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When Mindfulness Hurts: Feeling Is the Key to Healing

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“You start watching your breath and all your problems are solved. It is not like that at all. You are working with the heart of your experiences, learning to turn towards them, and that is difficult and can be uncomfortable.” ~Ed Halliwell

Can mindfulness be bad for you?

I had been expecting it: Once you become a regular at it, mindfulness permeates all aspects of your life.

I only sit in meditation for twenty minutes daily (and a full hour on Sundays), but I carry its effects with me the rest of the time, elevated levels of awareness and all.…

4 Relationship Traps to Avoid & Other Ways to Keep Your Love Strong

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

When I started dating, I did a terrible job of it.

I fell in love at the turn of a unique smile and fell out of it with the first sign of a stubborn bad habit. Despite that, I was a serial monogamist. I didn’t know how to develop the mental fortitude one needed to end things when they were ready to be ended, so I let them crawl on.

Teenage emotions are hard. Adult ones are hard, too.

Three years, four years, three and a half …

How to Feel Good Enough (When You Feel Anything But)

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.” ~Ralph Marston

I recently had a personal conversation with someone who was describing some struggles they were experiencing. In passing, they mentioned “It’s okay for you, you’ve fought your battles” and went on to talk about how I’m married, I’m working in a career I love, and I’m “successful.”

Listening to them, I could feel my heart breaking, partly for them: I know what it’s like to compare my insides to someone else’s outsides and find myself severely wanting.

But I …

How to Stop Believing Negative Things About Yourself

By in Blog, letting go

“If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become truth for you.” ~Louise Hay

Have you ever felt like you weren’t living up to your potential? That chasing your ultimate dream is a waste of time because you’ll never accomplish it? You’re certainly not alone. I know the feeling, and quite frankly, it’s awful.

Recently, I had occasion to visit a cemetery for military members and their families. I saw tombstones over 100 years old. Some of the people lived long lives, while many did not have the privilege of growing old.

As I walked, I couldn’t help but …

5 Ways I’ve Lived Life More Fully Since My Cancer Scare

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein

A few months ago, I had my first mammogram. I have two first cousins who died of breast cancer very young, as well as an aunt that recently passed away from the disease, so I started my mammograms a bit earlier than most.

This mammogram was quite routine, except that a few days later they asked me to come back for another one, as well as an ultrasound. This second visit was …

10 Lessons My Mother’s Death Taught Me About Healing and Happiness

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, letting go, love & relationships

“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.” ~Joan Didion

This spring marked ten years since I lost my mother. One ordinary Thursday, she didn’t show up to work, and my family spent a blur of days frantically hanging missing person fliers, driving all over New England, and hoping against reason for a happy outcome.

My mother was prone to frequent mood swings, but she also talked to my two older brothers and me multiple times a day, and going off the grid was completely out of character. How does someone just vanish? And why?…

5 Reasons to Embrace Alone Time & Take Yourself on an Artist Date

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

When was the last time you took yourself on a date?

Not just you and a friend, or you and your partner, or you and your kid(s). Just you, yourself, and you.

I’m not talking about staying home with a good book, or taking a bubble bath (though I’m a huge fan of bubble baths), or watching a movie by yourself on your couch.

I’m talking about venturing into the world alone to do something fun and outside of your ordinary routine—something that supplies fresh …

The Art of Being Happily Single

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

Over the past ten years, I always had a man by my side. I was always in a relationship.

I was in a relationship for eight years before my ex and I got engaged, then broke it off because of the distance—my ex’s reason. Not long after that I got into a two-year relationship with a man who loved, yet cheated on me. It was a messy breakup.

So after ten years in relationships, I found myself …

100 Reasons to be Grateful Today

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.” ~Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

I began my gratitude practice at a time when I desperately needed help seeing the good in my life.

Several failed relationships and a broken heart had left me blind to the incredible gifts the Universe had given me, and I was rutted in depression for three years. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything besides what I had lost. Happiness seemed like a cosmic joke.

The more I focused on what I wasn’t grateful for, like the love …

Is Your Life Really as Perfect as It Looks on Facebook?

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.” ~George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

So would most women.

This is the way we have encountered life so far. Better to show the world just the socially acceptable and shove the rest under the rug. That’s where the hard truths go.

But we all know the trouble with the rug. Stuff builds up under the rug and eventually you land on your face. Hard truths don’t go away.

Social media is exacerbating the historical tendency to present only the pretty, so we’re justifiably, and understandably, really scared …

The Good News About Feeling Bad (And How to Get Through It)

By in Blog, change & challenges

“To honor and accept one’s shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It’s whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a lifetime.” ~Robert Johnson

There’s nothing worse than having a bad day (or week or years…)

Or when emotions take over and carry us away.

Or when our relationships bring challenges.

Or when we endure great loss.

Or when we wish that just once when things started getting good, they stayed that way.

But difficult times are really offerings that show us what no longer serves us. And once they’re cleared, they no longer have power over …

Calmness Is Contagious, Even If You’re Faking It

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

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

We had just reached cruising altitude, and my friend and I were settling in for the eight-hour flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. Exhausted after spending the day in the airport, we were excited to finally be in the air with beaches awaiting us at our destination.

Jered and I were on an adventure around the world flying with standby tickets to any destination that had open seats. Even though we had been trying to get a seat to Bangkok, then Sydney, …

21 Easy Ways to Create a Calm Mind (Without Meditating)

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Learn to calm down the winds of your mind, and you will enjoy great inner peace.” ~Remez Sasson

While juggling a full-time job and my writing, I found it easy to lose track of the days. Weekends ceased to exist and my life ebbed and flowed between working and writing, the two constantly blurring into one another.

I dragged myself from day-to-day without a moment’s rest in between. When I did rest, I’d feel guilty for taking a break from working on my dreams, and it didn’t take long for the guilt to turn into frustration.

I wondered whether I’d …

3 Ways to Cultivate Gratitude and Boost Your Happiness

By in Blog, Happiness

“Gratitude can turn common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” ~William Arthur Ward

Living in India for more than two years now has been an eye opening experience for me, as I’ve realized how I used to take so many things for granted. While growing up and living in my home country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in Europe, I was lacking gratitude for all the blessings that surrounded me.

While sitting in our penthouse apartment in the New Delhi suburbs, in an air-conditioned room, still feeling the need to chill with a cool …

How Complaining Rewires Your Brain for Negativity (And How to Stop)

By in Blog, happiness & fun, letting go

“Spending today complaining about yesterday won’t make tomorrow any better.” ~Unknown

When I was about sixteen or so, one of my parent’s friends got into some trouble with the law. When we’d visit him he’d often shake his head from side to side and mumble, my life is in the toilet.

He said it many times, for many years, even when things seemed to have gotten better for him.

My life is in the toilet was his mantra.

At the time I thought it was funny, so I adopted it for myself, until one day I started to believe it. …

20 Life Lessons I Learned In My Twenties

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“The Universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that.” ~Rumi

I remember when I was a kid, “thirty years old” sounded very old and mature. “Someone who is thirty clearly knows everything about life and has it all figured out.” That was my assumption.

Life taught me that not only thirty-year olds, but most people in general have no clue what they’re doing with their lives and why they’re here.

Although I’m far away from knowing all the answers to life’s biggest questions, I feel like my twenties have been such …

5 Simple Words That Can Turn A Bad Day Around

By in Blog, change & challenges

“If your heart is beating, if your lungs are breathing, if you are still alive… then it is not too late to do something kind, creative, generous, satisfying, and courageous. Today.” ~Alexandra Franzen

It was one of those days.

You know the ones—when nothing really bad happens, but everything just seems to go wrong. When lots of little annoying things happen and the day seems to spiral from there.

This was one of those days.

I had woken up with a headache and decided to hit the snooze button on my alarm (twice) so I didn’t have to face the …

How to Raise Your Self-Esteem So You Can Thrive in Life

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.” ~Iyanla Vanzant

Aren’t you tired of it?

You know, that sneaking suspicion you aren’t enough.

That inner commentary about where you fall short all the time. The mean internal remarks about your ability to handle life and how you just don’t measure up.

And aren’t you fed up with how it’s been holding you back from pursuing what you truly desire?

A better relationship or more meaningful …

We Have a Right to Grieve Losses Big and Small

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee

It felt like I was being crushed by the weight of the world.

“Impossible,” I thought.

It’s impossible that people actually suffer this kind of pain and survive to tell the tale.

When I thought about it, my stomach contracted as if I’d taken a blow to the gut. I’d gasp for breath and try to find some air through the tears and in between sobs.

So this is what grief felt like.

Now I understood why denial is the first stage of grief. How could you endure this kind …

6 Empowering Lessons Death Taught Me About Life

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss in life is what dies inside us while we live” ~Norman Cousins

I am not dead and I am not dying, so you may wonder why I write that death has taught me what I need to know about life.

I lost my mother when I was fifteen. Being a teenager, thoughts of anyone close to me dying had not entered my head. My mother had a brief illness and passed away unexpectedly at age forty-seven.

I remember that my schoolmates came to see me, and I kept thinking …