A friend of mine recently asked if I am happy. I considered this question and decided to answer honestly, no.

I realised that my first thought had been to massage the truth, because I sensed this honesty was going to create discomfort in the other person. Like when someone asks “how are you?” and I generally say “fine” even if something major is happening, because it is just part of a polite exchange.

To say otherwise in a passing conversation would be to stop the flow, and perhaps over share details that I’d prefer to remain private, while make the other person feel uncomfortable or obliged in some way. Unless it’s a close friend, of course, who knows the context of what’s happening in my life at the time so it doesn’t require a whole dialogue to explain.

That said, to ask “are you happy?” is not part of common polite exchange, it does imply a deeper interest in that person’s wellbeing. None the less, just as most parents want their kids to be healthy and happy, wanting the same for those other people we love around us is, I find, common.

So in considering the question I thought “I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time, I certainly enjoy many of aspects of my life, but would I say I’m truly happy? Nope.”

I was then inevitably asked what would make me happy, would it be relationships, work, lifestyle etc?

In between the question and the answer – which was “I’ve come to understand no thing will make me happy, it’s an internal shift I suspect” – I considered the lifelong pattern of pursuing things that (once obtained) I assumed would leave me fulfilled. This had not happened.

Chasing the things, the places, the people, even having a family, were illusions in some respects. It’s not that I don’t value those things, I do, but when I still feel unworthy, not enough, exhausted, insecure and so forth on the inside, it’s hard to feel happy.

Happiness I think is state of being in harmony with myself while also being grateful for all the things in my life, it’s an inside out job. Otherwise I observe the things I’m grateful for from a vantage point of constant inner anxiety, so it always feels off somehow.

I could point to things that have happened in my life and say “they/that made me unhappy” but that is not entirely true and it’s disempowering. Life may have brought me some really stink results at times, but the reason for that is really because of the inner anxiety. Not to excuse other people’s poor behaviours, but attracting them I feel is more a symptom than a cause, based on reactions wired from childhood.

The way I feel on the inside isn’t even a rational result of early childhood experiences. As babies and toddlers we don’t have the ability to rationalise why we might not be getting the attention we need to attach and attune to our self and our own needs, we just assume states of being, unconscious inner voices of shame in not being enough, or being too much and so forth.

Not to vilify parents, everyone tends to do their best with what they know. I found it extremely hard – and was in a heightened state of anxiety – when my baby was crying or unsettled and I just couldn’t figure out why, or when the calls for attention had been so relentless I’d just be crying out myself for some space.

Back to the childhood development though, as my rational mind developed I could argue against those voices and did. When pushed too far I’d get angry at mistreatment, I know I’m enough and I’m worthy at a deeper level and (in my case) even at an intellectual level too. I can give myself lists of rational reasons why, I can read books or listen to others who validate my worth, but it doesn’t mean I feel it. That’s the bit to work on.

Anxiety has been a very general and omnipresent feeling within me for as far back as I can remember. I would never have admitted that even to myself until recent years because – to do so – makes me feel vulnerable. It did not fit with my well developed image of confidence and success, a form of stoicism.

Briana MacWilliam put this beautifully in a course I’m doing, she said “Anxiety can become this pervasive blanket feeling that tends to obscure the more subtle emotions beneath it because those feel scary and confusing.”

Yet, as I wrote about in Expand Your Emotional Vocabulary to Get Your Real Needs Met it’s being able to tune into and give voice to those more subtle emotions that allows me to define my boundaries, that sense of self definition.

And without boundaries, there’s not much for others to relate to.  Pointedly, as Briana points out, “When there isn’t much to relate to, there isn’t stimulation or challenge enough to keep someone invested in a relationship because you have – in essence – become completely unavailable to them”.

Brene Brown’s latest book Atlas of the Heart speaks directly to this also. She talks about workshops she did fifteen years ago as part of shame resilience research, and the participants were asked to list all the emotions they could recognise and name as they were experiencing them. Over the course of five years they collected this data from more than seven thousand people and the average number of emotions named across surveys was just three: happy, angry and sad.

As she points out “Language is the portal to meaning making, connection, healing and self awareness. When we don’t have the language to talk about what we’re experiencing, our ability to make sense of what’s happening and share it with others is severely limited.” It’s the purpose and mission of Atlas of the Heart to help name and claim a broader emotional vocabulary.

Boundaries are something I became aware of and started working on a couple of years ago, but as Briana points out “there is a strong need for acceptance and for everything to go well and no one be upset when you have an anxious attachment style” because the ultimate fear is of abandonment. I said to one friend (of my inner energetic state) it’s like sitting watching the lawn waiting for a mole to pop up so I can whack it back down and keep the lawn looking nice.

Doing this course with Briana is really challenging me to think about and feel into what my own needs are to a degree I haven’t before, as well as giving me the tools and language to express them. She says “Your behaviours are geared up towards trying to smooth over conflicts or threats to the emotional equilibrium of relationships and in your social environment”.

Breaking these habits first requires a whole new inner view of my needs and the ability to communicate them with calm confidence. One of the things I love about the work I’m doing is that it’s so thorough. By looking at things I don’t want, I can start to define the things I do want and the ability to frame these in such a way that’s emotionally honest rather than critical of another.

This of course means being vulnerable, this is a huge step change for anyone with an insecure attachment style since each fears rejection. But it comes back time and again to knowing that what I’ve been doing (which is essentially self abandoning) ultimately hasn’t worked for me and only serves up my fears in the long run anyway.

How can I possibly be happy when I’m not being me? When I’m not honouring my true needs and desires, and therefore not allowing anyone else to see, far less accept and love, the real me?

This then is my mission, my goal, and I suspect happiness will be the natural result of realising it while also simultaneously appreciating those things and people I have in my life.

What about you, is it your true self we get to meet in the world? How much unhappiness will it take to be vulnerable enough to explore, uncover and show your real needs and desires to the rest of us? And if that means there are some people around you who can’t work with those, that’s okay, it creates space for people who are more of a match to who you really are on the inside.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy So You Found Yourself… But Are You Actually Happy?, Hating Your Way to Happiness, Embracing Impermanence to Find Your Happy Future, How Much Are You Hanging Your Happiness on Others and What Will It Take for You to Choose Happy? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

A couple of friends and I were discussing our health this week, and I was reflecting how much better I had felt these last few years since deliberately undertaking a healing journey to address the migraines, kidney stones, crazy menstrual symptoms and a few more chronic issue issues that seemed to plague me.

One of my friends said “I credit Anne (my osteopath) for that; she was the one who quietly challenged you to put yourself and your health first”. As I reflected on it, she was right, Anne had been the gentle messenger that seemed to speak directly to a part of me that knew she was right and could broker no disagreement.

The key here are the words quiet and gentle.

Anne is neither confrontational and nor does she go around-the-houses; she just quietly and gently says things like “I think your body would really appreciate if it got some regular movement” and “I think your body might appreciate a break from sugar and wheat”. 

These weren’t random or generic health recommendations, they were things that I had been periodically considering and waylaying for some time, probably at those moments when I would hear what my body was trying to communicate and my mind would quickly file in the “to do later” basket due to the constant feeling of overwhelm.

However, hearing them reflected from the outside and given a voice had a big impact, and led to me taking up swimming again and also switching out my diet to foods I know work better for me several years ago now.

I’m not saying these things were the root cause of all my ailments, it’s simply what my body needed in order to stay steady on the course and not spring any more leaks, so to speak. She was also the person to whom I turned when I was looking for a homeopath, and that led me to Heilkunst and trauma therapy, which is what has really got into the meat of addressing a lot of these ailments that I no longer experience.

While the same recommendations had come from other sources at other times, what cut through was Anne’s ability to connect with and recognise the quiet whisperings of my body’s needs and desires without engaging my mind.

My mind noticed, it even attempted – rather lamely – to list some excuses, but within minutes of leaving the appointments I would already know it had lost the battle and now was the time to take inspired action.

I find there are many different voices within me, often fighting to be heard. Some of the most poignant words that demonstrate this were spoken in Our Warring Self Versus Our Infinite Self by Sarah Blondin. Sarah is another person who is able, in her own quiet and gentle way, to speak directly to the soul’s yearning. I guess that is because what she shares through her podcasts and meditations is just that, her own deep conversations with her inner being.

She describes “our warring self” as “The part of you that hides under the surface, that surprises you when she shows her teeth. The part you deny, push away, pretend does not live there. She is your darkness, the one who dwells in the shallow waters of your being. She is in every one of us. She rides up on the back of your righteous ego, she feeds on ideas that you deserve more, better, different. She lurks in the thoughts and emotions that keep you small. Such intensity and emotion is powerful, palpable; weak in root but alluring in force.”

Conversely, “our infinite self” she describes as “The soft one, tender, always tender. She comes when you ask for help. She comes when you fill your lungs with a conscious breath. She is able to withstand the storms. She catches the furious pain of others, the difficult experiences you face, the things that make you want to fight, and she cradles them, swaddles them in unconditional love over and over. She is the bottomless source of light and love, she is your essence. Pure and wise she lives in your greatest depths”.

And then Sarah goes on to say “She is shelved beside the one who wars. They stand within you, both hands open, a choice. One serves where the other severs, one heals where the other wounds. It takes great strength and determination to choose the soft one when you are in the fire. Yet nothing will suffer more than you if you continue to choose war. They are two polar energies, forces living within you, a choice for you to make at every triggering moment in your life.”

I have given you a snapshot here of her words in this piece, but most poignantly she wraps up in saying “You are capable of being both but please choose wisely for the quality of your life and love depends on it”.

Like Sarah, I can hear the whisperings of my own body and soul when I allow my mind to be still enough to hear them.

In the year my mum slipped away from us with a sudden and aggressive cancer, I found solace in nature. Listening to the rustle of leaves, the twittering of birds, the rhythm of waves lapping on the shore, the solid assurity of tides coming in and tides going out, the sun setting, the sun rising, and the seasons coming and going. As much as the landscape of my world was changing with my mum slipping from the scene, so much went on.

This can seem cruel when losing a loved one, but it also provided somewhat of a solidity to keep going on myself. It was in those quiet moments in nature that everything from the sea to the clouds seemed to whisper quiet truths from my heart to my head, into conscious awareness, about everything from the nature of life and its meaning, to little actions that could make a difference for mum in her final days.

The same was true when the government here in New Zealand, who has only this week finally let go of COVID19 vaccine mandates, overstepped its reach last year and created a segregated society that displaced many of its critical workers, divided families and impinged on day to day lives in ways that I simply could not have imagined a year or so beforehand.

While not everyone could go to the local library to get out a book, swim at the local outdoor pool, go to university, learn to drive or meet friends at a cafe, everyone could still experience nature. And sure enough, while we lived in a world where the punitive actions did not match the evidence, the sun continued to come up and set each day, the tides kept coming in and out, the birds kept twittering and that solid backdrop of Mother Nature continued whispering messages when I connected in with it.

Whether it’s the kind and gentle words of a friend, or the words that seem to come on the wind rustling through leaves as you walk in the woods, the quiet whisperings of truth that inspire are well worth noticing, for they are the truths that inspire our best life.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Give Yourself Permission to Live Life in Alignment With Your True Nature, Rejoicing in Who You Are, Is Your Experience With Religion Stopping You Exploring Your Inner World?, Rediscovering the Language of Nature, Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success, Saying Goodbye, The Miracle of Water, and Taking Your Own Space. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

As someone who writes frequently, it gave me pause to consider whether I currently use a limited emotional vocabulary.

Let me give you an example I heard this week from Briana MacWilliam as she was doing a class for people who are choosing to recover from relationships in which they felt neglected, abandoned or dismissed. She talked about a client who had felt a big jolt around a change in their life, in this case a new partner, which caused a sense of overwhelm and spiralled into anxiety and panic and she was thinking of ending the relationship.

Her vocabulary was vague and it was difficult to pinpoint the issue, but with some work, she could articulate that she was a little bit excited, a little bit nervous, a little anticipatory (all quite positive feelings), but maybe there were also some doubts creeping in, she felt a little challenged, exhilarated but also worried, and all of this was going on at the same time.

This is normal.

However she had not been taught growing up how to sift and sort through all those energetic states, emotions and inner experiences with any amount of sophistication. As a result she had become overwhelmed by the emotional charge of all those different, conflicting, ambiguous feelings in her mind and body, which is what had caused her to spiral. I can relate to this.

In this state she became scared and confused and lumped all those (similar but nuanced) feelings into one big category – “bad”. I experience this quite regularly, particularly around those who appear to chronically ignore what I have said or fail to take into account how I feel.

As Briana said “It’s important to recognise the energetic states moving through our bodies. By focusing firstly on the physical sensations (we are having in relation to those emotional charges) it helps mentally organise them, initially through symbols rather than words”. This is some of the most critical work Briana says she does with her clients and it requires practice over time.

This then leads to being able to describe the feelings more accurately which in turn gives more clarity around what is wanted and needed – and in turn this informs clear communication in terms of personal boundaries. And certainly I would agree that defining and communicating boundaries is critical to ensure I do not attract relationships in which I am neglected, abandoned or dismissed.

The other point Briana was making in the pursuit of more healthy relationships, is that by confronting past relationships defined by this, I am also confronting my attachment anxieties.

Attachment theory and styles are well known in the world of developmental psychology, Briana describes them as an instinctual blueprint in the survival part of our brain and nervous system that determines how much closeness or distance we need to feel comfortable that our survival needs are met.

However, depending on the extent to which the parenting we received was supportive and loving versus critical and demeaning, many of us grow up with insecure attachment and here is an example of why. She describes a young child pretending to be superman. On one hand supportive parents might say “Hey check you out, go you!”, and the child might think “Yeah I am capable of great things”.

On the other hand, a harsher parent might bristle and yell “Stop that noise! Sit down! Look at how your stupidity is ruining my rug and my furniture. I don’t want to hear from you unless spoken to. Idiot!” That child hears that they are worth less than the rug and furniture, and that the natural self exploratory process they were innocently playing with in that moment was offensive, damaging and it inspired punitive repercussions.

If that pattern is repeated, in time the child learns not only to distrust their own intuition and creative impulses but to feel distaste, shame, anger and guilt for even having an inner life. Again I can relate.

They may also doubt that they are capable of great things. So as the child grows and the parent reinforces the idea that the child is bad, a burden, not good enough, not measuring up to some standard of behaviour or condition of love, that thought process gets internalised and psychologists call it our wounded inner child.

It is these subconscious patterns that create and trigger the instinctual blueprint in the survival part of the brain and nervous system and cause people to react in flight, flight, freeze or hide. Fast forward to adulthood and an angry spouse may translate to the person who has grown up with this type of narrative as “I must have done something to upset them, this must really be about me, therefore it’s my fault, I have to fix it to earn their love back and feel worthy of love”.

When really, it’s an insecure attachment blueprint in the brain and nervous system that is sending this message as it has flared up in survival mode. Briana says quite pointedly “Until we can become aware that our attachment impulses are survival impulses (rather than authentic needs of our true self) they are always going to trump our good sense until we can raise our consciousnesses around this issue and mitigate it”.

That might seem obvious but I know from my own experience it’s not easy to do when being flooded with emotions.
This week I received a draft agreement that I had been awaiting for some time, and had requested on several occasions should include a paragraph reconciling this particular agreement with the previous agreement (which was settled on vastly different terms).

When I finally received the draft from the office of the person I had sent two texts and an email to about this very paragraph in the previous 24 hours, in addition to the prior comments, and saw that – again - no such paragraph was included, I was flooded with emotions. This was a deal breaker for me and I will admit I fired off an email in response “Please do not contact me again until this is sorted. I do not appreciate being ignored. What a waste of time and money”.

It is quite unusual for me to be so abrupt but, as I said previously, I get triggered when I feel chronically ignored.  Not long after, I then received a phonecall from their office so, pulling over to take the call, was caught off guard when it was the person’s personal assistant on the line rather than the person I needed to make the change.

They were equally as triggered, challenging me to explain my accusation of “being ignored”. I was at that moment at a loss for words because I had literally attached a screen short of the two texts to that email and felt I was living in an alternate reality. Gaslighting is another form of deliberately being ignored and triggers me even more.

I ended the call at that point as my brain and mouth were not going to say anything calmly and confidently anytime soon. Once I got home I followed this up with an email attachment with screenshots showing the many times I had requested this paragraph in various communications in the weeks prior, both to my representative and the other party’s.

Thankfully the process of writing, a much more focused form of using words than talking, made it a lot easier to convey what I needed to – the facts – rather than simply feeling that I was drowning in floods of emotions and unable to take a breath never mind speak.

And it was with that in mind that when I heard Briana’s sage advice on developing a rich emotional vocabulary I realised the missing link in my recovery. There are four steps not three:

1. Become consciously aware of the unhealthy patterns that get triggered and dysregulate my nervous system
2. Regulate my nervous system – whether in fight, flight, freeze or hide – my priority is to help my body feel safe so my rational thinking comes back online
3. Become aware of those different, conflicting, ambiguous feelings in my mind and body and learn how to describe the feelings more accurately, which in turn gives more clarity around what is wanted and needed
4. This then, in turn, informs clear communication in terms of personal boundaries

For all the words I have in my vocabulary, assigning them in to emotions that are flooding my body was not something I learned to any sophisticated degree as a child. However, I am learning now as an adult how to do this and how important it is in order to be truly heard and create and communicate healthy boundaries.

How often do you feel overwhelmed and unable to express what you are feeling with any clarity? Can you imagine how your sense of health and wellbeing and relationships can improve if you could? Is it time to take a closer look at you inner world and learn how to name the surge of emotions that course through it simultaneously?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Yearn for Better Outcomes? First Commit to Observing Your Reactions, Put Mature Parts of You in the Driving Seat for Better Results, How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, How to Take Things as They Come When You Have Learned Not to Trust  and Taking Your Own Space. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

While I’ve known about the flight-fight response for decades, and have studied it many times over again in relation to trauma, this week I heard a different perspective on it that gave me a personal ah ha moment – something I always relish.

Yvette Rose explained the four trauma responses/reactions in terms of ways that people show up in different situations. Some were the familiar responses when triggered, but she was also relating this to the way people show up and make decisions in everyday life:

Fight Response/Wiring

• Angry outbursts
  
• Controlling
  
• Pushy/bossy
  
• A fear of missing out/have to get ahead of everyone else
  
• Explosive reactions that you can’t contain
  
• Unable to be mindful about others’ reactions
  

Flight Response/Wiring

• Run away instinct
  
• Ants in your pants/restless legs
  
• Overthinker
  
• Workaholic
  
• Insomnia
  
• Anxiety/Panic
  
• OCD/need to get everything just right
  
• Difficulty just being with yourself
  
• No room for stress/ anything that can cause stress (often self-created)
  

Freeze Response/Wiring

• Deer in the headlights
  
• Indecisive
  
• Procrastinate
  
• Stuck/trapped in situations
  
• Waiting for someone to take the initiative/make decisions
  
• Fear of taking the lead/ want to see what others do first
  
• Intellectually dissociate (can see mouths moving but can’t connect to what is being said)
  
• Isolating pattern/not wanting a lot of people around
  

Hide Response/Wiring (sometimes called Fawn) - Freeze can easily roll over into this response

• People pleasers
  
• Latch onto/connect with other people to identify with
  
• Poor boundaries
  
• Overwhelmed because there is no limitations
  
• Difficulty in recognising where your thresholds are so people overstep and you don’t correct because you are a peace keeper/hider
  
• Causes codependency
  
• Needs a leader as there is a fear of stepping into your power
  

As I say, what really struck me as she talked about this, and guided the audience through various exercises in her What Happens After Trauma Masterclass, was that – unlike previous discussions on flight/fight – she wasn’t just referring to what happens when a person’s flight/fight is triggered by a stressful event.

I realised that I can show up day to day as a bit of a Hider. As a recovering people pleaser and co-dependent I have been actively aware of these patterns and learning to have and hold healthy boundaries for a couple of years now. However I’m probably mostly this when I’m in my beginning phase of anything – jobs, relationships, new situations – like a chameleon adapting to new territory.

Then – under everyday stress– I will default to Flight mode, which happens often as I then feel under pressure to keep up the chameleon facade I’ve created. But when pushed too far I will go into a Fight response, like inner me is fighting for its sovereignty.

And if I feel attacked, I will most often Freeze and then go into a Fight response. Then I’ll come out of that back into Flight before eventually settling back into Hide as my peace keeping survival responses kick in.

It is fair to say I was aware I cycle through different responses at different times and in different circumstances. What I hadn’t really been fully aware of is how chronically my wiring is in Flight mode.

I always thought about this as the person who physically runs away from arguments or awkward situations. I can think of a couple of times I’ve actively wanted to flee when I’ve been pushed too far but, as I say, generally Freeze and Fight come into play then.

But I can relate to the restless legs, I have a tried and tested range of techniques I developed in meetings and training courses to remain focused and engaged, like poking myself with a metaphorical stick to stay with the programme. And since physically running away as a child seemed not only stupid (it was generally cold and rainy) but scary, I guess I ran away inwardly instead and became an over thinker.

I had difficulty being me because I had become a chameleon, whatever people in authority had wanted me to be in order to avoid trouble. There was absolutely no away I ever wanted caught on the back foot or doing anything less than what was expected as it brought harsh punishments and humiliation. I wanted to be ten steps ahead to avoid any conflict or confrontation – or anything negative befalling me.

I thought about the relationships I’d left, the jobs I’d left, the interests I’d left behind, the country I left behind. Mmmm, it was an interesting ah ha moment to see just what a pattern for flight I actually have.

Yet now I am embracing life as a single parent, and look forward to the solitude when the kids are with their dad, and love welcoming them home when they return. It’s the first time in my entire life that I get to be with just me, and get to fully own that and accept who I am and what I value, believe and prefer to do and be in life.

It feels unfamiliar, and I still want to run at times. I get itchy feet and start to plan travel and activities. But I’m becoming more aware the grass is never any greener than right at my feet, wherever they are in that moment.

As I talked to my daughter this week about her personal moment of breaking out of her own patterns, it was gratifying to see that doing my inner work had the added effect of helping her see herself more clearly too.

I was very proud of her for speaking her truth to a friend. She hadn’t been unkind, but she delivered unwanted news and they were upset. Being someone who, like me, is empathetic and often a people pleaser, she felt overwhelmed because she could so viscerally feel their disappointment.

She wanted to distract herself from the pain this was causing her, but I encouraged her to stay with it. “Where do you feel it in your body?” I asked. It was in her tummy. So I asked “And where do you think it goes if you ignore it”. She is astute enough to know it stays right there, so I encouraged her to work through it rather than suppress it. “Get it up and out” I said, and for her that meant talking it through. This is much healthier than it reinforcing a pattern and causing physical problems later in life.

The patterns I’ve observed in my own life demonstrate this well. Often if I’ve experienced a big upset of some kind, following the pattern of headaches, stiff neck, shoulders and sore tummy, I’ll often spend several days afterwards with quite an acute pain in my abdomen working its way out as I “digest” what has upset me.

One of the things Evette Rose is well known for is her Metaphysical Anatomy Technique, working with our biology to unwind these emotional blocks and unhelpful patterns we have that – once addressed – lighten the load and help build confidence.

The point she was making is that they way we act when we get really triggered isn’t an isolated incident, is an accumulation of a lifetime worth of experiences – sometimes several lifetimes if it’s a predisposition we’ve inherited from our ancestral lineage.

After all the personal inner journey work I’ve undertaken and integrated, learning how to regulate my nervous system now seems like such a key thing to pursue in relation to really allowing the fullest, most authentic expression of me in my body.

And that seems to mean, aside of decoupling from co-dependent tendencies, that I take the time to simply stay with the impulse to run, to feel through my pain, frustration, anger or other uncomfortable feelings that come up in the day to day stresses of life when every part of my neural network says “go go go”.

This knowledge and practice of “staying” which means to simply “be with” or “be present” seems so obvious now. Of course, it’s in this practice where my body will learn to feel safe and confident. “But you are confident” a friend of mine said. No, I am not always confident at all. The more I get to know the true me, though, the more confidence I gain; so I opt for embracing the lessons my body is trying to teach.

What about you, in what way are your everyday responses different to those when under varying degrees of stress and pressure? Becoming aware of what happens within us is the first step to making choices about whether to and when to change our reactions, which is exactly what changes our outcomes.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Put Mature Parts of You in the Driving Seat for Better Results, How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, How to Take Things as They Come When You Have Learned Not to Trust  and Taking Your Own Space. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.