Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Marc Johansen

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” – Charles R. Swindoll

For twenty-something me, a college drop-out utterly overwhelmed with choice and bewildered by unemployment, it can easily feel like a void of nothingness, so black and dense there is little point in considering a future beyond it.

I see friends studying Economics, English, and Engineering. They’ve joined their circus, and I haven’t even started yet. I’m behind, I’ll never catch-up; I’ll be the kid that got held up.

College has structure, solidity, a process, respect, certification, and a certain standing. Without it I’m a light-weight who dropped out and couldn’t handle it. I’m fit to flip burgers and shut up.

Or, maybe it’s okay to try a different method of travel for the time being.

Feeling a thousand times behind, like I wasted time—this is the feeling that mired me in a rut. Falling into the rut is different for all of us, but how we get out? Not so different.

When we imagine the worst possible outcome for our choices, this creates that pit-in-the-stomach feeling, which then cycles in our head, until suddenly it seems like our whole world is falling apart.

I’m sure there are many people out there like me, maybe of a different age, feeling stuck, confused, nervous, anxious, and not just lost but somehow behind.

I was stuck dwelling on everything I thought I did wrong, when it occurred to me that I couldn’t find any solutions until I cleared my head. Only when I stop obsessing and over-analyzing can I think clearly and make decisions I can trust.

So I did that, and started to find my way out of this rut. Here is what I learned: Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by C. De Lima

“Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~Leo F. Buscaglia

In 2009 I traveled to Perth, Western Australia to further my education. Little did I know how much my life would change.

I befriended lots of people, mainly international students since I lived on campus. It was here I met a tall, gorgeous man from South Asia. Though he was not the type of guy I normally dated, I fell for him anyway.

It was our happy fun time in 2010.Then, in early 2011, I sensed a change.

It’s funny when you are in a relationship with someone. You can feel when something just isn’t right. 

I had that feeling.

You see, ever since we became a couple, we could talk about anything without feeling judged or embarrassed. We were happy, so when suddenly he changed and became very private, it raised an alarm in me.

It turned out he was having an affair—not just with one, but with two women at the same time. The pain, the hurt, the humiliation, and the numbness that came afterwards were unbearable.

I literally forced the truth out of him. I knew it would hurt, but I had to know his reasons.  How could someone with a kind heart cheat on a person and create a new relationship based on a lie? Questions bounced around in my head for months.

Eventually I forgave him, and so did the others. But unfortunately for me, I let myself stay in this drama.

I latched myself to him—literally lost myself—while feeling confused by his conflicted feelings toward me, between “I want you” and “I don’t.” Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Susanne von Borcke

“The closest to being in control we’ll ever be is in that moment when we realize we’re not.” ~Brian Kessler

My 9-year-old son said something so profoundly right that it kept me awake. He said that in order for him to be happier I would need to let go of controlling him all the time.

Now granted he is young, and believe me, if I didn’t tell him to get dressed he’d run outside in PJs, but I was struck by his wisdom because this is also my obstacle to becoming happier.

In the past, the more I felt out of control, the more I tried to control others. We moved many times, sometimes to different continents for my husband’s job. We had children, and not all of them planned.

My husband and I drifted apart over the years, realizing we are very different and have completely diverging core values. I became sick with an eating disorder, a scary and tricky disease.

I felt overwhelmed, scared, alone, and lost. This is where the controlling mind came to rescue and took over. In time, my eating disorder became stronger than me, and yet also a familiar friend.

I tried to control both my eating and my body—and also the lives of everyone around me.

The emptier my marriage felt, the more I tried and control my husband’s behavior at home. The more I felt overwhelmed with my job as a mother, the more I structured my kids’ activities, often making them do things they didn’t want to do. Needless to say that didn’t help to foster my relationships with them.

I tried to control every aspect of their lives. Whether it was the lunches that needed to be made with a specific type of bread, or the homework having to be done at this time of the day, or the decision of which movie to watch, I told them how to do it and had a hard time letting them make their own choices.

I was hardly ever wrong—at least I didn’t think so. I thought control equals security equals happiness, up until the day when I took a close look at my life and found that nobody around me was smiling anymore.

They were miserable. They lit up when their Dad came home because he did things with them that were fun and, best of all they never knew what would happen with him. With me they could foresee everything, and the routines were never fun or joyful. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Gretchen Knox

“Make the most of yourself, because that’s all there is of you.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Twelve years ago, my husband and I were preparing to adopt our son. As part of the process we were required to take parenting classes.

One of the classes was about taking care of ourselves so that we could take care of others. Given the difficult journey that parenting can be, the instructor encouraged us to “refill our glass.”

Honestly, I couldn’t relate to what he meant. I was young and excited about having a family. Silently I dismissed his suggestion that parenting or anything in my life, for that matter, would challenge me so much that I would need to “refill my glass.”

Eventually I figured out what he meant—and it isn’t just for parents. All of us need to refill our glass so that we can live happy and fulfilling lives.

Refilling my glass is taking those mindful, deliberate actions to improve my mental state and attitude—to lift myself up so that I can continue on a positive path with energy and good intention. I found that by refilling my glass, I could be happy despite the ups and downs that life presents.

Sometimes it’s hard to take the time to figure what we need and why. And it’s easy to feel like a victim.  

In fact, there have been times in my life it when I have preferred to be a victim to my circumstances. When that happens my glass is dry. Thanks to my husband, friends, and websites like Tiny Buddha, I’ve learned how much I can benefit by making the effort to refill my glass.

I’d like to share some simple ideas that helped me:

Watch.

When I was dealing with a lot stress last year, I felt down and lacked energy. I was going through life in a robotic way. No excitement, no fulfillment. While I didn’t know it, this was a sign that my glass needed refilling. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by linnaea bohn

“There is no Love greater than Love with no object. For then you, yourself, have become love, itself.” ~Rumi

I have spent most of my life as a professional, half of that in Asia: managing a division of a company, doing long-term meditation retreats, and establishing cottage industries for impoverished refugees.

A long-term relationship was impossible since Asian men marry Asian women; European men had European wives and Asian lovers.

Along the way I thought I could give more value to the world by remaining single than being married with children.

I met a woman working at the UN who had raised a family. She suggested another scenario: there is a man who would love to join me in this endeavor.

We could raise children who also want to make a difference, thus making a bigger difference. I just had to find him.

She introduced me to a man who did want to make a difference while living in remote areas—exactly what I enjoyed. However, he wanted a wife to live in a city to raise his children, someone of the same ethnicity.

When I returned in 1998 to live in the US after 18 years in Asia, I experienced reverse culture shock. How people lived their lives (working non-stop at a job they did not like), what their priorities were (money, stuff, and power) and especially how they related to each other (networking to sell stuff, or to find a better job), was antithetical to my way of life. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Francesca Tulk

For almost four years I held onto a feeling that I had somehow done something wrong—that I hadn’t tried hard enough, that I had somehow failed my daughter.

In May 2008 my daughter’s father had arrived home after staying out all night. He told me he no longer loved me, found me attractive, or even fancied me, and that at eight years younger than him I was “too old.”

I was completely stunned.

While our relationship had many of the usual flaws, we had never fought, and I’d believed him one month prior, after we bought a new home together, when he said he was the happiest he’d ever been in his 45 years.

After the initial shock had worn off, I moved into a house with my daughter and I began to reflect back. I realized that for the previous eight years, I had in fact been living in some sort of cloud-cuckoo land.

I realized I had overlooked many real issues that had existed between us because we had a child. I had worked full-time, putting our daughter in childcare, while he remained unemployed and “too depressed” to look after our girl, spending hour after hour laying on the sofa watching movies.

I had never questioned how he went out, bought a sports car, two motorbikes, and a yacht after coming into some family money, while I continued to pay for all food, child care expenses, and household expenses.

I suddenly realized all the “girl friends” he had and communicated with on a daily basis, via text and email, were in fact “girlfriends.”

And then I got angry; in fact, I became wild.

But I didn’t get angry with him; I turned that anger on myself. I hated who I had become.

How had I allowed myself to be hoodwinked by this financial opportunist?

This anger manifested in excessive spending. I racked up a lot of debt and I found myself feeling out of control. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

Do you remember in December when I threw a Twitter party to celebrate the launch of my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions?

No? You’re not the only one!

I didn’t spread the word very well, so I’ve decided to do it again, with the help of Karl from Party Biz Connect and my friend Mastin from The Daily Love.

This time the party will support one of my favorite charities; and to make it even more exciting, I’m going to offer the Peace and Purpose Bonus Pack (valued at more than $150) to anyone who purchases my book on the day of the event.

Why I Am Throwing Another Twitter Party

• It’s a fun, free teleseminar event that allows me to share a little about my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions, and also answer any questions you may have

• It provides a second opportunity for anyone who missed the pre-order promotion to claim more than $150 in free digital bonus items

• It’s a great opportunity to give away some cool prizes (including 2 mentoring sessions, 5 copies of my book, and 3 copies of the award-winning Project Happiness DVD)

• It’s an ideal way to promote my book while supporting a good cause; for every tweet with the #TinyBuddhaBook hashtag during this event, I will donate 5 cents to Project Happiness, a charitable organization that brings emotional resilience-building programs to schools around the world. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Harriet Cabelly 

“Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life but the ability to cope with it.” -Unknown

When my daughter, Nava, was critically ill, on a ventilator in a drug-induced coma for three months, one of the ICU doctors called me in after a couple of weeks to tell me that if she survives, it will be a long road.

He started writing out a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication to “help” me through this horrific ordeal.  I certainly don’t fault him here as this was an extreme acute situation and he didn’t know if I could manage without falling apart.

His offering of “the pill” was an awakening. 

I realized I better start doing something to keep myself strong so I can function through this and be by Navi’s side. This was my impetus for gearing up into self-preservation mode.

The next day I began my walking regime around the hospital streets. I started taking 30 minutes off from sitting by Navi’s bedside listening to every beep, bleep, and gurgle, to engage in my non-medicated self-prescription program.

Truth be told, I’ve been a walker for the past 17 years, since my friend dragged to the gym the summer of my separation.  I guess I was ready because it didn’t take much coercion.  A bit of “c’mon get moving; it’ll do you good” was all I needed. I showed up, and have never stopped.

It became a way of life, a grounding and healthy reprieve during my divorce, my working and going to school, and dealing with the illness and disabilities of Navi’s earlier years. I found something to hold to that I felt was keeping me healthy and strong, both psychologically and physically; and exercise was it.

 And so when Doctor S. pulled out his prescription pad from his pocket, I pulled my exercise tool from mine; two working legs and I was on my way. 

I at least wanted to give it a shot. But mind over matter, I knew then I wasn’t starting with any pills. Side effects are a biggie with my sensitive gut.

And that is how I functioned for the next year as I spent 12–15 hour days by her bedside and through her rehabilitation.  Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Alexander Dunlop

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson

Valentine’s Day. Yes, that day—the much maligned, much cherished, much hated, and much misunderstood day of the year.

I remember being traumatized in adolescence. Not only were we supposed to, according to peer-reviewed social norms, like people and get liked back on this holiday, my school made us do Valentine’s day card/candy exchanges.

We exchanged, in class, little pre-packaged cards and those infamous heart-shaped candies stamped with subtle expressions like “be mine.”

Do you recall these candy hearts that I’m describing? They come in variety packs, taste like chalk, and have words stamped on them like “marry me” and “real love.”

How traumatizing it was for me to pick the right heart to give to the right person in my class—I didn’t want to give the wrong person the wrong heart—and then, for the one girl I did have a crush on, to sheepishly hand her the candy that said, “kiss me.”

Part of the trouble was: Which candy heart to give to my friends that wasn’t too sissy or too heart-wrenchingly sappy? Certainly the one that said, “let’s cuddle” was not the right one.

But the worst part was feeling bad for the loner who didn’t get any candy exchanges and frantically trying to dig up one to give him that didn’t say “hottie” or “crush on you.”

And then after giving him something, having him give a candy back that said “best friends forever.”  (Which now I find touching, as I write this. But, at the time, only found it to be extremely disconcerting.) Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Craig Ruvere

“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.” ~Unknown

As a little kid I liked to dream—big, whether it was believing my red-Huffy bicycle would one day turn into a Transformer or convincing myself that as an adult I’d be spending much of my time in Hollywood hosting “The Price is Right.” As I said, I liked to dream big. I still do sometimes.

If we think back to our childhood, we all can remember a time when our dreams didn’t seem that far away from us.

I remember spending countless hours in my basement pretending I was a rock star on my make believe stage. There I’d be holding my microphone (nothing more than the cardboard tube from the paper towel roll) belting out song after song from a collection of 45’s.

Truthfully I never really did sing as much as I bounced around like other rockers I saw on television. Yet I still believed there was always a chance that one day I’d be singing on stage with the best of them.

Well, puberty fixed that for me. And while my wife believes my voice isn’t half bad, I couldn’t really carry a tune if it had handles on it. Though I still like to pretend when I sing along with the car radio—windows closed of course.

Whether you’re a kid or an adult I guess there’s never really a shortage of big dreams in this world. Why should there be?

I mean what’s the harm for a young ball player to dream that one day he’ll hit the most homeruns of any major league baseball player or the high school actress who fantasizes about having her name on a Broadway marquee?

And what about the frustrated adult who dreams of a career that inspires their heart and soul rather than simply pays their bills?  Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jeff Munn

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

I recently made a discovery that massively increased the amount of change that I have been able to take on. Good stuff, too, like my eating habits and the amount that I exercise.

By this time last year, and the year before, I would have already dropped my New Year’s resolution. Maybe you have, too.

But there’s still a chance. There’s still time for some big changes this year.

With this small change, I’ve not only taking on big changes, but I’ve been able to sustain them. And add to them.

I’ve deepened my meditation practice. I’ve lost weight. I’ve reduced the amount of sugar I eat. I’ve dropped caffeine. I’ve increased the amount of yoga I do. I’ve started running again. And writing.

This has all happened since adopting one small trick that I had never heard about (and that frankly, I had never even read about).

It’s made change fun.

Here it is:

Start as small as you can. And do that small thing every day.

If I could see your face right now, chances are pretty good that I would see someone who looks a bit underwhelmed. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by An Bourmanne

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” ~Abraham Lincoln

I used to think that I would motivate myself to really live up to my full potential by reminding myself how much I wasn’t.

Well, that didn’t work.

Not that I didn’t get any results from chanting “You are so not living up to your full potential!” while getting out of bed, driving to work, doing the dishes, and combing my hair. Any time was a great time to remind myself. So I didn’t waste a second doing just that.

And I got results. Only not the ones I expected.

I became an expert on mindlessly browsing the web. I became an expert on constantly comparing myself to other people. I became an expert on feeling stuck. I became an expert on driving myself crazy with my non-stop “you are so stuck” chatter in my mind.

I felt drained, stuck, and low on energy; these were my daily companions.

So it shouldn’t be any wonder I grew less and less fond of my so-called motivational mantra that was doing anything but, well, motivating.

I’ve realized that living up to our full potential starts with eliminating three big lies: Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Kylie Springman

“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” ~John De Paola

Pushing has always been the way I get things done.

Actually, I should be more specific: pushing myself harder has been the way I get things done.

I grew up believing that life was hard, and that the only way to survive was to give up indulgences, buckle down, and trudge forward. Uphill. Against the wind.

In my small, suburban high school, I spent hours after my classes ended wrestling with quadratic equations.

I had the overwhelmingly generous help of my teachers, who tutored me for free in their after-school time. I had the patience of an incredibly gifted best friend to accompany me at study sessions.

Still, I felt alone in it all. I cried (weekly, probably) over math and science. Other subjects came easily to me, but the black-topped tables of the science classroom consumed my experience of school. I still remember how smooth and cold they were under my elbows.

I continued on to college at one of the most expensive private schools in the U.S., sinking into student loan debt with every lecture. When depression swept me away during my first college semester and my grades suffered, the only solution I saw was to work harder, to sleep less.

The results weren’t good: I exited the school year with deepening depression and a blossoming eating disorder.

It seemed the harder I tried, the worse things got.

Over the next several years, things improved, though I still didn’t feel like I had much control over my life. Happily, I fell in love at first sight with the prettiest (and kindest) girl I’d ever seen, and she shone her light into many of my dark corners. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Andrea Wren

“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

When I bought my car, I visited only one showroom. I’d made the decision that this was the car for me in around one hour, and chose not to spend more hours or days of my time going from one place to another to check other deals and different cars.

If I hadn’t have found this car, I would have gone to another dealer. However, I’ll never know if I could have saved money by haggling elsewhere, and I don’t care.

I’ve had my trusty and reliable vehicle for over six years now and so far, I’ve never had to pay more than general maintenance and upkeep. So it was worth every penny.

You may be shocked that I made such a large and important purchase in this manner (and I’m not a wealthy person by any means). But I was confident it was a good deal when I found it and it’s never let me down.

I now make most of my purchases like this. I’ll give myself a single option (like shopping at just one store), or will limit them (such as browsing four vacation brochures instead of fifteen), and once I’m happy with the decision, I’ll stick with it.

Why? Because I think too much choice is stressful. And you can quite literally send yourself crazy with it, like I did.

Choice anxiety!

At one time, my need to “shop around” and my desire to keep options open before making decisions was bordering on obsessive. I dithered. I wore myself out. I got confused, and even anxious, when I needed to buy stuff, even if it was just a new winter coat. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jennifer Boykin

“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

I am a member of a mercifully small subset of society. I am the mother of a dead child.

Twenty years ago, my daughter Grace—my first child, my only girl—was born prematurely and died 32-minutes later. As I write this, I am astonished that it has been twenty years since I met my daughter for the only time.

Time stopped for me when Grace took her last little breath. And I was certain that my life could never start again. 

I was wrong.

Here’s what made all the difference in my healing:

Over time, I learned to bless the thorns in my life. I began to see that the thorn and rose define one another. Since, one cannot exist without the other, we can only enjoy the rose when we embrace the thorn.

As a society, though, we make healing from loss very difficult. We unintentionally tell each other lies about suffering and the healing process.

One of those lies is that “Time heals all wounds.”

If time healed all wounds, why do so many people suffer their entire lives from things that happened decades ago?

As one of the bereavement experts I studied explained, it’s not “time” that heals all wounds. It’s hard work. And hard work takes time.

Here is some of the hard work of healing: Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Akilah S. Richards

“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” ~John Petit-Senn

Yoga retreats in rural getaways nestled in tropical mountain spaces. Exploration trips for pleasure and business on the east and west coasts. Bike riding and people watching on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Recognition and sponsorship from leaders in my professional circle. Adventures with my husband and daughters in Jamaica.

Even with all these rich life experiences, still my focus was always the same: If I could just have more money, my life could finally get good.

The past year found me deep on a journey to discover the muted parts of my life.

Through meditation, exercise, candid conversations, and radical self-expression, I’ve learned so much about myself, the influence my past has had on my present, and the ways in which I’ve been hiding.

Some of these revelations have been stark, not the least of which is the realization that a good chunk of my mutedness is rooted in one five-letter word: money.

For most of us, it’s inarguable that we need money to cover our day-to-day lives. 

Even with my minimalist tendencies, I’m not one to give away the majority of all I own and take a vow of poverty. Truth is, I’m way too attached to shoes, obnoxiously loud colors of nail polish, and unconstructed blazers to fully adopt the less-is-more philosophy.

I can say though, that the more I release from my life (both physically and emotionally), the more access I gain to my Higher Self. 

This access opened my eyes to a finding that has already created significant changes in my relationship with the energy of money. I’ve made it one of my daily life chants:

While you design your best life,

don’t chase the money,

crave the experience.

I’ve always chased money. More specifically, I’ve always viewed my connection with money akin to patches of grass. I’d earn enough to cover a bit of ground, but never enough to cover a respectable-sized lawn.  Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sheila Viers

“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen

Just because you’ve believed something is true, even if you’ve believed it for a long period of time, that doesn’t mean that it is actually true or that it has to be true for the future.

For a long time I believed that my body was broken. I believed that I could never be super lean and ripped even though I really wanted to be. I also believed I had irreversible digestive issues that seemed to be getting worse and worse.

I spent a lot of time searching for answers because I believed that somebody out there somewhere had to have the cure to fix me.

Somebody had to know how to help me finally lose weight and gain the body of my dreams, the happiness I longed for, and the approval I so much needed but would never admit.

I bounced from one diet or self-help book to the next, reading one magazine after the other, Googling one “how to fix {insert ailment}” search topic after another, hunting for the key.

But then somewhere along the way I realized I didn’t want to do that anymore. I was tired of feeling broken, helpless, and sad. I started to question why I kept doing what I was doing.

It started to seem really silly to me because I wasn’t actually finding any of the answers I was seeking. In fact, I seemed to be just getting more confused than ever. I stopped searching for how to fix myself, and instead began searching for the answer to a different question:

Why do I feel so broken?

Shifting my question led me on a whole new adventure where I finally recognized I wasn’t broken at all; in fact my body had the ability to regain its balance on its own, which it did. The problem wasn’t my body, it was my beliefs—my limiting, disempowering beliefs. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Anne Samoilov

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

I’ve always been an optimist, looking for the good in situations, even when they seem like the bleakest thing that could happen to me or the people around me.

But failure is a difficult one to turn on its ear.

You know when you don’t reach your goal. You know when you don’t get what you wanted.

Now I know the Rolling Stones sang “You can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” And you know what? Those lines never sat well with me—to just sit and accept it.

So, even though I know there are reasons I didn’t make it big as a recording artist—and that my Pilates business didn’t fulfill me, and that I’ve experienced the sting of working at companies that decided to shut down—I have always refused to simply shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well!”

I decided to find a new way to handle failure and to not only look at in a more optimistic way, but also find within it clues for my next move.

Here’s what I discovered.

Failure is a step toward your ultimate success.  It’s a lesson.  A challenge. A chance.

When I struggled with my Pilates business, for example, I realized I needed to ascertain where the bulk of my money was coming from and then do more of that. So I made a plan and moved forward. I started doing more of what I loved and what was bringing in income, and less of what wasn’t. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The winners:

• Catherine
• Alexsiss

An old friend once told me that women frequently say all the men they’ve dated have been jerks; and men frequently say all the women they’ve dated have been crazy.

You could chalk this up to gender differences, men being from Mars, women being from Venus and all that. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe it’s actually our biology that influences how we act and interact—and why we often repeat unhealthy patterns with our romantic partners.

In her book, Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness, Marsha Lucas explains how our inner workings can sabotage our relationships, and how we can change that through meditation.

According to Rick Hanson, PhD, reading Rewire Your Brain for Love is “like having a best friend who is both savvy about the brain and a world-class therapist.”

I haven’t yet finished this book; I’m publishing this interview today because this is the official launch date. Based on what I’ve read so far, I can say with absolute certainty this is the most fascinating, helpful relationship book I have ever read.

Both educational and insightful, Rewire Your Brain for Love explains why we struggle in matters of the heart, and exactly what we need to do for healthier, happier relationships.

The Giveaway:

To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Rewire Your Brain for Love:

1. Leave a comment below.

2. Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book Giveaway and Interview: Rewire Your Brain for Love http://bit.ly/yCvNBJ

If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still enter by completing the first step. You can enter until midnight PST on Sunday February 5^th.

The Interview:

1. What inspired you to write this book?

The inspiration came from seeing the changes in my psychotherapy patients when mindfulness practice was added to the mix. It was sometimes a challenge to get past the resistance some people had to meditation—my psychotherapy office is just a half-dozen blocks from the White House, so I see a lot of people who are very intellectually-driven, “show me the evidence” folks with no room for any “woo” stuff.

It was a whole lot easier when we talked about the neurological bases of relationships, the peer-reviewed research coming out of neuroscience labs at universities they respected, and about this simple, well-documented practice that they could use to create actual changes in the brain—and that those changes support healthier, more successful relationships. Approaching it this way made it a much more empowering choice for them.

Writing the book came out of my wish to share this with more than just the people I could see in my psychotherapy office. On the micro level, I want more people to have the healing experience that healthy relationships offer. At the macro level, my wish is to be a part of helping create a world that’s driven more by empathy than by fear.

2. Why do we need to rewire our brains for love?

Unfortunately, lots of us didn’t have an optimal experience of healthy, attuned attachment in that early, critical time when our “relationship brains” develop (mostly before age 2).

By the way, it’s not necessarily about really bad experiences—it can be subtle, passed along by well-meaning parents who may not have had that optimal experience themselves.

And because of the way our brains develop, those very early experiences aren’t readily accessible through memory or insight, so it’s difficult to get any traction just by trying to think or “will” our way through.

If you can change that wiring, though—and mindfulness practice seems to help a great deal with that—then you can have a brain with better neural pathways that creates and supports better relationships.

3. Your book focuses on making improvements in our relationships with other people. Can we also rewire our brains for greater self-love?

Absolutely! I’d go farther to say that improving your relationship within yourself is the first step to being able to have better connections with others. I think of the practice of mindfulness as a way of cultivating more loving, compassionate relationships with everyone, and that includes you.

4. Is traditional meditation necessary to rewire our brains for love, or are other mindfulness practices equally effective?

The mindfulness practices that I’ve used to the best effect in my work (and that are in my book) are from the insight-meditation tradition. That approach has (in my view) the most compelling neuroscience research to date supporting the types of changes that I talk about and see in my work.

Other forms of contemplative practice are also being studied. They all definitely have benefits—and I’m very interested in seeing more about their benefits to the brain.

5. Can you talk a little about the seven “high-voltage” benefits of practicing mindfulness?

The “high-voltage” relationships benefits get me really excited, so much so that they form the framework of my book.

First thing to know: there are essential characteristics seen in people who had healthy, attuned childhood relationships—characteristics that bode incredibly well for their ability to have healthy relationships as adults.

Now, add to that: Those same characteristics are seen in people who practice mindfulness.

Then, to top it all off: the latest scientific research has increasingly been showing that these characteristics are associated with areas of the brain that change as a result of mindfulness practice.

I’ve found that the most helpful way to think about these characteristics is to group them into a list of seven acquirable skills. (Yep: acquirable.)

• Better management of your body’s reactions
• Improved regulation of fear
• Greater emotional resilience
• Increased response flexibility
• Improved insight (self-knowing)
• Deeper and clearer empathy and attunement—within yourself and with others
• Perspective shift from “me” to “we”

Daniel Siegel, MD, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and an expert on childhood attachment was the person who first made me aware of the connection between these documented and compelling characteristics of well-being, seen in people who grew up with healthy, attuned attachments, and the brain structures and pathways shown to change with mindfulness practice.

I’ve been seeing the results confirmed through my psychology practice, in myself, and in the lives of my friends and colleagues. Very, very cool.

6. I know a lot of people who stay in unhealthy relationships, constantly looking for ways to “fix” them. How can one recognize when the problem is faulty wiring and when it’s best to walk away?

My first response is to share an anecdote from a friend of mine, Gay Hendricks, who’s also a psychologist: A middle-aged man came to his first therapy session, and talked about how lousy women were—he presented a long list of women in his life who’d just used him. Close to the end of the session he leaned in and quietly said, “But y’know… I’m beginning to wonder if it might have something to do with me.”

We all have our relationship wiring issues—our own styles of attachment that developed early on. In part, mindfulness practice helps you increase your capacity to look at your relationship patterns with honesty and self-compassion (not excuses or blame). That’s necessary whether you’re going to stay in the relationship or end it. Otherwise, you end up staging the same play with the same script over and over again, whether it’s with the same actors or new ones.

7. In Chapter 8, you explore empathy and how you misunderstood it when you were younger. I saw myself in your words, as I had the same experience! Can you tell us a little about what empathy is and what it isn’t—and why it’s important to our relationships to understand the difference?

Healthy, balanced empathy is a tough one for a lot of people, especially those whose role in life leans heavily toward helping others. It’s easy to get lost in the feelings and needs of the other person, and end up not holding on to any empathy for yourself—and that often leads to feelings of burnout, resentment, depression, all kinds of un-fun stuff.

My take on empathy is heavily influenced by the way that Frans de Waal, PhD talks about it—he’s a world-renowned primatologist and director of the Yerkes Living Links Center at Emory University, and he looks at empathy as an evolutionary advancement. As you go “up” in evolutionary terms, there are increasingly developed levels of empathic abilities, starting with the kind of “emotional contagion” that you might see in a herd of zebras, on up to through being able to take someone else’s perspective (though as Frans points out, psychopaths are good at this, too).

Where many of us get off track is taking it to the next level, empathic perspective taking—what is s/he feeling and why might that be? And what am I feeling in response, and why might that be? If you lose sight of either one, you’re more likely to react out of old, unhealthy relationships habits—what can be called “autopilot.”

Empathy’s not just about insight, and not just about feeling—it’s about an integration of those, happening in the space between you and your partner. Or, between you and more people in your community, however large that community may be—we’re all in this together, after all.

Choosing to cultivate more empathy doesn’t mean losing your own integrity or point of view—it just means that you’re no longer governed by lower-order, fear-based reactivity. Now that’s empowering!

Learn more about Rewire Your Brain for Love on Amazon.

FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site.

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Roger Horn

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

I heard this story the other day about the collection of homes called Favelas surrounding Rio De Janeiro.

If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a large collection of small run-down homes built on the side of the hills surrounding the city. They scatter and protrude across the landscape like paper litter in the tall grass along the highway.

The conditions can be poor, and unsanitary, often with raw sewage running down the side of the hill where the houses are built. Many people live right across from houses that sell drugs or prostitution. Even reaching the houses is difficult, with the only options being a treacherous road or walking up as many as 800 stone steps.

When a man who was giving a tour of the area was asked if most people living there are poor and have no choice but to live there, the reply came back “No.”

Many people work, make a descent living, and choose to live here. In fact, he explained, he himself lives there.  That begged the question: why not move out if you can?

The man answered, “Because my life is here, my friends, my family. I love it here.”

I thought to myself, how could anyone love it there? How could anyone love those houses, love that neighborhood, those living conditions?

But then I thought, what does it mean to love something? What does it mean to be loved by someone?

You see, growing up, and most of my life up to this point, I don’t think I’ve understood this. Love is, for most of us, what the world says it should be because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe. That’s what we’ve been taught.

Love is a frantic kiss and a firm embrace at the end of a Hollywood movie.

Love is what you should feel when you see a beautiful model wearing exquisite clothing rocketing away on her motorcycle in a crisply baked marketing ad.

Love is what you want to feel, what you want to have, how you want to look, and how others should look. If I had that, if I looked that way, if I had that girl for a girlfriend, I would love it—because I would be loved. Click Here to Read More…