Are You Having Burnout? Here’s The Solution…

Burnout is expensive. 

I know from personal experience.  I experienced one over fifteen years ago.  It cost me my health, my relationships, the vibrancy of my faith and happiness of work.

Today, I try to stay clear from burnout by watching for the signs that I had during that difficult season of my life.  See if you have any of them…

·      I was always tired.  Even after waking up in the morning after supposedly a good night’s rest, I wake up already exhausted and drained.

·      I dreaded to go to the office.

·      I felt depressed.  Many times, I felt helpless at the difficulties and conflicts that I was facing at work.

·      I doubted myself so much.  I lost confidence and wondered what in the world was I doing in my job.  I wanted out.

·      I was more susceptible to psychosomatic illnesses, like frequent colds, stomach problems, etc.

Researchers state that there are certain professions that are prone to burnout, such as high-pressured business positions as well as the helping professions: doctors, nurses, clergy, missionaries, counselors, social workers, and teachers.

When you see these symptoms and if you’re in these professions, you know that you’re a prime candidate for burnout. 

Watch Out For Causes Of Burnout

      

Let me share with you the causes for my burnout and find out if any of them look familiar to you.  Remember that this is simply myexperience and therefore other factors may trigger another person’s burnout.  But sharing these circumstances to you will give you an idea and spur you on to explore your own life for possible causes.

As I reflected on my ordeal, there were internal and externalcauses—and this is important to know because healing our burnout by changing our environment won’t solve our problems if your burnout has internal causes.  You could change jobs and even go to another country and still experience burnout in your next job and company if you don’t deal with the inner attitudes that need changing.

Internal Causes:

·      I had low self-worth.  I used my achievements to cover up my need for affirmation and love from others, but no matter how much success I had at work, my broken self-image kept asking for more.

·      I had ambition, driven by my low self-worth.  I had so much drive, I could work for sixteen hours straight.

·      I had an overwhelming fear of conflicts and rejection, and so avoided problems and conflicts.  I needed love so much, I didn’t want anyone to get angry with me—so I tried my very best and exhausted every means to please everyone.  Naturally, that goal was impossible and will always be impossible.

External Causes:

·      According to psychologists, working for either extreme—an authoritarian, demanding boss, or a vacillating, wishy-washy boss—will produce burnout.

·      I had chronic conflicts with co-workers.  Conflicts are normal in our world but when they become prolonged and unresolved, they can cause burnout.

·      Low moral in the office was pervasive.

·      There was poor communication between the different parts of my organization.

If you are familiar with these causes, you have more chances of avoiding burnout.

Deal With The Two Sides Of Burnout

How did I get over my burnout?

        First, I had to deal with the internal causes.

I had to change my attitudes toward my work and myself.  I was depending on my work to prop up a poor self-image.  So I needed to heal that poor self-image.  Now note that healing low self-worth and taming fears is a life-long process, but recognizing them within you is already a first step in the right direction.  Remember that any addiction is a way of escaping feeling the most painful emotions of life.  In this case, a burnout victim is using his work as the escape hatch so he won’t feel the fears, the loneliness, the sadness, and the traumas in his past.  By entering into these feelings of pain, acknowledging them, embracing them, accepting them, and allowing yourself to feel their fiercest storms within will shrink these monsters to their true size.

A burnout victim doesn’t genuinely love himself, and he needs to learn this virtue before he experiences healing.  By allowing himself to feel his emotions as is, no matter how painful they are, he is giving a message to himself that “you’re worthy” and “you’re normal” and “I respect what you’re going through.”

Loving himself will also mean developing healthy boundaries between himself and his work and the people around him.  Because the burnout victim has blurred his identity with the success or failure of his work and what other people say about him, he needs to distinguish his own worth from these two separate realities.  He needs to learn that his life is more than his professional reputation and the bottom-line of his financial statements.  This “more” are his values or moral code and his spirituality.  From this deeper self, he should then craft a higher purpose for living that is beyond career goals or financial objectives.

Finally, loving himself means adapting practical self-care habits—developing exercise, meditation, healthy diets, engaging hobbies, and other wonderful stuff that burnout victims and workaholics neglect.

       Second, I also had to deal with the external causes.

My working environment was so awash with indecisiveness (mine) and the resultant disorganization, low morale, disorganization, and chaos; it was definitely causing my burnout.  So for the first time in a long, long time, I faced my fears by meeting people I had conflicts with.  I made hard decisions at work, no matter how unpopular they were.  I “created” a few enemies by doing what I believed was right.  I removed staffers who were hindering the mission of the organization.  Believe me, healing my burnout wasn’t popping a few pills into my mouth; it was major surgery!

I did this by asking help from people I could trust.  Having a group of friends around you, assisting you and praying for you, was a real gift from God to me.

Don’t Burnout, Burn-up!

After a bout with burnout, some people think that the way to go is to coast along and be boring.  In other words, be monotonous so that you won’t burnout again.

But that’s not true.  The antidote to burnout is to burn-up!  Ferdinand Foch said, The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.

Let me give you an illustration.  Think of an oil lamp.

A burnout victim is simply a lighted oil lamp that didn’t have oil.  The result?  The flame burned and consumed the entire wick rather quickly.

The solution is not to keep the oil lamp unlighted.  It will not serve its purpose.

The solution is to put oilin the oil lamp and to light it again.

You and I were created for a purpose.  For a sacred mission larger than us.  We need to live and be consumed by this higher vision!

But to be aflame by a vision for the long term, we need oil.

And that oil is the core values written in the fabric of our soul.  We need to live by those values: love for self, for our neighbor, and for our God.

And love for self will include the virtue of balance.

Because I don’t need to borrow worth from my achievements as a crutch for my own self-value, I work in my job without the pressure.  I work for love and the happiness that I feel in my work.  There’s balance!  My oil is constantly replenished.

       And when my day of departure comes, when my body reaches its end, I shall gladly allow the fire of my sacred mission consume the last dregs of me.

       Don’t burnout, Burn-up!

       May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

Are You A Lifeaholic?

I was a true-blooded, full-pledged workaholic. 

I’ve now converted and have become a lifeaholic—if there’s such a thing.  I’m now “addicted” to breathe, to love, to quiet, to beauty, to balance, to peace, to joy, to simplicity, and all the wonderful stuff contained in this adventure called life.

          A workaholic works long hours. 

        But a lifeaholic works regular hours.

          A workaholic has very shallow friendships, in and out of work.

      

       A lifeaholic treasures his deep friendships as his greatest wealth.

         A workaholic works with no defined goals.  He just wants to be busy.

      But a lifeaholic has defined goals and works towards attaining them.  And half of these goals have nothing to do with his work.

           A workaholic has no interests outside of work.

       A lifeaholic on the other hand has pleasurable interests outside his work.

          A workaholic cannot delegate.

         A lifeaholic makes delegation his master skill.

          A workaholic doesn’t take vacations.  And if he is forced to take one, his mind will still be trapped in his office desk no matter where he goes.

         A lifeaholic on the other hand takes afternoon naps, annual personal retreats, second honeymoons, regular family picnics, and weekly day-offs with gusto.

          A workaholic feels that life is one huge problem.

      

        A lifeaholic feels that life is one mysterious and wonderful gift.

     The choice is yours…

Laugh More Often

And one of the most important marks of a lifeaholic is laughter.  I love the Zen proverb that says, Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.

Laughter is one of the simplest, most inexpensive, drug-free stress-reduction gifts of the universe!  Experience the healing energy of laughter flow through your body, soul, and mind regularly.  Simplicity means not taking yourself too seriously, and the alternative can only be laughter.

       Norman Cousins, who pioneered scientific research on laughter, labeled laughter as “inner jogging,” noting its healthful effects on muscle relaxation, heart rate, and blood pressure.  He writes, “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect that would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”  He credibly claims that his cancer was healed by laughter.  And for him, his laughter regimen included watching old films of Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges!

       Don’t take life too seriously—especially the small irritations of your day.  Instead of being frustrated at traffic, try laughing at the silly way we urbanites live.

Most especially, laugh at yourself and at your mistakes.

       You might have seen this quote somewhere else (it’s the stuff people forward to each other through e-mail) but I re-quote it here nonetheless because it points to what we’ve been talking about.

“If I had my life to live over,…I would relax.  I would be sillier than I have been in this trip.  I know of a very few things I would take seriously.  I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets…  I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones…  If I had my life to live over, I would ride more merry-go-rounds,…pick more daisies.”

Do you laugh at yourself and the crazy things in your life?

Do you regularly involve yourself in playful activities?  If you enjoy humor books and films, why not enjoy a good dose of belly laughter every once in a while?

Make a list of playful activities you want to try in the coming week.

          Don’t wait to live life over.

          Do it now.

           Be a lifeaholic and laugh more often.

           May your dreams come true,

           Bo Sanchez

How To Get To Zero-Debt As Fast As Possible

I love retelling my experience in Grade Four.

A few classmates of mine started wearing long khaki pants for their uniform.  

Suddenly, they looked so mature, so grown up, so guwapo–while all of us who wore khaki shorts were so totoy.  

So I asked Mom to buy me a pair of long pants.  But she kept on saying, “Let’s save for it, Bo.” 

The following year, I was in Grade Five, I was the only one wearing shorts.  It was humiliating. 

And in Grade Six, I was the only guy wearing a bikini.  That’s what my classmates called my shorts as I had already outgrown them….

Believe me, I have never again been so sexy in my life.

Finally, on graduation day, I wept with pure joy when Mom gave me my very own pair of pants.  Oh, I didn’t care that the hemline at the bottom was extra heavy—because it had six folds. (When I asked my mother why, she said, “So that I can adjust it as you get taller.”)  To me, they were the most beautiful pair of long pants in the world.

But ironically, after a while, the thrill faded away.  Because I wanted to wear jeans.

“Mom, everyone has at least one pair!” I pleaded.

When she bought me one, I soared to cloud nine and romped off with it like a prince.  I thought my happiness would never end, until I went to my classmates to show off my jeans.

“Our jeans are Levi’s,” one of them told me, “What’s yours?”  I didn’t know.  So he looked at the label of my jeans and read it out loud for all to hear, “Yours is Ludy’s…”

But to this day, Ludy’s has been a symbol of my happy lifestyle.

       In fact, people ask me, “Why do you have so few desires in your life now?”  The answer comes from my bikini experience: I’ve realized that all human desire never quits on you.  We just keep on wanting more and more stuff.  Nothing ever satisfies.

Never believe your desires when it says, “After this, I’ll be satisfied.”

Do you have debt right now?  Get rid of it.  The Bible says, Those who borrow are slaves of moneylenders. (Proverbs 22:7)

If you want to get to Zero-Debt as quickly as possible, you need to have the Ludy’s attitude too.

Never Borrow To Buy Deteriorating Stuff

       If you want to get out of debt, the first step is to STOP borrowing for anything that deteriorates in value.

      

Just to let you know, I use my credit cards for convenience—so I don’t carry a lot of cash.  But I don’t borrow from it.  That means at the end of the month, I pay the entire amount.

Do you have something you want to buy right now and are tempted to buy it on credit?  Don’t.  Save up for it every month.  Tame your I-Want-It-Now monster.  See what happens to your desire after a few months of saving.  You might wake up to realize you don’t really need it.

Debt Freedom, Anyone?

       List down all your debts, from those with the highest interest down to the lowest interest.  If you have huge credit card debts or if you used loan sharks that charge usurious interest rates, a stop-gap measure is to ask around for “cheaper” loans that charge lower interest and transfer your loans there. I repeat: This is just a temporary solution.  At the end of the day, you want to wipe out all your debts.

       Even as you’re trying to pay off your higher interest loans, try to pay the lower ones with the minimum amount.  By giving your creditors even a few hundred pesos a month, you’re telling them that you’re not running away.  In fact, call them up and tell them you’re working at your finances.

       I’ll say it again: Save as much as you can from your current expenses and pour it all in your debts.

Do you dream of ever reaching the state of zero-debt?   Fire up this dream!  Make a payment scheme plan and calculate when you will reach zero-debt.  Print this date—month and year—with big letters in your journal.  Have faith and stick to your plan.

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

Don’t Try To Look Wealthy (Just Be One!)

Do you want to become wealthy?

       Don’t try to appear like one.  Just be one.

In the bestselling book, Millionaire’s Next Door,authors Thomas Stanely and William Danko were surprised to discover that “real” millionaires in America have very simple tastes.  Let me say that again, lest you think that was a typo error: Most REAL millionaires have a simple lifestyle…

In their book, the real millionaire was not defined by how much money he earned but by how much wealth he kept.  (My definition is slightly different: The real millionaire is defined by how much wealth he gives away!)  Their point?  You could earn buckets of cash but that doesn’t mean you’re wealthy.  You could earn millions but are still be buried in debt, still have financial worries, and have a net worth of a doughnut—because you’ve been SPENDING it all on deteriorating stuff.

Don’t be shocked, but these authors found out that most of the real wealthy rarely wore designer clothes, rarely lived in expensive homes, rarely had expensive vacations, and rarely bought luxury cars.  So where did they put their money? They lived way below their earning capacity, so that they could save more and multiply their money through investments and business. 

If you want to be a multimillionaire, I always recommend that you invest at least 20% or more of your monthly income and give 10% of your monthly income to God.  To do that, you need to simplify your life. 

Check this out: According to their surveys, 66% of the buyers of brand new luxury cars were NOT truly wealthy. Most of truly wealthy kept their cars for a number of years.

According to their research, most of the real wealthy didn’t reside in upscale villages.  (One reason was that residing in plush villages would “pressure” them to maintain an upscale lifestyle—something they didn’t want to do.)  And most didn’t change homes for thirty years or more.

One of the most startling facts the authors found out: Most of the real wealthy stayed married with one spouse (no divorce, no alimony), and had a good family life.  They trained their kids in the values of simplicity, frugality, and hard work.

Question: Are you comparing yourself with your richer neighbors and friends?  Give up that nasty habit.  Be happy with where you are and who you are.

       Don’t try to appear wealthy.

A Budget Is A Theological Document;

It Tells You What You Worship

       If you aim for nothing, you’ll get there.

       And if you don’t plan how you’ll spend your money, you’ll also end up in the same place financially: you’ll have nothing at the end of the day.

First of all, track your spending.  For the next 30 days, before leaving for work, tuck into your pocket a little notebook where you can jot down expenses every time you purchase something.  Each new day should have its own page.  Tedious?   Don’t worry—you’ll get the hang of it after awhile, it’ll be like second nature.  Anyway, its just for 30 days.  (Extend it to 60 days if you want more information about your spending.)

       You’re doing this because you want to know where your money goes.  This “diagnosis” will give you the wisdom where to cut back and do some “surgery”.

       At the end of 30 days, pull out your tiny notebook and make a spreadsheet.  (You can also use your computer for this.)  Create categories: Food, House maintenance, Medical, Clothing, Tuition, etc.  Pencil down your expenses and viola, what you’ve got is a “spending record.”

       If you do this for about two months, you can create a “spending plan” or budget—based on your diagnosis.

       One guy who made a spending record for the first time was shocked to realize he could save P3,500 each month if he gave up his after-office-hours snack before returning home.  “I deserve this because I work so hard,” he reasoned—until he summed up the yearlysavings if he went straight home to his wife and let her feed him from their kitchen.

And remember: The moment you get your salary, give your tithes first and your investments second.  If you don’t make these your first payments, trust me, you won’t be able to tithe or invest at all.

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

How To Discover Your Life Dreams

I have an assignment for you.

Do you want to know why you were born?  What your sacred mission in life is?

Here’s what you do: Schedule a few hours for a personal retreat; a whole day is even better.  Get your calendar and cross out that special day with a fat red pen.  No one touches that day.  It’s your date where you discuss your life with God. 

               Take that extended time of personal reflection and bring these questions with you.

Here are some “heart questions” for you to answer…

Questions To Answer:

·      What are your greatest strengths?

·      What is the primary gift that has been given to you to bless the world?

·      What do you enjoy doing the most?

·      What were the happiest moments of your life?  What were you doing during those moments?

·      If given an opportunity to live in anyway and do anything—no matter how crazy your choice would be—what kind of life would you choose to live?

Imagine yourself on your 75^th birthday:

·      What kind of person would you want to be by that time?

·      What accomplishments would you want to have attained?

·      If family members were to honor you on your 75^th birthday party, and thank you and speak about the good things that you have done,what would you want them to say to you?

·

Write down a tentative Personal Mission Statement:

From your answers above, write a tentative Personal Mission Statement.  This one sentence should express what you most deeply believe your life should attain at the end of your days.   It should be inspiring and moving as well.   And don’t worry if it won’t be perfect.  Your Personal Mission Statement should undergo much revision and editing as the weeks, months, and years go by.   You should review your Personal Mission Statement in prayer regularly.

Finally, write down your Life-Dreams

Now that you’ve written down a Personal Mission Statement, write down a description of your life twenty years down the road.  Picture yourself, your schedule, your work, your house, your relationships, your projects, your character in vivid detail.  Don’t worry if you fill a few pages for your Life-Dreams.  Let your heart speak as you paint in the canvas of your imagination.

Create Your Financial Plan Based

On Your Life-Dreams

After writing your Life-Dreams document, write your financial plan: How much you should be earning next year.

       Writing down a financial goal is an exercise in faith.  And an exercise in personal commitment.  Your mind will be forced to open up and think of ways how those goals would be met.  When I did this, it was as though power was being released as I wrote my financial goals.  But as I scribbled on paper every crazy idea that came to my mind, I repeatedly kept going back to my divinely appointed mission in life—because that was how God was going to provide for me.

       Let me explain.

       I believe that when we’re faithful to our mission and give ourselves to the world and genuinely help people live a better life, we see the world repaying back.  When we give, we receive—and we just don’t receive, but we receive much more than what we have given.  Why?  Because God has written the Law of reciprocity in the fabric of the universe.

Naturally, for this Law of Reciprocity to work, you need to charge what you are worth and not undersell yourself.  Earning money doesn’t make you less spiritual.  If the money that you’re going to earn is to support your God-appointed Life-Dreams, it is very spiritual.  (It’s another issue altogether to be working for a religious ministry or a philanthropic organization where you are voluntarily underselling yourself, choosing rather to pick up non-monetary rewards in the after life.)

       So far, I’ve been able to attain my financial goals—enough to support my family and more than enough to be generous to those in need— the second part being an intrinsic part of my mission.

But more importantly, by creating a financial plan based on my Life-Dreams, I live deliberately, and money is still connected to my mission—not something apart from it.  Because success for me isn’t having the greatest wealth but the fulfillment of my life-dreams—ninety percent of which aren’t financial.

      

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

Do What You Love And Get Paid For It

We give 60% of our waking time to our jobs. 

If we’re unhappy with our jobs, that makes us unhappy in 60% of our life!  That’s why St. Thomas Aquinassaid, There can be no joy of life without joy of work.

      

To simplify your life, find what we love and get paid for it.

      

You need to find out what your passion is and connect it with your job…

      

As a writer, my research demands that I read hundreds of books a year.  But that’s fine by me because I love reading.  Even if my job was something else, I’d still read a horrendous lot because I enjoy it immensely.  Don’t laugh, but years ago, my insane fantasy is being a security guard assigned to protect a Light House in an isolated island—and there was nothing else to do there but read books all day.

      

Many years ago, I remember calling up Jun Fontecha, our Finance Director, at ten o’clock in the evening.  I asked him, “Am I disturbing you?” and he answered, “No problem.  I’m just relaxing.”

      

“Watching the TV?” I inquired.

      

“Nope, just balancing the accounting books of our community.”

      

I almost fell from my chair.  “That’s your way of relaxing?”

      

He said it was.  He said he felt most alive and happy holding a pencil, a calculator, and reams of paper filled with numbers and nothing else.  This was his passion, and it was his privilege that this was his job as well.  He’d do it even if he weren’t paid for it.  (I told him that we’re opposites in this regard.  If I’m left with nothing else to look at but numbers for even just an hour, I’d suffer a nervous breakdown.)

I am doing work which is worth doing.  It would still be worth doing if nobody paid for it.  But as I have no private means, and need to be fed and housed and clothed, I must be paid while I do it.

                      –C.S. Lewis, GOOD WORK AND GOOD WORKS

       But making your passion your job isn’t only enjoyable; it may be your best bet to earning handsomely.

According to one study of millionaires, an impressive majority eventually became wealthy not because they possessed a primary ambition to get rich, but because they found work about which they could be passionate.  Their “luck” arose from their dedication to an area they enjoyed.  The universe bends to those who are convinced that they are in the right place doing the right thing…

                             –Allan Loy Mcginnis, THE BALANCED LIFE

What is your passion?  What is the one thing that you love to do, where you feel most alive?

Can you turn this passion into your profession?  Can you visualize it?  If yes, write down the steps that you need to take to make this dream come true.

Connect Your Job To

Your Life-Mission

A friend of mine, Jodean Sola, was working with building maintenance in our community.  He spent most of his working hours with his screwdrivers, soldering irons, and hammers.  But after five o’clock, before proceeding home, he’d visit his “pals” in the seedy parts of the city.  Whenever he sees a group of street kids, he’d buy a loaf of bread, sit down with them in the sidewalk, and talk about life and love and God with them.

He had a passion to help street kids, a passion to see them become better human beings.  It didn’t take him long to realize this was his mission in life.  Could he make it his job as well?

The answer was yes.  Today, Jodean and his wife feeds 300+ street kids every week,.  And with his talent for making stuff with his own hands, he helps the children learn new skills.  He started livelihood programs and housing projects.  He writes his own fundraising letters, gets support from generous individuals, and helps the kids go to school.  It is a tough life, and there are days when finances are low, but he doesn’t regret his decision one bit.

I believe that you’re created for a mission, and that mission has been prepared for you beforehand.  It is waiting for you to fulfill it!

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

                                           –Ephesians 2:10

If you can connect your mission to your occupation, you may just be one of the happiest people on this planet.

May your dreams come true,

Bo Sanchez

Feel Your Feelings

A long time ago, I didn’t feel my feelings.  I didn’t bother with them.  If they became intense, I shunned them. 

To me, all desires were sinful.  And all emotions were just part of the “flesh”, not of the “spirit”.  Feelings were the enemies of God.  At the very least, they were bothersome things that distracted me from doing God’s will.  

       No wonder I was in such an internal mess!

       Because when we don’t feel our feelings, we treat ourselves with disrespect!

       I was acting very rudely towards myself.

       My Love Tank was empty because I wasn’t loving myself enough to even listen to my feelings.  Remember: Feelings are the windows of the soul.  When I wasn’t feeling my feelings, I didn’t have a clue what was happening inside me.

       Again, self was an enemy of God, so why bother?

       Just focus on God’s Word, and viola, everything will be solved, right?

       How wrong I was.

       Because God was speaking to me through my most negative emotions, and I wasn’t listening…

Identify Your Feeling;

And Identify The Source Of Your Feelings

Sometimes, I can’t even identify what I was feeling.

I just knew it was a bad feeling—that’s why I was running away from it.

I didn’t know if it was sadness or fear or worry or anger.  

But when I run away from my bad feelings, I run away from myself.

Today, I know what to do.

I sit down, be quiet for a while, and identify what I feel.  I don’t just go rushing about in my busy day.

       When I identify it, then I feel the feeling.  I feel it before God’s Presence.  

       I also try to identify the source of these feelings. 

Why am I feeling this way?

Is there any action that I need to do?

Sometimes, this first step of “feeling my feelings” is all that’s needed.  I don’t have to do anything else.

By feeling what I feel, I respect myself.

By feeling what I feel, I heal myself.

It may take time for the painful feelings to pass, but ultimately, I rise from it whole and peaceful.

Sometimes, I have to do something else.  Perhaps I need to surrender to God.  Perhaps I need to do something concrete, like talk to someone or solve a problem.

In the End,

You Still Do What God Wants You To Do

       No, I’m not supposed to follow my feelings blindly. 

That’s from the crazy guys that preach, “Do what you feel. If you feel like punching someone, then punch a pillow or wall.  If you feel like screaming, then go inside your room and scream like hell.  If you want to get drunk, then drink…”  I don’t buy that strategy.

       I didn’t say, “DO what you feel.”  I said, “FEEL what you feel.”

When you feel your feelings before the Presence of God’s love, in the end, you still do what God wants you to do.  But you allowed yourself to feel your painful feelings, to validate them, and to listen to its inner messages.

This is a very important step of loving yourself.

Remember what I said about the immediate cause of our addictions?  Because we want to escape our painful emotions.

       But by entering into our painful feelings with boldness, we realize that they’re not as terrifying as we feared them to be.  After awhile, we no longer need our addictions.  Because we no longer need escape routes from our painful emotions.

       Next, I’ll share with you the fourth step of how to love yourself…

       May your dreams come true,

       Bo Sanchez