10 Things That Stop Us From Living a “Zen” Life~ Elephant Journal

Most people I know are struggling just to feel good as they navigate their way through life. They’re stressed, depressed, angry, frustrated, and filled with a boatload of anxiety.

I, too, used to fluctuate between feeling the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But in the last 10 years, I’ve realized that so many of those lows had to do with my own perceptions about life, the stories I created around other people’s behavior, and the meaning I attached to everything that was happening to me.

This is stuff we can change so that we can feel more consistent waves of joy and inner peace without the constant mood swings.

So if you want to significantly reduce the amount of anxiety, depression, and feelings of discontent you may be experiencing, these are the top 10 things we all need to stop doing:

I think we all come into the world having expectations about our lives. Whether it’s the belief that if we work hard, we’ll land a great job and have everything we want, or that, at a certain age, we’ll meet the person of our dreams, get married, and start a family—we all think life should go the way we envision it.

If we can accept that life will only go the way it is meant to—for us—we wouldn’t become so unraveled every time our lives hit a minor plot twist. I believe our souls all have a unique blueprint of what we’re each here to learn, which will never be identical to another person’s. So surrender to whatever meandering path your life takes because there is a reason you’re being led there.