People who are all about thinspiration engage in disordered eating in order to be as thin as possible — a common symptom of anorexia. But they don’t see it as a disorder or a problem, making this an insidious problem.

Nonetheless, such eating and self-image problems can result in health problems, even putting the individual’s life at risk.

Some people have sought to get common words or terms that people engaged in thinspiration use banned from social networking websites. One such woman is Torri Singer, a broadcast journalism major who has recently begun a petition to get such terms banned from Twitter.

Many social networks have already climbed aboard the bandwagon, including Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. And while such policies have been implemented, thinspiration content is still easily found on many of these networks. I suspect that’s one of the challenges of implementing a policy like this — it’s extremely difficult to police, especially if people can just slightly alter the terms they use to talk about these issues.

But that hasn’t stopped Torri from putting Twitter on notice.

“[I want] to raise awareness about the harm of destructive thinspiration messages, and to prompt Twitter to make real change in order to stop the spread of this preventable growing trend,” Singer recently told me. Her inspiration for this campaign came from family:

My sister suffered on and off with eating disorders in her early adult life, so preventing other intelligent, strong, and beautiful girls from forming or elongating their disorders has always held a place of importance in my life. I know how difficult it is to be a girl and have constant exposure to beauty ideals, I don’t think we need any more pressure from self-generated pro-eating disordered “lifestyle” hashtags.

But when a website or social network changes its Terms of Use to remove such discussion from their networks, can it be an effective deterrent? “There is no doubt that other media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr have a long way to go before they are really safe and free of thinspiration triggers,” replied Singer.

“But they have made the first steps toward taking action and being responsible for the safety of their users.”

She also addressed people trying to change the spelling of terms they were using to get around the service’s policing efforts: “Instagram’s initial attempt to limit thinspiration led users to create new spellings (such as thynspo). Instead of giving up on the effort, Instagram revised the policy, stating it will disable “any account or hashtag found to be encouraging eating disorders.”

“The first step is ensuring that these messages are not readily available, and that is where policy change comes into play and really matters.”

Of course, trying to stamp out discussion of a topic on the Internet is impossible, given the hundreds of millions of websites, social networks, forums, and online communities. “By reducing the number of mainstream venues where these pro eating disorder messages are displayed,” Singer says, “we are reducing the exposure, and therefore the dangerous behavior that results (or continues) because of these online interactions.”

I agree — efforts such as Singer’s can make a perceivable impact on the popular, mainstream sites, reducing the likelihood of exposing this ideology to a new, naive audience. Especially when that site is a social network as large as Twitter.

“Banning thinspiration terminology means less accessibility to damaging phrases, encouragement, and images that propel disorders,” notes Singer. “It will prevent susceptible people from forming eating disorders, and people recovering/struggling with eating disorders from exposure to triggers.”

“In my mind, just getting people to have this conversation means that it has been some degree of successful. It is really amazing to see people who sign generating comments about their personal stories and their struggles. Many have said that thinspiration has been a big trigger in their lives and that they support any effort to ban it from impacting others like them.”

Efforts such as Singer’s are a good attempt at bringing attention to the problem and helping people understand that use of these kinds of keywords and hashtags only reinforce the disordered behavior — on a scale that wasn’t readily possible just five years ago. We applaud and support Singer’s petition and efforts to help reduce thinspiration messaging on mainstream social networks.

We encourage you to sign the petition:
Twitter: Restrict use of thinspiration language and hashtags

Here are some insights from their book.

What can understanding failure teach both seasoned and aspiring leaders that they can’t learn only by modeling success?

While studying success provides valuable lessons during good times, often these lessons aren’t applicable in hard times. The road isn’t always smooth and the sky isn’t always blue. When challenges present themselves, lessons gleaned from previous failures can help leaders avoid making the same mistake twice or making the wrong decisions.

Making mistakes — or failing — are part of taking healthy risk. They provide us with new ways of thinking and give us new insights into how we can improve as leaders.

Real failure doesn’t come from making mistakes; it comes from avoiding errors at all possible costs, from fear to take risks, and from the inability to grow. Being mistake-free does not lead to success.

Learning from our mistakes, however, is not always possible. Yes, every great leader makes mistakes they can learn from. But there are only a limited number of mistakes you can make before proving yourself an unworthy leader — you can only fall off the corporate ladder so many times before your climb is finished. And the higher up the ladder you get, the more severe the fall. The failure paradox is that in order to succeed we need to know failure — yet we live in an environment where we can’t afford to make mistakes. The solution? To study and learn from the mistakes of others in order to proactively avoid the predictable pitfalls that await every leader.

What are the specific benefits of learning from failure?

The benefits of learning from failure can be seen at both the individual level and the organizational level. We found strong statistical evidence between the ability to embrace mistakes and improved individual performance. Specifically we found that leaders who learn from mistakes are more proactive in deflecting potential problems, have a higher level of confidence when taking actions and making decisions, more accurately understand their environments, think more strategically, and are more creative.

These traits and capabilities also translated to the organizational level. Specifically we found that companies that are more accepting of mistakes have significantly better financial performance in terms of both top-line revenue growth, as well as bottom-line profit. We live in a culture that values perfections and hides failure. Companies pay their employees to succeed, not to fail.

However, the more we talk about the valuable lessons that come from mistakes and honor discussions about failure, the less likely it will be such a taboo subject.

For The Wisdom of Failure you conducted almost 1,000 interviews with managers and leaders. What about those interviews most surprised you?

We were surprised by how reluctant some leaders were to be associated with the topic of failure. Several times, we had leaders open up to us about key mistakes they had learned from in their own careers, only to call us back the next day to say they didn’t want us to use any material from their interviews in our book. Having their names associated with failure was too risky. Of course, we honored their request.

This reluctance to discuss failure emphasizes not only how difficult it is for leaders to talk about mistakes, but also the costly consequences leaders believe will follow if they do.

Chistina is an an accomplished writer whose commentary on women’s issues appeared in The London Review of Books, The New York Times, Working Woman, Scholastic, and the Providence Journal. She is also the author of “Great Women Writers,” and has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow.

Click through to read the full interview.

1. In your piece for “Exhale,” a literary magazine for “intelligent people who have lost a baby, or can’t figure out how to make one in the first place,” you lay out some creation myths:

• People can go from desperately wanting a child, to “choosing” to be ?child free.

• Anyone can adopt.
• Women wind up childless because they put off marriage to establish ?careers; or were looking for Mr. Right instead of Mr. Good Enough.
• Anyone who wants a baby can get one, because this is America, ?where there is a solution to every problem.
• Pets, gardening, or spending time with other people’s children fills ?in for not having biological children of one’s own.
• People without children are not real adults, and don’t know what ?real love is.
• Infertility is a women’s issue.

I’m so glad you listed all of those, because I admit to having believed some of them. It certainly made me think. Of the seven, which do you think is most harmful to women who can’t have children?

Christina: Each is the most important to whomever the myth is misapplied. Probably the most common is women put off children for their careers. This isn’t the fifties, very few women have the option of graduating high school or college and having a man at the ready to marry, willing and able to take on her and a child. Women who go to college generally come out in debt with huge loans, so do their husbands. They can’t afford day care.

My situation isn’t reflected in any of these myths. I got married young but soon got very sick. I spent my twenties paying off my education, working too many jobs in very tough environments. I got fired from my Wall Street for being sick, yet had to have a good income and health benefits to have a child. Many people who benefit from a supportive extended family at the time they have children don’t understand that many of us don’t have those advantages.

Also, the very assumption that childlessness in a married couple equals infertility in the woman. My friend Elsa wasn’t infertile — her husband was, by vasectomy. By the time they divorced, she was 43. I think there needs to be drawn a distinction between a woman who has gynological problems that stop her from getting pregnant at 25, and situational infertility like childlessness by marriage, and then women who start families at 50. That’s not true infertility, that’s past the natural biological childbearing age.

As I blogged on the New York Times, when celebrities are showcased having babies in their forties, then fifties, society gradually sees this as normal. Mainstream consumer magazines run articles about freezing your eggs in your twenties, so you can have a baby at 45, instead of talking about retuning society and the economic system to make it easier for young women to have children at biologically natural ages.

The solution really, is not to come up with newer and more advanced fertility treatments or yet more third-world adoption options. But to make the world safe and welcoming for people who wind up without children, often for very good reasons.

Many many childless people feel bereaved — it is a situation that deserves respect, not pity or gloating.

2. In that same article you mention your friend Elsa, whose older husband didn’t want more kids. She was often pitied, her husband demonized. People said to her, daily:

• “You’re selfish.”

• “You don’t know what real love is.”
• “Your husband will leave you.”

And then you go one to say that he did leave her “because with so few counterparts in her workplace and community, her sense of private loss and public alienation corroded her marriage beyond repair.” Man, that is such a crucial message there … the absolute requirement of support. If an infertile woman wants to make her marriage work — wants to become immune, if at all possible to the toxic messages around her concerning this issue — what should she do?

Christina: I think the real question is — what can society do to normalize Elsa’s situation? An urban area is more accepting of non-nuclear families, as well as singles. I think it’s her friends, neighbors, pastor, yoga instructors (who might, for example, address the class as if everyone were a Mom — i.e. — “Moms are tired” … as if no one else had challenging life situations!) Her co-workers who preface every meeting with ceaseless chatter about their children. The women at the gym who turn their back in the middle of a conversation when one of their “Mom” friends comes in. It is truly a social status of second-class citizen.

Elsa tried to become very involved in her nieces and nephew, but sometimes the parents, her siblings, resented this.

There is no push button answer. Most books on childlessness are written NOT by people who are childless, but by psychotherapists who are mothers. We need to be able to speak for ourselves, to be heard. The Internet is a great resource lately, but these blogs weren’t around four years ago, when my friend was going through this.

3. You say that 44 percent of women in their childbearing years don’t have children, and some never will. And “while the world is rightly concerned with family issues, the constant focus on motherhood can make it easy for a childless woman to feel that she is less than a woman, that in failing to reproduce, she as failed at life.” Poignant and powerful words. I agree with you. So what can the infertile woman do to feed and nurture herself in a family-oriented world? And especially the infertile woman who suffers from depression? What have you done to sustain your sense of self?

Christina: I’d like to point out — that 44% figure — is women from 15 to 44. As we all know, those numbers can be exceeded in both directions! This figure includes women who may have a step-child, but no biological child of their own — often by their husband’s choice. Step-mothers often parent, but they don’t get the societal credit for it. I have several friends in this situation.

I can speak for what works for me, which might not necessarily work for someone else. First, I write, which is not a replacement for having a child of one’s own, but a distraction, pleasure, obsession, assertion, as well as a way to vent. I am lucky that many of my depressions have been cured by travel, a change of scene, whether a day in New York or a yoga retreat. I get out in nature, I pray and meditate.

The tough thing is, sometimes you pray and you get the answer you don’t want. You can have faith, and the thing you want can still be denied you. Once someone said to me, God has another plan for you. I’ve always had to be very flexible, so I’m O.K. with that. I went to a faith healer once, and she warned, The outcome may not be what you want.

Going to places of religious worship can be very difficult — the Catholic church has respect for the celibate childless (of course!) nuns and priests, and for families, but the message is never good for childless married adults. The message is always, if you believe, God will give you this. But it’s not always possible. I always have to explain to people that I’m not even eligible to adopt, due to health and financial circumstances. Clearly, it is God’s will for some of us to remain childless.

Some years ago, I remember being at the Catholic church at Easter, and while in previous years it had been hard not to feel left out and maligned, both by the sermon and the other congregants, I had a still moment, looking at the decorated ceiling, and I got this message from God, at first this faint tingling glimmer, then a feeling of certainty, that it was O.K. for me to be exactly as I am.

But I constantly have to remind myself of this, because the outer world isn’t telling me that. I remind myself that I have two aunts who didn’t have children, and have had full and happy lives and very enduring marriages, like my own marriage. They were always good role models growing up. I had two uncles who were priests — one, still teaching at 75, took my older sister and me off my mother’s hands to all the Disney films. The other, who sadly passed away a few years back, used to take us on swimming outings to Sherwood Island, a large state park in Connecticut. It was too much of a trip for my mother, who had younger children, work, and her own parents to take care of.

I remind myself how valued these and other childless people were and are in my life. My best teachers, bosses, colleagues, doctors, lawyers, friends — have often been childless. They have a lot more to give, and they give it freely.

I’d like to tell infertile and/or childless people to just tune out the craziness! A few years ago I read a story about then-57 year old, former Good Morning America host Joan Lunden, whose husband had twins by a surrogate, using the eggs from a third woman — and then another set when Lunden was 57. Lunden declared, “I want readers to know this is absolutely O.K. If they’re not her eggs, they’re not her baby.”

Well, I’m not a celebrity, I don’t have a platform like Joan Lunden, but I’d like to float the message that It’s Absolutely O.K. not to do a third world adoption, Foster Care, or a fertility treatment that seems wrong for you on a gut level. But society, and the media especially, needs to start getting the message across that adults without children are O.K. just as they are. I appreciate you giving me this platform.

4. You mention that you have read dozens of blogs as you search online for kinship regarding this issue. Could you share with my readers some of your favorites? Where are the childless hubs online?

Christina: The first I came across last spring was Nymphe: Living Childless and Child Free. The woman who authors the blog is actually childless by marriage, but feels the lack terribly. It’s a very intelligent, deep-thinking forum. Click here for a recent post that addresses some of the complicated spiritual issues of coping with grief.

Another, Coming2Terms.com, is hosted by a woman who confronted fertility issues in her twenties and spent about 15 years going through the IVF mill. She had spent a lot of time on the many fertility blogs during treatments — and found that she needed to create a safe place for people who experienced “the flip side of IVF” that the media seldom talks about.

Finally, Childless By Marriage is pretty self-explanatory! Blogs are probably starting up every day.

In the future I plan to write more for people who live without parenting due to health issues. The media just shows us the woman paralyzed from the neck down who managed to have a baby — with a huge support system, money, etc. Most chronically ill people I know are unmarried and trying to keep a roof over their heads. To become obsessed with having a baby in such a marginal life situation is just madness, but we live in a baby-mad culture right now.

All the discussions of parenthood in the CI (chronic illness) community tend to center on how to get a baby, and get those around you to take care of the baby as well as you. In one discussion blog, a woman wondered if it was wrong to have a child with all her disabilities. Another who’d done so quoted scripture to justify spanking, and spoke of monitoring her children from her bed. I was a voice crying out in the wilderness, when I suggested accepting a childless life as God’s will.

I wrote: “You can develop tunnel vision when you’re in the midst of an infertility struggle.” I want to let other people in my situation know that there’s a light at the end of that tunnel.

Patch is a high school art teacher and author of More to Love, a beautiful book of illustrations that features uplifting and inspiring messages about body diversity and self-acceptance. With her unique artwork Patch celebrates the human form. And she promotes a very important message: to accept, respect and take great care of ourselves at any and every size.

Below, Patch shares what inspires her, how unstructured “sabbaths” help her slow down and create and the quick way she ignites her imagination. She also reveals how we can incorporate creativity into all areas of our lives.

Visit http://elizabethpatch.com to learn more about her artwork and inspiration for all sizes.

Q: What are your inspirations for your work?

A: I’m always drawn to artists who truly know how to draw the human figure, whether it’s an artist from the Renaissance, or a graphic novelist. And I am a fiend for color and pattern. But the biggest source of inspiration for my illustrations is simply people watching; I am fascinated by the endless variety of shapes and forms of people.

Q: There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity?

A: I don’t think there is an artist alive who hasn’t struggled with self-doubt and fear of failure. But another big killer of the creative impulse is our culture of constant go-go multitasking. If I don’t get enough unstructured down time, my creative energy absolutely disappears. Like most modern women, I juggle a full-time job, a family and a home, and at the end of the day I find it very hard to be inspired when I am tired!

Q: How do you overcome these obstacles?

A: Naps, meditation and yoga help me re-center on a daily basis, but I’ve also discovered the importance of keeping weekly media-free, unstructured “sabbaths.”

I turn off my computer, TV, cell phone, tablet. I put away the to-do list and ignore all the things I “must do.” I ask my family to give me some space and privacy, and I allow myself to “waste time.”

I play with my art supplies, write in my journal, or practice a quiet creative hands-on skill (like sewing, knitting or working in the garden), without any concern about the end result. Sometimes I spend just one evening a week, sometimes I indulge myself for an entire weekend, sometimes it’s an entire vacation period.

The more time I allow myself to play without worrying about being an “artist,” the longer my creative battery stays charged.

Q: What are some of your favorite resources on creativity?

A: One of my favorite books is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a truly inspiring and hands-on guide to breaking through creative blocks by tapping into your inner artistic spirit.

I am lucky enough to live near the fabulous museums and galleries in NY city, and I am constantly enthralled by what I see, most of which looks nothing like my illustrations!

I have been know to burst into tears in museums, where I become breathlessly, happily exhausted by the power of human creativity.

Q: What is your favorite way to get your creative juices flowing?

A: My personal quickie method for jump-starting a creative block: I scribble, yes scribble! with every color pen, pencil or marker I can get my hands on. I just keep scribbling until I feel like I’ve warmed up, and then I scribble some more. The process of making something, even a pile of scribbled paper, seems to open the flow.

Q: What’s your advice for readers on cultivating creativity?

A: Take a tip from little kids: Pick up the materials (whether it’s paints or fabric or whatever) and jump right in. So what if you make a mess? So what if it’s not perfect?

Like everything else, creativity takes practice.

Creativity is a process, not an end result.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know about creativity?

A: Creativity isn’t something that is limited to producing something “Artsy” or “Crafty.” Creativity can be engaged in almost any mundane activity.

Look into an “empty” refrigerator and create something wonderful to eat. Look into your closet full of “nothing to wear” and mix things up into a creative combination you’ve never tried before.

Even problems can be sources for creative inspiration!  A disagreement with your spouse? Trying to manage a too-small budget? Ask yourself: How can I create a solution to this problem?

Illustration by Elizabeth Patch.

When I first saw Carla Sonheim’s artwork, I instantly fell in love with her playful and unique creatures (like the one above). Sonheim’s paintings and illustrations are what creativity is all about: giving birth to novel, stirring ideas that surpass the predictable.

Sonheim uses her boundless, innovative approach in her classes and books, such as her latest The Art of Silliness: A Creativity Book for Everyone. I love that she makes art accessible, surprising and fun for everyone.

I’m incredibly honored to share my interview with Sonheim for our monthly series. Below, she offers her wise and fascinating thoughts on the creative process. She shares how she connects to her own creativity and how we, too, can ignite our imagination.

1. Do you incorporate creativity-boosting activities into your daily routine? If so, what activities do you do?

Yes. I try to make a mark every day. I have a stack of sturdy card stock near my computer, a stack of watercolor paper at my painting table, and a sketchbook in my purse. Sometimes it’s just a line or a scribble. Some days, the mark turns into little creatures or more involved drawings or paintings.

Also, each day I write (or try to write) “morning pages” a la Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way). Typing them at www.750words.com works well for me.

2. What are your inspirations for your work?

I’m inspired both by other artists’ work and the world around me.

Other Artists: Everyone! But especially Outsider Art, children’s art, contemporary illustration, illustration from the 1950s and 1960s, and the work of early 20th century artists such as Picasso, Modigliani, Klee, Matisse, Calder, and others.

The World Around Me: Mostly “little” things. When on walks I look at the ground a lot. I “see” animals in leaves and sidewalk cracks. I love living in Seattle where the spring flowers are spectacular… and then especially when they “die” and dry up a few weeks later. On the bus or train I stare at the faces of other passengers.

(I have to catch myself, that I don’t REALLY stare, but I do spend probably a moment too long admiring the curve of someone’s nose, for example.)

3. There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity?

All of the above!

And each day is different; some days I feel pretty confident, but I’m unable to focus. Others, I just feel like everything I do is bad or embarrassing, and inertia creeps in.

I’ve come to see all these things as “resistance,” as Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art. It truly is one of the biggest paradoxes; being creative brings such joy to our lives, why do we resist it so much?

Answer: The same reason we resist exercising, eating well, and doing anything else “good” for us: We’re human. (I know, NOT a satisfactory answer!)

4. How do you overcome these obstacles?

I’ll try to answer with a story.

When I had my first son, I was determined to meet all his needs quickly so he would never need to cry. (That lasted a week. After that I just tried my best to meet his needs.)

But no sooner would I figure out his routine and what worked the best, when something would change; he’d get sick, we’d travel, or he would simply grow out of whatever stage I had been enjoying for the few days I had finally “figured it out.”

It’s the same with overcoming the “resistance” or obstacles to creativity; just when I figure out a combination of tricks and routines that seem to work, something changes and it doesn’t work anymore!

But here are activities that have worked in the past: starting with “nonsense” exercises; walking or exercising; sitting myself down in the chair and just doing it, with a timer if I need to; trolling the Internet; library or bookstore visits; galleries; writing down 20 ideas a day, even if they’re silly; and facing the down days with as much gentleness as possible.

I have many, many days that I’m not “productive.” But it all works together; those down times are very important!

5. What are some of your favorite resources on creativity?

I’ve read a lot of books and get something from each of them! I’ve already mentioned The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I also love Art and Fear by David Bayles/Ted Orland and The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.

6. What is your favorite way to get your creative juices flowing?

I have a game I play with myself when I need inspiration. I have a flickr.com account, a photo-sharing site. Artists and illustrators all over the world use it to share their work. I have dozens of “favorites” — drawings and paintings I like. I head over to my favorites list and click on an image that inspires me that day.

Then, I’ll go to THAT artist’s favorites list, and click on one of THEIR favorites that inspires me. I’ll then root around this new artist’s site for a while, and when I’m ready, will go to THAT artist’s favorites. I will repeat until I’ve found about 6-7 new artists.

This almost never fails; I ALWAYS want to pick up my pencil afterwards!

7. What’s your advice for readers on cultivating creativity?

Creativity has both tangible and intangible components. I’ve found that if I indulge in the tangibles (the making of something physical that wasn’t there before, such as drawing, painting, writing), the intangibles (freer-flowing ideas, problem-solving skills) come more easily as well.

Julia Cameron writes, “The creative part of us is always childlike.” The easiest way for me to enter into an open, “kid” mindset is to do some silly drawing or writing exercises: I’ll draw with my left (non-dominant) hand, do a series of one-line drawings, scribble all over the page, write a list of words as fast as I can, write some silly haiku, etc. — I give myself “assignments” to get the pencil moving.

Also, I’ve found that creativity, like trying to remember nighttime dreams, can be elusive; the more pressure you put on yourself, the more difficult the process.

You need to have an open mind for creativity to flow, and this is difficult or impossible if you are beating yourself up for not being more creative! Practicing gentleness with yourself is a good catalyst to creativity.

8. Anything else you’d like readers to know about creativity?

What works for me might not work for you — heck, what works for me today might not work for me tomorrow! We need to find our own way in all areas of life, including our creative endeavors. Diet, exercise, relationships, housecleaning habits, spiritual things, cultivating creativity… we are hopefully constantly trying to improve these areas of our lives, and need to find our own particular way of doing it.

It’s never-ending and always changing, but that’s what makes it fun, too!

More About Carla Sonheim

Carla Sonheim is a painter, illustrator, and creativity workshop instructor known for her fun and innovative projects and techniques designed to help adult students recover a more spontaneous, playful approach to drawing. She is the author of three books, most recently: The Art of Silliness: A Creativity Book for Everyone. She holds online drawing and painting classes from her website: http://www.carlasonheim.com and lives in Seattle, WA, with her photographer husband, a game-playing teenager, and her blog.

Opening image by Carla Sonheim.

I wanted to do a happiness interview with Cheryl Strayed after I read her fascinating memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. In her twenties, at a time when she felt as though she had nothing more to lose, Cheryl hiked solo along the Pacific Crest Trail for 1,100 miles. She was inexperienced and ill-prepared, but determined to set herself on this adventure.

I love all accounts of happiness projects; Cheryl’s undertaking had nothing in common with the kind of things I did for my happiness project, yet I gained a lot from reading about her experiences.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Cheryl: Walking. Doesn’t it make everyone happier? I challenge you to walk for twenty minutes and not feel better by the end of it. It’s the cheapest, healthiest cure on earth.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

That we can survive anything, even if we don’t want to. Even in the face of great suffering, there is joy.

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

Saying yes. Yes and I have a long history. Yes is generous and open-hearted. It’s kind and fun. It’s led to so many good things in my life. But everything in balance, as they say, and I’m feeling a strong need for a bit of no. Yes has become a shackle to me. It’s keeping me from spending my days in ways that make me the happiest. I’ve been reflecting on this lately because with the amount of things people have asked me to do in this past year, I’ve realized how difficult it is for me to say no. I mean it kills me. Probably because it goes way deep into my psyche and my ancient desire to be loved. People love you if you say yes to them. It’s an incredibly effective survival technique. So now I have to learn a new way to survive. What will happen when I say no? I’m going to try it and see.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?  

I think happiness greatly depends upon one’s ability to drown out the negative internal voices most of us have nattering on silently inside of us. In my book Tiny Beautiful Things there’s a column called “Your Invisible Inner Terrible Someone” in which I write about this. We have the ability to temper our negative thoughts with calm, reason, and humor. Doing so makes us happier.

Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy — if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?

I’ve definitely had periods that were exceptionally happy and exceptionally unhappy, though I’d say most of my life has been in the lovely muddled middle.

My mom died suddenly of cancer when she was 45 and I was 22 and the three or four years that followed her death were horrible. I remember waking up one morning and looking out my window in Minneapolis. I was watching a man working a snow blower on the sidewalk and I just wanted to be blown away too. I’d never understood how anyone could commit suicide, but in that moment I did. I understood it fully. It’s sad to even remember that time of my life. I wept a lot. I was what I call situationally depressed. So much of my life came apart after my mom died. There was little to be happy about.

I think I walked my way back to happiness. I set out on the hike I wrote about in my book Wild and my life slowly became happier. I found a way to move forward by actually moving forward. My entire twenties were like walking through a desert without a hat. My thirties and forties have been like walking through a really pretty forest with lots of wildflowers along the way. Don’t get me wrong. I still find plenty to complain about. But I’m very happy in my life now.

Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?

I have a fantastic bed. It’s a Tempur-pedic. I bought it nine years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. Until then my husband and I had been sleeping on a hand-me-down futon that was so ancient and hard my butt would fall asleep if I lay in one position too long. I mean, I didn’t even know it was possible for one’s butt to fall asleep, but it is. My husband freaked out when I bought our Tempur-pedic because we couldn’t afford it. I just brushed him aside and put it on our credit card. After one night in that bed he agreed it was money well spent.

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t or vice versa?

I’ve had a great year. From a professional standpoint there has been so much to be dancing in the streets about. Because of that, friends and strangers are constantly asking me how it feels. They want to know if I’m happy. And I can’t quite answer that. I’m thrilled—deeply, and truly—that my books have found an audience. I’m touched by the response. But on the ground level, by which I mean my actual life, I don’t think this success has made me happier than I was before. If you asked me a year ago what made me happy I’d have told you about the beloved friends and family and felines in my life. I’d have expressed gratitude for my good health and the fact that I get to do work that’s both meaningful and absorbing to me. Those are the same things I’d tell you now. Those are the things that make me deep-inside happy. Nothing else.

If you’ve always wanted to do something — such as hike along the Pacific Crest Trail — but need a little push to get yourself going, check out Go Mighty. It helps you create and complete a life list, of the things you’d like to do in your lifetime.

Would you like to get a signed, personalized, free bookplate for a copy of Happier at Home or The Happiness Project, to make a gift more personal?  (Or would you like one for yourself?) Email me to request them: just be sure to include your mailing address and people’s names. I’ll mail anywhere, and ask for as many as you like. But PLEASE request them soon, if this is for a holiday gift; fact is, I can be pretty slow. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Look here.

Creativity comes in countless forms. But I think the running thread is vulnerability. It takes courage to let your creativity hang out. Specifically, I think one of the toughest and bravest acts is sharing your story – and doing it on stage. That’s exactly what Jen Lee does on a regular basis.

Lee is a beloved performer in New York City’s storytelling scene, including The Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour and The Best of The Moth, Volume 15.

That’s why I was excited to get her thoughts on cultivating creativity for our monthly series, “How I Create.”

Lee also is a media producer and a sought-after mentor and guide for workshops and retreats unleashing creative expression. She’s the creator of Finding Your Voice and Telling Your Story, cutting-edge personal breakthrough courses.

And she’s a contributing author of Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing. Find her online at: jenleeproductions.com.

1. Do you incorporate creativity-boosting activities into your daily routine? If so, what activities do you do?

Honestly, my biggest creativity-booster is rest. When I’m well-rested, words and ideas flow and things can happen with speed and ease instead of grinding it out. I rest by spending time alone, having really regular and generous sleep habits, and restocking my creativity pond with good stories — live on stage, in a book or on a big screen.

2. What are your inspirations for your work?

My friends and colleagues, who never cease to be bold and to be brave, whether they are telling true stories on a stage or sharing their research findings, playing a new song for the first time or just reaching out on a hard day.

They make me want to be better — to be more courageous and more tender and more true in the hopes that my work might be a source of freedom and healing the way their courage, their work and their tender and true selves have been to me.

3. There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity?

Burnout and fatigue are my biggest enemies. Always trying to crank out so much, to be just a little more productive, can leave me feeling really stripped and depleted if I go unchecked. I have a full and rich family life, and I think when we’re juggling our creative work with other roles and responsibilities like caretaking or other jobs, it’s easy to feel that our creative time is scarce and to submit to the temptation to use it all for output instead of balancing it with some input, too.

4. How do you overcome these obstacles?

I stay in regular communication with my friends, who can hear so quickly even over the phone and many miles when I’m stretching myself too thin and are quick to call me on it. I notice how my body feels when it’s time to pick up my children and I haven’t taken time to rest and compare it with my mood and energy level when I do — and then I use that difference to motivate and inspire me to step away. To eat good food. To indulge in a few minutes with a good mystery.

And perhaps the biggest shift is an internal peace I’m making with my limits. I’m learning, This is what I can sustain. This is what is realistic to expect in this season of my life.

And that perspective frees me up to really sink deeply into and enjoy the other elements in my life, to let them feed and inspire me and be part of the mix instead of feeling resentful toward them and viewing them as the source of some kind of scarcity.

5. What are some of your favorite resources on creativity?

I’m not sure I would have made it through the challenges of those first few years doing creative work without Julia Cameron’s writing, which really normalized so much of what I experienced and at the same time offered guidance about how to take good care of myself — body, soul and mind — along the way.

Now my favorite resources are really about understanding and expanding my capacity for vulnerability, which is an edge I always seem to be working at. David Whyte’s audio program, What to Remember When Waking: The Disciplines of an Everyday Life, has been like a holy text for me in this regard. I’ve really been letting that wisdom be my companion for the last couple years.

6. What is your favorite way to get your creative juices flowing?

The easiest way for me to write is to put on my headphones with the right kind of music for the task, even if I’m alone — something about headphones cocoons me in my interior world.

If I need to shake words or ideas loose, I go for a walk. I stare out windows. I have those rambling kinds of conversations with friends where in one breath you’re saying you really need to do the laundry but in the next breath something kind of profound falls out.

7. What’s your advice for readers on cultivating creativity?

Create space for it in your life — make sure you have a good deal of tasks that require repetitive motion but not a lot of attention in your day (dishwashing, mopping, showering). Sometimes we cram our schedules so tight and spread our attention so thin that there’s no room for inspiration to sneak up behind us and then be heard.

Our obsession with doing is eroding our practice of being (whether over a slow, mindful cup of tea, on a bench in a park or just minutes to breathe and rest in the in-between spaces), and in my experience those moments of being are really the gateway — the invitation — for both inspiration and flow to find us in a way that too much effort tends to chase away.

8. Anything else you’d like readers to know about creativity?

Creativity is not a static trait — it’s not something one is born with or without. I think of it more as a divine spark that travels amid and among us like birds, looking for a shoulder that is sitting still enough to land on. To tap into our creativity is to listen for the quiet guidance and eurekas that are waiting beyond the din.

Photo credit: Bella Cirovic

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Heather King’s new book, Shirt of Flame: A Year With Saint Therese of Lisieux. I’m fascinated with anything about St. Therese; she’s my spiritual master and I’m always trying to find new material to read, so Heather King’s book was just my kind of thing.

I was also very interested to hear what Heather King had to say specifically on the subject of happiness.

What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?

Prayer. “Simple,” yet it requires my whole mind, strength, body, heart, soul. For me, prayer is not so much an activity as a way of being; a stance toward life — and death.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?

That happiness, such as it is, consists in self-forgetting. In having an all-consuming goal that you are never, in this life, going to fully attain. For me, that’s getting close to Christ. Writing is my vocation, so it’s being an excellent writer. And to be an excellent writer requires all of myself. It requires living my entire life, physically, emotionally, spiritually, out of love. I’m fairly disciplined, but the discipline comes not because I think the discipline is going to make me happy, but from love.

I’m an addict to the core. So if I’m trying to figure out what will make me feel better, what will make me happy, I’m going to be perpetually flitting from thing to thing. Booze makes me happy — for ten minutes. Candy makes me happy — for ten minutes. Sex makes me happy — for ten minutes. So I have to find something way way deeper to sustain me — no matter how I “feel.”

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?

Making happiness a goal.  Comparing my “happiness” to the perceived happiness of others.

Happiness to me is a mood, and a mood that is largely dependent on outside circumstances: whether I have money in the bank, whether the sun is shining, whether I’m healthy. Any way of life where I’m dependent on what happens outside of me, I’m sunk.

What I’m after is joy, and joy has pain — our pain and the sorrow of the whole world — in the middle of it. Joy, unlike happiness, becomes a state that you may experience only in fleeting stabs, but nonetheless abides.

Mother Teresa experienced a fifty-year dark night of the soul, and yet all who met her were struck by her quiet, light-filled joy. So you can be in complete spiritual aridity and darkness, yet still have joy. You can “feel” no happiness at all, but you can still abide in joy.

If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost? Or, like a “comfort food,” do you have a comfort activity? (mine is reading children’s books).

For me, feeling blue isn’t always susceptible to being fixed by a happiness boost or in fact to being fixed at all. Why wouldn’t we feel blue? We’re fragile, broken human beings who know we are going to die. That’s not to be melancholic or to live in willed depression, it’s to be in contact with reality.

On the other hand, if my feeling blue is based on self-pity, which it often is, one antidote is to call or arrange to see a fellow human being, which is to say fellow sufferer. There’s nothing like being reminded that we’re all in pain to help me bear my own a little more uncomplainingly…

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness? 

My friend Fr. Terry Richey, 40-plus-years sober alcoholic, says, “If you’re really lucky, you’ll eventually give up all hope of being happy in the way you thought you were going to be.” I mean you have to maintain a sense of humor about all of this. And I do think age is a help here. You almost have to spend decades thinking, This is going to make me happy, and going after those things, and either not getting them, which is one kind of blow; or getting them, and finding they don’t make you happy after all, or they make you happy only temporarily, or they bring a whole slew of problems that you’re not emotionally or spiritually equipped to deal with, and that’s another kind of blow.

What happens is that you spiritually mature and you stop having expectations. You stop having expectations and that doesn’t make for bland mediocrity, as you’d feared: it opens the window to a richer, fuller, more joy-filled life than you ever would have thought possible. Again, you’re in contact with reality. You’re better able to accept life the way it is, not the way you wish it would be.

Instead of feeling that nothing is ever enough, you’re grateful for the tiniest thing: a leaf, a basket of figs, a handshake.

Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?

I love my little living space. It’s airy and light with green curtains and a fountain outside the window and the Southern California sun streaming through and all kinds of books, cozy rugs, icons, candles, pottery bowls, paintings. But I don’t love it because it would qualify for the cover of Dwell. I love it because it’s grown up around me as a place to worship, to write, to praise God.

Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t — or vice versa?

Joy comes as a stab; an unexpected moment of connection; a nanosecond when we would lay down our lives just because the other person exists. This is the highest level of being human and we’ve all felt it: about our parent, the man or woman we love, our kid. Happiness — as a state of being, a stance toward life — is connection. It’s the embrace of mystery. For me, it’s to stay sober and help another alcoholic to achieve sobriety. People are the problem and people are the solution. I can get very attached to my “introspective way,” but in the end, you have to get out and mingle.

A quote from William Blake says it all: “We can’t bind ourselves to joy — we have to kiss it as it flies.”

I’m a sleep nut, and am convinced that getting enough sleep is very important. Here’s another reason to get enough sleep: research suggests that adequate sleep helps people lose weight. (If you have trouble sleeping, here are 16 tips for getting good sleep.)

Do you love great quotes? Sign up here for the “Moment of Happiness,” and you’ll get a happiness quote by email every morning.

They advocate for better treatments. They create better treatments. They practice what they preach. And they promote a message of hope and positivity.

In honor of World Mental Health Day today, five practitioners reveal the heroes who’ve influenced how they work — and even live their lives.

John Duffy, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist and author of the book The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens:

My mental health hero is not a degreed clinician, but conducts the most brilliant, laser-sharp, concise, and empathic interventions I have ever seen, or had the good fortune to have benefited from directly. She is renowned life coach Cheryl Richardson.

I emulate and admire her keen sense of intuition and her remarkable skill at recognizing what a client needs to hear, and when she needs to be silent and let a client struggle through an issue on his own.

She encourages people to take excellent care of themselves, from the physical to the deepest psychological level, and helps them discover, quickly, the often deep-seated nature of their distress.

To watch her work is truly a privilege, and a clinic for any mental health professional.

Deborah Serani, Psy.D, a clinical psychologist and author of the book Living with Depression:

I have many mental health heroes, ranging from professors I had in school, clients that have inspired me, even researchers in the field whose work transformed my way of thinking.

But if I had to choose one singular hero, it would be actress Delta Burke.

You see, when I was in the midst of a major depressive episode back in 1980, she came on television to talk about her bouts of depression.

Delta Burke was my age peer, and seeing her on television and in magazines some thirty years ago discussing her battle with a mood disorder was awe-inspiring. No one ever before had done that! In many ways, her self-disclosure helped me realize that I was in need of treatment for my own depression.

Fast-forward to 2010, when after finishing my book Living with Depression, I reached out to Ms. Burke to let her know the value of her narrative story. It took some elbow grease but I received an email from her agent with the where’s and how’s to forward a personal letter and my book to Ms. Burke.

Just five days later, my phone rang.

“Deborah?” a woman said with a twang and drawl.

“Yes?” I replied.

“Well, hello, Deborah. This is Delta Burke. I just had to call you to talk about your book.”

From there, we talked about our respective experiences with depression and our struggles with stigma.

Lastly, I let her know that she saved my life by talking about her own mental illness. In my eyes, she’s a superhero – no cape needed.

Jeffrey Sumber, M.A., a psychotherapist, author and teacher:

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a conference this summer, which featured Brené Brown as a keynote speaker. I absolutely loved her approach to life, her ability to incorporate a fresh sense of humor and self-reflection as a tool to share her wisdom with others.

Her work on the ordinary courage required to combat the shame so many of us carry is so incredibly important for the vast majority of us that it is absurd more people haven’t yet heard of her work.

I’m also a huge fan of my dear friend and colleague, Dr. John Duffy. John is one of those men who walks his talk. As a close personal friend, I watch this man treat his family and friends exactly the way he encourages people in his book to treat their loved ones, with respect, acceptance and a good sense of humor.

His work on “availability” teaches parents to show up for their kids in ways that at once seem like common sense and yet so many of us simply forget. John is a mental health hero because his humility is as clear as his message.

Joyce Marter, LCPC, psychotherapist and owner of Urban Balance, LLC:

My mental health hero is Dr. Wayne Dyer because he is a great example of overcoming adversity and achieving wellness and success. He spent the first 10 years of his life in and out of various orphanages and foster homes and is now an internationally renowned psychologist, author and speaker.

Additionally, his teachings on the power of intention have inspired countless others to strive toward positivity and self-actualization.

To me, this is what the field of mental health is all about: We all are dealt a different hand of challenges and blessings and have a journey toward healing and achieving personal, career and spiritual wellness and success.

I also admire Dr. Dyer’s career trajectory from counseling to writing to speaking — this is a similar path I hope to achieve myself. I find identifying heroes to be extremely useful in clarifying goals and seeing that they are attainable.

I laugh because I told my older sister that Wayne Dyer is one of my heroes and she said, “You know, Joyce, I think he was my drivers ed teacher.” I told her she was clearly confused but Googled him and learned she was correct — he taught drivers ed early in his career while working as a guidance counselor in the Detroit area.

This is yet another reminder that we all start somewhere and that success is a process with many steps, some of them surprising.

I also admire Wayne Dyer’s collaboration with other heroes of mine, including Louise Hay, Eckart Tolle, and Melody Beattie.

It is inspirational to see these thought leaders joining together to promote positive change in the lives of others. My personal goal is to someday collaborate with these mental health heroes myself and have Dr. Dyer to thank for understanding the power of that intention.

Ryan Howes, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, California:

Irvin Yalom – My first few years of graduate school were filled with black-and-white proclamations: Always maintain therapeutic neutrality, don’t self-disclose, hold fast to therapy boundaries. I found those absolutes safe, but lacking the very human exceptions to the rule.

Then I read Yalom’s The Gift of Therapy, which introduced the rich grey areas within therapy. He recommended radical ideas like focusing on the here-and-now during the session, self-disclosure when it benefits the client, and visiting the client’s home (I’m still not quite ready for that one).

As scary as it is to be more authentic and vulnerable in sessions, I’ve found it helps to create a richer and more intense experience for us both.

I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Yalom a couple of times, and experienced him as warm and profound in person as he is in writing.

My clients and I owe a lot to his person-before-theory approach to psychotherapy.

Want More Spill from Therapists?

Our monthly Therapists Spill feature can be found over in our mental health library. Check out past Therapists Spill entries.

She’s also a musical theater actress with her BFA from NYU/Tisch. And she’s one of the most creative and passionate people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting online. Ward infuses everything she does with creativity and her enthusiastic one-of-a-kind approach.

Below, in our monthly series, Ward shares the behind-the-scenes of her creative process, how she overcomes the comparison trap, her powerful advice for readers and much more.

Ward also has served as an expert source and contributor for publications such as Newsweek and Forbes and websites such as Yahoo! and AOL Jobs. She’s spoken at SXSW, The World Domination Summit and Etsy Success Symposium.

She can be found coachin’, bloggin’ & givin’ away free stuff at whenigrowupcoach.com.

1.  Do you incorporate creativity-boosting activities into your daily routine? If so, what activities do you do?

You might wanna slap me for saying this, but I feel like everything I do centers around doing it creatively. I’ve built my business on writing and making videos and speaking and playing my pink ukulele…so every time I decide to work on something, I think about what I want to express and how. I wrote/filmed/edited a music video for my communty site.

When I put my career change exercises into workbook form, I decided to make the whole freakin’ thing (yes, all 50+ pages) rhyme.

When I offered An Effective Escape: Leaving Your Day Job Without Living in Your Parents’ Basement for the first time, it was as a virtual workshop. I’m usually doing something around speaking, singing, or writing… but not in a do-a-creative-exercise-every-day way.

2.  What are your inspirations for your work?

It depends on what I’m working on, but the things that are popping into my head… Dr. Seuss, Cee Lo Green, Garfunkel & Oates, Cee Lo Green, stuff from my childhood (I so wanna write a Choose Your Own Adventure Book!), Jessica Swift, Color Me Katie, Danielle LaPorte, Alexandra Franzen, my clients, Broadway….oh, I’ll stop there now.

3. There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity?

The Comparison Vampire! Oh, I call the voices we have in our heads that suck the good stuff outta us Vampires, and The Comparison Vampire tends to be the worst of all.

Look at how professional her videos are. Look at how perfect his copy is. Blech. It makes you wanna just throw in the towel and never write another word or speak another sentence or pluck another tune ever again.

4. How do you overcome these obstacles?

I think a big part of it is being confident and authentic in what you’re doing. Sure, his copy might be “perfect” and her videos might be “professional,” but mine are 100 percent Michelle at all times, and I’m proud of what I produce.

I’m all there, singing or speaking or writing my heart out, and I’m confident that what I put out into the world represents my uniquity, my perspective, and my knowledge. Let’s face it: They’re not better than you, They’re different. Two separate things.

5.  What are some of your favorite resources on creativity?

Anything that Keri Smith puts out is worth picking up and working through. It looks easy on the surface to follow her exercises (i.e. smear food on this page of the book, tie a string around the book and take it for a walk, etc.), but actually confronts our Vampires and can be a great (yet scary!) learning experience.

I also recommend the Right Brain Business Plan to any and all creative entrepreneurs (I have one!), aspiring or otherwise. The Artist in the Office is also a must for those of us barely surviving our day jobs, and nothing beats The Artist’s Way for tapping into your inner creative.

6.  What is your favorite way to get your creative juices flowing?

For writing, I keep tons of images with inspiring sayings on a Pinterest board, and that’ll be my first stop if I need something to write about. For my songs, I tend to have an idea as to what I wanna sing about (it’s recently been about my boob cancer, oddly enough), and then rhymes come to me on the subway, when I’m about to fall asleep, or in the shower. I always have my iPhone handy to take notes.

7.  What’s your advice for readers on cultivating creativity?

Don’t wait for lightening to strike or the perfect moment where inspiration knocks you over – because it often doesn’t happen that way. Instead, show up to do the work and start wherever feels easiest.

Sometimes I start a blog post in the middle because the beginning just won’t come to me. Sometimes I write a song with the chorus leading the way because the verses are elusive. Do something every day for a small bite of time (yes, you can get a lot accomplished in 15 minutes a day, thankyouverymuch) and you’ll be able to have a tangible product in no time.

Also, don’t be married to the format. Sometimes I know I need to write a blog post, but writing feels hard in that moment…so I make a video instead. Pay attention to what feels fun and easy at the time, and know if you move forward with that it’s not cheating.

8.  Anything else you’d like readers to know about creativity?

Wanna know a secret? You’re creative. You might not believe me, but it’s true! We all have it in us…just start believing that I’m talking to you when I mention “creative people,” start exploring in a fun and easy way, and you’ll be able to own that title more than you think!

But by using certain tools, you can quiet the mental chatter and calm your anxious mind.

Kathryn Tristan, author of the forthcoming book, Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012), shares three strategies that can reduce worrying right now.

Q: What are several quick ways to stop worrying?

A: Some of the Worry Busters I discuss in my book Why Worry? are:

1. Belly (also called diaphragmatic) breathing.

Slow, deep breathing activates the vagus nerve. That helps to counter the stress response.

2. Focus on now.

This is a technique whereby one concentrates on the present moment, not the uncertain future.

3. The “Stop, Look, and Listen” technique.

This technique can quickly break the grip of worry or anxiety:

• STOP: First recognize and accept that you are feeling worried or anxious. Mentally say “STOP” in your mind. Begin belly breathing to slow down the tirade of nervous reactions. Often, an initial flux of emotions will die down in the body within about 90 seconds. Buy yourself some time to let this happen, and then recover.
• LOOK: For a full five minutes, focus on the external world rather than your internal feelings of discomfort. Look for details of things around you and even consider naming what you see.
• LISTEN: Talk calmly and reassuringly to yourself, as you would to a best friend having a hard time. Say an affirmative phrase such as, “This, too, shall pass!” or, “All is well!”

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.

Further Reading

Check out these other Psych Central pieces to quell worrying and anxiety:

• Learning deep breathing
• 3 unique exercises to stop worrying
• 3 practices to calm an anxious mind
• How to start meditating
• How to train your brain to alleviate anxiety
• Managing emotions more effectively

Fortunately, there are many effective techniques to help you return to the driver’s seat.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kathryn Tristan, a researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine and author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012).

As her book title reveals, Tristan believes that we can stop coping with anxiety and worry and instead start living fulfilling lives. She discusses this in greater detail below.

Q: What does it mean to stop coping with anxiety and start living your life?

A: We live in an age of global anxiety. Uncertainties and challenges from finances, relationships, work and home can leave us feeling constantly stressed out, worried, and tense. If feeling edgy is the new norm, are we really happy or merely coping our way through life?

It doesn’t have to be this way.  I wrote this book to help others get back in the driver’s seat. To do this, we first need to understand that worry is a natural biological process designed to help keep us safe.

Worry is the little voice that alerts you to a health problem just in time before matters get worse. But worrying constantly about your health does more harm than good. Worry also may help provide a competitive edge in business, school, or sports as you strive to improve and do better. But constantly worrying if you will succeed does not help.

The problem is one of balance and most of us are way out of balance. Unfortunately, continually worrying without resolving problems can also lead to anxiety. Now your worries escalate in intensity and you may also experience the gripping fear of anxiety or panic attacks that seem to come out of the blue. This creates a whole new set of worries.

Fortunately, the solution is not complicated, but does require mentally rewiring circuits blown by chronic worrying. Your two most powerful tools to stop coping and start living enjoyably are: Awareness and Choice.

First, you need to pump up the volume and begin to hear the constant mental chatter in the background that makes dire predictions of doom and gloom. By engaging your power of Choice, you acknowledge, evaluate, and often robustly disagree with the negative outcomes predicted. Scientific studies show that 85 percent of what we worry about never comes true.

Ultimately adopting a mindset of living more consciously, in the present moment, and focusing on what’s right, not [on] what’s wrong, will put you on the fast track to creating calm, even during chaos.

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know about worry and anxiety?

A: Chronic worrying robs your life of joy. You may not be aware of how often you are worrying and marinating in negativity. That is the saddest thing of all.

Only you can change what you’re aware of. Before you can stop the cycle of anxious thinking and reacting, you first need to wake up to how your mind is operating.

Making better mental choices helps you feel peaceful even in the setting of strife and chaos. Your personal power comes from your ability to choose. You can choose to create a more enjoyable, loving and powerful life by placing your intentions on a plan to do so. Always remember, our thoughts create our lives… Choose wisely!

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.

But after working from the inside out, as she puts it, Tristan was able to move past her overwhelming anxiety and panic. Through the use of specific techniques, she’s been able to quell them and lead a fulfilling life.

Below, Tristan, who’s also author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012), reveals the four strategies that have helped her overcome anxiety and worry.

I discovered four key strategies or steps to overcoming my fears and worries. I call these CORE concepts because they draw on inner resources, tug them back to the surface of the conscious mind and create the foundation for recovery.

The C in CORE stands for Choice. I learned a very powerful truth: Worry is a Choice. I can accept or veto what my mind is suggesting.

The O stands for Outlook. How I think about anything determines how I experience everything.  In other words, I can choose to change my outlook regarding any situation. This creates a fundamental shift in how I think about my challenges. I become the one who controls my responses and reactions. That places me squarely in the driver’s seat of life.

The R stands for Risk. Worriers don’t embrace the idea of doing anything risky that might amplify feelings of fear. As I began to take small steps out of my comfort zone, I found something amazing: The joy I felt doing new things and challenging myself far outweighed the discomfort of taking measured risks.

Finally, the E stands for Embracing Your Spirit.  By cultivating the highest part of myself (the aspect that loves life, gives direction through my feelings and perceives meaning beyond the five senses), I created a core of self-perpetuating inner power. No matter what happens, I know I can handle it.

Although trapped in a prison of fear and worry for more than 20 years, I found the strength to break free by choosing to make positive changes in my life and cultivating an inner sense of peace and power.

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.

But you’re not powerless over your worry-filled mind. There are many ways you can retrain your brain to reduce your worrying ways.

Below, Kathryn Tristan shares several suggestions. Tristan is a researcher at the Washington University School of Medicine and author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012).

Q: In your book Why Worry? you share how readers can retrain their brains to overcome worry and anxiety. Can you talk about some of these strategies?

A: I believe that worry is part of a psychological immune system that tries to alert, warn and protect us from possible dangers. For the past 30 years, I’ve studied how our biological immune system protects us with lightning-like ferocity from possible infections from bugs (bacteria), viruses, or anything it perceives as foreign and thus threatening.

When it overreacts, the biological immune system can have devastating consequences such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, among others. So, too, our psychological immune system can go haywire when we overreact to its defenses.

One of the first ways to rewire this system is to eliminate the energy-draining habit I call terribilizing.  Instead of envisioning the worst possible (terrible) catastrophe, focus on alternatives that emphasize positive possibilities. I call this possibilizing. As you rewire this psychological circuit, you emphasize “what if I can” instead of “what if I can’t.”

You can also rewire your brain by redefining your concept of perfection. Most of us would love to live in a perfect world where life is always fair, all people love you, good things happen and bad things do not. Unfortunately, real world always clashes with perfect world.

By learning to ride out the bumps of life, we commit to using all of our experiences as stepping-stones to a more powerful and loving life. Indeed, there is a Japanese philosophy known as wabi-sabi that describes beauty as imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It honors all things scratched, dented or worn. Based on Buddhist principles, this view suggests there is beauty in imperfection.

Another powerful way to rewire our brains is learning to cultivate an inner template for recognizing, resolving, and moving beyond negative mental baggage loaded with blame, anger, and guilt. These powerful emotions amplify worry.

The antidote to blame is gratitude. Adopting an attitude of gratitude replaces faultfinding negativity that only seeds stress and worry.

Another powerful emotion is anger. Whether it explodes outwardly or inwardly, the antidote to anger is cultivating a calm ability to communicate clearly. Learning to productively express emotions prevents them from ramping out of control.

Finally, although guilt can be a useful way of judging our behavior, guilt can also be used as a tool to control someone in unhelpful ways. Although guilt is an emotion that weakens, the antidote of forgiveness empowers. Instead of falling into the “shoulda-woulda-coulda” trap, you focus on being the one who has power, the power to forgive and go on.

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.

Kathryn Tristan, author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012), reveals three common tactics that can backfire.

Q: What are some anti-anxiety strategies that actually don’t work?

A: Often people use three common coping strategies that do more harm than good. In a nutshell, these are pills, booze, or avoidance.

Scientific studies suggest that 1 out of 2 people in the U.S. will suffer at some time in their life from anxiety, depression, or addiction. That means you, me, someone in our family, a friend, etc., is currently or will be dealing with one of more of these life-altering issues.

Why?

It all begins with how we worry and handle our challenges and stresses. Worry is at the nucleus, the core, and the heart of these very serious and debilitating problems. We don’t handle worry productively or even realize how we can help ourselves.

Pills: Medications can be a wonderful asset. Drug companies spend billions in research to develop medications that can provide therapeutic help. The problem is relying on them and not solving the problems and stresses that seeded the need for them. Medications may or may not work. They also may be addicting or have side effects.

Booze: Having a glass of wine with a meal, or a beer with a pizza can be very enjoyable. But if you are guzzling four martinis every evening to feel better, you are creating more problems than you are solving.

Avoidance:  Avoiding or ignoring problems can be a coping strategy that allows one time in order to derive some clarity. But often when we begin to avoid things that we fear, the circle of fear enlarges and can quickly shrink our comfort zone. Without solving the problem in some way, storms remain on the radar ready to downpour on a moment’s notice.

As always, balance is the key.

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.