The saying “it could always be worse” has brought me little consolation when I have been experiencing a difficult time. But it a true statement. Of course, something bad is never good. But when something worse happens, boy does it put things in perspective.

And sometimes, things appear like they are getting worse when they are actually in the state of becoming something else. You see, for a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.

In the beginning, things look like they are getting worse for the seed. In their raw form, they look very different from what they will become. They stay buried in dirt, devoid of any evidence of growth or change. They may remain dormant for a long time. But they are there, just beneath the surface, evolving in ways we cannot see yet.

Things happen to the seed that might seem uncomfortable at first. It takes certain conditions, like nutrients in the ground, sunlight, water and most importantly, time, for the seeds to truly transform into something beautiful. They have to abandon their smaller form of a seed and trust 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.

All our struggles, challenges and dark times are preparing us for something better. It is hard for us to see it at the time. Things might feel like they are getting worse. Like the seed achieving its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. Our darkest times can look like destruction, but is it? We may fall, but we rise again. We endure. And we are still here. Which means we still have some fight left in us.

The balance only gives us one data point. It tells us what something weighs. It is a statement of fact, based on one piece of criteria alone. 

The balance doesn’t consider what the item is. There isn’t any context, because context is irrelevant to the balance or scale’s main objective – which is, what does it weigh?

Think about US currency. The weight of any paper bill is approximately one gram. However, the denomination on it determines its value. Whether we weigh $1 bills or $20 bills, the weight on the scale will be the same, but the value difference is drastic. To reach one pound on the scale, I would need to stack up 454 $1 bills, which obviously equals $454. To reach that same one pound, I would need to stack up the same 454 $20 bills to reach one pound, but the value would be $9,080.

One area in our daily lives where we see this difference is on the bathroom scale. When you get on the scale, it has no way of knowing how much of what you weigh is composed of fat and how much is muscle. I know I’ve been frustrated when I’ve been eating clean and working out and the scale hasn’t budged. But I see more muscle definition in the mirror. But I focus all my attention on what the scale says. It’s silly. Technically, one pound of muscle is the same as one pound of fat. However, muscle is significantly much denser than fat. This means that one pound of muscle is going to take up far less space on my body than a pound of fat.

It’s easy to get caught up on a number. But we are so much more than a number. And even if you are doing everything right, the scale might not reflect it just yet. Sometimes it takes time to show up there. But you know you’re doing the work. You know you’re eating less, hydrating more, working out and getting decent sleep. And you know you’re not going to give up and feel defeated. The scale isn’t considering those things, so it doesn’t get a say in how we feel about ourselves if it isn’t moving in the right direction yet.

How we see the world either limits us or sets us free. There is nothing more powerful than our mindset and how we choose to see things.

One can have all the resources at their fingertips to do something. But if they believe they can’t do it, they won’t. We create our own prison from our fears, insecurities, beliefs about ourselves and the bullshit stories we tell ourselves about why we can’t do something.

It is human nature to do this because it protects us from feelings of failure or rejection. It is the ultimate buffer, because if don’t try we can’t fail. And we are really good at rationalizing all the reasons why something won’t work, or why we can’t do something. They are believable and if you are like me, you have even convinced yourself that you don’t even really want to do X.

I think at the end of the day, the prisons we create for ourselves reflect who we think we aren’t, not who we think we are. You see, 80% of the choices we make are based on fear, not what we really want. We prefer to feel safe in our prison, rather than uncomfortable or scared outside of it.

In the credits section of the EP Broken by Nine Inch Nails, there is a quote that reads, “the slave thinks he is released from bondage only to find a stronger set of chains.” This was likely directed towards an executive at NIN’s label, who refused to let Trent Reznor out of his contract. But I always internalized this quote as something deeper. To me, it reflects how easy it is to get stuck in our own ways of thinking, that even when we do have freedom, we just can’t see it – so we remain stuck.  

It’s kind of like how when elephants are babies, they are tethered with a small rope to a stake in the ground so they can’t take off. They pull at it, trying to see if they can break free, and they can’t. So they stay where they are. At the circus, you have probably seen adult elephants tethered to a tiny rope to a stake in the ground. It seems silly, doesn’t it? This large elephant can pull the stake right out of the ground. There is nothing that can prevent this massive animal from leaving that spot if he wanted to. Yet he stays there. Believing he can’t leave, and that the rope can hold him. He has been conditioned to believe that he cannot leave from a very young age. He believes he doesn’t have the strength or autonomy to do so.

When our perspective becomes our prison, we, too, are tethered to that stake.    

But what if we started to look at how we see things as a passport? What if we started asking ourselves what if we fly instead of what if we fall? What would happen if we started focusing on all the things that could go right, instead of all that could go wrong?

The truth is, we are all living in cages with the door wide open. Have the courage to fly. You were born with wings for a reason.

What is tethering you to the ground?

In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie asks his English teacher why good people pick partners that treat them like garbage. His teacher responds with, “we accept the love we think we deserve.”

There so much truth in this simply stated quote. At the end of the day, the reason why we tolerate nonsense and bullshit in our relationships is because we don’t think we are worth more or deserve better.

When I look at my history of romantic relationships, as small as that history is, it is plagued with unhealthy dynamics and choices. At the time, I believed that I just had selfish, narcissistic partners who didn’t appreciate me. And they didn’t appreciate me, and they were all those things. But the common denominator in those relationships was me. There was a pattern here, and I was selecting these people. So I needed to start looking at myself and what I believe about myself that has led me to pick people who treat me like shit.

As embarrassing as this is, on some level there was comfort in fighting to feel seen and heard. To me, love meant having to prove myself – over and over again. Eventually, instead of getting mad at a clown for being a clown, I asked myself why I keep going to the circus.

What I discovered was that on occasion, my partner would make me feel seen and heard and because I was so starved for that, I kept chasing it. He offered me inconsistent love, understanding and praise and I would chase the reward because it was what I wanted more than anything.

For me, I had men in my life that could give that consistently, but I wasn’t attracted to that back then. I think my conditioning as I grew up was having to hustle after my own worthiness and constantly prove myself. I never thought I was good enough as I was. And I thought chasing that validation was love. Yes. Your young padawan had very much to learn, yes.

See, my real issue wasn’t the partners I was choosing. It was how I saw myself. When you don’t see your own worth, you will always choose people who don’t see it, either. This linked post talks about our four attachment styles and how they can impact how we connect with romantic partners. I also talk about how you can create a more secure attachment style. Check it out – understanding why I was the way I was in my adult relationships really helped me break the cycle.

My other issue that contributed to the unhealthy pattern was the fact that I confused intimacy with intensity. And given that I was coming from such a place of lack and low self-worth, it makes sense that intensity felt like love for me at the time. I was so hungry for it. And we know that we all eat lies when we are hungry.  

How can you tell that you might be accepting less than what you deserve in a relationship? In a previous post, I talked about beliefs that I had about myself at the time that really put me in a vulnerable place in my relationships. I also talked about how you can change your beliefs and undo some of the bad programming and conditioning. You can read the full post here, but here is the list:

• I give people the benefit of the doubt too much or too many second chances.
• I worry about offending my partner if I stand up for myself.
• I have a hard time recognizing when I am being disrespected. Sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out to me.
• When someone hurts me, instead of setting a boundary with them, I feel like I need to prove my worthiness and why they should value me more.
• When someone hurts me, I need them validate me and my feelings by admitting that they were wrong or disrespectful.
• I don’t even know what respect feels like in a relationship.
• I feel guilty when setting boundaries and worry that I am being unfair. Sometimes I even convince myself that by setting the boundary, I am overreacting.
• I would rather put up with shitty treatment than be alone.

When you truly begin to believe in your worth and what you deserve, you will find it hard to stay around people who don’t. And you will be amazed at what you attract when you start believing in what you deserve.

Perhaps your family has a bad reputation. Or maybe you have made some serious mistakes in your life and people only associate you with that now. When we have a bad reputation attached to our name, it can feel difficult to overcome.

Reputation of your name can put you at a disadvantage, but it is not your final destination.

The truth is, it takes a lifetime to build a good reputation and only a moment to lose it. But what if you are born into a family with a bad reputation? Are you fated to be guilty by association forever? Of course not. You have the power to change your reputation and change how people see you. You just have to be willing to put yourself out there and show the world who you really are and that you are different.

Growing up, I had two cousins I was close to. They were brothers and one is five years older than me, and the other nine. The younger one was a star athlete and went on to hold a high position in the education system in our small town. The older one, who has since passed away, was also successful and lived in town. But he had more of a reputation for getting into trouble when he was younger. When he got married and started having children, he had an accident at work where he hurt his back. His doctor ended up prescribing him pain medication, which ultimately lead to addiction to prescription drugs and then eventually, heroin.

He was such a good person, with a good heart, but addiction doesn’t care. It will destroy you from the inside out. Through the years he had many lows, and people in town knew about it. He also had many victories, managing to stay clean for long periods of time. His reputation was always being looked at, though. Sadly, even when he was clean and doing good, people still judged him by his prior acts when he was active in his addiction.  

With his younger brother being in a prominent position in the school system, people in town knew about the different paths each brother had taken. And I think that weighed on both of them.

People are judgmental. It isn’t right or fair, but it’s human nature. The best way to overcome any kind of pre-existing judgment someone has about you is to consistently show the world who you really are. There is no need to defend yourself. Just show, by your actions, that your actions are consistent with your words. 

I remember when people lost their minds about Logan Paul in the Aokigahara forest in Japan a few years ago. He recorded himself and his friends visiting the haunted forest that is a notorious place where people commit suicide. He ended up recording a man who died by suicide in the forest. This was posted on his YouTube channel and taken down quickly afterwards, after Logan publicly apologized.

What Logan did was in very poor taste. But after that incident, it was like everything else the guy had done was erased and the video from the forest was his only legacy.

We also live in the digital age where any misstep can redefine who we are to the world. We post so much out on social media and once it is out there, there’s no take backsies! It is in our best interest to become more cautious with what we share and who we share it with.

I talk a lot about the importance of an abundance mindset. When it comes to being open to the world and all its possibilities, believing that there are endless opportunities only serves to propel us out of our comfort zones and lead us to where we ultimately want to be. When we believe that there aren’t enough pieces of the pie to go around, we become discouraged and develop a scarcity mindset. The idea of abundance mindset is more of a way of being. It is more about having gratitude for what you have and feeling hopeful of what is to come.

But what happens when you have an abundance of something in your life? Do you lose appreciation for it? Do you take it for granted, assuming it will always be there because it has been for so long?

This pandemic and shortages of supplies that have come in waves where we live has shown me that I’ve taken some things for granted. Obviously, no one could have predicted how the world would respond to the pandemic and wouldn’t have seen our own vulnerabilities as a nation with logistics had this not happened. But boy, there are some things I never thought I would be going to multiple stores for multiple weeks trying to get! And they are basic things!

A few years ago, my husband and I used to eat out a lot. We haven’t eaten out in a long time now for health reasons. But I noticed that the more we did it, the less special it was. It became more special to make a meal at home! You tend lose appreciation for things you have in abundance. We went to places like In N Out and the Cheesecake Factory (which is really bad for you in terms of calorie count!) often.

A few days ago, we were out running errands and drove by In N Out Burger and I said to my husband, “Wouldn’t a double-double animal style be amazing? With a neo shake?” He it said it would be and we thought about it for a minute. We haven’t eaten out in over two years, no joke! Not because of the pandemic, but a concerted effort on our part to eat better and eat cleaner. Then I was like, “nah, we can make something like it at home”.  But we had a sense of appreciation for it because we haven’t had it in a long time. When we went all the time, we just stopped appreciating it.

What do you have in your life in abundance? Have you lost appreciation for it over time?

Someone who is banished or shunned from their community has a lot of motivation for revenge or justice. Just like when someone is done wrong, they can be fueled by that pain to complete their objective.

In The Punisher, Frank Castle’s family is murdered, and he is also left for dead. Castle survives and after he recovers, he returns home to exact vengeance for his family’s death and the attempt on his life. Nothing will stop Frank. His whole life’s mission becomes avenging his wife and son’s death. He spends his time tracking down the people who were involved and doesn’t stop until they have all paid the ultimate price.

Injustice can be a powerful motivator. The emotions fueled by it can keep someone motivated. We know that when it comes to our goals, we will never be motivated 100% of the time. We have to rely on discipline to keep us going.

In the case of Frank, he is highly motivated, and he is disciplined to complete his objective. Nothing else matters. His entire purpose on this planet is to make the people responsible for his family’s death pay for what they have done.

Obviously, this is an extreme example. But sometimes it is important for us to remind ourselves why we are doing something. We need to know and internalize our why. Our why isn’t going to keep us motivated for the long term, though. But discipline will not let us down.

The truth is, everything in life is hard. Relationships are hard. Being single is hard. Work is hard. Being out of work is hard. Being unhealthy and out of shape is hard. Staying healthy and in shape is hard. Pick your hard and internalize why you are doing it. Know what you need to do to keep yourself disciplined and on track.

One of my favorite things that Tony Robbins says, is something he says often. He says if you want better answers, start asking better questions. But what does that even mean?

When things happened in our lives, especially bad things, we tend to ask why this is happening to us. Which makes sense, right? Why are all these difficult and sad things happening to me all at once? It’s not fair!

But what if we chose to look at it, as if these things are happening for us? You see, not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path. Maybe what is happening to you right now is happening to make room for something better for you.

But even when things are going good in our lives, we should get into the habit of asking ourselves these three questions everyday: 

1. What is something I can do for someone else today?
2. What is something I can do to add value to the world today?
3. What is something that I can offer to other people?

Notice how all three questions are focused on action you can take? If you get yourself into the habit of asking yourself these questions every day, you can reframe how you experience your life. Instead of being reactive, and your mental and emotional state being a product of things that are external, you can be the one who shapes and forms your world around you. You are the driver, even if the section of the road you are on is less than ideal. Choosing to take 100% accountability and responsibility for yourself and focusing on what you bring to the table in all situations does something incredible. You train your mind to approach everything that comes your way to problem solve, grow and evolve. You are focused on how you can choose to respond, rather than falling into the mindset of being a victim to your circumstances. You also get more creative with your problem solving. And the more you practice this, the more capable you become of handling challenges and stress more effectively.