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Posts tagged with “joy”

What Dogs Teach Us about Peace, Joy, and Living in the Now

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” ~Marianne Williamson

Are you a dog lover? I know I am.

Animals of all kinds can bring us so much joy, not only when things are going well, but also when we feel pain and are suffering.

“Man’s best friend” can be our true and faithful companions through thick and thin. We look to our pets when we are ready to play and laugh, and they instinctively know when we need their support.

I’ve had a dog most of my life. From purebreds …

How to Live in Peace and Balance: 6 Things to Let Go

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” ~Havelock Ellis

Imagine that you have to move in two days. Would you be able to pack all your possessions in that time and clean out your house completely?

How about your mental baggage? If you have only two days left to finish all the important projects in your life, would you be able to do it?

Three years ago I left the country where I was born and raised and moved permanently to a different place half way around the globe.

Packing was …

The Real Measure of Your Wealth

“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” ~Unknown

A wonderful story from the yogic tradition highlighting the true meaning of wealth goes something like this:

There was once a beggar who spent his days sitting under an old banyan tree on the side of a dusty road that led to a bustling town. The man had been begging in that spot for years, rattling an old tin can hoping that passers-by would feel compassion and offer alms.

Yet, at the end of each day he would only have collected …

4 Simple Ways to Experience Great Happiness and True Freedom

“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”  ~E.E. Cummings

I love to write. For years I wrote in journals and kept them stacked in piles on my shelves.

One rainy winter evening when I was 25, I walked into the Bourgeois Pig bookshop on Franklin Boulevard in Los Angeles and saw a book next to the cash register written by Natalie Goldberg called Wild Mind. I bought it and my life change forever.

Natalie’s book was about writing practice. A Zen monk practitioner, she brings the fundamentals of Zen to the …

Love the Adventure of Life: 3 Ways to Enjoy Everything More

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” ~Helen Keller

Ever since I can remember I liked to travel. It does something to me, something strange and oddly uncharacteristic: I am suddenly very laid back.

When I travel I’ve got the right mind-set. I know I will stand in lines, have to schlep heavy bags, or perhaps have delays. I know that I will be eating at restaurants for the first time, without knowing if I will like them.

At home, when I am stressed out and worried, my mind likes to give me lists of things to do …

Why Happiness Will Never Come To You

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.” ~James Openheim

December 19, 2001: this will forever be written in history as the day I was pitied by a 90 year-old.

I was holiday shopping at the mall, grimacing in pain with each step I took. “One… two… three…” I counted my steps, hoping to distract myself from the painful task before me: reaching the Bath and Body Works store roughly 300 yards ahead.

After several torturous minutes, I looked up. The store was still an oasis in the distance—perhaps a mirage in this …

4 Key Questions to Feel Fully Fulfilled and Content

“The person who lives life fully, glowing with life’s energy, is the person who lives a successful life.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

More often than not when we want to create something new or different in our lives, our true yearning is not about what we want to do on the outside that will make us feel fulfilled and content, but a certain way we want to feel in ourselves.

That fancy car might give us a feeling of power, or esteem, or pride. That successful business might make us feel like we “arrived” or we are recognized. That trip to Nepal …

10 Ways to Make Your Life More Playful

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~George Bernard Shaw

I was 25 and traveling through Ireland by myself. I was in Cong, a rural small town outside of Galway. It was quiet. Very quiet. Even though I had met people on my trip, I was starting to feel lonely.

I was thousands of miles from home. I had nobody around who knew me well or cared for me, and in the days before cell phones or internet cafes, I couldn’t just get in touch with my friends or family at the …

How to Sustain Happiness

“If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy.”  ~Ajahn Chah

After accomplishing three lists of tasks from three different buckets—professional, personal, and entrepreneurial—I felt accomplished and content.

And then I felt bored. And then a little irritated. So, I decided to explore and check in with myself:

I practice gratitude throughout my day. I acknowledge the abundance in my life. I am surrounded by genuine love and relationships.

I have every reason

6 Questions That Will Make You Feel Peaceful and Complete

“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

When I was in my mid-twenties an unhealthy relationship with an unhealthy guy sent me packing off to the corner of New Mexico to find myself. In a new age, self-discovery kind of world—a hubbub of a town filled with people in transition—I was graced to meet many powerful healers, gurus, shamans, and teachers.

I became a workshop junkie. I went on Shamanic power journeys to spiritual centers around the world, chanted with Indian gurus, and became a certified yoga instructor and …

51 Things That Will Make You Smile

Some days, it’s easy to smile. You wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, with the warm glow of the morning sun cradling your face. You take several deep, cleansing breaths standing beneath a perfectly cascading shower, just before drawing a smiley face on the steamed-up glass with your index finger.

Your roommate or significant other makes your coffee, just the way you like it. You hit every traffic light. You sing to your favorite tunes. And you arrive at work refreshed, excited, and anxious to create and collaborate.

But not every day starts this way. Sometimes you wake …

8 Tips to Help Create a Positive Mental Attitude

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

For years I lived an uneventful existence. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t unhappy either. I was just sort of stuck.

I had a good career, earned lots of money, and I had great friends and a loving family. You would think that this doesn’t sound too bad, but I felt unfulfilled and unmotivated. I repeatedly lived each day like the one before.

I looked around me and saw that everybody within my own circle of friends, relatives, and immediate family were no different. They too seemed stuck. They …

Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” ~Denis Waitley

I just spent the past 17 months of my life trying to find, travel to, or somehow earn happiness.

I had just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I had a loving husband, a home, good friends, and a supportive family. I was supposed to be happy. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain why, even to myself.

This led to more anxiety and major guilt. I felt like I had tripped into …

Be Stress-Free: Eliminate 5 Common, Unnecessary Stressors

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

The human mind loves to find things to stress about.

There seems to constantly be something in our lives that causes us to worry. And when the thing that caused the worry disappears, we feel happy, but only for a short period of time until we find something else to stress about.

I’ve witnessed this pattern many times in my own life. As soon as I was able to solve one of my problems, my mind found me a new one.

Compared to other …

10 Simple Tips to Live Happy, Wild, and Free

“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” -Morris West

In the past I was not known as a happy, wild, and free person. (Okay, maybe wild. I had my moments…) In stuck phases peppered with depression, darkness, and hopelessness, I often wondered what it would be like to feel happy, wild, and free.

I fantasized about living in Europe, writing in cafes like Hemingway, having wild crazy affairs with sexy men, or even moving to Hawaii and wearing nothing but sarongs and flip flops all day. But in truth, these fantasies were …

How to Feel Comfortable in Your Own Skin

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

From the time I was a little girl, people told me I was pretty, but I never believed them. Instead, I scrutinized myself in the mirror searching for ways to look better, not realizing that what I was really looking for was a way to be me and feel good about myself.

As I focused even more on my looks throughout my twenties, I became increasingly self-conscious and dependent on how others perceived me. If someone complimented …

3 Mistakes That Hold You Back in Life & How to Avoid Them

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

I believe we are here to grow, to expand—to learn and experience and understand. Growth and discovery are the purpose of life.

I also believe we tend to get in our own way.

Our experiences, our cultures, and even our families can create fears and limitations that can hold us back, or hold us down. They don’t do this intentionally. It’s just that we’re all doing the best we can in this beautiful, messy, complicated world.

There are so many circumstances or experiences that …

7 Obstacles to Mindfulness and How to Overcome Them

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

Mindfulness has allowed me to become more aware of my thoughts and reach a sense of inner peace.

As my awareness has increased, so has the peace and joy in my life. The more familiar I have become with the inner workings of my mind, the better I have started to feel.

I came onto the path of mindfulness, meditation, and spirituality when I was sixteen years old. I saw the TV-series Ed, where the main character started experimenting with …

20 Things to Do When You’re Feeling Angry with Someone

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” ~Chinese proverb

As Tiny Buddha grows larger, I find there are a lot more people emailing me with requests. The people-pleaser in me wants to say yes to everyone, but the reality is that there is only so much time in the day—and we all have a right to allocate our time as best supports our intentions, needs, and goals.

Recently someone contacted me with a request that I was unable to honor. After I communicated that, he made a sweeping judgment about …

How Being Vulnerable Can Expand Your World

“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.” ~Brene Brown

Vulnerability has never been my strong suit. It’s no wonder. In order to be vulnerable, you have to be okay with all of you. That’s the thing about vulnerability that no one tells you about.

Being vulnerable is not just about showing the parts of you that are shiny and pretty and fun. It’s about revealing what you deny or keep hidden from other people. We all do this to some extent. I bet you’ve never said to a friend, “Oh my god, I just love that I’m insecure.”

But …