Sometimes a change in scenery is what is needed for your own nourishment. It can give you a fresh perspective or help get you in the right mindset for what is to come.

A few years ago, when I was still working for the man, I had a job in big tech that was beyond stressful. I think it was the only job I ever had where I had a few days where I actually cried on my way home from work.

My day would typically go like this. After a full day of dealing with nonstop berating and nonsense from my boss (I really think this woman had a personality disorder – she was crazy and people were physically scared of her), I would call my brother on my way home from work and do our daily catch up that we called “bat time”, you know, same bat-time, same bat-channel reference. We called it that, but basically it was me checking in on him and his day because he was going through some stuff. It was a good bonding, experience though, I think for both of us.

After we chatted, before going home, I would go down to the beach for a little bit to just reset my mind. It was close by to where we lived and sometimes just a few minutes of watching the waves roll in was enough to soothe me. I didn’t want to go home stressed out, exhausted or in a rotten mood. My husband was already stressed out being unemployed at the time and trying to get a business up and running, and I wanted to show up the best way I could each day.

Changing my environment for a few minutes each day and just being silent and still made a huge difference for me. I would remind myself that the job and stress that I had was just temporary, and that I would find a new job soon – and I did.

Sometimes you need to give yourself some time every day to just be. To bleed off stress or reset your mindset, or just to reflect on the day. I made time to do this for myself because I didn’t want to go home and respond in ways, I wouldn’t be proud of with my husband. When I get stressed out, I tend to get short with people and I wanted to be warm and more laid back like I was before that job.

Anger that makes our blood boil can be a huge motivator. It gets a bad rap for being a ‘bad’ or ‘destructive’ emotion, but sometimes it is needed for us to finally make a change in our life. Anger allows us to understand how we really feel about something. I think it is a neutral feeling. But what we do with our anger can make it destructive.

One of the best quotes I ever heard is: “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Buddha is widely credited with this quote. And like Mark Twain said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Think about that for a minute.

When we allow anger to rage inside us, it begins to eat away at us. We may present a happy front, but underneath the surface, our blood is boiling and brewing beneath the surface. Anger and bitterness can change how we see everything. Every time I have held onto anger (no matter how justified I felt it was), it did more damage to me than the person I felt anger towards.

I want to be clear, though, the feeling of anger is healthy and okay. It’s the holding onto it for a long time that does damage to us. And letting go is a process.

When we are having trouble letting go of our anger, it is because we are focused on the wrong things. We are overly focused on what the person did, why they did it, how injured we feel and how can they just “get away” with doing these things.

But here’s the thing, holding onto anger is a punishment we give ourselves for someone else’s choices and behaviors.

Like Master Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

And once we are suffering, we seek out revenge. Regardless if getting revenge is justified, seeking it out corrupts our soul. See, holding onto anger and plotting and scheming another person’s demise might not even work anyway. In our efforts to re-balance the universe by getting justice, revenge becomes a vicious cycle of retaliation. You can’t fix what happened to you by breaking someone else.

As cliché as it sounds, the best way to handle lingering feelings of anger and having been wronged, is to live the best life you possibly can. Instead of focusing on external things to make you feel better, focus on what you can control. Pour all that energy you have for feeling angry at someone else into creating the life that you want for yourself.

At the end of the day, anyone who has angered you this much, does not deserve such a prominent place in your heart. Your time here is limited. Focus on becoming the best version of yourself, making real, deep connections with others and creating a legacy here you are proud of.

It’s okay to be in a dark place and not be okay. At some point, we all go through times when we feel like everything is going wrong in our life.

As overwhelming as it can feel, try to look at what is happening as a lesson. Know that you will grow through what you go through…the question is, are you willing to go through it?

When these bad things happen, what are you going to do? Are you going to let this horrible situation dictate the way you feel and the way you handle it?

Always remember that what you are going through right now is just a chapter – it’s not your whole story.

Faith and fear are similar in that they are both based on something that cannot be seen. Yet one has the power to paralyze you and the other has the power to set you free. We are so easy to feel fear, yet we struggle with finding faith when we need it the most.

Let’s take a look at the definitions of faith and fear.

Faith: A complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

Fear: A strong, uncontrollable, unpleasant emotion caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.

Both faith and fear demand that you believe in something you cannot see and require you to take a chance and believe what is yet to come – good or bad.

Fear weakens our strength by causing us to worry about things that don’t even happen 99% of the time. It’s a hungry beast and demands our constant attention. Faith gives us strength when we have none and hope when all seems lost.

The basic principles of fear and faith are the same. The only difference is that fear is faith in the wrong direction.

Is your faith bigger than your fear? What are you gaining by being afraid?

The fact that you are showing up and trying means you are outdoing 99% of everyone else. Many of us what for conditions to be perfect or until we are ready to start working on our goals and achieving our dreams. But like Lemony Snicket said, “If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”

You must be willing to out yourself out there and do the work. You must be willing to fail and gain that experience so you can succeed. You have to be willing to fall over and over again. Because falling is part of the process. What is going to define you is how well you rise after falling. 

Along your journey you will come across people who doubt you. I’ve experienced people who I thought were my biggest cheerleaders get jealous of my success and try to pull me down to where they were. If someone does that to you, realize that whoever is trying to bring you down is already below you. Don’t shrink yourself to fit in a place you’ve outgrown.   

When you feel doubt creeping in, turn that into your fuel to keep going. If people doubt you, don’t let one of those people be you.

As much as I appreciate the convenience of our cell phones, I feel like we have reached a point in our society where we need to seriously re-evaluate how we spend our time. Too many of us spend hours on our phones, infinitely scrolling and observing what other people are “doing”. I put doing in quotes because what we see online is curated content that is really just someone’s highlight reel and what they want you to see.

Neuroscientist, Dr. Andrew Huberman talks about how we are now living in a society where we have to work to create our own internal buffers so we can control our relationship to pleasures. He talks about how so many things we have available at our fingertips today cause huge dopamine increases in our brain. He argues that a good life is a progressive expansion of things that bring you pleasure through motivation and hard work. He makes a great point about how our phones create instant context switches where our brain cannot keep up with the dopamine overload that happens. It is fascinating.

For many of us, looking at our phones is something we just do on auto pilot. We mindlessly check our email or social media. Try to set aside some time every day where you do something that makes you forget to check your phone.

Here are some ideas:

• Learn photography (not using the camera on your cell phone).
• Write a short story or book you’ve been thinking about writing.
• Have a picnic and watch the sunset with your partner.
• Go stargazing.
• Have lunch with a friend and have a no phones at the table policy.
• Set up a tent in your living room with fairy lights. Make some s’mores, too!
• Watch movies from the 80s or 90s.
• Read a book.
• Do some painting.
• Get started on a DIY project or do some crafts.
• Go hiking outside.
• Make a homemade meal you’ve been wanting to make.
• Light some candles and take a bubble bath.
• Be intimate with your partner.
• Play a board game or card game with someone. 
• Go for a bike ride.
• Learn how to play a new sport.
• Learn how to play an instrument.

The possibilities are endless! What are some things you can start doing that will make your forget to check your phone?

We all love the underdog and the people who went through so much to get where they are. We don’t gravitate towards those who just project success without their story of struggle.

One of my favorite stories is Oprah’s. As a child, Oprah Winfrey went through hell enduring sexual abuse. She wanted to be on journalist and be on television but it was a struggle for her in the beginning. People in the industry told her that she was “unfit” to be on television. Yeah, that’s right. And they were so wrong. Oprah went on to help so many people and is known as the “Queen of All Media”.  

I know I have posted this video before, but I love it because it is such a good underdog story…And Tony Robbins tells it so well.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black tells Harry that we’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.

For us to be able to see the light, we must know what darkness is, and vice versa. And because the only person we should ever be competing with is ourselves, we have the ability to light the way and shine in our own darkness.

I like to look at different parts of our journeys as time we spend in the dark, as seeds. In its raw form, a seed doesn’t look like what it will become someday. It is buried in darkness, deep in soil. And it may stay there for quite some time. But deep beneath the surface, a lot of things are happening in the darkness.

In the seed’s dark environment, it receives water and sunlight hits the surface of the soil. Over a long period of time, the seed evolves and is in the process of becoming. In its process, the seed abandons the smaller form of itself that it was when it went into the soil. It trusts that the process of growing and evolving will yield a better, stronger version of themselves – even though they remain beneath the surface for a period of time in the darkness.

It is during our dark times that we discover what we are made of and what we are capable of. Remember, creation is quiet. Struggle allows us to develop the strength we will need once we have fully transformed.

Over time, the seed pushes its way above the surface and eventually blossoms. All it’s time in the darkness was needed for it to become a flower – a living, breathing thing that we look at in awe. 

If you are in a dark place right now, don’t give up. This is part of the process of creating something amazing. There is a plan for your transformation, and you will emerge more magnificent than you ever thought possible.