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The More You Do, The More Opportunities Open to You

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

“We’re here for such a short period of time. Live like you’re already dead, man. Have a good time. Do your best. Let it all come ripping right through you.” ~Jeff Bridges

Yesterday, a Chinese exchange student we hosted two years ago texted to let me know her mother would like to invite my family to visit them in Nanjing—and she would pay for our plane tickets and let us stay at their vacation home.

Of course I told everyone I know (I mean, China! C’mon!) and they all said, “You’re so lucky!” And it’s true, we are lucky.

However, …

How to End Your Stress and Live a Life of Peace and Balance

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.” ~Jill Botte Taylor

I used to be a stress bunny. Something was always driving me to want to do better—to be more, to have more, to compete and win at everything.

I thrived on pushing myself, thinking achievement was a great thing.

I was also restless. I always had to be going somewhere—doing something—never sitting still. I was bored, frustrated, and trying to find happiness …

Think You Can’t Do It? Don’t Let Your Mind Limit or Define You

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

“The limit is not in the sky. The limit is the mind.” ~Unknown

I was having a conversation with a friend. She was telling me how maybe I should quit my writing and focus on something that wasn’t so challenging for me; that I should accept my limits and work within those boundaries. Her words made me cringe.

You see, I am dyslexic and I struggled greatly to write this story down. I am probably going to read it twenty times and will still have many mistakes that need editing.

My job is a daily struggle, and sometimes I break …

How to Live a Rich Life Without Lots of Money

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

“Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” ~Oscar Wilde

Does the race for riches leave you unfulfilled?

Does the thought of constantly chasing ever more cash leave you stressed, depressed even?

Does the whole idea of measuring your personal worth in terms of your personal wealth leave you deeply dissatisfied?

It did for me.

Poor in possessions and somewhat fiscally challenged, I never fit in with my richer friends.

And no matter how much I told myself that money didn’t buy happiness, I still felt …

How Short Rests Can Make You Healthier, Happier, and More Productive

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~John Lubbock

Do you ever fear taking breaks?

Maybe you think that if you stop working, everything is going to come crashing down?

Sometimes it feels like you’re riding a train of momentum, and if you try to stop or slow down you’re just going to come off the tracks.

I know the feeling. Believe me, I used to feel …

Discover Your Emotional Age: Heal Yourself & Change Your Life (Interview & Book Giveaway)

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

Update – The winners for this giveaway are:

  • Toni Nash
  • Katherine Poff

When I first discovered Crystal Andrus Morissette’s new book The Emotional Edge, I was intrigued. I knew the book would offer a process for discovering our “Emotional Age,” a term that was new to me, but I didn’t realize it would provide a powerful roadmap for healing the wounded parts of our psyche and growing into our most empowered, authentic self.

From the Amazon page:

The Emotional Edge empowers you to stop reacting in knee-jerk ways that hurt and instead start expanding your life to become the …

Why Someone Else’s Success Isn’t a Threat to Yours

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

I got embarrassed at the gym.

I sat down at the bench press, ready to hoist up 135 pounds of iron. My goal was eight reps for the first set.

Before I started my first set, I heard someone huffing to my left. I looked over and saw a young guy benching 315 pounds!

I counted his reps, and he went all the way up to eight. It was the same number of repetitions that …

Life Goes by Too Quickly to Postpone Our Dreams

By in Blog, meaning & passion

“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” ~Paul Valery

As I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, I am contemplating if I should fly to Germany or not.

My father has been very sick for the past three years. I spent three months in Germany last year to have some time with him and help him get better. He finally recovered and I flew back home to Miami.

When I talked to my stepmom the other day, she gave me the news though that my father had a relapse and seems …

Limited Run “Be Here Now” Shirt Supporting Tiny Buddha Productions & Childhelp

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, healthy habits, letting go, love & relationships, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace, work fulfillment

If this seems like deja vu, it’s not just you! I am republishing this blog post because there are only a few hours left to grab a “Be here now” shirt.

As you may remember, I shared a post a couple months back about my desire to start writing and producing inspiring short films, in partnership with my fiancé Ehren Prudhel.

It was just after the New Year, and I knew the time was finally right to revisit both of our childhood dreams.

Over the past couple of months we’ve been hard at work writing, connecting with crewmembers, and …

How to Bring the Fun and Excitement of Traveling to Your Everyday Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” ~Seth Godin

Over the last few years I’ve felt a little trapped in a cycle of travel, normal life, travel, normal life, constantly changing externals in an attempt to find a level of contentment.

I travel because it excites me, makes me feel alive, and brings me satisfaction. Then, when the draw of home and seeing loved ones sets in, I’ll return, determined to get a “real job” and settle into daily English life.

This usually lasts a …

Falling Apart at Inconvenient Times: Why There Is No Shame in Public Pain

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds. Judgment is the mind’s primary tool of separation.” ~David R. Hamilton

On the evening of October 28, 2014, the phone rang. When I heard my stepmother’s voice, immediately, I thought, “This can’t be good.”

Last I had heard, my father was resting comfortably after routine surgery earlier that day. Now it was past midnight in North Carolina.

“Jill,” my stepmother implored, “please talk to the nurses. I have no idea what they are trying to tell me.” Sometimes we cannot listen to what we do not want to hear.…

It’s Not Settling to Love Someone Who Doesn’t Match Your Fantasy

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ve always been a dreamer. A really big dreamer. For the most part, it’s served me well. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. A private college, magna cum laude, while raising four children alone. I don’t do mediocrity.

I worked hard and brought our family out of poverty singlehandedly. We moved to a better neighborhood, built a nice house, and went on vacations. I was no ordinary woman. I’d much prefer to raise those kids …

The Key to Breaking Painful, Unhealthy Relationship Patterns

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.” ~Byron Katie

Aside from the fact that I was born on Groundhog Day, I didn’t know why I kept falling into the same relationship patterns, which inevitably led to heart-crushing breakups.

I knew that I had a deep capacity to love, or so I thought, but it somehow wasn’t enough. I always ended up either feeling taken for granted or fighting desperately for my partner’s attention after the initial attraction phase wore off.

I couldn’t help becoming someone else, someone I thought I needed to be in order to avoid being abandoned. …

How Complaining Keeps Us Stuck in Relationships That Don’t Work

By in Blog, love & relationships

“As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth.” ~Charlie Chaplin

When I was eight years old my father burst into my room in the middle of the night, high on drugs, and threw my dresser drawers all over the place.

“Stop your crying!” he screamed. “Stop your crying!”

There was a crazy man in my room and I was terrified.

“Now clean up this mess!”

I was shaking. What on earth could I have possibly done to deserve this? With a slam of …

The Joy of Doing Less: 3 Ways to Reclaim Your Time

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” ~Nathan W. Morris

I began 2015 by cleaning out my closet. I sold and donated and trashed the pieces that weren’t serving me anymore. Embarrassingly enough, I purged nearly 100 items. It felt great. Getting rid of stuff and seeing beauty behind the clutter was incredible. But this story isn’t really about my closet.

It’s also not about my desk drawers, my linen closet, or my kitchen, which all came next. As it turns out, getting rid of clutter and extra things was just the tip of the iceberg. …

How to Use Self-Care for a Brighter, Less Stressful Life

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney Harris

I was working myself into the ground and I knew it. Balancing a full-time job, my fledgling business, studies, home life, and relationships, I was constantly feeling the pressure and slowly, the cracks were showing.

I was exhausted, I was argumentative, I wasn’t taking care of my health, and my business had transformed from my creative outlet to a source of incredible stress.

I kept thinking, “I just need one day to relax, just one day!” but even when I had the chance, I couldn’t let …

How to Overcome Fear and Live Your Dream by Changing Your Brain

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~Les Brown

Fear used to be the driving force in my life.

I didn’t even know that I was living in fear at the time. I hid behind labels like “stress” and “anxiety,” but those are just clinical terms for fear.

Truthfully, my dreams terrified me because they seemed way too big to achieve. At the time, I wanted to excel in my new career, get into the best shape of my life, and create meaningful relationships—and I felt like I had a long way …

What Causes Panic Attacks and How to Stop Them for Good

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“You empower what you fight. You withdraw power from what you release.” ~Alan Cohen

Panic attacks can seem to come out of nowhere, without any warning. There is no obvious logical connection between a panic attack and what is happening around us at the time they arise.

Is it really possible to be free of them, without medication? In my personal experience, the answer is yes. I used cognitive, emotional, and physical methods that eradicated my panic attacks.

What Causes Panic Attacks?

The short version of my story is that I experienced a less than peaceful upbringing and had a …

Why We Need to Stop Hiding and Let People See Who We Are

By in Blog, love & relationships

“To help yourself, you must be yourself.” ~Dave Pelzer

I spent a lot of my life being someone else. Playing the part of someone I didn’t fully recognize.

Looking back, there were lots of reasons why I avoided being me, my mum’s suicide being one of them.

Her death shaped me, like a rock in a tumbler, and my life, as I knew it, bore no resemblance to the one I once knew.

I was ashamed of being the girl whose mum left her in such a violent way. What would people think? Maybe that she didn’t love me enough …

What to Do When People Always Underestimate You

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.” ~Stevie Wonder

Being blatantly underestimated is simply a part of my life.

No matter what I’m doing, the ordinary will seem extraordinary, and the extraordinary will seem insurmountable to those who look at me for the first time. There is no way I am contributing the same amount to society as the rest of the world.

These are not drawn conclusions on my part; I have been told these very things straight to my face. People perceive me this way because of the white cane in my hand, the badge, letting …