Letting Go: How to Live With the Loss of a Loved One

Note from Leo: This is a guest post from my friend, Suraj Shah, who wrote this post as a favor to me after a reader asked about how to deal with the loss of a loved one.

Suraj writes regularly about dealing with loss on his blog, Live With Loss.

I’ll hand it over to Suraj now:

Editor’s Note: Guest post by Suraj Shah.

In the midst of a busy life flooded with demands from all directions, the loss of a loved one can be striking enough to stop us in our tracks, forcing us to evaluate what’s important and question how to move forward in life.

But the months following the death of someone we care about can be filled with a whole array of emotions ranging from anger and sadness, through to guilt and even relief.

The grip these feelings have over us can leave us feeling stuck, confused and distraught.

The single biggest cause of this ‘stuckness’ is attachment â€" gripping firmly onto someone who is no longer in your life, and the pushes and pulls that make that relationship what it is.

Lets explore this root cause of the pain that you may be going through and discover a way to calm the volatile emotions.

1. Identify the attachments in your relationship

We can start by looking at the various types of attachments from your relationship.

What pains you the most about them no longer being in your life? What are the pushes and pulls that made your relationship what it was?

• shelter: You may have depended on them to look after you, to care for your health, to keep a roof over your head.

• companionship: You may miss them being in your life â€" someone to hang out with, to have a coffee with, to watch a movie with.

• someone to confide in: They may have been one of the few people who you could talk to about anything, who you could trust to keep a secret, to help you work through problems in other areas of your life.

• attending events: They may have been the one attending all events and social functions with you. You may be terrified at the prospect of now attending them alone â€" perhaps you’re even considering not attending social events at all.

• doing work around the house: They may have been a master in the kitchen or the DIY expert. Now who will make your meals? Who will fix the leaky tap?

• managing finances: They may have been the primary breadwinner, or perhaps contributed to your household’s monthly expenses. You may be concerned about how you’ll now manage.

• organisation: They may have been perfect at keeping everything in order in your life or your business. Without them, you fear that everything will be up in the air.

• humour: They may have been the playful mischievous one in the relationship â€" the one who kept things light when the world got too serious.

• unresolved issues: Perhaps you had a fight before they died, or you both harboured resentment for many years and never managed to resolve it.

• role of carer: They may have had a painful long term illness where you were caring for them. The role of carer may have been your identity for a long time. Now you may feel their pain has ended and you no longer have to care for them 24/7. Perhaps you feel relieved that you don’t have to be a carer anymore. You may even feel guilty about feeling relieved, coupled with confusion about who you are now that your identity of being the carer has been stripped away.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about the source of the feeling you may be experiencing. They’re there to help you work out what it is you may miss about them no longer being with you â€" and also what you feel now that they’ve gone.

2. Introspect the true nature of the relationship

Having identified the various attachments from your relationship, we can now start to take a closer look at the true nature of your relationship, and of the attachments that bound you to each other.

It’s time for some important and perhaps difficult questions. But if you can be sincere with yourself, you will be able to start to loosen the grip that these attachments and these emotions have over you.

Q: Were they going to live forever?

The various people we have in our lives, particularly those closest to us such as our parents, our siblings, our husband or wife, and our children â€" we think will be around forever.

We take them for granted. We expect that when we see them off in the morning and head to work or to school, that we’ll see them again in the evening.

But we know, from our experiences in life and from what we see in the news, that this isn’t always the case.

In life, death is inevitable. It is also unpredictable.

It’ll happen to us all, and to all those we are so fond of, but we just don’t know when.

We started with this question â€" probably the hardest to think about and to accept â€" but is one that is essential for us to look life straight in the eyes and say:

“Yes, ok, let me live fully now that I see life for what it is.”

Q: Was your attachment permanent or temporary?

Take a look at each of the attachments in your relationship and ask yourself: Was it permanent or was it temporary? While they lived, did you have that all the time, or did it come and go?

Lets delve into a few of the attachments we identified earlier:

• attending events: Did you ALWAYS attend events together? What about before you met each other? What about when one person was unwell or just didn’t feel like going? Perhaps at times you went alone or with someone else. Did you manage ok? Now that the one you love is no longer with you, you could comfortably attend events alone or with someone else. You may even choose to reduce the number of events you attend from now on and start to do other activities and form a different social circle. Even that’s ok.

• managing finances: Did you ALWAYS have them as a source of income for your household? Was there ever a point in your life where you managed ok financially by yourself? Did you ever get financial support from someone else in your life? The loss of a loved one can cause a large financial hit and this can add a lot of pressure to life. But there may be solutions available to help reduce this burden. It may mean temporarily receiving financial support, changing to a job that pays more and where you are doing the work you love, or minimising your outgoings.

• role of carer: Although you may feel guilty at the relief that you don’t have to constantly care for them anymore, think back to a time when you didn’t have to care for them, when they were independently able to do whatever they needed. Were you ALWAYS a carer? Have you had other roles in your life? Think about what you might want to start doing again, or perhaps take on a new role doing something you’ve never considered before.

  “It might seem sad, but we are forced to reinvent our lives when a loved one dies, and in this reinvention is opportunity. Which I think is beautiful.” â€" Leo Babauta

You will find, as you introspect further, that you sought some form of happiness, comfort or control from each element of the relationship. But was any of this constant and long lasting?

You’ll see that it wasn’t. Throughout your entire relationship together, it came and it went.

Nothing in the world around us or in the relationships that bind us is constant or permanent.

Q: What is truly everlasting?

So if nothing in the world around us is permanent, then what is truly everlasting? What can you hold onto? What can you blend tightly with your heart?

It’s their qualities. Who they were at their core.

When I think about my mum, I remember what she gave that was everlasting and what I now hold firmly in my heart:

• laughter and lightness
• calm and patience
• always present and a great listener

Recollect what you loved the most about them, what they taught you, what they have helped you to become.

Imbibe these in your life. These can stay with you forever.

3. Let go to cultivate life-lightening detachment

Letting go is a gradual process.

Take a good honest look at each of your attachments and gradually let each one go â€" allowing yourself the time and the space to appreciate the transitory nature of the world in which we live.

By introspecting on the true nature of your relationship, your pain and sorrow will gradually lift away. You will feel lighter.

This will bring about a type of detachment in all your relationships that keep them rich while together with someone, yet help you to experience less suffering when you naturally part ways.

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

Wishing you calmer days ahead and clarity over the purpose with which you lead your life.

Suraj Shah is a bereavement support visitor, writer and speaker, based in London UK. Visit livewithloss.com for guidance to help you through your loss and lead a calm, purposeful life.

The Way to Be

By Leo Babauta

Last night I received a phone call from a loved one, someone who I love deeply but have struggled with internally because I’ve been worried about his health.

I want to help him, because I feel I’m losing him.

I want to show him my habit method, so he can give up smoking and drinking and eating unhealthy foods, can take up exercise and meditation, and all of a sudden be transformed into a healthy person again.

And of course, I can’t. I want to control something that scares me, but I can’t. I’m not in control of the universe (haven’t been offered the job yet), and I’m not in control of anyone else. I want to help, but can’t.

So I melted.

Not melted as in “had a meltdown”, which sounds wonderful if you like melted foods but actually isn’t. I melted as in I stopped trying to control, stopped trying to change him, and instead softened and accepted him for who he is.

And guess what? Who he is? It’s wonderful. Who he is â€" it’s super awesome mad wonderful. He’s funny and loving and wise and passionate and crazy and thoughtful and philosophical and did I mention crazy?

I melted, and accepted, and only then could I actually enjoy his presence instead of worrying about losing him or changing him.

And this, as I’ve learned, is the best way to be.

We can stop trying to change people, and just melt into their presence, just notice who they really are, just appreciate it. We can stop complaining about our life circumstances, about our losses, about how the world is, and just melt into it.

Just accept. Just notice. Just appreciate.

This is the way to be.

Ramit Sethi’s Entrepreneurial Habits

By Leo Babauta

When I sat down to interview Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich for my new Habits of Entrepeneur video series, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

This is a man who is enormously successful, but his philosophy seems very different than mine. Still, I respect him tremendously, and couldn’t wait to dig into his mind and habits.

It turns out, maybe unsurprisingly, that Ramit is a very sharp guy. He’s intensely interested in optimizing his life, and has learned a lot about himself and how to turn his limitations into strengths.

In this interview (you can watch part of it for free, above), Ramit shared how he starts his day, how he keeps things organized and easy to actually do, how he uses challenges, how he stays fit, and much more.

This is the first interview in the Habits of Entrepeneur video series, and I’m excited to share the rest with you soon. I plan to have one new video out every 2 weeks (I already have 6 months’ worth recorded!).

Watch the video above, and then feel free to check out the full video by subscribing â€" for $9/month, your subscription gets:

1. A new Habits of Entrepreneurs video interview every 2 weeks, emailed to your inbox
2. Bonus videos: Leo’s Entrepreneurial Habits, Leo’s Habits for Creating, and How to Create Habits
3. Bonus ebook: Leo’s Zen to Done - The Ultimate Simple Productivity System ($9.50 value)
4. Bonus ebook package: Leo’s focus: a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction ($34.95 value)

Read more.

The Time to Shut Down

By Leo Babauta

In our lives immersed in technology, we rarely shut everything off.

We turn on when we wake up, and are on our devices until we go to sleep. And every hour in between.

I’m not immune to this. Very few people these days are.

And yet, there’s value in shutting everything down, so that we can reconnect with life. With people. With the moment. With ourselves.

There’s a time to work hard, and there should be a time to shut down. Otherwise, it all blends together and nothing has any space.

What time will you shut down today?

The Pain & Beauty of Life Changes

By Leo Babauta

The reason for our suffering is our resistance to the changes in life.

And life is all changes.

While I resist change (and suffer) just like anyone else, I have learned to adapt. I’ve learned some flexibility. I’ve realized this:

Everything changes, and this is beautiful.

The Pain of Life’s Changes

What do I mean that our suffering comes from resistance to the changes in life?

Let’s take a look at some things that give us trouble:

• Someone yells at you at work. The change is rooted in the fact that we expect people to treat us kindly and fairly and with respect, but the reality is that they don’t always. When they don’t, we resist this reality, and want things to be the way we want them to be. And so we get mad, or hurt, or offended.
• Your 3-year-old (or 13-year-old) won’t listen to you. Again, you expect your child to behave a certain way, but of course reality is different. And when reality doesn’t conform to our expectations, we are stressed out.
• You lose your job. This is a huge change, that affects not only your financial stability, but your identity. If you are a teacher, and lose your teaching job, you now have to deal with the changes in how you see yourself. This can be very difficult. Resisting these changes (and the financial constraints that come with the job loss) can be very painful.
• You have too many tasks and feel overwhelmed. What is the change here? We want things to be in control, but of course they aren’t. New tasks and information come in, new requests, new demands. And these are changes that are difficult, because we thought we had our day under control, and now it’s not. And so we feel overwhelmed and stressed.
• A loved one dies. One of the ultimate changes is death, of course, but what has changed? Well, the person is obviously no longer in our life (at least, not in the same way), but just as painfully, we are not the same person when a loved one dies. We have to change who we are â€" we’re now a widower instead of a husband, a father without his daughter, or a friend who is left alone (for example). We want life to be the way it was, but it isn’t, so we grief, we rage.

That’s just a start. Things change all the time, and we resist it. Our day changes, our relationships change, other people don’t act the way they should, we ourselves are changing, constantly, and this is hard to deal with.

So this is the pain of change, of not being in control, of things not meeting our expectations.

How do we cope?

The Beauty of Life Changes

We can cope with the pain in numerous ways: get angry and yell, drink or do drugs, eat junk food, watch TV or find other distractions. We can find positive ways to cope with the stress and hurt and anger: exercise, talking about our problems with a friend, or trying to take control of the situation in some way (planning, taking action, having a difficult conversation to work out differences, etc.).

Or, we can embrace the changes.

If changes are a basic fact of life (actually life is nothing but change), then why resist? Why not embrace and enjoy?

See the beauty of change.

It’s hard, because we’re so used to resisting.

Let’s put aside our resistance and judgments for a few minutes, and look for beauty in life’s changes:

• Someone yells at you at work. This person is hurting, frustrated, angry, and is taking it out on you. They are reaching out, trying to control the chaos of life (uselessly of course), and are not succeeding. Can you empathize with this? Have you ever felt this? There is beauty in our similarities, in our joint pain, in our connection as humans. Mentally embrace this beautiful, hurting human being, feel his pain, give your compassion.
• Your 3-year-old (or 13-year-old) won’t listen to you. Amazingly, your child is asserting her independence. She is showing that she’s a full human being, not just a robot who follows orders. Have you ever been in that position? Have you ever been frustrated by someone else trying to control you? There is beauty in this independence, this fighting spirit, this rebellion. That’s what life is (OK, life is change, but also rebellion against control). Smile at this beauty, love it, give your child some space to grow.
• You lose your job. As difficult as this is, it’s an ending, but also a beginning. It’s the start of a new journey, the opportunity to refresh your life, to reinvent who you are. See the beauty in this opportunity, the liberation from the “usual way”.
• You have too many tasks and feel overwhelmed. This is difficult, without a doubt, but it’s possible to surrender to the chaos of tasks and information and demands. You can’t do them all at once, but you can let go of wanting things to be under your complete control. There is beauty in this chaos. It is random, it is crazy, it is life. See the pain of your resistance, and the beauty in this struggle as well. Then realize you can only do one thing at a time, and do that. Then let that go, and do the next thing. By embracing the chaos and seeing the beauty in it, we can be less overwhelmed and stressed out.
• A loved one dies. Maybe the hardest one of all â€" it’s indubitably sad. But death is an ending, which is a necessity. Ending are necessary for beauty: otherwise we don’t appreciate the thing, because it’s unlimited. Limits are beauty. And death is the ultimate limit, a reminder that we need to appreciate this beautiful thing called life while we have it. Death is also a beginning â€" not in the sense of an afterlife, but a beginning for the survivors. While we have lost an important person, this ending, like the loss of a job, is a moment of reinvention. It might seem sad, but we are forced to reinvent our lives when a loved one dies, and in this reinvention is opportunity. Which I think is beautiful. Finally, of course, death is an opportunity to remember the person’s life, and be grateful for what they gave us.

The possibilities of finding beauty in our struggles with change are endless. And, I believe, that’s beautiful in its own way.

8 Creativity Lessons from a Pixar Animator

‘I want to put a ding in the universe.’ ~Steve Jobs

By Leo Babauta

Sometimes immersing yourself in the creative world of people doing amazing things can bring unexpected results.

My son Justin is interested in 3D animation, and my daughter Chloe is into screenwriting, and so it was a thrill to take them on a tour of Pixar Animation Studios, courtesy of one of the Pixar animators.

Bernhard Haux is a “character technical director”, which in his case means he models characters and works on their internal motions (I think â€" I didn’t fully grasp the lingo). Which means he is just a small piece in the larger Pixar machine, but a piece that’s aware of what everyone else is doing too. He’s worked on major movies such as Up, Brave, Monsters U and others in the last 6 years.

Bernhard was gracious enough to show us around the Pixar campus, and while we couldn’t really dig into their super-secret process, we did get a few glimpses of the magic.

And as a result of these small glimpses, I learned some surprising things.

I’d like to share them here, in hopes that they’ll inspire others as they inspired me.

Creativity Lessons

Bernhard actually answered a whole bunch of our questions, and I was too polite to record it all, so here are a few things I remember:

1. Tenacity matters. Bernhard told a story of a friend who did a drawing every day, for more than 3 years, and became amazingly good by the end of that stint. He shared Looney Toons legendary animator Chuck Jones’ assertion that you have to draw 100,000 bad drawings before you have a good drawing. Bernhard said you might not seem very good at something when you start out, but if you’re persistent, tenacious even, you can get amazingly good.
2. Art is your particular telling of reality. When we talked about letting go of preconceived ideas and drawing what you actually see, Bernhard compared it to a night out with one of his friends. While Bernhard might just recount that night by saying, “We went out and had some food and went home”, his friend might have noticed a lot of interesting details that Bernhard didn’t, and tell a story with those details in a way that’s interesting and hilarious. Same experience, different interpretation, different details.
3. Feed off others’ ideas. When Pixar artists create characters, it’s not a matter of one artist sketching out how he thinks a character should look. They sit around a table, each drawing ideas, putting them in the middle, and others taking those ideas and riffing off them. Dozens and dozens of sketches come out from this process, until they find the one that works best. This means everyone’s creativity builds on the creativity of everyone else. This, btw, can help you even if you don’t have a bunch of other geniuses to work with â€" find others who are creating cool things, and riff off them, and share your riffs.
4. Let go of ego. Imagine if you’ve put a great sketch into the pile, and you think it’s the one that should be used. But because so many talented artists are throwing ideas into the pile, the fact is that most ideas/sketches won’t be used. They’ll be discarded. If you want your idea to win, you’ll fight for it, but this only hurts the process. Pixar animators have to let go of their egos, and put the best interests of the project first. I think this is true of any creative project.
5. Everyone should know the mission well. Some studios outsource their animation work overseas, but then the animators often don’t know what the movie is about, and don’t really care about the final process, because they’re just doing one tiny piece. But at Pixar, everyone involved is pushing forward, trying to create the best movie possible, and they take pride in this mission. That means that everyone is invested in the mission, everyone truly cares about the work they’re producing, and it shows in the final creation.
6. Lots of hard work, tiny but amazing results. When Pixar created Brave, deleted scenes that didn’t make the final cut would have made the movie 5 times as long. A ton of little visual jokes didn’t make the movie. That means that hours and hours of creative, brilliant work were thrown out, and only the best of the best of all of this creative process actually was used. That’s a lot of amazing stuff, to get very little. That means what we actually see is of incredible quality.
7. Surround yourself with heroes. When Bernhard was intervied at Pixar about 6 years ago, it took all day. The list of people interviewing him was a list of his personal heroes. That’s who he works with, the best in the world. How inspiring is that? You’d jump out of bed to get to work each morning, wouldn’t you? Of course, not all of us are that lucky, but we can surround ourselves with the work of our heroes, and use them for inspiration, maybe even reach out and meet one or two of them someday. Shoot for the stars, or at least illuminate your life with their light.
8. Help those just starting out. Bernhard took the time out of his day to give us a tour, because a teen-age young man is interested in computer animation. That’s exceptional. His reasoning: ” I was where Justin is right now, and it’s nice to pass on what I know today. Passion and dreams are important to keep alive.” How many of us do that?

Bernhard, thank you. And thank you to everyone out there who is making something, inspiring others, letting go of ego, taking time to help those just starting out, and showing us that tenaciousness pays off. We all owe you, for what you put into this world.

Zen Mountain: Leave It All Behind

“What day is it?”
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

By Leo Babauta

Last weekend I spent nearly four days leading a retreat, at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. To get to this Zen center, you make a journey through a twisting bumpy rising falling mountain road, and then you’ve arrived.

And what a place to arrive at! It’s a place of peace, with a silently gushing river, people meditating all the time, everyone walking slowly, no distractions, constant gratitude and mindfulness. A beautiful place of peace.

As I contemplated the peace of leaving it all behind, I wondered why we need a place in the mountains for this kind of peace.

And so I’ve been practicing (imperfectly, of course) leaving it all behind, no matter what I’m doing.

What is this like?

Imagine you’re going to meet with someone, but you’re still thinking about the project you’ve been working on. You’ve brought the project with you. It distracts you so that you don’t fully hear the person you’re with, and they can sense your lack of attention, your lack of presence. This hurts the relationship. It stresses you out, because you’re working on the project and talking with someone at the same time. You are less competent with one task because you’re still thinking about another.

Stress, less competency, and hurt relationships. This is what we have when we bring everything with us to every activity.

But if you can leave the project behind, the talk will be much better. You’ll be fully present, fully engaged. Less stressed.

A place of peace.

How to Leave It All Behind

So how do we leave everything behind, so that we can find peace?

It’s not easy. It’s practice, then more practice. But it’s worthwhile practice.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

When I arrive in a new place, or talk to someone, or start something new … I pause.

Then I take a brief moment to journey through the mountain road, leaving behind the rest of my life. I let go, by loosening my grip, by relaxing instead of grasping. I see it fall behind.

I then arrive in the new place. I look around, smile, enjoy. I inhabit the new place. I give thanks for being here.

Then I put my attention on this new place. This new person. This new activity.

When I notice my attention wander, I return.

I let go of the need to check, to constantly be busy with something else, to know what’s going on or to do everything.

I am just here.

And here is great.

Overcoming the Social Costs of Being Different

‘From now on, I’ll connect the dots my own way.’ ~Bill Watterson

By Leo Babauta

Goodness knows I’ve put in my share of being different than most people. I’ve had to explain myself more times than is believable, and I’ve dealt with people avoiding my company because of my differentness.

And yet, despite the hassles and the isolation, I wouldn’t want to give up my differentness.

It’s who I am. And being like everyone else would be less authentic.

How am I different? Here are a few examples:

• I’m vegan
• I unschool my kids
• I’m a minimalist (and wear the same clothes over and over, have very little)
• My family and I are car-free
• Recently I haven’t been eating eat sugar or flour or fried foods
• I meditate
• I don’t have a “real” job (people don’t seem to understand what a blogger does)
• I mostly live without goals
• I don’t eat fast food
• I don’t have debt, nor own a home (nor do I plan to anytime soon)

None of that is to brag â€" I don’t think any of those makes me any better than anyone else, nor do I think I’m the first to do any of these. They’re just a part of who I am â€" and in fact, I’m different in many less visible ways.

I’m also similar to most people in many ways â€" I fail, I hurt, I get scared, I get angry, I am shy, I doubt myself. I am human and imperfect.

But the differences stand out when I socialize.

The Social Costs of Being Different

My differences isolate me and make me have to explain myself and make me have less in common with other people.

For example, when I socialize:

• If we’re eating, I always have to explain my vegan-ness. I always have to answer questions about protein, and what would happen to the animals if we didn’t provide for them (before we slaughter them), and isn’t soy bad for you, and so on. My veganism becomes the focus of conversation, making me feel a bit weird because I don’t eat like everyone else.
• If everyone else is eating fast food or desserts, I abstain. They seem to love it, but I can’t agree, so I’m not a part of it.
• Being different means some people don’t know what to talk to me about, because the normal topics don’t apply to me. It’s harder for them to relate.
• People get defensive about my differences â€" unschooling makes them feel like bad parents if they send/sent their kids to school, and veganism can make them try to defend their way of eating, and so on.
• I get teased (usually in a good-natured way, but still) about eating rabbit food or having an empty house or c’mon, wouldn’t you just love some of this delicious meat (not really).
• People judge me, or if they don’t judge, they just see me as different.
• Sometimes family members actually get mad at us for being different than them, or for being bad parents (as vegans or unschoolers).
• Some people refuse to eat our food, which means they are less likely to visit.
• Sometimes I just don’t feel like hanging out with people who are being unhealthy or going through life not caring about what they do or who just want to get drunk or stoned. I don’t think they’re bad people, but it’s not that fun for me.

That’s just the start of it, but you get the idea. Does any of this sound familiar to you? If you’re different, do you feel social isolation from many people? You might not have the same differences as me, but maybe you see some commonalities here.

What’s a person to do? I have some strategies.

Dealing With the Social Costs

I might have painted a negative picture above, but actually there are lots of ways to deal with these challenges, and also lots of positives:

1. Embrace your differences. While being different can be a bit hard, it’s not a bad thing. Being different is who makes you who you are. It means you’re daring to live your own life, on your terms, with your values. It means you have courage to stand out from the mainstream. It means you’re interesting. Hug those differences, be grateful for them, own them. Be proud of them.
2. See the teaching opportunity. Part of why I live my life differently is to be an example, to show that there are alternatives, that we don’t have to be consumerists or buy into the system or support factory farming or be unhealthy or give our responsibility to educate our kids away (for example). And so when people have questions, as tiring as they can be, actually I am grateful for the opportunity to educate, to share, to explore interesting ground with people. I actually love talking about unschooling, for example, and while I know people have objections, I had those objections too once, and I have explored answers to them that I’d love to share. It can be tiring, but it can also be a wonderful thing that someone else is curious. Curiosity is a gift.
3. Find company in yourself. You can be at a party, in the middle of a crowd of people who don’t connect with you, and be perfectly OK. It’s not necessarily lonely if you like your own company. But you also don’t have to be isolated â€" see the next item.
4. Be curious. If you’re isolated at a party, there are ways to beat this. For example, don’t think just because people are different than you that you don’t have things in common. Be curious about them, and instead of thinking, “They don’t understand”, realize that maybe you don’t understand. Get to know them, see the beauty in them, find things that you love, understand why they live the way they do. Listen. Look.
5. Find friends who understand. The above notwithstanding, there are people who will embrace your differences, even think you’re awesome because of them. They might also be vegan (for example), or they might just be very individualistic people who think your radical-ness is cool. You share stories about your lives, find them fascinating, want to hang out. And in this exploration, you meet some fascinating open-minded people you can connect with.
6. The nay-sayers drift. While I love my family and old friends who don’t understand my differences, if they constantly attack and get angry and talk behind my back, I probably won’t want to hang out with them as much. They tend to drift out of my life, because they don’t really want to engage in an open discussion, and that makes it hard to have a relationship.
7. Turn your different-ness into an advantage. While there might be costs to being different, actually there are huge benefits too. Being different means you stand out, which is a good thing in a world where everyone is trying to blend in. It means you’re interesting, because you’re different. It means you are less restricted by what’s comfortable, able to explore new ground, not afraid of things because you don’t know about them. It means you’re learning more than most people. These are huge advantages, if you use them to build a business, make friends, and live the life you want to live.

I’m not going to pretend that being different is easy. But it is the only way I would live.

Finding Quiet and Mindfulness Through Food

Note from Leo: Jodi Ettenberg, author of The Food Traveler’s Handbook: How to Find Cheap, Safe and Delicious Food Anywhere in the World is a friend of mine, an amazing person, an accomplished world traveler. A former lawyer, she writes about the stories behind the foods we eat on her site, Legal Nomads. She gets the shakes if she goes too long without sticky rice.

And now I’ll turn it over to Jodi!

In the middle of a visit to Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, I found myself sitting on the floor of a temple kitchen, chopsticks in hand.  The others in my group, a haphazard mix of people from my tiny guesthouse, were long gone. I wondered if they would realize I was missing, but I didn’t really care. I was too busy staring at the woman in front of me, an older lady with cropped gray hair and very few teeth. On our visit to this temple, a woman’s shelter in the middle of Cai Rang, we took a shortcut through the kitchen to get to the next section of the building. Everyone walked through without stopping. I took one look at the bubbling pots of vegetarian food, the bustle of women chopping and moving and stirring, and I crouched down to ask what was going on.

Lunch, it turned out, was going on. And the women making it, ranging from 15 to 75 years old, were beside themselves with mirth that I wanted to get in on the fun.

*

The idea of quiet is one Leo has addressed thoughtfully on this site, and a concept that differs depending on where we are in this world. When not at home, how do we remain mindful and carve out a quiet space even as noise and newness whir around us? For me, the answer is through food.

In a guest post in 2010, Jules Clancy discussed mindfulness while eating, talking about routines and awareness during mealtimes. From a different angle, I wanted to address food as a tool to connect to a place and its people, grounding us all in the process.

Here’s how:

1. During pre-trip research, learn not just about the history of a place but also about the stories behind the foods you will eat. I often use the example of ketchup, formerly a Fujianese fermented fish sauce that has morphed into the sweet condiment we know (and some of us love) today. Each of the table condiments, spices and dishes has taken form over the years. What better way to learn and be present in what is “now” than by examining how we got here?  It is also a really effective way to get kids interested in food. Other examples include how tomatoes came to Italy and how the chili came to India. In each of these cases, we can all deepen appreciation of a place, its customs and its foods in tracing the roots of one specific food.

Resources:

2. Use food etiquette rules as a springboard for understanding culture. Reading about a place is no substitute for being there and watching life unfold, and table manners are no exception.  The resources below are starting points but the real fun comes in observing from the ground level. I’ve found myself truly appreciating all the little things that go into mealtimes by paying close attention to the traditions each country abides by as it eats. In Thailand, for example, I learned that one should eat off a plate that has been stacked on another, as that ritual is reserved for memorializing the dead. In Indonesia, I was reminded to eat with my right hand (tough for a lefty!), stemming from traditions of bathroom ablutions and which hand is cleaner for use during mealtimes. While not required when visiting a new place, adhering to some of these traditions indicates some prior research, and often has resulted in an impromptu invite to join a family table or two.

Resources:

3. Go to markets at dawn with a pen, a paper and no camera. I love Instagram and memorializing my meals through photos, but one of the first things I do in a new country is head to the dawn food markets with a pen and a paper, and nothing more. The first thoughts that come to you as you explore that initial sensory overload are the ones that stay with you, and having them scribbled down on paper entrenches them into your mind that much more. With kids, I often suggest crayons and a notebook too â€" it has been fascinating to watch their colorful take on a morning market scene. A bonus to return to later on, once you are more accustomed to your destination, these initial thoughts and notes serve to remind you of the simple pleasures of watchfulness.

4. Pick the street stalls with women and children in line. Observation is part of what makes travel fun, and mealtimes are an ideal opportunity to look around and learn. When choosing your street stalls, I suggest picking ones with women and children in line, as those will often be the safer options from a food poisoning angle. Families eating at a crowded stall > just taxi drivers eating at a crowded stall, especially for a foreign (visiting) stomach. I would also caution against eating at a stall where the person preparing the food is also touching money â€" picking a stall with two people (one for payment, one for preparation) might be better for your stomach.

5. Appreciate the foods you eat and the condiments that flavor them. This is a simple but important point. Travel helps us keep our lives in perspective, both by showing us what we are lucky to have and by juxtaposing different histories and customs over our own. Those of us who can afford to travel usually do take time to appreciate it (I hope!). Food has become the prism for that appreciation in my travels. In observing at how communities supplement ingredients with condiments, make use of whatever they have available, and bring families to the table; we can practice thankfulness in our own routines, even when returning home.

6. Stop to ask questions about why people use food ingredients and how. While not directly contributing to mindful eating, stopping to talk to people about the ingredients they use is a natural extension of the other advice in this post. In most countries around the world, taking that extra step to offer your curiosity can lead to a shared meal, a wedding invite or a chance to try home cooking in a family setting. By showing that you care about the food that binds, you not only connect yourself to your setting but you connect people to you.

In the case of that Mekong meal, I learned that some Vietnamese people practice vegetarianism that is linked to the lunar calendar, eating vegetarian food on the 1^st and 15^th days of each lunar month. They usually visit a temple first, and as a result many temples will prepare vegetarian feasts on those days. Sitting on the floor of the kitchen, I watched the women mix tapioca flour with tofu,  frying the wisps until crispy, and preside over a huge cauldron bubbling with herbs and spices.

And then, I was asked to join in for lunch.

When people ask me how I use food as a tool when I travel, I cite stories like these, examples where stopping to appreciate an ingredient, a method or a tradition has snowballed into a wonderful learning experience. It takes only a few extra minutes of your time but the rewards are internalized and magnified on an infinite scale.

Find more from Jodi Ettenberg at her blog, Legal Nomads, and in her book, The Food Traveler’s Handbook: How to Find Cheap, Safe and Delicious Food Anywhere in the World.

My Failed Month of ‘No Sitting’

‘Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.’ ~Zen Proverb

By Leo Babauta

In my second month of The Year of Living Without, I committed to not sitting for longer than 30 minutes at a time.

I have to admit failure here.

Well, not complete failure. I sat much less in August than I normally do, and was really pretty good in the mornings about remembering to get up (though I did forget a little in the beginning) and walking around, standing and reading, stretching, etc. I also was very active during the month, going for walks, runs, gym workouts, etc.

The problem came when I was tired, usually later in the afternoon and in the evenings. When I was tired, I just couldn’t seem to follow the plan. I would be tired from a long run (for example), and would lie down to take a short nap, and just wouldn’t want to get up. I forgave myself, and let myself rest. I told myself my body needed it.

Social situations were also awkward â€" when I would meet someone for dinner or tea, sitting is the norm. At first, I tried standing up, and explained myself, and felt weird standing up when they were sitting â€" I felt I was making them a little uncomfortable. So I caved there too, and decided not to make my friends or new acquaintances feel weird.

This Year of Living Without is not about making my life miserable, but about learning what it’s like to give up something I don’t want to give up. It’s about learning about resistance, and what it’s like to push back against that internal resistance.

I did learn about that in August.

Here are some lessons:

• When you’re tired, it’s really hard to beat resistance.
• Rest before the resistance comes. Get lots of sleep to change habits.
• It’s hard to remember a day-long habit like not sitting for too long. Start with smaller sections, like just the morning, and then expand.
• In the beginning of a habit, have visual reminders where the habit takes place, so you don’t forget. Enlist the help of others to remind you too.
• Figure out what you’ll do in social situations before they happen. Talk to people before you meet with them, and tell them about your weird habit, and work out a plan together. Otherwise it becomes awkward and you cave in.
• Forgive yourself when you fail.
• Standing, stretching, doing exercises, cleaning, running, walking and generally being more active during the day makes you tired later in the day. I was surprised how tired I got.

Previously: My Month Without Coffee (update: I’ve been drinking coffee again recently)

September: My Month Without TV & Video

This month, I’m going without video of any kind, which includes TV, movies, YouTube and other online video.

I resisted this idea mostly because it’s been my ritual to sit with Eva in the evenings and have a glass of red wine and watch one of our favorite shows for about an hour or so. This was our winding-down ritual, and it was something we shared. I didn’t want to give this up, and every time I considered it previously, I resisted. So I’m giving it up.

The biggest obstacle is losing that shared time with Eva (and the kids sometimes). I’ve suggested that we do something else together in the evening, but at the same time I don’t want to force her to give up TV if she doesn’t want to. So we’re still figuring this out.

My replacement habit is to write, read and do yoga in the evenings. So I’m actually looking forward to this. Actually, I’ve already started (3 days now) and am enjoying the extra time at night, but not enjoying missing the shared family time.

One small slip-up to report already: I watched this video about our smartphones disconnecting us from each other. I liked the video a lot, but then realized I wasn’t supposed to watch it. Oops!

The Thinking Habit That Changed My Life

By Leo Babauta

I remember one evening, when my life was pretty different and I was overweight and deeply in debt and a smoker and had such a hard time changing things … I wasn’t feeling too good about my life.

I felt horrible about myself, and wondered why I was stuck. I felt hopeless and helpless, and generally depressed about the state of things around me.

Then I looked up at the sky, and saw the stars set in a deep blue-black canvas. And I thought, what a miracle life is.

And I resolved to mentally list the things I had in my life that were good.

My list of good things was something like this:

• I had a wonderful wife
• I had 5 amazing children (now 6)
• I had loving parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins
• I wasn’t sick
• I had a job
• I had decent shelter and food
• My family was healthy
• I could see, and appreciate the beauty of the world around me
• I could taste delicious food
• I had great books to read

The list went on, but you get the idea. Even when things seemed horrible for me, actually I was OK. And more than that, I had some amazing blessings in my life.

That night I resolved to count my blessings more often. I resolved to be grateful for what I had, for the people in my life.

I started the habit of gratitude.

Now, this seems like a trivial and maybe trite and hokey thing to many people. I’m here to tell you that it’s not trivial, and as trite/hokey as it may seem, it changes lives.

Here’s what happened to me, as I changed my thinking from one of negativity, to one of gratitude:

• I appreciated my wife Eva more, and told her so, and felt good about having her in my life, and we deepened our relationship.
• I also appreciated my kids more, and instead of getting mad at them so much, I would notice their lovingness, their curiosity, their humor and playfulness.
• I appreciated my other loved ones more, and while I don’t always tell them how grateful I am for them, I do think it a lot, and do tell them much more often now.
• I was kinder to others around me, at work and everywhere else, because instead of seeing the faults in everyone, I saw the good, and was grateful for them.
• I needed less, because instead of thinking about what I don’t have, I was grateful for what I did have.
• Little things bothered me less, because instead of complaining about every little thing, I would find things to be thankful for.
• I appreciated nature all around me, smaller things that I might have missed before, beauty in everything.
• Habit change became easier, because instead of focusing on how hard the change was, I found the joy in the changes, and joy in seeing myself overcome challenges.
• Each and every moment became cause for gratitude, and living in the present became easier.

The list goes on and on, but each of these things is incredibly powerful. Not trite. Not hokey. Pure wonder.

So how do you pick up this habit? It’s interesting, because so much of our lives is spent in unconscious mental habits. Without knowing it, we complain, we nitpick, we stress about little faults, we see the bad in people and situations. Changing that doesn’t happen immediately.

But. You can change a little at a time. Start with a small gratitude session, and really be thankful. Really feel the happiness that something or someone is in your life.

Take a moment to make a list, right now, of the things in your life you’re thankful for. You just might be looking back on this moment years later, as the moment your entire life changed.

The Be Grateful Month in Sea Change

If you’d like help forming the gratitude habit, please join us in the Sea Change Program â€" this month we’re working on the Be Grateful Module, forming the gratitude habit a little bit each day.

I offer a few articles and a live webinar on the topic, along with forums and accountability groups to help you stick to this (or any other) habit.

Join us now: the Sea Change Program