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Category “change & challenges”

Dealing with Anger Storms Without Causing Destruction

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“Anger is like a storm rising up from the bottom of your consciousness. When you feel it coming, turn your focus to your breath.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

There is an elderly lady—I’ll call her Ms. A—living in my mum’s village. She regularly shouts at people as they pass by her house walking their dogs.

She can be quite intimidating really. She even followed my mother up the road on one occasion, much to Mum’s alarm. My mum, unlike me, now avoids walking past her house, even though it’s a good route for her to take when walking her dog.

Ms. …

Dealing with Verbal Attacks: 6 Ways to Take the Sting Out of an Insult

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“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

Sometimes other people’s words can stir up very painful emotions in us.

Do you remember when you felt so disempowered by someone’s remarks that you froze on the spot and couldn’t think of anything to say back to them?

Or maybe you did say something, but it was so lame that you wished afterward you’d kept your mouth shut and just sucked it all up.

This happened to me recently when I was helping someone and, …

5 Lessons from a Dog on Overcoming Life’s Hardest Challenges

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“A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” ~Ray Davis

I remember very clearly the first moment I saw our dog, Carmichael, or Carmy, as we called her for short.

One tiny pup in a litter of eight Golden Retrievers, it was love at first sight, and I knew she was “the one.” As the years progressed, she became my best friend, confidante, and companion. We were inseparable.

Opening the front door when returning from school, she would be there waiting, wagging her tail, with the biggest grin on her face.

She would patiently wait for me …

Stop Beating Yourself Up: 40 Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

If you’re anything like I used to be, your inner critic packs a powerful punch.

You’ve got a vicious voice bad mouthing you for much of the day. And when it’s in one of those moods, wow, are you going to suffer.

It’s no wonder you feel small, disappointed, and ashamed of who you are.

It’s the reason you lie in bed at night feeling like a failure, convinced you’re a nobody, certain you’re a serial mistake …

Awakening to Life and Love After a Devastating Loss

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“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway  

For years I cursed spring.

During that time my heart woke to the bitterness of life. In the harsh frost of winter my anguish and the season were one, a climate where I felt safe, cocooned in a blanket of grief, a camouflage that ensconced me from the world outside.

Like grief, winter brings the bitter cold to our life, and those withered months drenched in sorrow tasted natural.

In the time I lingered frozen in my shroud of despair, spring had arrived, with feathered …

9 Ways to Help Yourself When You’re Going Through a Hard Time

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“Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” ~Eckhart Tolle

After my father had a stroke, it became too difficult to manage our family’s convenience store, so we decided to sell it. We spoke to several buyers, but a couple was most interested—the same couple who had originally sold us the store years earlier.

In December 2012, in the middle of the transaction, my father was manipulated and our store and retirement savings were snatched away.

They convinced my parents to transfer the …

Create Lasting Habits: The 4 Psychological Triggers That Catalyze Change

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“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau

The world knows no joy like an evangelist with an opening. My eyes lit up as I jumped into my sermon on the incredible power of lifestyle change.

The year previous I had decided it was time to take charge of my health, and I had made some big changes.

I transitioned to a whole food diet, put plants at the center of my plate, started meditating regularly, and began attending yoga classes multiple times a week.

I was absolutely astounded at how the synergy of these three lifestyle changes completely …

The Art of Pain: Why the Dark Times Make Life Beautiful

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“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice… No one can live in the light all the time.” ~Libba Bray

Happiness, and the quest for it, is not all it’s cracked up to be. What I mean is that I think we’re making a mistake in reaching only for happiness, lightness, good days, and good moods.

I think that we’re restricting ourselves.

We’re fishing in an ocean of emotions, looking to only reel in one or two kinds, throwing back the ones we don’t want without even noticing …

A Powerful Way to Motivate Yourself to Pursue What You Want

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“See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” ~Dalai Lama

Until fairly recently, I was somewhat afraid of talking to girls.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I was afraid of talking to girls if I had a romantic intent. If it was an innocuous conversation, I could be cool as a cucumber.

As you can imagine, this stifled my romantic life somewhat. If I met someone and things were going well, once I realized that she liked me a little and I could move things forward, I would freeze up. Self-sabotage.

This was very frustrating to me, …

What Would Your Future Look Like If You Took a Leap of Faith?

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“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make. ” ~Unknown

Have you ever thought about making a big change in your life?

Chances are, just that very idea produces a mild sense of anxiety and discomfort. But what if you were to actually go ahead and make that change? What would that look like, what would that feel like?

A rhetorical question, I realize. You only know if you go through with it. If you don’t, you will never know. It’s a …

How to Change Your Habits and Your Life in 5 Steps

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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass

We all experience struggles. Some are seemingly insurmountable. Others, like mine, are comparatively small. Regardless of their scale, it’s what we learn from our struggles that counts.

Mine began while at university in London. Originally from a small town in the Welsh valleys, the move to the big city was a scary one for me.

A mum’s boy at heart, I didn’t deal well with being so far away from home. I’m also an introvert who didn’t embrace the uni lifestyle of drinking to failure, so I didn’t make …

When You Love an Addict: Stop Enabling and Help Yourself

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“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” ~Ann Landers

I fell in love for better or worse. First came the better and then the worst.

My prince charming, over time, became a raging alcoholic. I watched an amazing man become, well less amazing.

There are endless books and information you can read about addiction, but I am going to break the rule, skip to the end of those books, and tell you the …

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay

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“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 and met a tall, gorgeous man from South Asia. He was not the type of guy I normally dated, but 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’re in a …

The Gift Of Unsoothable Pain: Darkness Can Lead to Light

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“Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.” ~Groucho Marx

In 2008, after ten years of marriage, my former husband and I decided to divorce.

It came as a shock to those who knew us. We were living what most would consider the American dream: two healthy children, beautiful home, great friends, strong careers, two incomes—the works.

Though my ex-husband and I got along well, the marriage was missing an intimate, heartfelt connection.

Loneliness and longing grew with each passing year until I could no longer ignore them. I knew the kind of intimacy for which I …

How to Handle Life: Get Out of Your Critical Head

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“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There was a time when I lived almost completely inside myself. I couldn’t handle much of the outside world.

Yes, I am an introvert, but back then, I had such low self-esteem that the only place I felt safe was inside my own head. I had a low tolerance for problems and mistakes. I was life intolerant.

Yet, my inner world wasn’t exactly a peaceful sanctuary; it was a cold, discomforting, and harsh place to be. Mainly because I was fat. Or so I thought. I …

How Fear Melts Away When We Stop Resisting the Present

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“Whatever the present moment contains, embrace it as if you had chosen it yourself.” ~Eckhart Tolle

The second hand on the clock ticked to 12 like a base runner returning home. It was 9:00AM on Monday morning.

Anxiety set in as I stared at the stack of papers on my desk. Budgets needed to be balanced, new clients needed to be obtained, and advertising campaigns needed to be launched for high-profile brands.

Everybody needed something. It was my first day as an Advertising Executive and I already knew I was in trouble.

In a few hours I was scheduled to …

Making a Big Decision When You’re Not Sure Which Choice Is Right

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“When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

Over the last two and a half years I have made some big changes in my life. And by big, I mean enormous.

First, I moved with my husband and our children from a home I loved for ten years. Shortly after, my husband and I ended a twenty-year relationship and marriage. With that separation, I made the decision to buy the house we had moved to, which on paper, I shouldn’t have been able to buy.

Apparently ending a long commitment and beginning …

Rediscovering Yourself and Rebuilding Your Life After Loss

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“He who sits in the house of grief will eventually sit in the garden.” ~Hafiz

My life has fallen apart around me.

I ended a five-year relationship with a man I thought I wanted to marry, quit a full-time office job with no further prospects, and moved back to my tiny hometown to live with my parents.

All of these transitions occurred within the same week.

I was twenty when I met my boyfriend, and he was twenty-eight. We spent every waking moment together, dating for four-and-a-half years and living together for two. This time was punctuated with moments of …

10 Things to Remember When You’re Struggling and Feel Stuck

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“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” ~Buddha

I have always been ambitious, hardworking, dedicated, and driven, but I have also made some serious mistakes in my life.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do early on in my career, so I pursued several options in college. By the time I was finished with graduate school I had five Master’s degrees, but still wasn’t sure which career path to take.

I decided to get a job in accounting since that career paid well. I didn’t …

When You’re Hiding Your Pain: Why It’s Worth Letting People In

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“All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are all interconnected, and we all need each other. Our ability to see and be seen by each other creates a beautiful depth of connection that we are privileged to experience.

This has been a great …