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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.

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Tiny Wisdom: Let Your Light Shine Bright

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“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ~Marianne Williamson

We all have it: a little voice inside that tries to hold us back.

It tells us not to say what we feel so we won’t make any waves. It tells us not to define what we want so that things can stay predictably easy. It tells us not to go for our dreams because we may not be good enough.

It may also tell us that it’s selfish to focus on our own desires and goals–that good people are more …

Tiny Wisdom: Letting Other People Hurt

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“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.” -Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday I helped a friend with a project that he’d spent a lot of time, money, and energy planning as a surprise for someone he loves. I knew it meant a lot to him to do this–and do it well.

Things didn’t work out as he had planned, partly due to some misguided advice I gave him. Since he’d been working on it for days, it was an incredible disappointment. I could see the sadness in his face as he saw the final product …

Tiny Wisdom: Open Your Eyes and See

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“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

This weekend, I devoted an extensive amount of time to writing something I’ve been struggling to complete. I wrote and rewrote so many times that it felt like more like destruction than creation, but I’ve come to realize that chaos is often the path to clarity.

There were times when I knew it could be beneficial to do something else, clear my head, and come back to it with fresh eyes, but a part of me felt this drive to push …

Tiny Wisdom: Receiving without a Sense of Obligation

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“The best things in life are unexpected, because there were no expectations.” -Eli Khamarov

There was a time when I hesitated to accept unsolicited offers of support. If someone suggested a way they could help me, I assumed they were looking for something specific in return. This made me somewhat defensive, because there were and are a lot of things I don’t want to do.

I don’t want to personally recommend products I haven’t tried myself. I don’t want to tweet promotional links of any kind. I don’t want to send dedicated email blasts about books, or seminars, or teleconferences.…

Book Giveaway and Review: A Lamp in the Darkness

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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 5 winners:

“Sometimes we have to go right into the fire in order to find our true healing.” ~Jack Kornfield

No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve accomplished, no matter how well you’ve planned, you will deal with challenges in life. We all will. And many times, they will hit us unexpectedly.

We will all lose things and people we love. We will all make mistakes and …

Tiny Wisdom: We Get to Decide if Today Counts

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“The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” -Pema Chodron

A while back, a reader commented that it’s easy for me to suggest tomorrow is full of possibilities, since I am relatively young. An older woman, she believed her options were far more limited, and that even if she could do the things she wanted to do, they wouldn’t count–not at her age.

My first instinct was to start a conversation about mindfulness, since no one is ever guaranteed more than the present. Even young people don’t know for certain that they have decades more …

Tiny Wisdom: Are You Afraid of Success?

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“Success will never be a big step in the future; success is a small step taken just now.”  ~Jonatan Mårtensson

We often talk about releasing the fear of failure to create motivation and momentum, but I’ve found that there’s another obstacle that can keep us from taking risks: the fear of success.

Success in any pursuit requires responsibility. At one point, I decided this was one thing I didn’t want. I didn’t want people to depend on me. I didn’t want to create conditions in my life that I needed to maintain with consistency, both in effort and earning.

I …

Tiny Wisdom: You Make a Difference

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“Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.”  -William James

Last year, someone emailed me Seth Godin’s inspiring blog post You Matter. That one act made a huge difference in my day, so I’d like to build on that now.

  • When you show up for the people in your life, even though you’re having a hard day, you make a difference.
  • When you share what you’re dealing with, even though it makes you feel vulnerable, and help other people through your honesty, you make a difference.
  • When you practice what you preach, you make a
…

How to Maintain a Relationship with a Loved One Who’s Hurt You

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

In a previous post about forgiveness, I mentioned that I spent years holding onto anger toward someone who hurt me repeatedly years ago.

I eventually realized that forgiving this person was the only way to set myself free. The resentment, bitterness, and sometimes pure rage were slowly killing me. They manifested in emotional and physical illness, constricting my life so that I was little more than the sum of my grievances and pains.

At many points I strongly believed my emotions would consume me, bit …

Tiny Wisdom: What Is Truly Great

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“To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.” -Charles de Montesquieu

There is a very specific type of post I look for when reading guest contributions. It’s not expert advice, though clearly it helps to have a thorough knowledge of a topic. It’s not beautiful prose, though obviously it’s enjoyable to receive a post that reads like poetry.

What I look for is bravery in honesty. You can clarify the wording and expand on the advice, but you can’t create authenticity through editing.

I’d far prefer to read a post about depression from someone …

Tiny Wisdom: Not Taking No for an Answer

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“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Many times in life we ask questions of people and then put way too much weight on their answers.

We ask people we admire if they think we have what it takes, and then consider their opinions fact. We ask people we respect if they think we should take a chance, and then follow their advice as law. We ask people if they’ll take a chance on us, and then interpret their response to be a reflection of our potential.

Other people …

Tiny Wisdom: The Real Meaning of Abundance

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“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” ~Epicurus

It’s such a cliche, but true: money cannot buy happiness. It can influence happiness, since it can afford us necessities, a comfortable lifestyle, and opportunities that may increase our overall life satisfaction; but money, in itself, is not the abundance we seek.

The other day, I read about a research study that revealed the majority of participants would rather earn more money than their peers than earn more over a period of years. In other words, they’d sacrifice wealth for an increased sense of pride and status.

I …

Tiny Wisdom: When You’re Not Sure If You’ve Changed

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“Change is not a process for the impatient.” -Barbara Reinhold

A while back, a Tiny Buddha contributor commented that she was feeling like a fraud for struggling to take advice she’d offered in an article. I told her I could relate. I’ve written more than 600 wisdom-themed blog posts over the past few years, meaning there is abundant potential for me to contradict something I’ve previously explored in my writing.

Sometimes when I am not mindful, or kind, or stress-free, or clearly happier and more peaceful than I once was, I start to wonder if I’ve even changed at all. …

Tiny Wisdom: What Fear Really Means

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“Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real.” -Unknown

Sometimes we feel certain that we know exactly what we’re seeing. If you’re anything like me, odds are you’ve had plenty of opportunities to recognize your perception is often off.

A friend of mine once told me a story about a near-confrontation in the subway. She saw another woman dressed in what one might call Gothic clothing. Although my friend’s look was more conservative, she loved the other woman’s funky-looking shirt.

Unintentionally, she stared at it for a while, admiring the unique cut and wondering if she could pull that look off. When they …

Tiny Wisdom: When It’s Time to Stop Hoping

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“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope.” -Samuel Johnson

You’ll find lots of inspiring posts that suggest you hold onto hope against all odds and push through difficult times with your eye on a light down the road. This isn’t one of them. Sometimes hope is a beautiful thing. It can motivate, empower, and inspire you when you’re tempted to give up. But other times it just keeps you stuck.

When you push through today for a better tomorrow, without doing anything to create that new possibility, your hope …

Tiny Wisdom: When Things Aren’t Fair

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“Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.” Dwight Eisenhower

The other night, my boyfriend drove me to the airport for a cross-country flight. After he took a wrong turn, we ended up in a mess of traffic that pushed me dangerously close to my departure time.

When I entered, I saw two lines to check baggage: a long, winding one, and another that was oddly short. I assumed this was for “even more legroom” passengers and decided to upgrade my ticket so I’d be on time.

I made it to the agent within minutes, at which point …

Tiny Wisdom: You’re Stronger Than You Think

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“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” -Mahatma Gandhi

When I was twenty-one years old, I starved myself to ninety-five pounds and then spent every ounce of my energy worrying about the potential to gain weight back. It was torturous and yet comforting all at once. Because I obsessed about my body, I never had to think or worry about much else. There just wasn’t any time.

Back then I was rehearsing for a musical holiday show. I loved belonging to that group, and I wanted to form real friendships with the other cast …

Tiny Wisdom: Sometimes No One Is Wrong

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“Love is saying, ‘I feel differently’ instead of ‘you’re wrong.'” -Unknown

I’ve written a lot of posts about compassion these past few years, challenging both myself and readers to be open-minded and see things from others’ points of view.

On almost every post, someone has commented that there are times when other people are, in fact, wrong–when the person who cut you off in traffic really is a jerk, not just having a bad day; when the friend who hurt you actually had cruel intentions, and didn’t just make an innocent mistake; or when the person who sees things differently …

Tiny Wisdom: Certainty Is an Illusion

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“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” -Francois Gautier

Last week, I wrote a post about making difficult decisions, which incorporated 30 ideas from the Tiny Buddha Facebook community. The experience of writing it and reading the comments reminded me how certainty can sometimes silence our strongest instincts–when, ironically, certainty is always an illusion.

The secure job could become obsolete. The dependable friend could move away. The stable relationship could run its course.

None of the things that seem secure and safe are guaranteed to endure–not forever, or for any length of time, …

Tiny Wisdom: Stop Over-Apologizing

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“We must remember that an apology isn’t an apology unless it’s meaningful.” -Unknown

An old friend of mine used to apologize almost once during every sentence. If she interrupted me, she apologized. If I interrupted her, she apologized. If she asked me for the time, she apologized. If I tripped on her shoe, she apologized.

I found this somewhat annoying, and I realized quickly why: I did this, too, and I didn’t enjoy recognizing that.

I’ve noticed that many of us say we’re sorry when it isn’t actually necessary. In my case, it was mostly a people-pleasing tendency–I wanted …