The Bean Sprout of Happiness

Posted in Depression, Hope, Managing Emotions


Ya Gotta Start Somewhere, Right? by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, woman who likes plants If…


Ya Gotta Start Somewhere, Right?

by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, woman who likes plants

If you grew up as an American kid, chances are high that at some point in elementary school, your teacher gave you a cup with your name on it, a dried bean and some dirt and told you to plant a bean.

You poked it into the dirt, probably drowned the poor little thing with water, watched it for a few minutes to see if it was growing yet, and then lost interest.  But one day you came to class and suddenly, a bunch of little green shoots were coming out of the cups!  How exciting!  This act of nature had no relevance to anything that someone might someday eat, but it was pretty cool nonetheless.  I have no idea why little kids do this experiment, but I was thinking about it this morning and realized it is a metaphor for how we create happiness in our lives after bad things have happened.

You start out with your body – the cup – and your parents write your name on it.  The joy you might have felt as a kid kinda withers and dries up as you get older, but the seed of life is still in you.  Life kicks a lot of dirt into your cup and pretty much that’s it.

But choosing to be happy means planting the seeds of happiness in your own life.  Watering it with your good wishes for yourself and setting yourself on a sunny windowsill – that is, putting yourself somewhere where you can soak up whatever good things come your way.  (Those are the two crucial steps that a lot of grown-ups forget!)

Then what? Then you want instant results.  You “unplant” the seed to see if it’s sprouted 10 minutes later.  You’re as impatient as a third grader! You tried, but you appear to have failed to grow a happier life. Nothing seems to have changed. But just let yourself sit there in the sun a little while longer putting yourself in the right position for happiness (which may mean leaving a dark place voluntarily) and sprinkle yourself with some more good wishes for yourself.

One day when you’re thinking of something else entirely, surprise, surprise!  The little sprout will have proven it’s got some life in it yet! You’re on your way!  Take good care of yourself this time, incorporate the lessons you’ve learned, do your best to always put yourself in a place where you’ll get optimal “sunlight”, and water your brain with good thoughts and good wishes.  Your hard work will bear fruit all in good time!

 

Get yourself a copy of Wendy Keller’s FREE ebook

“The Top Ten Tips to Coping with Crisis” today!

 

The Secret to Healing Your Relationships

Posted in Divorce, Relationships


Why Don’t We Do This More Often and Better? by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, a…


Why Don’t We Do This More Often and Better?

by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, a woman with ears

I was talking to a highly skilled business coach yesterday.  Michael said that while in training, his teacher told the class that when someone says something that contains a huge gap in  logic from what they said before, the listener absolutely MUST NOT fill in the gaps with what they think the other person means.

Listening to a girlfriend tell me her problems with her boyfriend yesterday, I could see she was filling in the gaps between what he said, what he did, and then what he said about what he did.  He’s not actually treating her very nicely, but she fills in the gaps with reasons for him, making excuses for unacceptable behavior.

We all have a desire for things to make sense. We predict that most other people see the world roughly similar to the way we do.  We assume they have the same frame of reference we do.  But we get into trouble when we apply this gap-filling to troubled relationships of any type.

Here’s a scary thought: you might NOT know what the people close to you are really thinking!

I love my mom a lot.  She’s a nice lady.  All my life, though, I’ve felt like we come from different planets.  To keep the peace, my brothers and I always think through very carefully what we will say to her, because she has a tendency to get her feelings hurt extremely easily.  My youngest brother got tired of the eggshells so he decided to just state his truth calmly, dispassionately, and without any drama, inflection or concern.  Just being honest.  That’s it.

It has transformed their relationship so visibly that I’ve started applying it myself.

The only way to really, truly know what the people around you are thinking is to ask them and then listen with an open mind to the answer.  If you think you already know what they’ll say, you can’t hear what they really DO say.  It’s possible they’ve changed.  It’s possible they’ve matured. It’s possible they see the matter in a new light now. It’s possible you filled in the gaps with stuff that wasn’t there at all. NOTE TO SELF: Don’t Make Assumptions!

Here’s a few simple steps I learned – and when I remember to apply them in my relationships, they work GREAT.

1. ALLOW for the fact that the other person probably sees the situation differently and can justify his or her perspective from his own logic.  A nine-year-old can absolutely explain in minute detail why bedtimes are utterly unnecessary!

2. ASK the other person WHY they see it the way they do.  Ask respectfully, calmly and in a level voice.

3. LISTEN silently, without judgment, without thinking of what you’re going to say to refute their perspective.

Only when you can see both sides of the issue can you create a harmonious solution to the matter at hand, soothe the ruffled feathers of the relationship and come to a workable resolution.   This advice doesn’t come as a big surprise to you.  We all know this. But just for today, see if you can practice active listening and refrain from filling in the gaps for people.  Watch, learn and listen to who they really are – you may be quite surprised!

 

Get yourself a copy of Wendy Keller’s FREE ebook

“The Top Ten Tips to Coping with Crisis” today!

 

Use This Weekend to Heal Your Heart

Posted in Divorce, Managing Emotions, Relationships


Simple Steps You Can Take in the Next 48 Hours to Feel Better for the…


Simple Steps You Can Take in the Next 48 Hours to Feel Better for the Rest of Your Life

by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, woman who cares

Has life bashed you up pretty good?  Are you feeling like the losses – romantic and otherwise – that you’ve had to face have left you pretty shaken? Unable to trust, to love, to open up again?

I had a fourth date last night with a nice man who very kindly told me how his first wife neglected him, his second wife abandoned him and his last serious girlfriend finally told him she was really married to someone else.  Poor guy!  That’s a lot of assault and battery on someone’s emotions!

It made me think about how we can all best handle broken hearts, lost loves, dealing with the death or departure or divorce of people we love(d).  I firmly believe that a LOT of healing can take place if we choose to focus on releasing our pain and recapturing our lost pieces.  Here are some ideas to get you started on the Road to Recovery.  Apply them this weekend and see what happens!

1. Directly address your pain/anguish/sorrow or anger.  Write a letter to the person who hurt you most, living or dead.  Pour it all out!  Say all the things you wish you’d said before, or wish you were brave enough to say now. This is what the grief counselors teach people to do to say “good-bye”.  Start with the phrase “I’ve thought of some things I’d like to tell you…”  and end with “I love you, I miss you, good-bye.”  It works best if you write it out longhand and then READ it to another living person – ideally NOT the person to whom you wrote it.  After my children died in the car accident in 1991, I wrote many letters, traipsed out to the cemetery and read it to their headstones.  When Tony – the last love of my life – left me suddenly, I wrote him several letters I never mailed and read them to a good friend who patiently listened without commenting.  Try it. What have you got to lose?

2. I recently learned a GENIUS tactic from my mentor Dr. Jack Lin.  Dr. Lin said to take a piece of paper and divide it into FOUR sections.  Mark the top left “Good” and the top right “Bad”  In the top left, write everything that is GOOD about the specific situation you’re trying to deal with.  If someone left you, for instance, you could write “Now I can eat dinner whenever I like; don’t have to stumble over his dirty socks on the floor; don’t have to share the covers…”  On the top right, write down what’s BAD about it. “I miss having someone to laugh with; I’m lonely; I wish he was here to take out the trash on thursdays…”  (Whatever!)

NOW comes the cool part!  In the bottom half of the page, where you still have those two empty boxes, write down the OPPOSITE.  If you were dealing with what’s good or bad about someone leaving you, write down in the lower two all the things that are GOOD about being in a healthy, loving relationship.  And all the things that are “bad” about beign in a healthy, loving relationship (e.g., you have a set dinner time, for instance.”)

Be sure you got everything in every quadrant that you can possibly think of.  Done?  Good…

HERE is the tricky bit:  Look at all four quandrants. Which is longest?  Count how many entries you put into that specific one.  12?  35?  Guess what? Now you have to WRACK your brain to make them all even. That’s right.  Whatever number appears in the longest one, that is how many you have to force yourself to write into all the others.

Dr. Lin explained that by doing this, we force ourselves to see a broader, more balanced, more cogent perspective.  Although he taught me this to apply to how to make a business decision better and more calmly, it works for this kind of emotional issues, too.  Try it!  You’ll see!

3. After you’ve done all this work, your brain will be tuckered out.  Here’s the important Final Step: Do something really nice for yourself. Not something you usually do anyway, like taking yourself to exercise class.  This has to be something your self likes but that you don’t normally do for you.  Like, buy yourself your favorite flower.  Lie in bed an extra hour reading a book.  Hire a sitter and take your partner out to dinner or lunch.  Drive up to your favorite lookout point.  Something nice. And WHILE you are doing it, remind yourself that you are loved and loving, competent, capable, desirable and worthy. Heck, that might feel so good you decide to be nicer to yourself on a regular basis!

Apply these strategies this weekend – you’ll be amazed at your own results.

 

Sick of feeling sad? 

Want to make this process easier on yourself?

Get a copy of my book, “When I Do Becomes I Don’t” on Amazon

 

Do YOU Ever Get Scared of Life? Now What?

Posted in Depression, Financial Challenges, Managing Emotions


When Life Gets Scary by Wendy Keller Do you ever get scared?  Scared that MORE…


When Life Gets Scary

by Wendy Keller

Do you ever get scared?  Scared that MORE bad things will happen?  That someone you love will do something stupid? That YOU will do something stupid?

We pretend to be brave, but most people experience some secret fears:

  • Will I be able to pay the bills?
  • What if I never get out of debt?
  • What if my partner cheats on me?
  • What if the baby isn’t healthy when it’s born?
  • What if I die a terrible death?
  • What if I get a painful disease?
  • What if that terrible thing happens to me or someone I love?
  • More

You know, we ALL get terrified by life sometimes.  Things that happen, things that might, things that did and things that don’t.

 “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of them never happened.” — Mark Twain

So what do you DO if life’s got you running scared?  Scream your head off and run for cover!  Then, from under your bed, try these tips:

1. Totally Give In to what you’re feeling.  Write down in detail EXACTLY what you’re afraid of happening/what has happened.  Then think about whether or not you could handle this.  Has anyone else in the history of the planet ever survived such a thing?  Yes?  That means you can, too.  You’re not stronger nor weaker than anyone else.  Once you decide that this awful thing could be survivable, you are prepared to handle it calmly and rationally.  Now take whatever actions are necessary to prevent it from happening.

2. “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”  You know that old thing about “Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real?” Nice thought, but kind of hard to apply when you’re really freaking out about how you’ll pay next month’s mortgage, right?  Fake yourself out. Write down 25 things you could do – however outrageous (but legal) to prevent whatever you’re afraid of from happening.  Like “Plant land mines all over my front yard” (is that legal?) or “Start an online business today to earn some extra cash” (that surely is!)  Pick out the top five and give ’em a whirl.

3. Slap yourself upside the head!  That’s what I most often do when I’m freaking out about something.  I say aloud, “Wendy! Pay attention!  Being a chicken with its head cut off will get you nowhere.  Let’s calm down, face facts, and get logical.”  Sometimes, Wendy listens to me… : )

4. Get help.  Ask someone who has an unbiased point of view to give you some feedback.  “What would YOU do in this situation?” Or “What DID you do in this situation?”  Make sure you pick someone who doesn’t have the exact same problem. In fact, the ideal person is someone who OVERCAME the exact same problem successfully.

5. Take a long hot shower.  Really.  It will calm down your nerve endings!  The minute you get out, come up with the top three things you could do to get out of this mess RIGHT NOW and then START TAKING ACTION immediately.  If the shower doesn’t work, try this: when you go to bed at night, tell yourself, “Self, I need a solution to this problem.  I’m feeling scared and I don’t yet know what to do. When I wake up, I need a clear plan, a good solution, and for the right people, ideas and opportunities to fall into my lap.”  Sleep soundly.  I’m surprised that in a day or two, I usually see solutions that were invisible when I began being scared.

These are not the only ways to manage fear, but they sure will help.  I believe it’s more important to realize you are not a helpless victim, you are not a fly caught in a spider web, and that even if bad things happened before, it doesn’t mean they will again.  You CAN protect yourself. You CAN deal with the fear. You CAN get through this. Look for escape hatches, solutions and open windows.  They’re all around you.

Get yourself a copy of Wendy Keller’s FREE ebook

“The Top Ten Tips to Coping with Crisis” today!

 

Rising from the Depths of Despair

Posted in Depression, Hope, Managing Emotions


Why Finding Joy is Worth the Search by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, woman who cares…


Why Finding Joy is Worth the Search

by Wendy Keller, author, speaker, woman who cares

Are you spending your life sad? Here’s a big surprise: life sucks sometimes. It’s hard. You get thrown things that are difficult, unfair or even devastating.  People die or disappoint. You know, because if you read my blogs, you’re dealin’ with sumthin’.

It’s easiest to just say “Forgeddaboutit” (especially if you’re from Brooklyn!)  and slip into the warm current washing you further and further downstream into depression and sadness. NEWS FLASH: We ALL feel like that sometimes.  It’s a lot of work to apply good principles, discipline your mind, manage your emotions and relationships, take care of yourself mentally, spiritually, physically, financially and so on. Especially when your life slaps you in the face and you figure out Life Isn’t Fair (to anyone!)

There’s that old quote about how it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up. What about when it’s just been one too many punches?  What about when you used your last teaspoon of energy getting back up last time?  Then what the heck are you supposed to do?

 Get back up.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.  Psych yourself into it.  Tell yourself tomorrow is a new day and then take action – even a tiny little mouse-sized step forward.  If you’ve been down in the dumps so long you don’t recall which way is up, here are a whole bunch of crazy, tiny mouse steps to get you heading back in the direction of joy, happiness and peace.  Doesn’t matter if you LIKE any of them.  Just pick one and do it right now, today, in this instant.  Pretty soon, you’ll crack open a window in your brain and a little breeze will blow in some new ideas, some hope.  Keep on taking mouse-sized steps and one day, you’ll find you’ve become an Olympic pole vaulter…or at least a happier, more joyful, more peaceful person.

Pick one of these little things to do today to begin yanking yourself back up to the surface:

  • Commit to smiling at 5 strangers today.
  • Go outside. Pick a flower, bring it in and stick it in some water. Put it on your bedside table.
  • Give $1 to a homeless person.
  • Take an extra five minutes to do your hair or makeup or put on an outfit you like on yourself.
  • Make your bed.  (Studies show increased happiness in people who do this simple task daily!)
  • Choose to smoke one less cigarette or joint, eat one less cookie than you’d like or take one less drink than you might normally.
  • Park in the furthest space from the door and walk.
  • Get out in nature for just 10 minutes.
  • Take 7 deep breaths in a row.
  • Call someone who is hurting and ask questions. Don’t talk about yourself or your problems during the whole call.
  • Get a piece of paper and a pencil (or finger paint or crayons) and play around drawing the object you like most in your home.  (Da Vinci isn’t watching!)
  • Play a half hour of your favorite songs – and dance to them alone.
  • Read 10 pages or more of a spiritually uplifting book.  (If you don’t know where to start, try “The Alchemist” by Paolo Coelho)
  • Write a card – or make one – and send it to someone you care about, ideally someone you haven’t communicated with in a while.
  • If your parents are still alive, tell one of them you appreciate that they did the best they could and you know how hard it was.
  • If you have a child, hug it for no reason today.  You don’t need permission nor need you give an explanation.
  • Make yourself something healthy for dinner.
  • Splurge on a pedicure or manicure.
  • Send yourself on a treasure hunt: walk around the block and see if you can find three bird feathers, a yellow flower, a coin and a stone.
  • Turn down the lights, light a candle and breathe deeply, letting your mind quiet down.
  • Buy a flowering houseplant.
  • If you have a pet, play with it for five minutes. What’ll it be? Fetch or chasing a string?
  • Help an old person in some small way.
  • Invite someone over for dinner tomorrow.  Doesn’t have to be a fancy meal, or fine china.
  • Pray, meditate or introspect – without begging any deity for a single thing, just expressing gratitude.
  • Take one dollar out of your wallet.  Put it in an envelope and mark the envelope “Savings Account”.  Paste a picture or two of your dream goal on the outside of the envelope to motivate yourself.
  • Journal about your happiest day so far

These aren’t major life changing strategies, are they?  They may seem silly or not even worthy of your time.  In truth, like most things in life, they are deceptively simple. Each one moves you that tiny step closer to joy, one step out of despair.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if you do nothing, you’ll keep getting more of what you’ve already got.  The purpose of this list is to give you simple, easy, inexpensive ideas to get you thinking about what you CAN do to get yourself feeling better. 

 

 

Get yourself a copy of Wendy Keller’s FREE ebook

“The Top Ten Tips to Coping with Crisis” today!