Category Archives: Fulfillment

I consider myself quite chill. I smile a lot. I roll with things. You will never find me screaming at a gate agent in an airport … or screaming at anyone for that matter. My husband takes longer to order at a restaurant than I do. I know what my opinions are, but I don’t expect the rest of the world to share them. See? I’m rather chill. Chill except for when I hear certain sentences that really get under my skin. Certain words put together annoy me to such an extent I am dedicating this blog to sentences I hate to hear.

You are newlyweds.
When my husband and I talk about how we like to jog together, shop together or plan our weeks together, we often hear, “Well, you are newlyweds.” Grrrrr. Oh, so that means the quality of our marriage is due to its newness? Should we just pack it in because our relationship is bound to plummet the longer we are married? I realize time will have to back me up on this one to convince the cynics, but I know the quality of our relationship is due to the quality of our communication and not its short duration. Check back with us in 10 years. I know we will be the same way. It’s who we are. We talk about things. We discuss the kind of relationship we want to have. We are open about what irritates us and how we can fix those things, as well as what we love about each other. We don’t avoid any topics. We both want a happy, fun and tension-free home and relationship, so that’s what we create. In fact, as I was writing this blog, my husband popped into my home office and handed me an article on how successful relationships have a lot to do with the level of empathy on both sides, and then he told me he’s so grateful he found me. The quality of our relationship has zero to do with its newness and everything to do with the effort we put toward it.

You don’t have kids.
People actually say this to my husband and me as some sort of (weird) explanation as to why we are happy. It’s such a bizarre thing to say. (First, my husband does have kids, they just happen to be grown.) Second, I thought people have kids to enhance their families and happiness?

When we talk to people about how we love the flexibility of our entrepreneurial lifestyle, taking trips, and scheduling fun events on weekends, the response is often, “Well, you don’t have kids.” How do they expect me to respond? “Oh yes, you are right. If we had kids we probably wouldn’t have a life at all.” I get that life changes dramatically with children, but life doesn’t have to suspend. If we had kids together I guarantee we’d still pull out our calendars and plan our fun. We’d sync up our schedules so we could coordinate some future trips. I guarantee we wouldn’t use our kids as some excuse for why our lives are on hold. I know plenty of parents of young kids who have totally rich, fulfilling lives. (Isn’t that the kind of example you’d want to set for your kids anyway?) Plus, there are plenty of people without kids who let their lives unfold on a couch in front of a TV. The type of life you live is due to your mindset and your daily choices, not the number of heartbeats inside your home.

You are lucky.
Whether it’s the joyful story of how I found and reunited with my birth family, how I work for myself, or my bubbly happiness, many people have told me I’m lucky. I cringe when I hear it. Telling someone they are lucky is the equivalent of telling someone they aren’t responsible for their circumstances. I can’t recall a time when I have ever told anyone they are lucky because it’s not giving credit where credit is due. The blessings in my life aren’t the result of magic universe fairy dust, but hard work. During the years I procrastinated on my search for my birth mom, nothing happened. When I got frustrated with my inaction and got serious, it took months of phone calls, letters and research to find my amazing birth family. I promise you luck had nothing to do with it.

I even worked hard for my happiness, putting myself in therapy at a young age so I could learn the tools to dig myself out of depression. Telling me I am lucky discounts the effort I put into making my life the way it is today. While I don’t expect people to know my past, I do expect people not to make ridiculous assumptions by telling me I’m lucky.

I think the undercurrent of these annoying sentences is a victim mentality. Many people believe life happens to them and they often blame external circumstances for what they lack. I learned firsthand how much you can change your life by managing and directing your thoughts and actions. Fulfilling lives aren’t reserved for newlyweds, couples without kids or the lucky—they happen when you get clear on what a fulfilling life looks like to you, and then you chase it down and make it happen.

“Will you make the choices to enhance your spirit or those that drain your power?” –Caroline Myss

I was never cut out to be a perfectionist. I leave rejected outfits on my closet floor in my frustration to figure out what to wear. I make a mess when I cook. I trip over my own feet more than the average person. l put my Starbucks coffee on the roof of my car and I almost drive off. My husband wonders how I sometimes get laundry detergent on the wall when I am washing our clothes. I catch him smiling and shaking his head at me. He’s one of those perfectionist types, detailed, patient and precise.

Back in my early twenties when my self-image was in the dumpster, I’d use my clumsy or air-headed moments as proof that I should feel like crap about myself. Look at that dumb thing you just said or the clumsy thing you just did, I’d think. You just looked like a fool, I’d tell myself. I thought only perfect people deserve love. I was on a search and destroy mission of me. I looked for proof that I wasn’t cool or perfectly together, and I used the evidence to chip away even more at my self-esteem.

Talk therapy helped me stop the assault on myself. I learned that people are supposed to have flaws and bad parts. We all look silly or foolish sometimes. We make mistakes or have moments where we say or do the wrong thing. Chalk it up to the being human thing. I realized my worth isn’t defined by how perfect I appear to other people. I discovered striving for perfection is a pointless pursuit because no one ever arrives.

Turns out, I am totally loveable flawed. It wasn’t an overnight epiphany, but a slow evolution into loving who I am, just the way I am. But once I got to total self-acceptance, life had a sense of freedom it never had before.

I let go of what people think of me.

I used to hand the power of my life over to other people. If someone said something positive to me, I felt positive. Negative? I felt negative. If I was criticized, I viewed it as a verdict instead of an opinion. If I was dating someone who didn’t want to date me anymore (even if I didn’t want to date him either) I viewed the rejection as a declaration of my unworthiness. If I ever had a conflict with a friend or if someone acted weird to me, I’d wonder what I did.

Slowly, I stopped giving other people the power to determine how I should feel about me. I started setting boundaries left and right. If I felt mistreated by someone, I ended the friendship or the relationship. I started being authentic with my feelings, instead of trying to appease everyone in some misguided attempt to get the whole world to like me. I got my answers internally and I started to feel increasingly empowered.

No longer can anyone else control my mood, determine my value, or impact my outlook. I don’t look to other people for their approval. I must confess that I still love compliments and accolades, but I don’t need them anymore to feel a sense of worth. If someone treats me in a way that isn’t positive now, I immediately wonder what their issue is, and I often assume it has nothing to do with me. As the saying goes, “What you think of me is none of my business.”

I stop letting my blunders define me.

Today I completely embrace my little mishaps or mistakes. I laugh when I trip. I crack myself up when I walk into a room and forget why I am there. I’m okay with my temporary messiness. I don’t even work on correcting my little idiosyncrasies that make me imperfect, because it’s who I am. And it’s so dang liberating.

Don’t get me wrong, I still work on me. I work on getting fit. I work on becoming a better writer. I read personal development books all the time. I work on being a better person. I just don’t think I need to work on being perfect. People can love you (madly!) flawed.

Sharing our imperfections connects us to each other on a real level. We can cut through the superficial crap, drop the pretense and be real. Perfect is an illusion. If someone makes you think you need to be perfect to be loved, you don’t need that person. When you let go of the pursuit of perfection, you can turn your mind from a place that torments you—to the best place in the world to live.

I have more than 30 journals piled into an old trunk. I’ve been writing in journals since I was 10. I started with tiny diaries with a lock and key, and moved on to hardbound journals. The words never stopped flowing. If a teacher said we were going to have an essay test, I was one of the few in class excited about it. I took college English in high school. Teachers said I had a talent for writing. Combine that with my penchant for analyzing and questioning everything—especially people—and I knew in my teens that I wanted to be a writer and journalist.

But I didn’t feel smart. My grades were all over the map. I needed a tutor to get through high school math. I despised math and didn’t understand its purpose. Friends would ask what level of calculus I took, and I’d laugh. Calculus? Are you kidding me? I never took a class.

Yet no one ever told me, “That’s okay.” No one ever said, “You don’t have to be smart or have strengths in everything.” My struggle in math and the parent/teacher expectation that I get straight A’s left me feeling dumb and inadequate. While I have the ability to come up with ideas to write about all day, every day, off the cuff, no one said, “Explore the strength of your creativity.”

It was well into adulthood before I learned being well-rounded is a bunch of crap. While being aware of your weaknesses is good, focusing on your weaknesses is a waste of time. Sure, you may have to put a little extra effort into decent grades in subjects you don’t like when you are young, but your power and happiness is found in your strengths.

Your strengths are your guideposts to your purpose. Channel your energy to hone your strengths (instead of trying to improve your weaknesses), so you can maximize your potential. Think of your strengths, abilities, interests and passion as your compass. They point you in the right direction. Weaknesses don’t mean you are flawed or not smart; they are only friendly indicators of what you shouldn’t be doing. (Turns out, I will never be a math professor.)

I believe we are all born with unique gifts that reveal who we are supposed to be. Kids show signs of who they are meant to be through their interests. There’s a famous chef who loved preparing food with his mom when he was a child, and an Olympic champion who never left the pool as a kid. There is the young girl who feels alive when she is pretending to be other characters and knows she is supposed to be an actress. Purpose reveals itself early and could expand if more people focused on it, instead of zeroing in on fixing those weaknesses.

I cringe when I hear stories of parents trying to redirect a child’s interests because, (for example) they don’t think music is a lucrative or solid profession. How do you know you don’t have the next Mozart in your midst?

When I wrote for SUCCESS, a national magazine with a lot of content devoted to living your passion, we’d get letters from readers who didn’t know what they were passionate about and they wanted help figuring it out.

We’d tell them what we learned from the experts: Your purpose can be found in your strengths—what you love doing. Here are some questions to help you find your strengths …

What did you love doing as a child?

What would you do even if you didn’t get paid for it?

Marcus Buckingham, author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work and Find Your Strongest Life says, “It is important to discover your strengths because the luckiest people are the ones who get to say to themselves every day: ‘Today I had the opportunity to do what I am most invigorated by and what I do best.’”

People who find their strengths and live their purpose aren’t lucky he says. “They made the effort to figure out what strengthens them.” He suggests catching the moments that invigorate you and concentrating on them. Follow where they lead and ask yourself: “How can I get more of that?”

Discover and focus on your strengths. It’s your path to unleash your potential and purpose–and who you were meant to be.

Someone complained to me once that there is nothing to do in Dallas. Hmmm … the sprawling, metropolis that is Dallas, without a thing to do? And then it hit me, the quote I learned years before, “Geography changes nothing.”

Wherever you go, your attitude goes with you. You can’t move away from you. Either you look around and see possibilities, or you see dead end roads. Your attitude shapes everything in your life. Negative attitudes keep you stuck or blind you to the opportunities that exist all around you.

Negative attitudes impact …

Happiness. Some people look at their days—or even life—as something to get through rather than embrace. Some neglect thinking about their personal happiness at all, just plodding along. Others are stuck being victims, using their energy to be angry at an external source, rather than using their energy to design a fulfilling life. While it might be easier to be angry at someone than change your life, it’s unproductive. There are all sorts of ways to get happier with a shift of attitude. Living with gratitude is a great place to start. Noticing everything you are thankful for, appreciate and enjoy can help you live with gratitude. Making a list of things that bring you joy (and asking yourself how often you do those things) is another. Or try answering the question: If I was perfectly happy, what would my life look like? Then list the steps that can get you there. Make sure you hold yourself responsible for your own happiness.

Jobs. There are people who hate their jobs, hate Mondays, can’t wait for the weekend, and spend a lot of time complaining about their jobs. But they don’t take any step to change their situation. Now might not be the time to quit a job without one in the wings, but griping fulltime won’t get you anywhere. Life isn’t meant to be endured from 9 to 5. Your actions can change things. Brainstorm a game plan. Look at things a different way. List your unique strengths and abilities and consider how you could create a job, business or entrepreneurial endeavor for yourself. Start with your own contact list to find opportunities. Realize that you alone can completely change your situation with resourcefulness and the right attitude.

Relationships. I could write a year’s worth of blogs about the bumps along my road to meet Mr. Right, but I found him when I stepped away from dating, got clear about what I wanted (even making a list) and got content living alone. Your attitude can’t be one of defeat or lacking. You have to be right with your relationship with yourself before you ever can be right with someone else. Oh, and you have to leave your house. I’ve met people who want to meet Mr. Right but then only live in two places—work and home. Waiting for him to materialize at your doorstep isn’t a good plan.

There’s a common denominator if the same problems or limitations keep showing up in your life … it’s you. Life only stays the same if you do. Everything you want is in front of you, but only if you see it.

If you want things to change, you have to do more than change the land under your feet. You have to get out of your way, open your eyes and take a good hard look at the person in the mirror. And as Deepak Chopra says, “You must become consciously aware that your future is generated by the choices you are making in every moment of your life.”

“There is a safe place to fall. Connect, embrace, love somebody, just one person and then spread that to two, and to as many as you can and you’ll see the difference it makes.” -Oprah

You know that person who sits down next to you on a plane and before you’ve reached a comfortable cruising altitude you’ve heard his/her entire life story … including the sordid details? Okay, that person is weird. Rolling out intimate details to a random stranger is a little awkward and inappropriate—especially if the conversation is only flowing in one direction.

But you know what else is a little strange? People who are surrounded by family and friends and don’t talk at all—about the most important stuff. Maybe I had one too many stiff dinners growing up where the entire conversation was focused on the food we were eating, but I’ve never understood why people are so bottled and buttoned up.

Life could be better if we all talked about what matters.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep your thoughts, secrets, pain, fears and challenges to yourself. It can isolate you. It may give you the false belief that you are the only one who is thinking, feeling or experiencing _______________ (fill in the blank), but it’s not true.

Not to get all Debbie Downer, but when I hear of tragic suicides on the news, someone will invariably say: I just wish __________ would have talked to me. Or, I wish I would have known.

If people talk, even when it’s hard or painful, stories and solutions can be shared. Maybe we can have more connection and community, and less disconnection and depression. We just might discover there is compassion in the world, and we can focus more on being real and less on maintaining appearances.

Talking can unlock a more fulfilling life. Give it a try. Share your internal struggle with your external circle—even if it’s painful.

Or embarrassing.
Or makes you admit to a less than perfect life.
Or you feel flawed and exposed.
Or it hurts.

Just start talking about it and watch how your life changes … for the better.

Before you dismissively say, “No, thanks” or “Not for me,” consider that not talking is a happiness and energy vampire—it will suck both away. Once you begin talking, you will find …

You are not alone.
Solutions exist all around you.
Other people could be carrying your answers.
You can liberate yourself from pain.
You will free up mental space and energy to live a richer life.
You may help others who can relate.
You can process, let go and heal.

Pain thrives in silence. Talking is your escape hatch. Take it.

I have a lot of empathy for birth mothers. I wasn’t angry about being adopted. I didn’t feel abandoned or rejected. I put an “I don’t know” label on my adoption. For me it was always: I don’t know why I am adopted, but someday I will find out.

I was curious.

As a child, my adoption came in handy. On a day when my parents were driving me particularly nuts, I could imagine my birth mom was a fairy princess in a faraway land who could come and find me. I could pretend she was someone famous. In my rebellious teenage angst, I could use my separate genes to disconnect a little bit from my parents when it was convenient.

With it being Mother’s Day, moms of all types are being celebrated. Moms who are no longer with us are being remembered. I want to make sure birth moms are not forgotten.

From my own experience of finding and reuniting with my birth mom, and talking to other birth mothers and adoptees, I have learned many things. I often wish I could speak to birth mothers directly to share those things. Here’s a little bit of what I would say.

Too much time is lost on pain and guilt. I think you are incredibly selfless for enduring a nine month pregnancy knowing your arms would be empty at the end. Don’t lose time simmering in guilt and regret, and transition your mind to the lives you have blessed. You made the ultimate sacrifice and gave the ultimate gift.

You aren’t forgotten. Every adoptee looks in the mirror and sees a part of you, or goes out into the universe and does something you do. You aren’t forgotten; you are multiplied. I spent my first 26 years apart from my birth mom and yet we are profoundly alike. My mom (who raised me) even thought of you. She especially thought of you on my Birthdays. She had tears in her eyes as she wondered if you were okay.

You can talk about it. Silence doesn’t make pain disappear. Silence can’t erase the past or comfort you. The only way to get beyond pain of any type is to go through it. Don’t bury it; talk about it. Once you begin to talk, you will soon discover that you are not alone and you can heal.

Use an “I don’t know” label. If you are hoping the child you put up for adoption searches for you some day, I suggest using an “I don’t know” label if time goes by and you aren’t found. It doesn’t mean the baby you brought into the world doesn’t think of you or wonder about you. Many adoptees don’t search out of fear of appearing disloyal to the parents who raised them. Other adoptees think you don’t want to be found, and are fearful to hear you don’t want to meet them. Some think it’s easier to deal with the unknown than to discover it. Don’t think it’s about you, because it probably isn’t.

There’s enough love to go around. Any parent knows that love for one child doesn’t use up all of the love; there is still plenty of love for other children. Love is always in abundance. It’s the same way for adoptees. We can love our parents who raised us, and we can love you, one doesn’t negate, prevent or interfere with the other.

You have a right. I have met a few birth moms who told me they feel like they don’t have the right to search because they relinquished their rights long ago. If you didn’t have rights, there wouldn’t be national registries where you can sign up to be connected with your (birth) son or daughter. I love registries because they mean both parties want to be found. You don’t have to wait to be found (out of some type of self-punishment), you can reach out too.

Forgive yourself. I know birth moms who carry deep wounds. (In fact, it’s the reason I am writing this blog.) While most of those wounds are caused from the loss of a child, the lifetime heavy burden of self-torment is optional. There is no conspiracy against you. You could have a child out there who wonders about you, wants to know you, or is curious about what kind of person you are. No adoptees I have met wish you ill will; many, like me, aren’t angry or resentful. Tell yourself a different story, one about how you turned a childless couple into a family—because you did.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I don’t do tension. I had enough for a lifetime when it wasn’t my choice. When you are an adult, it’s your choice.

When I first lived on my own, I realized the coolest thing was my ability to control the energy in my space. I pictured a Keep Out sign on tension. It’s so peaceful to know you never have to be subjected to negative energy in your space if that’s what you choose. You set the mood and create the ambiance for your surroundings. You decide who to let into your space.

When you aren’t alone, it isn’t as easy to guard your space from tension. I had a boss who’d come in one day smiling ear to ear, giving out flowers she picked from her garden, and the next day she was wearing a scowl, barking directives and making dramatic exits from the room. Her tension permeated the office and could shift the collective mood in seconds. It’s hard to not let tension suck you in. Along with a coworker/friend, we’d smile, whisper and say, “I’m inside a waterfall,” as mental imagery to remind us that she can’t get to us and to let her negativity wash off of us. Plus, it made us laugh. You can make a choice to not let tension ruin your day.

My decision not to have tension in my life is a work in progress. Progress over perfection is the goal. When you make mistakes, you just learn new ways to eradicate tension from your life.

Choose healthy relationships. Long ago, I created tension when I chose to date a guy who monitored my every move and turned life into a tension-filled walk on eggshells. Unhealthy relationships—of all types—are ripe with tension. Opt for a healthy relationship with lots of communication and tension dissipates.

Live authentically without secrets. I created tension when I kept secrets—like not telling my parents about finding my birth parents because I felt guilty. As the saying goes, “You are only as sick as your secrets.” Living with honesty can significantly reduce tension in your life, even when it’s difficult to be honest.

Maintain healthy boundaries. I drummed up tension when I couldn’t rise above biting attacks from a (short-lived) coworker because my petty desire to fight back won out. Maintaining healthy boundaries minimizes tension. If you stoop to the level of tension, you only help make it bigger. Setting and maintaining boundaries (your personal rules, guidelines and limits)can significantly reduce tension in your life.

Tension is constricting and confining. It’s like a dark cloud. And it’s a real happiness killer. Fortunately, you can significantly reduce your tension with your choices.

I choose to live somewhere cheerful, bustling with people and upbeat.

I choose to protect my environment from tension.

Oprah learned one of her favorite quotes from Stroke of Insight author, Jill Bolte Taylor, “You are responsible for the energy you bring into my space.” And it’s so true. Wouldn’t it be a better place to live if people took responsibility for the energy they bring into a room? But until you can find a way to control other people (kidding!), shouldn’t you at least control your space?

“It’s only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth … and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up … will we then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” –Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Mom. Cancer. Surgery. Didn’t get it all. Radiation. Cancer spread.

A friend told me about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s popular book, On Death and Dying, and thought it might help me. I couldn’t focus to read the book cover to cover, but I flipped through pages reading a few paragraphs here and there.

My mom was diagnosed with bladder cancer and three months later she was gone. At first we hoped she’d beat it, but after surgery and treatments, the cancer spread. Suddenly doctors said she only had a matter of weeks to live. My dad called me and could barely get the sentence out, “When you fly up to see your mom this time, you will have to say goodbye.”

Everything from that time is frozen in my memory. It’s hard to board a plane knowing you are doing so to say goodbye to a parent. I wanted to be a 4-year old again, crossing my arms and stubbornly refusing to go—as if that would stop my mom from dying.

I arrived in the Pittsburgh airport and at the bottom of the escalator, my sister was waiting for me. It was a painful hug. Normally it was both of my parents smiling at the bottom of that escalator—because it was vacation. It was Thanksgiving. It was Christmas. This time it was cancer. I felt powerless.

My sister drove us in darkness and light snow to the hospital. My mom was in a special hospice wing so we were allowed to see her off regular visiting hours. She opened her eyes briefly and knew I was there, but she couldn’t talk. She was hooked up to oxygen and wasn’t fully conscious, but she squeezed my hand.

The plan was to stay with mom for a little while. The next day she would go home for hospice. Somehow we both knew not to leave the hospital that night. We were still by her bed early the next morning when my dad arrived. We told him she was too weak to be transferred home and we thought it was her last day.

Sentences from the book ran through my mind.

Don’t be afraid to get up close to death.

Tell your loved one it is okay to let go.

Have the strength and the love to sit with a loved one dying in the silence that goes beyond words.

I crawled onto the bed beside my mom and held her. I listened to her heart beat. I held her hand. I cried. I told her I loved her. I said goodbye. I told her it was okay to go. We all did.

With the three of us surrounding her, she passed that afternoon.

Reading those words gave me the gift of a treasured last memory with my mom. If I wasn’t nestled up close to death to tell her it was okay to go, I may have selfishly tried to get her to hang on. I may have kept a comfortable bedside distance trying to be an appropriate hospital visitor. Or maybe out of fear of her dying, I’d pace her room, but not really be present.

Instead, I was holding her as she took her last breath. The doctor came in and said, “I don’t hear a heartbeat.” She looked so breathtakingly serene and beautiful after she passed.

I share this story so fear won’t prevent you from getting up close to the death of a loved one. While it doesn’t make death any less anguishing, it does let you experience loss without regret.

Later that evening, my dad methodically called people to let them know of my mom’s passing. I kept hearing him say, “The girls held her as she passed.”

And I felt like my mom was comforting me.

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” –Flora Whittemore

Have you ever thought about the power that exists in a single decision? One decision can change your life. A single decision changed mine.

I was four months into my search for my birth mother and I was getting frustrated that I hadn’t cracked the code. I was going through my list of town clerks using the process of elimination, but I didn’t know if I was on the right track. From the non-identifying information the adoption agency sent me, I knew my birth grandmother worked as a town clerk the year I was born. I was born in Syracuse, so I made a list of the town clerks in all surrounding counties.

I went home from work that night wondering if I was getting any closer to finding my birth mother. I grabbed the town clerk list, determined to cross off more names. With bits of non-identifying information I formulated my questions and made some phone calls. Soon, a town historian was answering all my questions with a Yes.

Do you know of a Helen Clark who worked as a town clerk?

Yes. Until the town historian finally said, “I think you have found who you are looking for.”

I couldn’t believe it. Time froze and I froze. It was one of those rare moments when I realized that my life would never be the same again. Whatever would unfold next, I couldn’t unring a bell.

And life did change, dramatically. I thought I was fulfilling my curiosity to know who brought me into the world, and why I was placed for adoption. I didn’t know I was wandering into a story with many chapters. My birthparents are married. I have a full brother and sister. I have three half siblings, and lots of extended family. And they all warmly welcomed me.

I often think about what I would have missed if I never made that decision to search. The people I’d never know. The healing I’d never feel … or give. The joyous days I’d never have. The relationships, priceless memories and answers I wouldn’t have now.

It made me realize the power that exists in a single decision. One decision can enrich your life beyond measure.

For me, my decision gave me …

the gift of 11 years with my birthfather.

the peace of mind in knowing my two mothers spoke.

the blissful experience of having both of my families at my wedding.

The list goes on and on.

Live with the awareness that a single decision can change everything. Realize the power in making just one decision. You can unlock blessings. Flood your life with fulfillment. And you can discover the tremendous influence you have over your own life.

Your one decision can be about anything—a relationship, your health, your work, where you live or a goal. What’s the one decision that could positively change the course of your life?

Usually your intuition—that little voice whispering to you—has the answer. What’s it saying?

If my self-image had a gauge like a gas tank, the warning light was on and I was almost empty. When I think back to those years, I cringe. I got my opinions from others. I determined my worth by how much the man I was dating was into me. I thought I should only read books with the words “self-help” somewhere on the book jacket cover. I felt incredibly flawed. There were reasons why my tank was near empty—but regardless of that childhood tale—I knew it was my job to fix it.

You can tell a lot about your self-worth by taking a look at your life. When I began therapy, my life was messy. I was fearful to pursue journalism, so I worked as a waitress. I spent money as fast as I made it. My dating vetting process could have used some actual vetting. I was bad at boundaries. I lacked a solid sense of who I am.

Throughout the process of talk therapy, I watched my life improve in each area. I slowly transitioned from empty to whole. As the saying goes, Life works when you do.

Therapy gave me the insights, resources and tools to repair my life. Here are three fundamentals …

Comfort yourself. When this came up in therapy, it sounded so simple, but I didn’t do it. I’d beat myself up, criticize myself, let negative thoughts run wild, and brood about everything. Learning to comfort myself meant being on my own side, showing compassion to myself (even when I make mistakes) and building up my internal support system. When life throws you a punch, you can take it. You offer comfort to yourself just as you would to a relative or friend who is in need.

Set boundaries. Boundaries are a great indicator of self-esteem. Boundaries are your limits for acceptable behavior from those around you. I had to figure out where I begin and end. Boundaries mean no one else can ruin your day because there isn’t a blurred line from that person’s life to yours. Setting boundaries means you determine how you are treated. You make decisions even if it means other people might be upset with you. You don’t set aside your values or how you feel to keep others happy. You live according to your own terms.

Know your worth. Go full tilt. I joke with my husband regularly telling him he’s lucky to be married to someone as fabulous as me. Sometimes I glance in the mirror and say, “Damn, I look good.” Or he will give me a compliment and I will respond with, “I know.” And these days, I’m only half joking. When you successfully fight to construct your self-worth, it becomes a precious jewel. You fiercely protect your investment. You notice the ways you are fabulous. You can laugh at yourself. You readily take compliments when they are given. You find the real joy and resilience that comes from loving yourself. It’s the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to your life.

Once your self-worth is on solid footing, you no longer need validation from others. One day I was in a work meeting where two associates boasted about how rehashing their childhoods isn’t for them; instead, they believe in pushing forward to achieve goals. They laughed and slapped each other on the back like it puts them in a cooler, stronger camp than those who seek therapy. I smiled to myself. It’s the most courageous among us who face our pasts so we can be whole and strong going forward.