When we’re constantly being flooded with other people’s highlight reels, we start to feel like our own accomplishments aren’t enough. They are. I’ve been running a startup for the last two years, and it has been among the most humbling and hardest things I’ve ever done. Do you ever finish a bag of chips or eat a bowl of ice cream before you even realize what you've done? You could call this mindless eating, or eating on autopilot and it can leave you feeling unsatisfied, hungry and wanting more. The place to begin or start, is with the simple practice of bringing our full awareness and attention to the physical sensations of the in-breath and out-breath as often as we can.

You are exactly where you are meant to be, to learn what you need to learn. Once you do so you graduate your current situation and experience onto something new. But here's the thing, the moment you bring your full attention and awareness to wherever you are, you are present. I’m [fill in the blank] years old — what am I doing renting this apartment? I should own a home by now!There is a powerful flow that begins to happen at home and at work, that comes from knowing wherever you are, is exactly where you should be. When we aren't present in our relationships at home and at work, our relationships can go down the road of routine and slip into auto-pilot mode. Auto-pilot mode and routines helps us master our lives to make them easier to manage, but in turn this can prevent us from welcoming change and uncertainty which are ever increasing realities of both business and life. See, everything is a part of the journey. Every high and low, good and bad, moment of peace or utter confusion. We just have to remind ourselves that we’re doing just fine—right where we are. We have to tell ourselves that we are strong and capable, that we can push through, that we are enough in our beautiful bones and skin. After some incredible experiences abroad, however, the same malaise began to surface, reminiscent of my experiences in London. When you let go of where you think you should be, you allow yourself to be where you are. When you allow yourself to simply be, each moment reveals it’s immense beauty and magic to you, beyond what you could have imagined. You experience the gift of the moment more fully!

Aired last night in the UK, like many, I too was eagerly awaiting for the finale of Game of Thrones. We can’t anticipate what exactly is going to happen, but we can control how we react to where we are, even when we haven’t met our own expectations or don’t feel as satisfied as our newsfeeds suggest. I love what Winston Churchill said about success – that it is “just going from one failure to another without losing momentum.” Yet, as I delved more into the world of personal development, it started to make sense, especially with a traffic analogy. In Traffic: Exactly Where You Need to Be Because right where you are in this moment—even in all this imperfection and mess and steps still left to take—is exactly where you’re supposed to be.Only a few hours before I’d been awake, kept up by a gang of kids hanging out beneath my bedroom window. After working that job I disliked, I decided I wasn’t in the right place, physically or psychologically. Not everyone is able to operate on a level of higher consciousness and awareness. The moment I realized that people in my life did the best they could with the state of consciousness (awareness) available to them at that time, the floodgates of forgiveness and love poured from my heart. There was less anger, animosity, and trepidation that lingered. Instead, I was able to release energy that debilitated my growth of exercising love and compassion. Try on compassion with all walks of life and notice how you feel. 7) Gratitude. Start your day with a simple thought of gratitude and everything will shift…for the better.

We are only gaining—knowledge, wisdom, experience, lessons. Everything we go through teaches us how to survive. Every obstacle helps us learn who we are. Every painful moment breaks us, but builds us. And little by little, we are making it through. So, how do we come to be more at ease,as Jon Kabat-Zinn says 'with the full catastrophe' of our lives and all the varied circumstances and twists and turns that surround us - and still know that wherever we are, is exactly where we should be? So even in those toughest of times, you are exactly where you need to be. You are exactly where you need to be

Detours

I keep it on my desk, and as I was sitting here reflecting on what to write about today, I glanced over at it. Unfortunately, many of us spend the present moment waiting for something else to happen, or feeling regret or sadness about the past, or anxiously planning what will come next instead of being in the now. As a result, we miss being truly present and the opportunities to nourish, cherish and encourage our growth and potential. The beautiful thing is that when we decide to release our resistance about things not being as we wish they were and appreciate what actually is in this moment, the challenging experience is transformed. Rather than preemptively abandoning our current path for what may seem like a better opportunity, we can neutralise our subjective reactiveness to our situation. How often do we think we are not where we are supposed to be, not doing what we are supposed to do, not feeling like we are supposed to feel? So when you see others where you want to be and think you should be, rather than contract, simply breathe and bless them instead. Then the space will now open for you to live into that reality. Let those that are living what you aspire to inspire your heart. As you bless them you simply open yourself to be available to that level of goodness manifesting in your life.