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Posts by Lori Deschene

Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She started the site after struggling with depression, bulimia, c-PTSD, and toxic shame so she could recycle her former pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. You can find her books, including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, here and learn more about her eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story, if you’re ready to transform your life and become the person you want to be.

Lori Deschene's Website

Tiny Wisdom: Let Go

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“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.” -Ajahn Chah

It’s hard to feel peaceful if you dwell on why you should be angry. If you want to feel free, let the story go.

It’s hard to feel good if you feel like you deserve to feel bad. If you want to feel happy, let your self-judgment go.

It’s hard to feel satisfied if you feel like everything needs to be perfect. If you want to feel content, let your perfectionism go.

It’s …

Tiny Wisdom: The Gains in Our Losses

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“If you learn from a loss you have not lost.” –Austin O’Malley

Earlier this year I spent dozens of hours and nearly $1,000 on a new feature for this site. Due to some misunderstandings between me, the programmer, and the designer, things didn’t turn out quite how I intended.

Ultimately, I decided to cut my losses and focus my attention somewhere else. I knew I might revisit this feature down the road, but that would require more time and money, and at first that bothered me.

I finance the site independently, and I’m not rolling in cash, so it felt …

Tiny Wisdom: Moving Forward After a Mistake

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“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” -James Joyce

When you were little, did you ever rip up a picture you’d worked really hard on just because you colored a little out of the lines?

I was that girl; and I had a similar experience this weekend.

I decided to make lasagna for this potluck party my boyfriend and I were going to host. I don’t cook often, so this felt like a big deal. I got all the ingredients the night before, stacked them on the counter, and then admired them. They were the pieces of my saucy …

Tiny Buddha Twitter Party with Jonathan Fields and Gabrielle Bernstein

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If I lived in a massive house and owned numerous private jets, I would personally fly all of you out to Los Angeles for a party to celebrate the launch of my first book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions.

But since I only have a $10, a fortune from a cookie, and a button in my wallet, I hope you’ll join me for a Twitter party instead!

What Is the Tiny Buddha Twitter Party?

This Thursday, December 8th at 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PST, my friend Karl of Party Biz Connect will host a one-hour teleseminar …

Tiny Wisdom: The Beauty of Starting Over

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“Celebrate endings, for they precede new beginnings.” -Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Yesterday I spent more than an hour writing something I intended to publish today—and then I lost it. Since I hadn’t slept much the night before, I wasn’t completely attentive and somehow, I must have closed out the Word document before I titled or saved it.

That same exhaustion made it somewhat difficult to communicate my thoughts clearly when writing. But I did—after an hour, I’d expressed everything I wanted to share. Then it was gone.

Initially, I considered rewriting the post, and trying to remember exactly what I’d written …

Tiny Wisdom: Do You Believe?

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“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” –James Allen

Do you believe you can do work you love? If you don’t believe it, you likely won’t try for it.

Do you believe you can be in a happy relationship? If you don’t believe, you likely won’t open up to it.

Do you believe you can adopt that healthier habit? If you don’t believe it, you likely won’t stick to it.

Do you believe you can fully release your anger toward that person who hurt you? If you don’t believe it, you …

Tiny Wisdom: Time to Enjoy

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“Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.” -Unknown

The other morning I hopped out of bed and made a beeline for the laundry room. Although it contains numerous washers and dryers, unlike the room at my old apartment complex, far more people use it.

This means I might as well camp out in from of the building a la Black Friday if I hope to get my clothes in at some point in the AM. That morning, as luck would have it, two of the washers were still empty three seconds after the …

Interview and Book Giveaway: Epiphany by Elise Ballard

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Note: This winners for this giveaway have been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

In my experience, meaningful transformation always starts with some type of epiphany—a realization that suddenly puts life in a new perspective and informs what you need to do from this point forward.

I’ve always been fascinated by these moments, when something suddenly makes sense in a way it didn’t before and change seems much more possible.

With this in mind, I was thrilled to receive a copy of Elise Ballard’s …

Tiny Wisdom: 3 Truths for Purpose and Success

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“Great acts are made up of small deeds.” -Lao Tzu

“‘Tiny’ is the new big. I’ve seen this phrase used in context with iPods, cell phones, purses, cars, businesses, and even houses. It might not be a phrase you’d think to apply to purpose and success, but I’ve found that the smallest of things can sometimes have the most power. Today I’d like to share with you a little of my journey to Tiny Buddha, as well as three tiny truths for a meaningful, successful life.”

And thus began my presentation for Bonfire Heights in September. I’ve been waiting to …

50 Ways to Show Gratitude for the People in Your Life

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“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” –William Arthur Ward

The holiday season generally brings us closer to people. Sometimes that closeness reminds us how much we love each other. Sometimes it reminds us that we drive each other crazy, as family often does.

At the heart of it, Thanksgiving in particular calls us to see people with the deepest appreciation for the gifts they’ve given us. Some gifts are more immediately obvious than others—the type that come with praise, affection, and genuine esteem.

Others push us, stretch us, test us, and …

Tiny Wisdom: Not Choosing Is a Choice

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“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” -William James

“I don’t know—what do you think?”

Recently I find myself asking this when my boyfriend asks what I want to do—what movie I want to see, where I want to eat, or how I’d like to spend an off-day.

At first I thought this was just a residual people-pleasing tendency from a time when I measured my worth in approval. But when I look at this more closely, I realize it’s actually about relinquishing the tiny decisions, since inevitably there are …

Tiny Wisdom: Make the Most of Yourself

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“Make the most of yourself, because that’s all there is of you.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I recently started yoga again after an extended period of time away from my mat. People once knew me for my flexibility and my passion for downward dog; but over the past couple of years, I somehow reduced my practice from six days per week, to four, to two, to sporadically deep breathing while touching my toes.

When I learned my new apartment community offers classes by the pool, I decided to jump back in. I felt excited to start again, but I imagined I’d …

Giveaway: Leela – Meditation through Your Xbox or Wii

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

The Winners:

You may know Deepak Chopra for his many inspiring books, including The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and The Ultimate Happiness Prescription. A world-renowned expert on mind-body healing, Deepak Chopra has dedicated his life to helping people create joy and equanimity.

You might not know, however, that Deepak Chopra also makes video games. Well, sort of. 

Recently Deepak Chopra partnered with the gaming company THQ to create a creative, fully …

Tiny Gratitude from Tiny Buddha to You

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“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”  -G.K. Chesterton

Thank you for being you, and being here. Happy Thanksgiving friends! 🙂

Photo by CarbonNYC

Tiny Wisdom: Dealing with Public Criticism

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“Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.” -Andrew Carnegie

I used to follow a popular blog ran by a woman who’d lost a lot of weight and wrote about maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

One day, she saw a teenager smoking a cigarette on the street. She decided to walk up to him and let him know this was dumb—and then she blogged about it.

Her followers unanimously agreed it was judgmental and righteous to harshly criticize someone who didn’t ask for her opinion, especially since she had no way of knowing if he might …

Tiny Wisdom: The Lessons That Hurt

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“Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.” -Alan Cohen

There have been times when I’ve hurt tremendously and then felt a strong need to punish myself for my part in causing that pain. Usually it’s when I’ve made a mistake, and I feel ashamed, like I should have known and done better.

This is kind of ironic when you think about it—clearly I wanted to know and do better to avoid hurting, and yet instead of letting it go, I’ve continued to make myself feel bad.

When I was younger, someone once …

Giveaway: The Book of Holiday Awesome

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

The Winners:

It’s no secret: I am a hugeNeil Pasricha fan. It’s impossible to visit his site 1000 Awesome Things and not feel good about the world. He has a gift for identifying the small, simple pleasures and treasures that make life beautiful and fill us with joy, if we take the time to notice and appreciate them.

In case you’re not familiar with Neil, a little background info: Neil started …

Tiny Wisdom: Learning to Read What We Need

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“Information is not knowledge.” -Einstein

It’s an interesting time to be a publisher. Before magazines had online counterparts, choosing articles to feature was a much more selective process, as there was no need to solicit more pieces than you could feasibly fit in an issue.

Now that page views are dollars, quality hasn’t necessarily become less important, but publishers are certainly more focused on providing more to readers—more links to click on, more posts to tweet, and more places to get involved in conversations.

Recently, I’ve received a few requests from larger sites asking if I’d like to participate in …

Tiny Wisdom: Taking Things Away

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“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” -Socrates

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from writing, it’s that knowing what to remove is often just as important as knowing what to add.

Surprisingly, it sometimes take just as much time to write something short as it does to write something long because it entails rewriting and editing to capture the most important points with the most specific words.

I’ve found that this same idea applies to other things in life: sometimes creating peace, happiness, or satisfaction has everything to do with what we choose to take away.

You can love …

4 Myths about Doing What You Love for Work

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“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~Buddha

“Big flud strikes Revere!”

That was the headline of the newspaper I made with my sister when I was six. I hadn’t yet honed my skills as an editor, but I knew a good fake story when I heard it.

Eight years later, while wading through my anger toward several people who’d hurt me, I wrote a short book called The Line of the Virtues about the grey area between good and bad. An older coworker at my afterschool job asked, “Are …