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

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Jeremy Britton

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make our world.” ~Buddha

Your life is much like a radio.

If you’re in control of it, then you can actually tune in and make sense. Then you can set your dial on the talk-back radio show, listen to that, and learn some things, or you can set your dial onto music and have an enjoyable time.

If you feel that you are not in control, or you do not realize that you are in control, then you may just hear a lot of static and annoying sounds that might even drive you crazy.

The process of “Flick your Rich Switch Transformation” (FYRST) is about taking control of your life, taking control of all of the things that you merely think you are not actually in control of (but you are, or you can be).

Some people don’t think that they control their mood, their lives, their blood flow, their breathing, their heart rate, their body language—and that’s why they often get some outcomes that they’re not happy about.

Someone else can control all of those things by telling you some bad news or some exciting news; for example, “The winning lottery numbers are 4, 23, 16, 19 & 30.”

It is the subconscious process occurring in your own head that will make your blood flow to your face or to your feet; it is your own thought process that will make your heart pump slower or faster; your own thoughts that will make your body stand straighter with excitement or slump lower with dread.

Yes, dread. For some people, winning millions may represent an increase in responsibility, stress, and anxiety. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.” ~Robert Quillen

This weekend someone broke into my apartment and stole everything of significant monetary value that I owned.

They stole my jewelry box, with pieces I got from my boyfriend, his mother, and my sister, after she’d gone through a break-up and wanted to unload a vast collection from her past. They stole several purses in my closet, and confusing it for another, also took my makeup bag.

They took my laptop bag containing my new MacBook, my wallet, my passport, my glasses, and my boyfriend’s old iPhone, which I’ve been using to play games. They grabbed a stack of DVDs, though I can’t remember which.

Lastly, they took my hamper, after emptying it on my bedroom floor, to carry all their loot. Oddly but thankfully, they took nothing of my boyfriend’s.

That night, I’d been at a neighbor’s house with a few friends, peeling lemons to make limoncello. I was supposed to be in New Orleans with my boyfriend and others for Jazz Fest, but I’d backed out after my doctor told me it wasn’t wise, so soon after my surgery.

When I walked into my bedroom after arriving home, and saw the clothes on my floor, I wondered why I would have done that. I hadn’t yet noticed the other missing items, and I just assumed if something was awry, I’d done it and forgotten.

Then I started looking around, and realized someone had been in my home. My heart started racing, my face went flush, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I wondered if someone was still there, hiding, waiting, or watching.

So I ran downstairs and called my neighbor, who came right over with the others. Thankfully, they did everything for me. They called the police. They called my apartment community’s security. And they even wrote a checklist of things I needed to do, including canceling cards and setting up credit monitoring alerts. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Nikki Di Virgilio

“The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion. The tunnel is.” ~Unknown

A dream: I am in a woman’s prison. The cells and halls are dark and dirty. The prison looks like a damp dungeon. Inside the cells are women dressed in rags along with their children.

I am not in a cell, but walking around, observing the faces of desperate, imprisoned women. I need to get out, and find myself in an empty corridor, long and wide.

At the end, I see a glimpse of light: freedom through the corridor. After a long walk, I arrive at the place of light, an oasis, an ocean retreat filled with sunshine, laughter, and happy people wearing white.

But before I enter the long tunnel, I see a girl crying, and I ask her why. She tells me she has a feeling something bad is going to happen to me.

This dream has become the metaphor of my life. The quote above resonates with my dream and the journey I have walked, but what has inspired me to write this post, is this: the tunnel is the illusion.

It would seem that since the “new age” movement, we have heard a lot about illusion—about what is real and what is not. What we should focus our minds on and what we should not.

How we have a choice that we need to make every day, perhaps every moment, between fear and love. Between prison and freedom. It makes us think we might have some power in a world that often does not make sense or brings us to places we would never want to be.

Here is another quote by Carl Jung.

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” 

It is not that I don’t agree that the tunnel is an illusion, but it concerns me that this word, illusion, gives us permission to not care about the tunnel—to not care about the process, which brings us from where we are to where we are going. 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 Caroline van Kimmenade

“Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” ~Bryant H. McGil

I don’t think I’d be alive if it weren’t for my curiosity.

Is that a dramatized statement? Maybe.

For me, curiosity has brought a curious kind of “fun” and “enchantment” to an otherwise bleak, painful, and seemingly hopeless period in my life.

Diagnosed with “burn-out” (a.k.a. adrenal fatigue) in 2009, my life quickly unraveled in front of me. I lost my job, my health, and my social life.

From what seemed like one moment to the next (but in fact was a shift happening over numerous weeks) I lost the ability to read or concentrate on pretty much anything for longer than a short instant.

Did I have it coming? Apparently.

Did I see it coming? Not really, no.

So, there I was. I could only manage one task a day. Making a simple phone call was a task.

It was difficult to accept, and it was frightening.

I’d always assumed that, whatever happened, I could rebuild my life. I could go and get a job somewhere else and start over, I could make things work.

Now, it seemed I couldn’t make anything work. 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 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 Laura Fenamore

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” -Eckhart Tolle

I grew up in what looked like a happy, all-American household—eight children, a dutiful housewife for a mother, and a father who was both a janitor at my school and a member of the Knights of Columbus and American Legion.

However, in the background, terror lurked. My father, verbally and physically abusive, terrorized us every day. Even after growing up, taking back my life and moving across the country, I still wore my victim story like a badge.

“I am so screwed up because of my father,” was the subtext of everything I ever shared about my childhood.

Some years ago, I was having lunch in Los Angeles with my friend Paul, going over all the horrible things that had happened to me in my life.

Suddenly Paul said to me, “Laura, how long are you going to tell that story and be a victim of that story?”

I was shocked. I responded, “You don’t understand!  This man—my father—tried to ruin my life!” and, “You don’t understand what hell I’ve been through!” and, “You just don’t understand!”

He said, “I understand. I just want to know how long you are going to tell the story.”

Fortunately, beneath my initial reaction, I knew he was right. It was in that moment that I realized I’d been going through my life thinking I was earning purple hearts for having the worst childhood story.

The truth was that my story was holding me back from healing. I had this sad core belief that my story made me friends by getting people to pity me.

In reality, my defining myself only by my pain was actually pushing people away. My suffering was leading me nowhere. 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 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 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 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 Stephen Schettini

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

I love my wife, so it stung the other day when she said, “Hmm … You’re going to have trouble letting me go, aren’t you?”

She’s not walking out on me. You see, she has multiple sclerosis (MS), and she’s referring to the day she can’t walk any more. She’s convinced herself that she can’t handle the guilt of ruining my life, and expects me to leave when she says so.

I knew Caroline had MS when I married her. I also knew I loved her.

And I knew from experience what it was to live in a loveless marriage, hoping against hope that if you work hard enough at it, things will turn around. Of course, there is an element of work in marriage, but it’s got to start with chemistry.

I fell in love because of our chemistry. Yes, physical chemistry—she’s a real beauty—but I’m not talking about that, either.

We care about the same things, like honesty and depth and clear insight. And we don’t give a damn about the same things, like having loads of money or achieving great, big visible success.

Still, we live well, eat well and enjoy fine wines. However, Caroline’s turning into a bit of a homebody as her legs grow less reliable. Her car’s being fitted for a hand-operated brake. She had a bit of a scare recently, so it’s time.

They say you don’t die from MS, you live with it. Well, they can say what they like. Those are words; we live with the reality.

Most of the time Caroline’s full of life, charged up by her work as a personal life coach and filled with the satisfaction of seeing eye-popping changes in her clients’ lives. Still, MS is a chronic, degenerative illness. She’s gone through all the scary attacks of temporary blindness, vertigo, and electrical storms in her body, weakness, profound fatigue and inexplicable pain.

She avoids medications. They’re no cure and the side effects suck. Her mood is usually good, amazing actually. She has a bright outlook on life, and is a great wife and mother.

When I say she inspires the hell out of me, I’m not just being polite. Being with her has changed my life. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Valle, a high school student from Madrid, Spain

“The world is full of suffering. It is also filled with overcoming it.” -Helen Keller

Even though I am just 16, I’ve lived my short life with so much pressure, which I’ve finally realized comes from me.

During my life, I have lived through more challenges than most teenagers, and at times I didn’t think I could handle it.

My life has never been easy. My parents broke up when I was two years old because my father was unfaithful to my mother. It was hard. The rancor between two people can last decades. And now, 14 years later, they have overcome some of their differences, but the bitterness is still here, and so, the suffering too.

For two years in school starting when I was seven, I was battered by my schoolmates. Although I was very young I can remember how hard it was going to school knowing what was waiting to me. Most of the time it was a psychological abuse, and for this reason, it made the effect less obvious.

After this I spent one year totally alone because everyone disregarded me. They made fun of me all the time and that was hard to deal with. Luckily, I found the strength and courage to tell this to my parents.

Sometimes the hardest part of dealing with a difficult problem is acknowledging it. When you recognize your problem, you’ve taken a huge step.

I thought I was on the right track after this, but I still struggled and eventually started suffering with an eating disorder.

Sometimes, the things we do in life seem completely insignificant, and we don’t think about the consequences of our actions. That’s how it was for me—I thought I was limitless.

Like other kids my age, I didn’t want to be a conformist.

Still, I felt I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, friendly enough, or hard-working enough. So I just didn’t care about myself. I wasn’t important.

So, what did I have then? Everything, in fact everything. But I was just too busy abusing myself to recognize it.

During the last year and still now, I am trying to overcome my disease. I am doing this by loving myself and letting others love me too, because if you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to receive love from anyone else. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Faye Assee

“Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.” ~Osho

As far as I can remember, I have always asked myself questions about the nature of my emotional pain. I analyzed and went on long thinking quests to find answers to all of this deliberation. I was convinced that I would find deliverance by coming up with the exact hypothesis, about why I was chosen to have to live with so much trauma and pain in my childhood.

I felt like a victim of life.

I did not wonder about the source of my joy; on the contrary I simply accepted these positive emotions.

I went through a phase of denying the negative emotions I experienced, and I thought that being positive, at all costs, would “chase” away my suffering. At the time, I used the skills best known to me, to defend myself against the pain I felt.

For many years I attempted to transform a negative emotion into a positive one. Albeit, the pain did not subside, it was still echoing loudly, and eventually manifested itself at full volume. Then not too long ago, someone gave me the permission to embrace my pain. I felt as though I had been given the authority to grieve the entire trauma that I had ever experienced.

I began this journey of looking at the source of my pain. Yet, I felt drowned by it, and I felt the constant burn of going through the fire. I indulged in this state and felt some form of relief about acknowledging all of this suffering.

Upon reflecting on the path I had permitted myself to take, to travel to the depths of my past, I uncovered that I had developed an unconscious belief that someone was guilty for inflicting this suffering on me. As a result, I continued the cycle of victimization, where I was seeking to lay blame on someone for my ill feelings, thus not achieving inner peace.

Following my last break-up, to the man I call one of my soul mates, I fell to pieces, and delved into the tides of emotions that came my way—sadness, loneliness, fear and depression. The pain was louder than anything I have ever experienced, thus far.

I blamed him for all of the suffering I was experiencing, I made him the source of my turmoil, and then I used hate towards him to manage my pain. I was in victim mode, and I turned him into the cause of my darkness.

Then it dawned on me, and I recognized that I was fighting against the tide again by not accepting my pain.

That is when I started to wonder about the following: “If I am able to accept the positive experiences of my life, that bring me joy and happiness, without even questioning their origin or trying to avoid them, what if I did the same for the other emotions I fear so much, such as sadness, pain, fear, anger, and loneliness?” Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Dana David

“If you get up one more time than you fall, you will make it through.” ~Chinese Proverb

Last year I had emergency open heart surgery. Shortly after the procedure, two nurses entered my room and gave me terrible news: I had to walk.

That may not sound like a big deal, but open heart surgery is brutal. Simple things like being able to sit up or change position once my backside became sore were agony. Getting to the walker, a mere several steps away from my bed, was an extreme effort.

My goal was to walk around the nurse’s station, and I might as well have been told to walk to the moon.

Despite a punctured lung (a surgical accident), I concentrated on regular deep breaths and slow deliberate steps. I was so focused on these two things that the pain, while still significant, slipped away.

By the time I made it back to my bed, I wanted to cry and laugh—I had made it!

The next day was very different, as I’d been having a difficult time. I couldn’t seem to muster the strength to get out of bed; finally, out of desperation, I cried and gasped out that I couldn’t do it. One of the nurses very firmly but compassionately told me I could.

With her help, I somehow managed to stand on both feet and stagger to the walker. As I made my tour of the station, the deep breathing and deliberate walking allowed me to calm down enough to cope with the pain and the severe depression I’d been battling.

It had hurt so much to move that morning, but once I stood up and took that first step, things started to get better.

From that moment on, I knew that I had the strength to conquer this physical challenge. I walked every day, right up until I was released. By far it was the greatest and most painful thing I had ever accomplished.

The stumbles and falls we suffer in life can be very much like physical ones. Have you ever actually fallen? Aside from the embarrassment, what thoughts ran through your mind?

Did you: Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Kate Lamie

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

My quarter-life crisis kicked into high gear about six months ago.

Take this as evidence: I quit my job. I quit my apartment and moved back home. I quit booze and boys. I quit gluten and sugar. I quit friendships I’d imagined would last a lifetime.

I’m not asking for an A+ or gold stars for my “self” work. I wasn’t hit by a spark of spiritual lightening and magically committed to this transformation. In a lot of ways, the Universe didn’t give me much of a choice.

There were cysts, and scans, and rashes, and allergic reactions, which ignited a powerful underlying anxiety about the fact that I hadn’t been “healthy” since I could remember.

This anxiety festered and danced into relationships with my roommates, ex-boyfriends, siblings, co-workers, and, most importantly, myself.

It was the perfect mix of elements, a storm front hitting just the right pocket of pressure. And boom—a hurricane showed up.

I stood in the middle, watching as the winds of change tore through my life, uplifting anything that wasn’t serving my purpose, my passion, my inner peace or my health.

This ripping and tearing of people, places, and things that I’d brought into my life—assuming they might help me grow into a happier, stronger version of myself—was at first paralyzing, upsetting, and infuriating.

I was tempted time and time again to numb out, to play the familiar role of the victim. After all, I had more than my fair share of material to work with, courtesy of the endless doctor’s appointments, unrelenting stomach aches, and my never-ending anxiety.

Instead, I decided to bow my head, nod, and accept that the Universe had sent a storm to help me clean up my act and fall in love with my best self. I surrendered and allowed those gusts to take with them all the other versions of Kate I’d built for everyone else. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Laura Fenamore

“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.”  ~Buddha

These words resonate for me in a deeply personal way. The importance of being in the here and now, of recognizing that every moment is an opportunity to wake up to what is happening and what is possible, saved my life.

I was a compulsive eater out of my mother’s womb. The youngest of eight children in an abusive home, and I used food to feel safe. I overate every day, hated myself for it, and yet could not stop.

I started addicted to food, and by my teenage years I was addicted to alcohol and drugs, as well. By age 24, I was designing my ending and talked regularly about taking my life. I was a fat, depressed drunk who hated herself, until a major shift happened.

I had recognized my self-harming behavior and had been in Overeaters Anonymous (OA) for months, but my patterns were the same. After meetings, I would go straight to the grocery store and then binge my brains out in the car, thinking, “Well, I’m not ready yet, and I am doing the best I can right now.”

Part of me was seeking something better, and the other part was desperate; one part wanted to live, and the other did not, but still I hung on to the belief that something might change.

Then came the day when I heard four words that rocked my world forever.

It was February, 1988. My latest New Year’s resolution to heal had died, and I was using food like crazy and drinking like a fish. There was a daylong OA conference, and as disappointed as I was in myself yet again, I knew I needed to go.

The very first speaker, a normal-sized woman, had a story similar to mine—a lifetime of yo-yo diets and self-hate. She talked about feeling desperate and determined at the same time, of living her life in two parts: the one who knew there was more, and the one who felt defeated.

She talked about all of her excuses and stories and lies and self-betrayals, and how they were digging her grave deeper.

She, like me, had wanted out of the quicksand, and could never find a hand or a rod or anything to pull her out. Then, one day in a meeting, she had heard a woman share a similar story of attempts to save herself until her life was changed by four words. Those words would forever change the life of this woman and, as soon as she shared them, they changed mine too.

“If not now, when?”

When she shared those words, I burst into tears and experienced an actual physical release in my body, an earthquake in my cells. My world was literally rocked and my life forever changed. Just then, I got it. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Fiona Robyn

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

I’ve been self-employed for many years now. This is no accident. I’ve always liked to do things my own way. I like to arrange my diary in exactly the way I want to, and make my own mind up about how I do things. I like to work without having to justify anything to a manager.

I’m not always comfortable in working relationships where the other person is “higher up” than me—when they’re in authority. You could say that I’m a teensy bit of a control-freak.

I used to work for a big corporation, and my relationships with my managers weren’t always easy. I was very critical of the way they did things, and if they criticized me I sometimes got very defensive. I learned a great deal from a couple of good managers, but I also spent a lot of time resenting being “told what to do.”

Recently, I decided to embark upon training to become a Buddhist minister. This involves having a “supervisor” who is responsible for my spiritual training, and who will ultimately be responsible for deciding whether or not I “make the grade” and ordain.

Last month, my supervisor asked me a question in an email and I felt immediately attacked and defensive. I felt annoyed. I complained to my friend. I sent her a long and rambling reply, outlining all the reasons why she shouldn’t be asking the question. We exchanged a few emails, and the situation got more and more confused.

I thought I’d managed to avoid conflict with people senior to me when I became self-employed. I didn’t have a manager anymore, so what was the problem?

The problem is that, as Pema Chodron says, nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Click Here to Read More…