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

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 Fiona Robyn

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

I had a terrible morning. I needed to make a short YouTube video to promote my therapy practice, and I thought it would take twenty minutes at the most.

The technology was more complicated than I thought. I struggled on, wanting to do it by myself. Half an hour later, I surrendered and asked my husband Kaspa for help.

Two hours later, we were still trying to make it work.

I started thinking about all the other things I was meant to be doing that morning. A tense knot formed in my stomach. I started snapping at Kaspa—if only he knew how to make it work, I’d be finished by now. Grr!

I finally finished the video (with the help of a very patient husband!), but I was in no state to do any more work. I felt panicky and rushed, and my brain kept talking me through the list of all the things I needed to catch up on, like a stuck record.

Once I allow myself to get into this kind of state, it takes me a while to “come down” again.

After some time sitting at my desk and feeling agitated, I decided to go out into the garden. I walked slowly up the path, noticing the bang of my heart. I looked at the baby pink roses, the inner-most petals still holding onto drops of dew. I heard the clear song of a blackbird. I took a deep breath. And another.

These are the things that help me when I get panicky. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Juha Kaartoluoma

“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 guys, my body is very skinny. It has been that way since I was a little kid. My friends used to tease me because of it. I laughed at their jokes, but inside I always felt horrible.

I felt like there was something wrong with me because I was different.

As I got older I started going to the gym so I could gain weight. Progress was slow since my body naturally leans towards the skinnier side. But slowly I began seeing results in the size of my muscles.

This is, however, where the results ended. I didn’t really get happier with my body at all, which was the main purpose of the training anyways.

I still felt skinny and there was always something in my body that wasn’t quite right yet.

At that point I realized that I was participating in a game that I couldn’t win. My body wasn’t the problem. The problem was what my mind was telling me about my body.

In essence, as long as you are identified and run by your mind, it will come up with “problems” for you to focus on.

Every single time a dilemma is solved, you can be sure of a new one arising that feels equally stressing as the previous one.

The good news is that there is a way to break free from this endless loop of stress. It starts by realizing how pointless and harmful this useless worry actually is.

Once you become aware of the negativity that these thought patterns create, it will be much easier to let go of your “problems” once and for all. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Evelyn Lim

“I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

When you think about the future, are you filled with hope or worry? If you are like most people, it’s probably anxiety. You have largely been experiencing worry. Your mind feels unsettled.

Worry arises because you realize that you cannot predict what is going to happen tomorrow and know that you cannot have full control over how events turn out. You are uncomfortable with not having absolute certainty.

Incessant worrying happens when you find it hard to let go. You fret over the same details repeatedly. A fertile imagination causes you to play out mental scenarios of doom, failure, and fatal consequences over and over again.

I Was a Worry Wart

Well, I used to worry incessantly over the smallest of things. Before learning meditation, I did not know how to relax. Worry was my psychological mantra.

When my children were born, my anxiety levels went into over-drive. Were they eating enough?  Were they having a happy time with their friends?  Were they faring well in school?

I soon realized that I was not the only one.  In talking with one of my girlfriends, I realized she was excessively worrying over her children, too. I noticed how tense she was. She was not fun to be with.

Eventually I knew that I needed to reclaim my sanity. Not doing so would mean continued misery.  I realized that it was only when I could lose my back load of worries could I be light and free. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s note: this is a contribution by Cat Li Stevenson

“To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” ~Chuang-Tzu

The beauty of life is that we constantly have the opportunity to change it.

We always have the power to recreate it. We can change our thoughts, remember how to live instead of planning each moment, forgive the past, be present for the now, slow down the speed, and push the reset button on a day that has escaped us.

I recently had one of those days.

This past Saturday was wonderful. Or so I thought it would be when I woke up.

I’d been invited to a traditional Cambodian, Vietnamese Wedding, and was excited to attend. Although I didn’t know the bride or the groom, I would be the guest of a good friend.

I had a couple of mishaps that morning that caused me to be late. First, I spent 30 minutes with my younger sister, peeling a wad of gum off the heels she’d borrowed from me the night before—the ones I planned to wear to the wedding in the next hour.

I half-sprinted without make-up to my car, holding a coffee that later spilled all over the front seat.

I arrived to the ceremony 15 minutes late. I quickly made my way towards the front door of the home. A room full of women in vibrant, traditional Asian clothing greeted me inside.

I introduced myself to a couple as a guest of Sophya, a good friend of mine. They just looked at me blankly, perhaps unsure who she was, and didn’t really respond.

I made my way to the nearby couch where a small group of kids were playing to wait for Sophya there. After getting lost in Legos for 20 minutes, I heard Sophya calling me from another room. Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Ariella Baston

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

If there’s one thing that has led me the greatest amount of re-invention, it’s anxiety. By anxiety I don’t mean worry or concern. Anxiety is a different animal that grabs a hold of you and halts you in your tracks.

We tend to reject its milder forms and are really terrified by its intense moments, like with panic attacks. It’s difficult to see when we’re fighting with anxiety that it can have any benefit, but it does.

Anxiety comes with some great treasures hidden inside, and they can be yours if you know how to get to them. First, you have to stop fighting and listen to the anxiety for clues.

Getting the Message

The greatest truth about anxiety is that it is a message. Anxiety is not the real issue. It’s the voice of something else lying beneath that’s calling out to you.

Most people who experience anxiety try to go after the symptoms more than its cause and try to fight it off as if it were the only thing to deal with.

That’s not how to go about it if you ever want to know how it happened, why it’s there, and how you can gain long-term freedom from it. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.” ~Eckhart Tolle

The other day my good friend from back home called me hysterically crying. She felt certain she just blew a second job interview, and she’d hit a breaking point.

She’d been struggling for months, just barely paying her bills and wondering if she could afford to keep her apartment.

Every purchase had become an exercise in extreme deliberation. In fact, I’m fairly certain that when I visited last, I saw her stressing in the grocery store about whether she really needed that box of Twinkies that beckoned from the shelf.

Now here she was, hyperventilating, recounting in explicit detail all the things she’d done wrong in this interview.

The interviewer looked disgusted, she said—he was probably thinking she was incompetent. He asked her questions in an abrupt way—he was trying to trip her up. He didn’t respond when she made conversation on the way to the door—he most likely hated her and couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

Having gone through countless interviews with multiple companies after sending out dozens of resumes, she was just plain exhausted and starting to feel desperate.

As she recalled the anxiety she felt in this encounter, I visualized her sitting vulnerably in front of his desk, and my heart went out to her. I imagined she felt a lot like Tom Smykowski from Office Space when he was interviewing with the efficiency experts to save his job—pre-Jump-to-Conclusions mat.

“I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don’t have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people!?” Click Here to Read More…

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Francis Tapon

“I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

Whenever worries and anxiety overwhelm your life, people tell you, “Just relax.”

Thanks, that’s wise advice, but how the hell do you do that? You’d love “to be light and free,” but that seems impossible when you’re feeling heavy and enslaved. How do you do it?

What follows are two practical, yet profound ways to let go of your worries and anxiety. Use these two skills to lighten your load and unchain yourself from everyday frustrations.

I learned these two techniques from pilgrims who walk the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail. In their honor, I call it the Pilgrim’s Perspective.

A Quick Quiz

First, consider how you would react in these five situations:

1. You’re on a subway train that’s stalled in a tunnel and you’re told to exit and take a bus because of a “mechanical problem.”

2. You have to make an important call when your cell phone battery dies.

3. You’re remodeling your kitchen when the contractor makes an error that sets you back two weeks and $500.

4. You need cash fast and there are 10 people in line at the ATM.

5. You’re going out to a job interview, all dressed up, when a taxi cab hits a puddle of water and drenches you. Click Here to Read More…

by Steve McSwain

In life, we experience two kinds of fear: real fear, and psychological fear. Or, as I prefer to think of the latter, ego-fear.

In the words of Immanuel Kant, the ego is “our precious little self.” Or as Eckhart Tolle calls it, “the voice in the head.” It isn’t who you really are, but the you that you think you are.

Each day, what you see in the mirror is the reflection of your physical being, and within, you may get glimpses of your unique personality in that reflection too, in between your laugh lines or furrowed brow. Still, it’s not really you.

Same thing with the roles you inhabit each day, and how they are reflected back to you: As friend, lover, parent, child, worker, boss. These are different selves we pick up each day as needed, as the situation or relationship summons them.

But knowing that these roles, as well as your reflection in the mirror, are not who you actually are is an important distinction to which all enlightened, sentient beings become aware.

With this background, we can better understand our shared fears and how to overcome them. Click Here to Read More…

by Genny Ross-Barons

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

I celebrated an anniversary recently. It was the night I experienced my first, and hopefully last, earthquake.

My husband and I had retired for the evening as usual—said our goodnights and went to sleep. I was jarred awake at 2:30 AM by him trying to pull me from our bed. At the same moment I heard the most deafening roar. Could a freight train be barrelling through our loft?

Our attempts to escape the upper level were hampered by the violent shaking. As we stepped forward we were propelled side-to-side.  We were being tossed like rag-dolls as we scrambled down the stairs, only to be greeted by the sound of glass objects smashing from below.

Skirting around the shards of broken stemware, we fumbled with the house keys and made our escape to the front porch. The same instant that we arrived outside, the 7.3 earthquake stopped as abruptly as it had started.

We were fortunate that our home did not collapse on top of us, that in our community there was no loss of life, and the tsunami that we were warned about never materialized.

Although we were lucky and it only lasted sixty seconds, I put earthquakes at the top of my list of things I never want to experience again.

So why celebrate the anniversary of such an event? Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

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

CNN reports that psychic businesses are thriving in this challenging economy—and the clientele has expanded to include more business professionals who are worried about their financial future. According to Columbia Business School’s Professor Gita Johar who studies consumer behavior, the greatest motivation for visiting a psychic is to feel a sense of control.

Sure, there are lots of things we can’t control: businesses may fold, stocks may plummet, relationships may end–the list is infinite, really. But wouldn’t we be far more effective if we focused on all things we can control instead; if we stopped worrying about the indefinite and started benefiting from the guaranteed? Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene

“It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.” ~Aeschylus

Earlier this year I got some feedback from the ‘tween magazine I wrote for: “It sounds like good advice, but kids probably won’t do any of that.”

In my head it all sounded logical, but I didn’t consider whether I’d have taken that advice as a kid. Or now for that matter.

People do it all the time: look at a situation from a removed, non-emotional place, and hurl suggestions that are far easier said than done. And sometimes, just plain unrealistic.

I’ve listed 5 of these hard-to-follow, cliché pieces of advice, along with alternative suggestions you may actually be inclined to take. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene, Photo by loungerie

Sometimes when I’m alone doing something I love—writing, drawing, or practicing yoga, for example—I feel a sense of calm that I’d like to bottle for later when other people join the picture.

Many times throughout my life, I’ve allowed my happiness to fade because of something someone did or sad–or didn’t do or say. I’ve flip-flopped from bliss to anxiety at the drop of a dime, because someone didn’t like me. Or someone had excessive demands and I was too nice to say no. Or I thought I needed something from another person—that would do it. That would make me happy.

I suspect lots of people let other people dictate their happiness, at least occasionally. I’ve identified four ways people commonly do this, and three ideas to address each. Since it is a lot of information, I’ve split this into two posts, with the second coming tomorrow. Click Here to Read More…

by Lori Deschene, Photo credit

Tomorrow is my 30^th birthday. For two hours earlier this evening, I felt certain I’d start the day hooked up to an IV in intensive care.

It all started two weeks ago when I visited my family. Shortly after I arrived home I began feeling chest pains, something I experienced frequently in my youth. Back in the day, I spent hours in the high school nurse’s office while my peers were in lunch, study hall, or gym class. Though it was intense and frightening, I wonder, in retrospect, if my mind magnified the pain after the doctor called my damaged esophagus pre-cancerous. Click Here to Read More…