someone puts that Kinks song on the stereo, you and your brothers dance because there’s this moment, and who cares, and why not?
When the niece prepares to fly away to her new life back East, you and the family gather at the airport, hug, laugh, cry. She’s really leaving. She looks young, and yet she’s the same age as her parents were when they got married.
We were all too young and now we’re not so young, but no one is too broken up about this. Home is about being crowded, feeling overwhelmed, hearing that someone thinks someone else is lazy, or rude, or eats too much.
And when you drove up to Santa Fe one day before everyone arrived, you’d pulled off the highway and snapped a photo of yourself on a deserted road. You were alone. You knew you wouldn’t be alone again the whole weekend. You wanted to savor this aloneness, yet you couldn’t.
There were people waiting for you back home. They would be calling any minute, asking where you were. “Why aren’t you here with us?” they would say. And you would take one last look at the empty desert, then climb back into the truck and drive as fast as you could to get back home. That’s where you belonged.
by Albert Martinez
In June 2010 I came “home” to Rabat to work for a month. My first night there, I ran all over the medina until late at night.
I just had to see that it was still there like I remembered: the same towering fruit vendors, ladies selling spongy bghrir, pastry shops buzzing with bees, used clothing hawkers, hole-in-the-wall harira joints, carpenters, men pushing carts of fresh herbs like sage and peppermint…it was all still there. For the first week I went back to the medina every night for the same reason: to make sure it was still there.
I did the same in Marrakech, amazed that I could still navigate the medina’s labyrinth like a native. I wasn’t thinking; I was just moving. The objects were the same.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t the girl who lived there five years ago: I wasn’t sad, angry, lonely, or homesick. I was light, happy, sucking up all of the beauty like I was walking in a kaleidoscope. Colors so vivid they saturated me but I didn’t mind the sensory overload. I was home. Right?
Are you home if you know which bus to take where? When you know who to call for help? When you know what you don’t know? If you know the culture so well that complete strangers point out that although you are a Westerner you are a respect-worthy woman? Are you home if you speak the language? What if you speak several of the languages? If you can argue in Arabic, come out winning, and have your opponent congratulate you in the end, is this home?
These things are true for me in many places. I can navigate the Paris metro. I can show native New Yorkers the best hand-pulled noodle joints in Chinatown that even the Chinese don’t know about. I can negotiate the correct, local taxi rate from downtown Cairo to Maadi (my home for six months) much to the astonishment of the cabbie.
I can find my host family’s house in Taznacht and be comforted that they will expect me to spend the night as soon as they see me at the front door. You want love? My host mom wove me a rug with my name in the middle. Can you imagine how long that took her? Is that home?
Brahim, once my colleague and now my family, gave me a gold necklace for my birthday even though I probably earn ten times what he does and he has a family to feed. My great uncle David greets me by kissing me on the nose and calls me “bubbie.”
Lucie, who I met when we were high school exchange students, meets me on the train platform in Macon and remarks that although we haven’t seen each other in eight years it’s like we saw each other yesterday. Her mother gives me cream honey and a bottle of local wine when I visit. I have dinner with my old landlady’s family and it’s a microcosm of France in several courses, overlapping conversations, multiple bottles of wine, extended notions of family, and three hours at the table.
Or is home where I actually reside now? I’m in Washington DC which I do not like at all. I constantly get lost, can’t find a decent Chinese restaurant, have to travel three quarters of an hour to get to the nearest Asian grocery, can’t find a decent bagel for shit, hate the conservative way people dress, and think the institution of happy hour is crap.
In theory, I’ve got it made. I scored a secure job with the government, earn a great salary, and things are going my way. I’m in excellent health and I’m buying a home. Kulchi mzzyan, alhumdulileh. Except that no one here knows what that means. And I’m convinced I have left too many people behind in all of my travels. Too many good people whom I wish I could have taken with me. I left love with them because it was all I had to give, and it was the purest gift, and they deserved no less. Thing is, now I’m all torn up and missing parts.
DC isn’t home but I haven’t located a suitable alternative. Don’t tell me, I already know: you have to create home. My friend Avanti said she longs for home even though she doesn’t know where it is. Me, I’m running around DC with a broken up heart and sense of loss: I lost the people that love me and I had to give up the person I loved. Grief? Some. More like lack of connection, nothing pulling me to the earth here.
Let me suggest this: home isn’t just what you know and what you can find. It is the promise to take care of one another. When I was stuck in a hole-in-the-wall scarf shop in Sanaa’s afternoon rain, I took out a fresh disk of flatbread that I bought for 20 cents from a woman who stored it on a basket perched above her head and shared it with the merchant, Nabil, because it was lunchtime and we were hungry and there was nowhere to go. A waiter in Rabat offered to drive me home after his shift ended when we realized I’d missed the last bus home.
If home is when human beings take care of one another, then no wonder I’m stretched across the globe.
by Cybele Cochran
My little town sits on softly rolling land with pine woods to the north, orchards to the west, wheat and corn fields to the east, and a very gentle southern slope down to Lake Constance.
At the other side of the lake, just beyond the green hills by the shore, loom the Swiss, Austrian, and Bavarian Alps, forming a quarter of a ring around the south-to-east side of the panorama.
The air is unbelievably fresh. When that freshness comes to me in a cool breeze, I inevitably tilt my head to inhale deeply. And when I open my eyes to exhale, I find myself staring up at the vast sky – clearest and cleanest blue during the day, deepest and warmest black set with stars at night, and most of all, during sunset, vibrant orange clouds and golden rays that turn the Alps almost peach-pink, shrouded in rosy and violet haze.
My little town wakes me with a symphony of birds. On a windy day, it ruffles the trees so vigorously you’d think it’s the splash of a small waterfall. On some evenings, I am lulled to sleep with distant rumbles of thunder. On rainy nights, I hear little pitter-patters on the roof or pelting beads of raindrops loud enough to wake me up.
But underlying all that, an ever-present silence. When I take a walk (most likely at the golden hour of dusk), I can hear my own breath, my own footsteps, and more importantly, my own thoughts. My town knows when to sing. It also knows when to be still.
I come from Taipei, a city with no sky and no silence. Every day the polluted yet life-sustaining air and the rusting iron bars on apartment windows reminded me of what people’s expectations were: be functional, not beautiful.
The sweltering heat, the noise, the rashes all over my skin, the money rush, the talk of jobs instead of dreams, the wretched blocks of cement we built to live in, all began to cave in on me. The truth was, on this land where I was born, I could barely even function even though it was all that was expected of me.
Since I came to live here, I have become healthy, confident, dynamic. Life is simple, as it should be. I go to work, I come home. I get hungry, I eat. I get tired, I sleep. I feel troubled, I go for a walk at dusk, when the soft waves of hills stand momentarily transfixed by the radiant sunset; when the last golden ray of daylight shimmers and disappears behind violet clouds, and the land seems once more sleepy and at peace, I have my solution. Life is beautiful, as it should be.
Here I’ve learned to trust myself, for my home allows me to shed old fears and doubts. I hear my own voice and connect with the cosmic wisdom that whispers to me. Only here do I have the courage to listen to it. In trusting myself, I have gained trust from my friends. I was rewarded with their respect and love for having faith in myself, and thus have I learned to respect and love myself even more. Here I am no one’s daughter but everyone’s friend. I am the universe and the earth upon which man walks, yet at the same time I walk this earth with my fellow men. I am all and one. I am whole and none. I am home.
by Sofia Lo
Even if you don’t have a background in sales or business, ANY sort of quantifying information could strengthen the summary of your experience.
The website How to Write a Résumé That Works advises you to discuss the benefits your work brought to the company and the value of those benefits. Describe your achievements in terms of dollars and/or percentages. Read more…
I reached what I thought would be the pinnacle of my writing career when I arrived at the Vermont Studio Center. Teeming with artists and writers who have proven their ilk (this year’s Walt Whitman award-winner, several poets with published books, a recent graduate from the Columbia MFA just for starters) I had to face the fact that I’d been invited into a club of people who were distinctly more accomplished and credentialed than me.
What made it worse was that my hometown friends family members, teachers, nurses, office workers, nannies, and store clerks, none of whom are rich, put down $25, $50, $100, even $200 to send me here. It was like that last scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” when the town shows up waving their dollar bills. It was undeniable proof that the people who comprised my world believed in me. It surged my confidence level so high that for one month I wrote at a caliber and pace I never had before.
Then I arrived among the other writers and hit a wall. I just couldn’t, COULD NOT, stop feeling that I wasn’t as good a writer as I’d lead people to believe – like I’d pulled off some years-long sleight-of-hand. And though some people might feel self-pity or embarrassment, what I felt most was shame.
I felt I had to hide the ugly truth of my mediocrity and that the truth would come out sooner or later. No one here would address it openly, of course. They are all kind, confident, pedigreed people. But they would know I didn’t belong, maybe just sense it the way some animals can sense when another is sick, and then bit by bit drive me from the watering hole.
Of course, much of this was just crazy. Though quality of writing is subjective, I wouldn’t have been accepted here if I hadn’t proven my work. After all, we get in based on portfolio, not résumé. But how far does this rational talk get you when shame is running the show? In fact, I began to feel shame about being so easily shamed.
The thing that happens, says sociology researcher Brene Brown, is that we come to believe, “If other people see this, I won’t be worthy of connection.” She explains that what underpins this “I’m not good enough” feeling is excruciating vulnerability.
This vulnerability is something everyone feels from time to time. The difference between those who feel shame about their vulnerability and those who don’t is that those who don’t are the ones that fully embrace vulnerability and believe it’s what makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful.
People who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of love and belonging. It’s as simple as that. And the opposite. No achievement or praise or attention will give you that feeling of worthiness if you don’t already feel you are worthy.
This is where the paradox becomes delicious. For in order to become a person who feels worthy of love and belonging, you must embrace your vulnerability. So that voice that says to hide it (the shame voice) is actually what is keeping you stuck in shame. Embracing vulnerability means allowing yourself to be seen. That is the only way real connection can happen.
To sum it up, what whole-hearted people (people who feel worthy of love and belonging) have in common are these three general attributes.
- Courage – The courage to be imperfect
- Self-Compassion – Giving kindness to yourself first
- Connection – The willingness to let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are
The one thing that keeps us from connecting is the feeling that we are not worthy of connection. What I came face-to-face with in Vermont had nothing to do with my talent or skill as a writer, but everything to do with my years of isolation prior to coming here; the awkward, unhappy social relationships that plagued me for years prior to simply isolating myself; and my irrational and unsettling sense that there was something wrong with me. Something off-putting, unlikeable. Something I had to constantly work on. Something I had to hide. The thing in me that saw all the townspeople gather with their bills to save my life and couldn’t do anything but whisper in my ear: “They don’t really know you.”
Brown says that the meaning of courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. As a writer, I have to continually embrace and remember authenticity – look for what I really mean, find it, and then accurately portray it no matter how scary it is to unearth and shape it. It never comes out cut and polished like diamond. It’s mostly amber, not clear, and it is scarred with flaws and imperfections that we would just as soon leave underground. It is not comfortable the way lounge chairs and college sweaters are comfortable. In fact, if you are doing it right, it isn’t comfortable at all. But it’s the thing we do so we can eventually get comfortable. The thing we do so we can see all the rest of the good stuff that comes up in that strange, beautiful stone.
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Nina Alvarez is a ghostwriter, editor, and social media outreach consultant at Dream Your Book. She teaches writing workshops on fiction editing, author platform development, meditation and creativity, and the business of writing. Find her on Facebook or tweeting @ninaealvarez. Contact her at nina.alvarez@fybmag.com with questions/comments about the website. Read her FYB articles. [/box]
