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Keep this in mind when other people don't support or understand you
I was recently rereading Tara Mohr’s 10 Rules, and was so struck by her first point that I wrote it down on a piece of paper and now I keep it where I can see it every day. I want to share it with you, in case it is what you need to see today:
Make a pact.
No one else is going to build the life you want for you. No one else will even be able to completely understand it. The most amazing souls will show up to cheer you on along the way, but this is your game. Make a pact to be in it with yourself for the long haul, as your own supportive friend at every step along the way.
Even rereading it, I get this feeling of YES in my chest and my belly. It feels like excitement but also a bit like fear.
So let me remind you, paraphrasing Tara and using a lot more line breaks:
Only you can build the life you want.
No one else may even be able to totally understand it.
That’s okay.
You’ll find help along the way.
But this is ultimately your game, and no one else’s.
So make a pact with yourself — because you are the one who will see this through.
…
Oh man, it gives me chills.
Make. A. Pact.
You’ve got this.
Katie
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The 5 self-improvement books that changed my life (+ 5 fun fiction reads)
I know that most book recommendations are for "summer reads," but I think that fall is a time when we especially need a good book.
First of all, after taking a breather over the summer to just enjoy life, we may find ourselves ready to ask some bigger questions, like: "What do I want out of life?" and "Who am I?"
Also, for many of us, life gets crazy in the fall! So it's awesome to have something you can do to de-stress that doesn't involve a screen.
I love reading, and I love getting recommendations from friends about books to read. So today I wanted to recommend books to you in two categories: books that changed my life (of the smart self-help variety) and books that are just fun, fabulous fiction.
We need some of both to keep things interesting, you know?
5 Books That Changed My Life
I know that’s a bit of a dramatic thing to say, but it’s true. These five books were incredibly influential in shaping the person I am today.
1. The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron
The best way I can put it is that Cameron shows you how to live a productive and creative life in the world, without feeling like the type-A, personal trainer part of yourself needs to take over and really “push” you to get things done. No one had ever told me that I could “befriend” myself, trust myself, and also do the work I wanted to do in the world. Again, what I love about this book is that it is both incredibly warm and encouraging, but also entirely practical (Are you sensing a pattern?).
Cameron's book takes the form of a 12-week course that you can do by yourself or with a group of friends. I’ve “done” the course multiple times – both alone and in a “creative cluster,” and I've always been delighted by the results. I am always both more productive in the work I want to do and more delighted with life. Her “assignments” have even led me to do things like bake pies and learn to play the ukulele.
2. Finding your North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live, by Martha Beck
I know that the title might sound a bit flakey or new age-y, but Beck is funny and smart and writes in such a delightful and practical way (and even graduated from Harvard, for what it’s worth). She gives you all sorts of different exercises and approaches to figuring out how you want to be in the world – from the work you should do to romantic relationships to how to spend your days. This is another book I go back to time and again.
3. Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, by Geneen Roth
If you struggle in any way with your eating, I can't recommend this book enough. My copy is worn out and dog-eared, and every time I re-read it, I feel like Roth is speaking directly to me. What I love most about it is that it is incredibly emotional, personal, and compassionate – how did she know exactly what I’ve been going through? – and also completely pragmatic. Roth provides practical solutions for questions from “How do should I choose what to eat?” to “How can I deal with showing up at a family gathering after I’ve gained 40 pounds and I feel so embarrassed I want to explode?”
4. Grace & Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilbur, by Ken Wilbur
I’ll be honest: I don’t usually like to read books about people who die from cancer. But this book is so moving and wonderful that I can’t recommend it enough.
Ken, an influential modern philosopher/spiritual dude (This is a provocative summary of his work, which is worth checking out on its own.), and Treya fall madly in love and marry five months after meeting. A few weeks later, she is diagnosed with breast cancer. This book makes it on my top five list because of (1) the way that Treya works through questions of how to be a woman and how to contribute to the world and (2) Treya and Ken’s thoughtful, authentic, purposeful relationship. They provided really powerful examples of how being in the world and loving in the world could be done at a time when I was figuring those things out for myself.
5. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
In case you haven’t heard, I am a strong introvert. But for years, I didn’t know it. I only knew that I seemed to be different than other people – I didn’t want to socialize as much as others, I was always staying home, I needed to be alone a lot, and I got drained easily. I’ll be frank: it caused me a lot of guilt, and I often felt pretty weird.
I realized that introversion was a thing when I took my first Myers-Briggs test, but reading Quiet took it to a whole new level. It helped me understand that it was okay to feel the way I felt, that other people felt the same way, and that there were even (shockingly) advantages to being introverted. It helped me feel much more comfortable asserting my needs: they weren’t weird or abnormal.
5 Great Fiction Reads
And then, because I couldn’t resist, I wanted to share five more of my all-time favorite fiction books. It’s not always the right time for deep personal development and introspection – sometimes you just want a great book to read!
These ones range from books that are almost too painful to read, they’re so good and truthful, to the juicy, finger-lickin’ good page-turners (hello, hunky Scottish men!) :
1. Shining Through, by Susan Isaacs
Just a really meaty, juicy adventure story with a female protagonist you’ll love. I think Jennifer Weiner (also an amazing author) says it best: “Isaacs writes great, big-hearted heroines, sassy girls who win the day through their wit and their work, not their beauty.” My mom turned me on to Susan Isaacs, and my mom is a smart, feisty, and bad-ass lady herself.
2. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
Outlander is 600 pages, and I read it in 5 days. An English nurse who has just served in WWII is somehow transported back in time to 1743 Scotland. Yeah, it kind of sounds hokey, but the book is filled with Scottish hunks and incredible adventures. I also think it handles feminism and gender issues in an interesting way. You will tear through it.
3. Match Me If You Can, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
I’m going to be real with you: this is a romance novel. But Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s books are really the only romance novels I read, and it’s because her heroines are always smart and empowered. They care about getting the guy, but they also inevitably have a business they want to start and a life they want to figure out, and I dig that, you know?
This one is about a woman who is trying to start a matchmaking business and the hunky sports agent who is her first client (and ultimately becomes her…you know). It is such a joyful, fun book that you will eat it up. Also, my grandma recommended it to me, if that convinces you.
4. The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer
This is the story of friends who meet as teenagers at an artistic summer camp, and what happens to them over the ensuing decades as they grow up and experience different levels of success, love, and fulfillment. The characters are so real and truthful, and I’ve never seen an author describe that every day, did I make the wrong choice? jealousy so perfectly. Just a fabulous, truthful, at-times-painful-because-it’s-true book. Also, this book turned me onto Meg Wolitzer, who is such a gem.
5. Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld
A story about a scholarship student at a prestigious boarding school who never quite fits in. But this book isn’t really for teenagers, and it’s much deeper than it sounds. Sittenfeld really taps into that feeling of someone who never is quite seen for who they are and never quite rises to her true potential. It’s one of those books that sometimes makes you cringe because it feels like real life. A fantastic read, and again, Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favorite authors.
…
I’d love to hear from you! Have you read any of these books? What do you think of them? And much more importantly, do you have any book recommendations for me? (I’m looking to compile my reading list, and I bet that everyone else would love more recommendations, too! :)
Don’t forget I’m in your corner, rooting for you.
Katie
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One thing that helped me cultivate inner peace
I had just dropped off a close friend at the airport. As we hugged goodbye, I felt so good: happy, full, a little tired.
But as I drove home, my feelings changed. I felt sad. Lonely. Existential. What is the meaning of life, at the end of the day? Like, really? If you have enough food and shelter and you are safe, then why bother doing anything?
I knew that it was an overreaction (I’m not the best at transitions), but I also couldn’t stop it.
When I got home, I tearfully told my boyfriend about my many, many feelings. After listening very carefully, he said the most amazing thing:
“Let’s go to the backyard. Nature is a salve.”
To which I thought: Uh maybe. But I think it’s going to take more than that. Do you get how sad I am?
But also I had nothing to lose, so I followed him past our kitchen table and into the backyard.
I walked barefoot on our grass.
I noticed some daffodils.
I felt better.
And it happened way, way, faster than I thought possible, in only a minute, maybe two. I didn’t even need to “fix” anything, decide on the meaning of my life, or make a pro-con list.
…
Truthfully, I hesitated to write this piece. Isn’t it the most trite thing in the world to say that nature makes us feel better?
Yet, even though I am a nature-lover (I walk outside every day. I love to sit in an Adirondack chair and look at trees or fields on vacations.), I hadn’t truly understood this.
In the past, I had to have a nature “experience” to feel better: a 45-minute walk, an hour to sit in a chair on the beach.
I’d never realized that when I was frazzled and distracted and all I wanted to do was procrastinate from every single thing on my to-do list, I could feel my feet on the grass for a few moments and it would be better.
I’d never realized that when I was sad, I could let nature be there, without doing anything myself. I could just stand in my ordinary, nothing-special-and-could-actually-probably-use-some-yard-work backyard.
I didn’t have to walk or move or find the perfect location or spend two hours luxuriating in the sun.
I just had to stand near the grass, the trees. Near the bunch of daffodils that have burst out of the ground (much to my surprise). And let nature pour cool water on my troubled heart.
I’d never thought of nature as a salve.
…
I know I’m not the only one. Cup of Jo had the most lovely piece about the power of nature recently:
For children, being indoors is both over-stimulating and boring at the same time.
Throughout history, “children spent most of every day frolicking outside,” wrote Harvey Karp, M.D., in his brilliant book The Happiest Toddler on the Block. “Our homes are boring because they replace the exciting sensations of nature (the feeling of the wind on their skin, the brilliant sun, the soft grass, etc.) with an immense stillness (flat walls, flat floors, no wind).” Yet at the same time, being indoors is over-stimulating: “It bombards them with jolting experiences that kids in the past never had to deal with: crazy cartoons, slick videos, clanging computer games, noisy toys and bright colors everywhere… which can make many little children feel stressed.”
Wow. I know that this is technically about children, but doesn’t this also apply to adults?
How often are we overstimulated by clicking from photo to photo, website to website, but also under-stimulated by being indoors for so long?
…
So that’s my challenge to you this week. When you need it, let nature be your salve. Just for a moment, in a small way. Walk outside and feel real air. Be stimulated just the right amount.
You don’t need to go run a marathon on the beach or take an Instagram-worthy hike. Try being out there for a few moments, and let nature do its thing.
Then I’d love to hear how it goes. Let me know in the comments where you were and how you felt.
I know you’ve got this.
Katie
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A reminder about trusting yourself
I just want to set the record straight:
You can take care of yourself better than anyone else in the world.
Yes, of course, we need help.
Yes, of course, we can’t do it alone.
Yes, of course, we must draw on the wisdom and guidance of professionals and parents and family members and friends and doctors and lawyers.
Yes, of course, we can’t be subject matter experts on everything.
But you know what I see happening, far too often?
Brilliant, caring women and men feel overwhelmed and lost and insecure because we've forgotten…no one can take care of us better than we can.
Sure, all of those “experts” might have opinions till they are blue in the face….
But only you can know whether you need twelve hours of sleep tonight, or five.
Whether you need a spinach salad or an apple tart.
Whether you need a big hug or a big scream or a big whole afternoon alone.
We know what we need if we are willing to listen.
What do you need, today? Right now?
If you'd like to share, let us know in the comments :)
Like always, I’m rooting for you.
Katie
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My morning ritual
There is one thing that I’ve done every single morning, without fail, for the past three and a half years.
I do this on Christmas, on my birthday, on New Year’s Eve. On weekdays and weekends, on vacation, and in the middle of stressful work weeks.
I’ve done this thing in my bedroom, on planes, and hidden away in nooks in corporate offices.
It’s not a 5-minute task. In fact, it takes me around 45 minutes every day. But I do it anyway.
I do it because this activity has literally transformed my life – it has taken me from a panicking mess with a shaved head and no job…to someone who feels much more clear and confident in the world.
This activity is called: Morning Pages.
I’m going to tell you what they are, and then I’m going to tell you why they changed my life and why I think they are worth your time.
…
What they are
To do Morning Pages, you sit down in a quiet place and you write three pages longhand (e.g., not on a computer).
You write about anything. Even if it’s just the same nonsense word over and over and over.
That’s it.
…
How they changed my life and why you should do them
I learned about Morning Pages through Julia Cameron’s fantastic book The Artist’s Way when I was going through an extremely tumultuous period in my life. I had quit my job, shaved my head, and lost a serious relationship. I had stopped going to most social events (and was alternating annoying and freaking out my friends), and I had no real idea what I wanted to do with my life or my time except that most of what I had been doing wasn’t working.
Morning pages felt self-indulgent and way too time-consuming (though, of course, I was unemployed/occasionally working as a tutor, but 45 minutes is a friggin’ long time).
But at the same time, I was a mess and figured I had nothing to lose.
So I did it. I woke up, made myself tea, and sat at my desk in my apartment in Inwood, and wrote three pages. And did it again the next day. And the next.
At first, it was excruciating, filling up those pages. Even one single page seemed to take forever. But gradually, those pages started to woosh by, until I would look up and say oh wow, it’s over?
Yet I credit Morning Pages for being a huge part of the transformation that took place between then and now. Here’s why:
1. Once it’s on the page, it’s out of your head.
I don’t know about you, but I tend towards being a huge worrier, thinker, and obsesser. If there is something to fixate on, I will.
But when I was writing, the thoughts in my head slowed down – to the point that I could write them out, one by one, on the page. And even more interestingly, I found that once I got a thought on the page, it was out of my head.
Even better, once it was on the page, I could ask if it was true. And most of my thoughts weren’t “truth” – they were just unsubstantiated worry.
Other things, like exercise, had helped me clear my head for a brief time, but the soul-cleansing effects of Morning Pages were more effective and long-lasting than anything I’d ever experienced.
It was — it still is — the most amazing brain dump in the world.
2. You can’t bullsh*t yourself for long.
When you have to write three pages every day, your true feelings come out. You can lie to yourself for maybe a page, but after that, your true feelings just start to pop out in unexpected ways.
You become aware, slowly or quickly, of what you truly feel.
Why? Somehow your Social Self, the self that says — “Oh, no, I’m terrible at dancing” or “That co-worker is a good person”— that Social Self gets tired.
And then the truth pops out, in the middle of you writing some gibberish about doing your laundry that day. The truth, which is, “I’d like to be a fabulous salsa dancer.” Or, “That co-worker might be a good person but she friggin’ annoys me and I really dislike her.”
And the amazingly incredible thing that comes out of that is…
3. Once you start writing the truth, you can’t help but change.
The amazing, fabulous thing about Morning Pages is how gradual and natural the change process is.
Let me tell you how this happened to me.
Four or five months after I started doing Morning Pages, I found myself writing about how I desperately wanted to live alone. I had lived with roommates for all four years of college and for my first several years in New York City. I always liked living with roommates – having girlfriends around to eat dinner with, celebrate with, and cry with.
Except…I had always dreamed of having my own, completely private space. But I kept telling myself reasons why I shouldn’t (it’s too expensive, you’ll hurt your roommates’ feelings).
A few months after I started writing my Morning Pages, it kept coming up, again and again: I’d really, really, really like to live alone. So I kept writing about it, kept looking at my fears and concerns and desires.
And then I started to brainstorm, in my writing. I figured out how to make it work with my finances, what trade-offs I was willing to make, and how I would explain it to my roommates in a way that would be as kind as possible. Eventually, I was so tired of writing – it was so annoying to write about the same thing, day after day, week after week – that I knew I had to make it happen.
And the same experience has happened again and again in the past nearly four years.
Morning Pages have brought up amazing things (good and bad!) that I didn’t even know I felt about boyfriends, friends, parents, living situations, cities, my body, my job, my routines, and more. And I never had to act, but after a while, it just became so clear that it was the right thing to do.
…
I don’t do Morning Pages every day because I have to – in fact, on many (busy) days, it would be easier not to do them.
I do them because they get me through any kind of pain or crisis, and they are my express train to flourishing. I do my Morning Pages to know what I think, and to get my crazy, un-useful thoughts onto the page.
Morning Pages took all the mess and disaster inside of me and slowly, gently, guided me towards my truth.
I wouldn’t have been someone to use words like “my truth” before I started doing Morning Pages – it would have seemed like too flakey a word. But Morning Pages taught me that I do have a “truth” about what I want and need.
I believe that you have one too.
…
My challenge to you this week is to try Morning Pages. Try ‘em on a weekend, when you have a bit more time. Sit down and write three pages, longhand, and notice how you feel. Is it painful? Amazing? Why do you think that is?
I’d be honored if you’d share in the comments. Have you ever tried Morning Pages before? If you haven’t, would you be willing to give them a try?
I’m still here rooting for you.
Katie
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Do you feel jealous of others' success? Here's why it can be useful.
Do you ever feel jealous?
I know that I sure do. Sometimes my jealousy is this bubbling, sizzling, boiling thing inside of me.
And, for a long time, that made me feel terrible. Feeling jealous made me feel petty, unkind, and small-hearted. Especially when the people that I was jealous of were close to me – friends or family members. Why can’t I just be happy for them?
But then I read something by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way that totally changed my perspective.
Cameron argues that our jealousy is a “map” to what we most want in the world.
Even more importantly:
“Jealousy is always a mask for fear: fear that we aren’t able to get what we want; frustration that somebody else seems to be getting what is rightfully ours even if we are too frightened to reach for it.”
Jealousy is just a sign that we want for ourselves what other people have. But the truth is, we can have it, too — we just have to get over our fear and reach for it.
Cameron was never jealous of female novelists, because she had written several novels. But she always felt extremely jealous of women playwrights (or, as she writes, she had an “unhealthy interest in [their] fortunes and misfortunes.”)
It wasn’t until she wrote a play herself that she stopped being jealous, and instead felt only camaraderie. “My jealousy had actually been a mask for my fear of doing something I really wanted to do but was not yet brave enough to take action toward.”
I have found this to be true time and again in my life.
I was jealous of some business school students I knew because it seemed like they were completely confident about their path, while I was floundering and flopping.
I was jealous of a speech therapist I knew for the sensual, grounded, confident way she seemed to inhabit the world.
And I found myself jealous of baristas at my local coffee shop because they just seemed so chill, while I am prone to overthinking and over-worrying.
After a lot of introspection, I came to understand that I wanted my own certainty about my career path (like the business school students), ease in my body (like the speech therapist), and a softer, more open way of being in the world (like the baristas).
And I started to think about what I needed to do to make that happen.
Two things are important to notice about this.
To accurately decode your jealousy, you need to be specific. I wasn’t jealous of business school students because I want to go to business school myself. I was jealous because they seemed so certain and confident in the path they’d taken. Jealousy itself is an amorphous, boiling-over emotion and sensation. It doesn’t tell you much, except that you are jealous. You have to take some time to untangle your feelings and figure out what they are telling you.
Jealousy tells you a lot about yourself, but not that much about other people. Those baristas might have been brimming with internal anxiety despite a chill exterior, and those business school students might have been 100% lost about their life path. I honestly don’t know. I didn’t know any of those people that well. What people project on the outside is often not the same as what they feel on the inside. Jealousy is only a reflection of what I perceive about them, not their own internal truth.
If you use it right, jealousy can go from feeling like an ugly, small-hearted emotion, to a really valuable guide.
So let’s put that into practice.
Your challenge this week is to explore your jealousy. And here’s how (this exercise is also inspired by The Artist’s Way):
Make a list of at least 5 people of whom you are jealous.
For each person, first let yourself really feel your jealousy. Let it flare up, and look at it.
Then, ask yourself what am I jealous of about this person? Get really specific. “They have a creative job,” or “they have fantastic clothes” or “they always seem really at peace with themselves.” Write it down!
Once you’ve made the list, look it over. What trends do you notice? Are you jealous of other people’s closets? Jobs? Confidence? Boyfriends? What could you start changing in your own life, based on what you’ve found?
In the comments below, let me know: What are you jealous of about other people? What’s one change you could make in your life based on what you found?
You’ve got this!
Katie
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One thing that might help you find your direction in life
I spent this past week in DC, having a picnic dinner in front of the capitol building and wandering in some adorable neighborhoods – just walking through new neighborhoods (and stopping in new bakeries) is my absolute favorite thing to do when I’m in a new place.
And I was thinking about something I wanted to ask you.
Something that might sound impossible.
Who would you be if you stopped pushing?
No really.
What would it be like?
What would your day look like if you stopped just making yourself do things because there’s so much to get done and you’re always behind?
What would happen to your life if you were abstinent from the okay, I know I don’t feel like it but I really have to get this last thing home and then run those three errands and then do dinner.
If you thought to yourself: Everything would fall apart, I can relate. I used to be an excellent pusher. Pushing to do homework, pushing to do job work, pushing to be a good friend, a good girlfriend, an accomplished woman in the world.
But when I started to investigate why I was always eating in ways that made my life painful – eating more than I wanted, or not actually getting pleasure from food – I found that it was often linked to the Pushing.
Almost every time I was overeating, I was pushing myself – to work when I didn’t want to work, to be social with people I didn’t want to be social with, to achieve things that I didn’t actually want.
Some deeper part of me was saying no, stop! But the pusher part wanted to keep going. So I continued, but I needed something to dull the pain.
And so there was food. And also Facebook. And Internet browsing. We all have our peccadillos that we use to tranquilize the pain that comes from not listening closely enough to our deepest selves.
The peccadillos themselves aren’t the problem – food, Facebook, and Internet browsing are all great, in and of themselves. So are Instagram and Twitter and HGTV and reading the news, or whatever it is that you use to disconnect and numb. The problem is that when we use these things to quiet our internal truth, we lose the opportunity to get incredibly valuable information about our likes, dislikes, hopes, and dreams.
So instead of allowing that information to affect us, we push through, pretending that it doesn't exist. And as a result, we feel hard, stiff, and tight in our chests and our backs and our jaws. And tired.
But what does the alternative feel like? What would it feel like not to push?
I mean, what would your body actually feel like if you stopped pushing it to do errands and be nice and get things done and go and do and try and strive and smile and plan and push?
If you can, close your eyes and just feel that for a second.
When I imagine taking the push away, it’s like I lose my bones and muscles, and my arms, legs, fingers, and toes. It’s like I’m suddenly a blob of Jell-O – tingly, bobbing Jell-O.
Is that how you feel?
I’ll admit, it’s very scary to take the push away. Even thinking about it might make you nervous.
I need to work!
I need to tell people I love them!
I need to pay my bills and buy groceries!
I definitely have those fears when I think about not pushing.
But then I ask myself (or, frankly, my very wise boyfriend asks), why are you assuming that if you don’t push, you won’t work or take care of people you love or pay bills or buy groceries?
Yes, it might shake things up in your life.
If you took away the push, you might realize that the work you actually want to do is different from the work that you’re doing now, or that the people you want to spend time with are different from the people you’re spending time with now.
You might even find that what you’d like to eat is different from what you’re eating now.
And yes, we all have responsibilities. If you have a job, you probably can’t suddenly decide that you’re not going to “push” and make yourself go this week. But by integrating more and more non-pushing moments into your life, you can begin to ask whether your life is aligned with your true desires.
But maybe you’re wondering: How do I stop pushing?
My recommendation is that you mentally give yourself permission to give up all of your to-dos or supposed-to-dos, for an hour or an afternoon. Starting with a defined period of time – even 15 minutes – is a good idea.
And you start by sitting in a chair and noticing what it feels like not to have to do anything.
I’ll be honest, it usually feels uncomfortable. You get fidgety.
You'll also notice that feelings and sensations come up when you stop having to do anything.
And, eventually, you feel a genuine urge to do something. To walk or eat or call a friend or even (it really does happen) to work or exercise or pay your bills. I’m always shocked when I find myself wanting to do something practical when I’m not “pushing” myself to do it, but it really does happen, and it happens often.
It’s a subtle difference, but an important one.
So that’s my challenge to you this week. Pick at least an hour (or better yet, a whole afternoon) when you don’t absolutely have to do something and let go of the Push. Sit down in a chair and feel how uncomfortable it is to not be moving onto anything else that your brain has decided is on your to-do list, and also not numbing out. Wait until you are pulled to do something.
If you are someone who struggles with a compulsive relationship to food, alcohol, money, etc., notice how this affects that relationship. When the push drops away for me, I find myself much, much less interested in food.
What do you think of this idea? Have you ever tried it, or would you? Let me know in the comments below!
I know you’ve got this.
Katie
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How do you handle conflict if you hate conflict?
I know there are some people who always say what they feel, who tell people exactly what they think of them and never put up with shit from anyone.
But those aren’t the people I tend to work with.
The people I work with tend to be extremely caring and thoughtful, are always aware of what others are feeling or thinking, and hate the idea of upsetting them or being rude.
They don’t want to tell a family member that their actions or words make them feel uncomfortable.
They don’t want to tell a friend that they are tired and would rather go home after an hour of hanging out.
They don’t want to tell a loved one that they aren’t hungry when they are over for dinner.
I’ll admit it: I’m one of those people, too.
In my family, for example, my brothers seem to have no problem being in conflict with my mom. I’m always amazed, and kind of jealous, how they will be having a mild disagreement about something random and suddenly blow up and speak sharply. And then, just a few minutes later, they talk it over and everyone feels totally fine.
I’ve never been that way. I’ve always hated conflict. But I’ve gradually learned how important it can be, so I wanted to write to you about it today.
First of all, let’s be clear: you don’t have to tell the truth all the time. Heck, there are tons of situations where it just isn’t appropriate to tell the truth, or when a white lie is a far better thing.
But, at the same time, sometimes you do have to tell the truth.
Sometimes the only way to move forward is to honor your own needs and desires, to ask for what you want, or tell another person how they are affecting you.
And sometimes, telling that truth will cause a conflict.
So in those times:
Prepare yourself for that achy, swirling, frantic feeling inside your chest.
Prepare yourself for your stomach to feel queasy.
Prepare yourself to have a head spinning with thoughts – Should I have said that? Was that totally crazy and unreasonable?
Prepare yourself for the rumble.
We can’t live a life without at least some conflict. But we can learn to recognize our own aversion to it and get better at sitting with those uncomfortable feelings when they are in the service of something greater.
So here is my advice for you: whenever you find yourself in that situation (either before or after you tell a truth that leads to conflict), try these two things:
1. Ask yourself: “Is a bit of conflict necessary to get me closer to my true needs and desires?”
Sometimes the only way to get something that you genuinely want or need is through coming into conflict with someone else. It’s just how it is. A friend, a loved one, or a colleague may want something different from what you want, and that’s okay.
2. Say to yourself: “I’m in a situation where only one of us gets to be happy. And I get to choose who that is.”
I know that might sound harsh, but it can be powerful. Sometimes people don’t want us to do what we definitely want to do (go home, feel good about ourselves, take that job). And they’ve put us in a situation where not everyone will be happy.
If you’re a nice, sweet, caring person (and I bet you are!), you might be tempted to always let the other person be happy. And that’s fine. But just notice that. Why shouldn’t you be the one who gets her way, at least sometimes?
3. Remind yourself: “It’s okay to feel a little jumbled up inside when I clash with someone. Nothing about this is wrong or unusual.”
I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but honestly, I repeat that to myself all the time when I am in conflict with someone I care about and it is making me feel a lot of feelings. To remind myself that conflict is a normal part of being alive, and just because I have a lot of feelings, it doesn’t mean that I did the wrong thing.
…
You can’t take away the conflict in your life, but you can remind yourself that it’s not at all unusual.
And then, of course, you can work to find a compromise.
I’d love to hear from you. Do you find you dread or avoid conflict with people you care about? How does it make you feel inside? What do you do to deal with conflict? Let me know in the comments, so I can tell you that you are not a crazy person.
And of course, I’m rooting for you.
Katie
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How to feel more confident at your college reunion, or any social gathering
As I write this to you, I’m preparing to go to my college reunion. I’m really excited about it, but also a little nervous.
It’s the kind of nervousness I often feel when I’m about to go to an event where I’ll be meeting and chatting with a lot of different people, and I begin to think to myself:
I hope everyone likes me.
Will I sound impressive enough?
I wonder if I seem kind of weird or awkward.
Have you had those thoughts before? Maybe before going to a networking event or holiday parties where you don’t know anyone, or even when you go to your parents’ for the holidays or see friends you haven’t seen for a while.
You feel vulnerable, and like you want the people you meet to like, accept, and approve of you.
A few years ago, I read something that gave me a lot of strength and inspiration for these moments, and I wanted to share it with you. It’s from Brené Brown’s lovely book, The Gifts of Imperfection:
I try to make authenticity my number one goal when I go into a situation where I’m feeling vulnerable.
If authenticity is my goal and I keep it real, I never regret it.
I might get my feelings hurt, but I rarely feel shame. When acceptance or approval becomes my goal, and it doesn’t work out, that can trigger shame for me: ‘I’m not good enough.’
If the goal is authenticity and they don’t like me, I’m okay. If the goal is being liked and they don’t like me, I’m in trouble. I get going by making authenticity the priority.
This is such a deep sentiment, and it was truly a game-changer for me.
If I go to a party where I don’t know anyone, and the goal is authenticity, it’s okay if everyone doesn’t think I am hilarious and charming, or if I have no one to talk to for a bit and spend some time looking at the bowl of chips.
If I go into a performance review and the goal is authenticity, it’s okay if my boss doesn’t shower me with compliments. It might sting, but I don’t have to be adored by everyone.
And, I remind myself as I prepare for the weekend ahead if I go to my college reunion and the goal is authenticity, it’s okay if I have some awkward conversations or don’t wow my classmates by explaining how I cured cancer while on a research trip to the Arctic Circle.
As long as I come out feeling like I’ve been myself, it can be a success.
It’s also worth mentioning that this whole “authenticity” thing has had big implications for me in terms of my eating. When I go into a social event and feel like I want people to like or approve of me, I feel like I have to hold everything together to project a certain image.
And honestly, that pressure is tiring and straining. Without realizing it, I will often find myself gorging on food before, during, or after the event to keep down all of the feelings of insecurity and nervousness that would otherwise be coming up.
But when I let myself make authenticity the goal, then the stakes aren’t so high and the outcome is within my control. I don’t need other people to like or approve of me; I just need to be myself.
And I am able to enjoy the food that goes along with these events, and not end the night feeling like I ate 100 tiny spring rolls or mini tarts.
Over to you: Do you have any upcoming social interactions that make you feel vulnerable? How would your attitude towards them change if you didn’t need acceptance, approval, or to be “liked,” but instead you let yourself make authenticity the goal? I’d love to hear from you!
You’ve got this!
Katie
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On finding a deeper relationship
It was fall, and I was walking with a girlfriend between brownstones in New York as she told me about this guy that she was crazy about.
Smart, handsome, generous. He was the perfect guy.
“He’s just so much better than anyone I’ve ever dated,” she said as we weaved around a tree on the sidewalk. “And so I want to be really strategic about this. I just don’t want to come on too strong.”
I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that feeling.
I’ve been in a lot of relationships where I’ve held parts of myself back…
I let him call me
I ended conversations first
I let him initiate times for us to hang out
When I had big feelings, I didn’t like to really show them to him. I might show him a little bit of my sadness or anger or hurt, but I certainly wouldn’t let it all hang out, the way I would with my friends or my mom.
I wouldn’t bring up little things that he did that bothered me, because I didn’t want to seem whiny
I was sure that if I called him as much as I wanted to call him, if I talked for as long as I wanted to talk, or if I suggested that we hang out whenever I wanted to hang out, he would get tired of me.
If I really told him all the feelings I had, all day every day, he would realize how emotional and crazy and what a mess I am, and he wouldn’t want me anymore.
I also often felt like I couldn’t say no – to hanging out, to social events, to intimacy, or whatever – as much as I’d liked. Not that I was ever forced into anything, but I just sometimes didn’t quite feel like doing whatever it was, and didn’t feel like I could say so without causing a rift in the relationship.
In the end, it came down to: I was convinced that if I showed up authentically – if I said yes in as big a way as I wanted to say yes, and no in as big of a way as I wanted to say no, if I was emotional and volatile and moody in the way that I truly am emotional and volatile and moody, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. And our relationship couldn’t handle it.
And, let’s be clear, this wasn’t a terrible strategy. There were lots of guys in my life who couldn’t handle it.
The brilliant Med School/Ph.D. student who is going to be a wonderful neurosurgeon but couldn’t handle my feelings when I’d had a bad day, the sweet and generous Russian investor who just couldn’t handle the time alone that I needed. And there were the other relationships, where I never really tried to show up authentically with my strong and argumentative opinions or my existential thoughts because I could just sense that they couldn’t handle it.
So there were some relationships that were failures, and many more relationships that should have been failures, because I said “no” when I meant “yes” or “yes” when I meant “no.”
Eventually, I decided that I was exhausted by all this time not being myself, and needed to find a better way.
Ironically, at this time I met a guy who frightened me by how honest he was. On our first phone call, his first question to me was, “What’s important to you in life?” But I figured that I had nothing to lose by being honest in return.
That was the beginning of a nearly five-year relationship that has changed everything that I thought was possible about relationships.
When he’d ask me about my day, I was used to just saying “good.” But when I really thought about it, I realized that wasn’t true.
What was true was well, I had a nice morning but then work was stressful and I started doubting everything, but by the afternoon I took a walk outside and everything felt a lot better and I had pizza for dinner so that was definitely a highlight.
I feel comfortable being as messy and sad and angry and confused and happy and delighted with life as I truly am. And since he sees the “real” me, I feel more supported, heard, and loved than I’ve ever experienced before.
This isn’t a fairy tale. Our relationship is still very much a work in progress, and I don’t know how it will turn out. But it was the first time in my life that I made the decision to show up as I truly am, and it has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. We're getting married in March.
So at the end of the day, here’s what I know:
You get to make the choice, and some people don’t want a super “authentic” relationship. But it’s important to think about what you’re choosing when you hold some of yourself back. What happens when you choose not to expose who you truly are in a relationship because you don’t want to be “too much”?
It’s important to be clear about what you lose and what you gain, and to be okay with that.
And so, here’s what I said to my friend, who is warm, intuitive, generous, and accomplished, as we walked on that fall day in New York City:
“If you never let yourself be yourself with him, you’ll never really know if he can handle you.”
You’ll always kind of wonder if, yes, maybe you are just too much. And then you won’t see that the real problem is that he is not enough for you. A guy who can’t handle you – all of you – might be a great guy, but he probably isn’t the perfect guy for you.
And is that really the way you want to live?
On the other hand, if you show up as yourself – as big and overwhelming and too much as it is – you’ll know for sure. Some people won’t be able to take it, and yes, you might lose that relationship. But you’ll also know for sure when you’ve found a good one.
Over to you: Are you really showing up authentically in your romantic relationships? What would have to change in order for you to do so? I’d love to hear from you, and cheer you on.
I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.
Katie
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Something that helped me when I felt sad
Today I wanted to write to you about sadness, about feeling down or depressed or lost.
I’ll be totally honest with you: I don’t remember feeling sad much until I was in my twenties. I had moments of sadness — someone I loved died, or a relationship ended, or I felt homesick. But somehow this sadness was always relatively confined. I would feel sad, I would cry (for 10 minutes or two hours), and then it would pass.
I never feared my sadness.
I will also say that I am very lucky — I had a childhood with a nice family and good health and few “real” problems. I am absolutely aware that not everyone gets to be so lucky.
But starting in my twenties, I started to feel a totally new kind of sadness.
A sadness that would stick with me, when I might just feel “down,” for no particular reason. Of course, there were always things in life to worry or feel nervous about, but my sadness wasn’t always directly “related” to something. Sometimes I just felt sad, for no particular, immediately identifiable reason.
And also, it wasn’t just sadness. I seemed to feel everything more deeply. I felt more scared, more anxious, more hurt. I also, for the record, felt happier and more joyful, and more curious, but that’s not what this post is about :)
But this sadness? It was freaking me out. It wasn’t there every day or even every week, but it was present in a deeper and longer way than I had ever experienced.
I didn’t quite know what to do about it.
One day, when I was moping on the couch, my boyfriend pointed something out to me that totally changed my perspective.
He said:
“What if you didn’t need for it to go away? What if you were okay being sad forever?”
At first, I felt my brow furrow and anger coming on: I can’t possibly be like this forever! I will explode!
But he kept going: “So often, our feelings linger on because we are resisting them. But when we really let them stay, it just stops being a problem.”
“What if you knew that you were going to be sad and depressed and down every day for the rest of your life? How would feel?”
When he first said it, it was a very scary thought. Feeling like this? Feeling scared and sad and down, forever?
I think that’s really normal — we don’t want to look at our sadness too deeply because we’re afraid we’ll make it worse.
But then I thought about it. I really thought about going to sleep and waking up and brushing my teeth and making dinner every single day, feeling like this.
And suddenly, confusingly, I felt like a weight was lifted.
When I thought about spending my entire day, and tomorrow, and the next day, feeling sad, it felt…okay. It didn’t feel great. Far from it. But it did feel like I could do it. It felt like I would be tender and a little delicate and like I’d need to be very, very gentle with myself.
It felt like I wouldn’t force myself to do a million things or lift weights or change the world. But it was also very clear to me, in that moment, that i would still love the things I loved: Tea. New soft socks. Reading novels. Eating baked goods and getting brunch with people I cared about. Taking walks and calling my mom. Writing + coaching.
I think that that was almost the most interesting realization:
I would still love what I loved.
I would still want to help people who are struggling and frustrated with their eating.
I would still be me.
I would just do it a little more gently.
And then, once it was totally okay for me to feel sad forever, I oddly stopped feeling so intensely sad.
There was a little bit of feelings there, like when you have a cold. But it didn’t really bother me anymore, and I got up and continued with my day.
Look, I can see you reading and thinking oh, whatever, I don’t need this feelings stuff.
If so, great. You might not struggle with your feelings too much. You might be like I was for the first part of my life. If so, file this away in case you ever do find yourself face-to-face with overwhelming emotions.
But also, if you have ever struggled with feeling “down” in a way that you couldn’t quite resolve, my challenge for you this week is to try this:
The next time you feel down, be really gentle with yourself. Sit on your couch, make a cup of tea, wrap yourself in a soft blanket. And then ask yourself, “What would it be like if I felt this way forever?”
At first, that feeling might bring up panic. That’s okay. But really sit with it. Ask what it would be like to make dinner, to take a bath, to do your work and cuddle with a loved one, all while feeling this way. It might not feel great, but could it feel okay? Bearable? Like you had a cold, but could still manage?
Notice how your feelings change and evolve. They might not immediately go away — they might spike and go up and down before ebbing away. What does it feel like to notice their progression? Stay with it as much as you can.
And, of course, please let me know in the comments how this goes for you, or if you are freakin’ terrified to even contemplate it. I’d love to support you, and it would be a great support to others who feel the same way.
…
You’ve got this.
Katie
p.s. — one more thing, from my heart to yours:
Everyone experiences feeling “down” or depressed in different ways, and if you are afraid that you might be struggling with clinical depression, get set up with a therapist. And if you find yourself contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK
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