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

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Dina Weldin

“Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

Each day, month, or year I want to be something different when I grow up. At some point I want to open up a smoothie truck with a best friend, I want to teach yoga to cancer patients, and I want to travel to Australia and become a bartender just to support myself.

But more so than what I want (or think I want) to be, I know what I am. I am a wife, a sister, a friend, an Egyptian, a listener, a weirdo, a poet, a marketer, a dog mom, and a wannabe yogi.

But most of all? I am emotional.

I am so emotional at times that my husband comes home to an inconsolable wife sitting alone on the couch crying. And what has set me off into this uncontrollable fit, you may ask? Some kid in a commercial misses his dad who is on a business trip, and (thanks to Skype services) he gets his bedtime story from 3,000 miles away. Sad? Yes, I know.

Sad, but common. I have emotional friends. I also have completely apathetic friends. I love them. They are completely real with me when I get out of hand and help bring me back to earth.

Something I just can’t help but get emotional over is death.

It’s funny because I don’t have a problem with my own death. I could talk about that for days—how it’s going to happen, when I think it will happen, anything, until my husband tells me he doesn’t want to hear about it anymore and leaves the room.

My grandparents along with many members of my family live in Egypt. I went to Egypt every other summer since I was born. I looked forward to seeing my cousins, the beaches, my aunts—everyone, but specifically my grandfather. I am my grandfather’s favorite grandchild (his words, not mine). Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Tiela Garnett

 “Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.”  ~Sri Chinmoy

We live in a world of judgment. We qualify everything in varying degrees of right and wrong, good and bad, pretty and ugly.

We are taught from earliest childhood to judge everything and everyone. We label our days consistently, using adjectives like “beautiful” or “horrible.” Even the weather is not immune!

The presence of judgment is pervasive in our lives, yet subtle enough in some cases to pass unnoticed. 

I have worked for years at ridding my life of all judgment, but it’s far easier said than done! Just when I begin to think I’ve eradicated all traces of the poison, it pops up again, wearing a new disguise.

One of the most valuable lessons of my life was witnessing the presence of judgment when I least expected it…

Many of us on a so-called “spiritual path” find ourselves sorely challenged when we observe the suffering of those around us. This was especially true for me when my mother was dying.

In the last days of my mother’s life, she was in severe, physical pain.  It’s hard for me to put into words the extent of my discomfort as I watched her, and the effect it had on my personal belief system.

For years, I had lived with the belief that “all is well,” that regardless of any appearance of disharmony, there is a destiny, a plan, order in this great universe of ours. As my mother lay dying, I could not reconcile the image of her suffering with that belief system.  Click Here to Read More…

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

“With ‘I’ eliminated, this is Nirvana, here and now.”  ~ Buddha

I remember when I started learning Spanish in college. I wanted to visit Spain. I had grand ideas about a romantic voyage. And yes, I had a foreign language credit to fill.

If you know the Spanish language at all, you know that the Spanish construction for pleasure is the reverse of our English language. In English, we say, “I like that.” But, in Spanish, we say “Me gusta” which translates as, “It pleases me.”

In other words, in English we are the actors, the subjects, who actively do the “liking.” But in Spanish, the thing is the actor and we are the recipients, the objects, of the pleasure that it provides. 

I remember how it sent my whole world into a tailspin. I literally walked around campus saying, “Do you realize that in Spanish the thing is the actor and I am merely the recipient of the action it makes?”

Here’s a simple example: I like the desk vs. the desk pleases me.

I couldn’t get my head around it. It was like a Seinfeld episode, “Do you mean to tell me that the desk is the subject and I am the object?” It rocked my world.

Now, this is not to say, of course, that everyone who speaks Spanish natively exists in Nirvana simply because their verbal construction eliminates the “I” sometimes.

But, it does open a window for us to ask the question: What if we really did live as recipients of life instead of imagining ourselves to be the ones in charge of life?

What if we knew that life is the actor and we are the results of life’s actions?

Think about the times when you get most stressed. For me, it’s when I feel like it’s all up to me.  And if I don’t do it, then it’s not going to happen. That stresses me out.

It’s the same with the thinking that it’s up to us to make our lives happy and successful and abundant. If you look carefully, it’s the very striving to make our lives happy, successful and abundant that stresses us out! How ironic is that?

Ok, I know what you might be thinking: Shouldn’t we have goals, and shouldn’t we set steps in place for our growth and development? And, yes you’re right.

What I’m asking is simply this: Who is the actor? Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Shan Jeniah Burton

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche 

I was raised in a home where a very common phrase was, “There’s a right way and a wrong way.”

The right way was the way my parents wanted things done. There were a great many rules surrounding the right way for nearly everything, in an attempt to ensure that we got it right, and, when the rules weren’t enough to enforce the rightness of our behavior, there were punishments, harsh words, and sometimes very public humiliation.

I’ve spent most of my adult life learning to deal with the fallout of this type of ingrained thinking, once important for emotional survival and physical safety, but no longer useful.

I work, now, to examine the precepts I live by, and whether they are helping me toward my goal of living a peaceful and conscious life. But there can still be some pretty huge blind spots in my view of things—places where I, myself, still expect those around me to conform to my concept of what is right. 

Three years ago, when I began to practice the base principles of radical unschooling, I fell headlong into one of these traps. It caused a great deal of pain, and nearly cost me my oldest and dearest friend.

We altered the way in which we interacted with our children from an authoritarian style to a partnership model. And I decided I would be a missionary for every other family who showed a glimmer of dissension (as all families, even mine, do, sometimes).

I had found a piece that was missing from the puzzle of my own life, and I was awed by the rapid and wonderful changes I saw within my family once I placed it.

I hadn’t yet learned that zeal and epiphanies in our lives can also be pitfalls; that not everyone will benefit from what benefits us. I was certain my way was perfect and even necessary—for everyone. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sarah Fertig

“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong. Sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

I will never forget the moment my marriage ended.

My husband and I had fought the night before, about many of the same things we’d been fighting about for the entirety of our four-month marriage.

He was dissatisfied with our sex life and my lack of respect for him. I was struggling with bipolar disorder, changing medications, going back to school, and trying to please a man who seemed to find fault with everything I did.

During that fight, he choked me twice to prevent me from screaming and running away. I learned quickly that if I didn’t want to die, I would have to go limp, submit to his power, and hope he would release me from my position, pinned face down in our bed.

When I woke up the next morning, my spirit was broken. I felt as if I had a terminal disease. I knew with great certainty that I would die at the hands of my husband, I just didn’t know how long it would take.

When my husband woke later, he wasn’t satisfied with my newly submissive attitude. Another fight ensued, but this time, he used a different tactic. He insulted me, cutting me to the core with a comparison to a person who had caused me a great deal of pain and anguish.

As it turns out, my spirit had not been fully broken. The tiny scraps that remained rallied together to propel me out the door of our apartment. I ran screaming down the street like a mad woman, banging on a stranger’s door and calling a friend to activate an escape plan.

I collected my dog, moved back in with my mother, and got a lawyer. Our divorce took seven months, almost twice as long as our marriage lasted.  Click Here to Read More…

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

“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?” ~Unknown

Relationships end; everyone knows that. The tough part is actually dealing with suffering, accepting, letting go, moving on, and processing a whole lot of other feelings at the same time.

Six months ago my ex-boyfriend decided to end our relationship because he couldn’t forgive me for a mistake I made.

During the first weeks of our break up I decided that it would be best if I just gave him some time to think things out.  I accepted the consequences of my error and decided not to pressure him.

I knew it was my fault we were in this mess, and he was suffering from my wrongdoing (which didn’t involve infidelity).

After a month we saw each other again, and he told me that he could not forgive me for what I did—that my mistake meant that I didn’t love him and had never loved him throughout our three years together.

I asked for forgiveness. I asked for a second chance. He told me he couldn’t trust me anymore and couldn’t risk getting hurt again. I accepted his decision, and started moving on with my life.

Two months passed, and one night he called me. He told me that he missed me terribly and wanted to see me. The next day we went to Starbucks.

He told me he couldn’t stop thinking about me, that he compared every woman with me, and that he wanted to give “us” a second chance. But then he told me he was too scared to fully commit to me and that he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Monna McDiarmid

“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~ Gandhi

What if we lived the way we travel?

It’s been my experience that we let go of many things when we travel. I’d like to propose that those things—the things we loosen our grip on while travelling—are things that don’t need to be held quite so firmly.

1. Notice. Slow down. Reflect.

San Miguel de Allende is one of my favorite places on earth. I’ve visited nine or ten times. If asked to describe heaven, I’d say that it was a long weekend in San Miguel.

After a gorgeous night’s sleep in Room number eight, I’d start to see things differently. I’d become absorbed by the way the golden light fell across our bed. I’d notice the specks of dust in the light shaft, like tiny astronauts travelling between the earth and the sun.

In the town, I’d observe the dogs walking on the shaded side of the street and follow their example. Everything in my path seemed beautiful and noteworthy: the way that rain drops hit the cobblestone streets, the crayola-colors of folk art in store windows, and the markets that smelled like cheese and chicken feet.

We sit at a cafe, content to drink limonada, and people-watch for hours.

We rarely do this at home because we believe there are very important things that must be accomplished, and that we can’t waste time at cafes. Vacations help us understand that we’re not quite as essential to our workplace as we thought. They’re getting by just fine without us.

Noticing leads to slowing down which allows us to reflect. We spend time observing the shape of things. Life exhales and rolls out ahead of us. We dream. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Petrea Hansen-Adamidis

“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” ~Honore de Balzac

A while back I began to feel out of sorts with my writing. It happened after coming down from the high of creating almost nonstop with my inner muse. I noticed that I began to feel down, like the feeling one gets after being at the amusement park when the excitement is over.

Creating and finishing my projects had been a wild ride. It was exciting and intense at times. But once done, an insidious feeling began to over take me.

My thoughts began to wander to “the dark side” questioning my abilities.

What if I can’t create something new? What if people don’t like what I have done?

Like after any expenditure of energy, there is always a lull. Lulls have been known to drain ones creative energy if you let them. I know from experience that if I let myself I can easily slip into a creative stupor.

When in that lull or in that space between creativity, it may seem like nothing is happening. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. We need that break.   

When in this state I feel sensitive and quick to take things personally. I could just do nothing and give in to the disappointment when things have not gone as I have expected. Alternatively, I could use this as motivation, a starting point for another creative endeavor.

But self-doubt has a way of getting under your skin. For me I begin to feel an uprising of the “you’re not good enough” gremlins inside me when this happens.

I remember when this happened after something I submitted online was not accepted.  It felt like a rejection. “Forget it then!” belted out a voice inside with the force of a 2 year-old having a tantrum when she doesn’t get her way.  Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by JR Hughes

“Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

Last December I found myself sitting on my floor, having just left my job and a ten-year relationship. As a result, I was about to leave my home too. In front of me was a mountain of possessions that I somehow had to take with me to wherever I was going next.

Clothes, bedding, books, notebooks, electronic bits and pieces, boxes of ornaments, and sentimental “things,” handbags within handbags, flocks of high heels, tsunamis of paperwork…

And then there was little me.

I felt overwhelmed by my possessions. It seemed unnatural to have accumulated more than I could carry alone, or at least fit into my car.

Outside, it was the run up to the holidays in the middle of a recession. Half the country was unable to afford their heating bills, let alone presents. So to distract myself I brought a handful of things to a children’s charity shop down the road: teddies, pictures, a wicker basket that would be perfect for a child to keep toys in.

And that unleashed the floodgates.

I felt good—for me, because my burden of possessions had shrunk, and for the children, who might receive these things at Christmas.

While the basket was hard to give away—it had been mine since I was a baby—giving it away made me see that I was better able to mentally cope with getting rid of things, than physically cope with trying to take it all with me.

And so an epic spring clean began in the middle of my winter. Three weeks of rifling through boxes and shipping stuff out to charity shops, friends, family, the trash, and eBay.

Some things were easy to give away. Others were not. Certain things I had no use for—yet something made me hesitate to let them go. I came to know these hesitations as emotional speed bumps. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sam Russell

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

I have just eaten enough pizza to satisfy three people and I’m feeling awful for having done it. Awful because my stomach can only hold so much, awful because I know I’m going to pay for eating it (dairy and I have a difficult relationship), and awful because I know I shouldn’t have done it.

This is what my internal monologue looks like:

Me: I feel so sick.
Inner Me: You shouldn’t have eaten so much then!

Me: I know but I really fancied it and I hate wasting food.
Inner Me: You always do this, you know that?

Me: I thought I could do it differently this time.
Inner Me: What, you mean not gorge? We spoke about this, Sam. We spoke about how the last time really was the last time.

Me: I know… I kind of caved though.
Inner Me: You lack discipline; you need to be stricter with yourself.

I could go on for ages, but you get the idea.

Everyone has that voice inside of them that might berate them for less than wise choices: that unnecessary new sweater (to join all your others); the new phone (even though the one you have now works perfectly); staying up late to finish work (that could have been done earlier in the day if only you hadn’t spent the afternoon catching up with your favorite TV series).

A lot of people let this voice get the better of them. They let it get out of control to the point where, instead of being a good moral compass, it becomes a guilt-tripper of tyrannical proportions. It harms instead of helps. But why do we let this happen? Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Sonal Pandey

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” ~Voltaire

This was just not working out. I had ended up in a failed attempt every single time. This was my 4th day of trying to fix everything.

I had wanted to make a video for my blog—just a minute-long introduction. Not that I didn’t have one already.

I had a video up and running. But that was from my first attempt, and everyone knows there is always room for improvement.

After the video went up, I started to see how I could do better than that. I was not going to be satisfied with something just good enough.

I wanted to emphasize the right words. I wanted the right amount of pause where it mattered. And just enough rise in the tempo of my voice where needed.

The lighting had to be perfect. An overcast day would not help. I wanted to dress right, I wanted to look right.

I wanted to sound enthusiastic, not pushy. I wanted to put my best out there.

My husband offered help with setting up my precarious camera set up. But I politely refused. I wanted to do it all by myself.

I didn’t need to lean on anyone to get the million settings just right. I was being self-reliant, or so I told myself.

My camera stood on a tripod pulled to the maximum. My lap-top was perched on top of a step stool which stood on a cane foot rest, which in turn was balanced on a dining chair. This was needed in order to bring the tele-prompter software running in my lap-top level with my line of sight.

Then there was the little matter of keeping my bouncy toddler from demolishing my rickety set up with a single sleight of his hand.

If persistence was something that could be learned, I had got it down pat. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

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

The Winners:

• Amber
• Cris

Have you ever felt like the present moment is passing you by while you’re caught up worrying, analyzing, planning, and trying to protect yourself from pain and loss?

It’s one the pitfalls of the human condition: we often paralyze ourselves in the pursuit of happiness and abundance, and in the process, miss out on the joy right in front of us.

Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche has devoted his life to helping people live joyful, mindful lives, free from the burdens of their minds.

In his new book, Living Fully, Finding Joy in Every Breath, Rinpoche summarizes his teachings in succinct, easily digestible sections. The result is a guide for living in the moment, peacefully, connected to the people and the world around us.

The Giveaway

To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Living Fully:

• Leave a comment below
• Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: Living Fully (comment on the blog to win!) http://bit.ly/ydAMit

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, March 11^th.

The Interview

1. You were trained to be a Lama from the age of four. Did you always feel certain you wanted to be a spiritual teacher?

Even though I was trained in the most ancient Tibetan Buddhist spiritual tradition from a very young age, I personally never intended to become a spiritual leader. 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 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…

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 Sam Russell

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

I’m trying to meditate but I find myself overcome by sadness; I’m still grieving after all this time.

I’ve gone through phases of forgiveness recently that have shown me how to acknowledge the painful relationship I had with my mother, the anger and resentment we shared, and the loss of each other that we both went through the older we grew. Maybe it’s not as bad as that, but it feels like it.

My reflections have brought me closer to the woman who I never took the time to understand because we were both so volatile and weighed down with our problems; I’d shuddered when my family would say “You’re just like Mum,” but now I smile because I see how true it is.

I yearn for a stable life, just like her; I live with chronic illness, mental and physical, just like her; I escape into creativity, just like her.

We differ too.

I’ve decided to do something about my anger. I’ve taken steps to open my heart. I’ve learned to forgive and be forgiven. One thing I’ve not done yet is grieve. I lost my Mum.

I lost her gradually through my life in that I didn’t ever feel like we were mother and daughter, more two people living together who spent every day treading carefully, trying to avoid eye contact and arguments.

And then four years ago she died. She’d been sick for a long time and I knew it was coming. I’d prepared myself from a very young age for that cold January afternoon, for when I’d hear the news that she was dead. I was at once free and cut loose.

I lost the person who, if I had only opened myself up, would have protected me to all ends, even if she didn’t understand what I was going through. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Melissa Moore

“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

My mom leaned in and gave me a goodnight kiss. The only light illuminating her face was coming from the hallway. I looked up at her, and in the confidence of the dark confessed, “I saw it.”

“It” was my birthday present, waiting patiently for me to wake up in the morning and claim it from its place in the garage. “It” was a turquoise blue Stingray bicycle with a white pleather banana seat and an extra tall sissy bar.

I’d seen it by chance, tucked back in a dark corner, and knew instantly it was for me.

I couldn’t stop myself from ruining my mom’s surprise. I just couldn’t contain my joy. That bike was the answer to my 10 year-old dreams.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

My new bike was the coolest mode of freedom I could imagine. It took me to the local pharmacy for candy and back to the school playground to meet up with my friends. Like an addict, I lusted for the feeling I got from riding past the Skerkoske’s house, Marcia Brady hair blowing in the breeze, singing “I Think I Love You” at the top of my lungs.

Riding something so beautiful gave me all kinds of cocky confidence. I was fearless. Within days, I was pedaling through the neighborhood, arms waving madly in the air, shouting “Look at me world!  I’m riding with no hands!”

I let go without ever calculating the risks involved.

Fear crept up on me gently, a part of the ever expanding feeling of responsibility that came along with growing up.  

Or maybe I’d heard “Hold on to that bike young lady! Do you want to end up in the hospital?!” one too many times. Whatever the cause, the magic of my turquoise blue Stingray was no longer enough to make me feel invincible.

I grew afraid of falling off.  Click Here to Read More…