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6 Ways to Deepen Your Compassion to Help People Who Are Hurting

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” ~Dalai Lama

I thought I understood compassion. Having spent ten years of my life training to be a psychiatrist, I knew how to define it, describe it, and think about it. I thought I got it.

A few years ago, my brother was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Being the mental health professional of the family, I took a long break to be with him as he navigated the initial stages of treatment.

This experience taught me that compassion is more than being nice to someone …

How Fear Can Deepen Joy and Love If We Let It

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships, meaning & passion

“Fear has its use but cowardice has none.” ~Gandhi

On Monday, my boyfriend and I took a ferry to Catalina Island, where we planned to spend the night.

I knew the island would be quaint and charming, which was a big part of its appeal, but I was mostly looking forward to breathing in the salty ocean air.

From vacations enjoyed with beachside lounging, to summer days spent running along the shore, some of my favorite memories involve the hypnotic lilt of crashing waves.

We hightailed it to the upper deck as soon as we dropped our bags, allowing ourselves …

20 Ways Life is Amazing (Even When it Hurts)

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~Anne Frank

I have a confession to make: The last few weeks have been some of the hardest I’ve lived through in my entire life—but not for the reasons you’d think.

Thankfully, all of my family is safe and sound. Today is actually my grandmother’s 80th birthday, and we’re having a wonderful dinner to celebrate her life.

My husband and I have just moved into a beautiful new home and are ecstatic to finally have a little nest of our own. I …

Letting Go When It’s Time to Dream a New Dream

By in Blog, letting go, work fulfillment

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

Growing up in a family of medical professionals, I received an abundance of opportunities with the understanding that my “job” was school. There was immense pressure to bring home straight A’s. I internalized this pressure and spent hours in my room memorizing texts and studying for classes.

In my mind medicine was the only acceptable career for me. Family, friends, and teachers routinely asked if I wanted to go to medical school, and my …

Dealing with Conflict: Speak Up Before You Blow Up

By in Blog, love & relationships

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“I aim to please. It’s okay, no worries. Please don’t worry, its no big deal.” These are some things I’ve said when interacting with others. The truth was that it wasn’t okay, and it was inconveniencing me.

I could never voice this to people. What if they didn’t like me? Growing up I learned to be polite and to respect my elders, so I considered it rude to tell someone that what they are asking for …

5 Tips to Repair the Damage From a Misunderstanding

By in Blog, love & relationships

“The biggest problem for humanity, not only on a global level, but even for individuals, is misunderstanding.” ~Rinpoche

There will always be misunderstandings in life. That’s a given.

The question is, how much damage will they do? How will misunderstandings affect our fulfillment? Our overall happiness?

And I’m not talking about the “Three’s Company” style of misunderstandings, which result from mistaken identity or eavesdropping. Those eventually get resolved with a cheesy group-hug, until the next episode, anyway.

No, I’m referring to the more insidious kind of misunderstandings.

Chances are, you’ve experienced serious misunderstandings that were initially ignored or swept under …

There is No End Worse Than the End of Hope

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” ~Winston Churchill

We all fall down. And you’ve probably heard that getting back up is the key to moving forward.

But what do you do when disaster strikes? When a loved one is so injured, so debilitated, that hope seems to have vanished? What then?

This is a true story. It may be hard to believe and beyond what you may think is possible, but it actually happened.

It took place nearly thirty years ago.

Disaster

I picked up the blue referral sheet in the physical therapy office at Brackenridge Hospital …

The Zen of Dogs: On Mindfulness, Compassion, and Connection

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

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” ~Karl Barth

We were lying in bed. I said, “We can’t do it.” She said, “I don’t see what else we can do.” We lay there in silence, trying to figure it out.

It was the third big decision of our relationship. The first was when I asked Nicole to marry me. The second was when she said yes. And the third—the one we couldn’t figure out—was what to do about Ralph.

She’d had Ralph—a female German Shepherd—for a little over a year. Nicole had been waiting for years to get a dog, …

How to Drop the Extra (Mental) Weight and Set Yourself Free

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

Most people I know are carrying extra weight—and I’m not talking about gaining a few pounds.

I’m talking about the mental and emotional weight we lug around with us. We carry it everywhere—like a backpack full of bricks—and it weighs us down.

Personally, much of my extra weight comes from the expectations I have for myself to be more—more present, more productive, more enlightened. Although these might be wonderful things to work toward, wanting to be more can easily translate to not being enough …

Giveaway and Interview: Turning Dead Ends into Doorways by Staci Boden

By in Blog, Giveaway, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Editor’s Note:

The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen:

Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free emails once weekly or on weekdays and to learn about future giveaways!

Especially when we’re going through challenging times, it can feel tempting to try to control the future—but this doesn’t change that much lies beyond our control. Try as we may to avoid the unknown, the future remains uncertain.

How do we navigate change knowing that nothing is guaranteed? How can we develop inner strength to grow, heal, and evolve?

Healer practitioner Staci Boden answers these questions in her …

Choose Love Now

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Eventually you will come to realize that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” ~Gary Zukav

Growing up, I was lucky that my parents surrounded me with a strong and steady current of love, despite our family’s own little dysfunctions and a knowingness that I wasn’t like other kids.

In truth, once I got past my shyness, I was a pretty confident young girl who actually enjoyed being the “different” one, immersing myself in the creative outlet of dance and soothing my soul with frequent trips into nature.

Broken Bits

It wasn’t until I fell in love with …

Happiness is the Value of Every Moment

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

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

“What is happiness?” What a completely dense and loaded question this is.

During my studies in psychology, one of the main principles we learned about writing a manuscript is the importance of defining what you are discussing. If I were to write a paper about happiness, I would then need to operationally define happiness in terms that allowed everyone to understand what I was referring to.

The problem with this, however, is that we then merely repeat the best …

Are You Too Busy? 5 Signs of Chronic Stress

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

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

A few years ago, the focal point of my life was my work. It took up and made up a huge portion of my life. In retrospect, I would even say that work became a sort of obsession. I became so obsessed with being productive that I set aside almost every minute of my waking hours for some work-related activity.

I even coupled meals with work; toilet breaks meant mentally drafting reports and traffic jams signaled the start of phone meetings. You may look at this picture and think of me as …

When You Feel Angry More Often Than Not

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” ~Lao Tzu

I spent a lot of time in my life being angry. At one point I hated everything and almost everyone. I had a saying for a while: “God, I hate people.” I hated the people driving in front of me on the way to the store, then in the parking lot of the store, then inside the store.

I hated my job. I used to love my job. It’s what I chose to do, what I went to school …

How to Turn Pain to Joy: 11 Tips for a Powerful Gratitude Journal

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Give thanks for a little and you will find a lot” ~Hausa Proverb

In my early, dark days of first acquiring a disability, I didn’t feel I had an awful lot to be thankful for.

It was like I had spent my whole life getting to the point where I had a thriving holistic therapy practice I loved, an amazing social life with great friends, and my beautiful dog, who I would regularly take into the country for long walks and my adrenaline pumping exercise routine.

Life was perfect. I had so much to be grateful for, but then it …

5 Amazing Blessings from Being Fired

By in Blog, change & challenges, work fulfillment

“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

I was fired via email as my plane touched down at LAX.

I am not the kind of person who gets fired, who gets dismissed, who is asked to leave and is not welcomed back.

This was not my track record, no. What was happening?

I had seen the ad on Craigslist, and it looked perfect. An educational theater program for kids was seeking instructors and administrators to help revitalize the company. They needed someone with current experience in the entertainment industry who was an educator, and also had …

How to Adopt a Growth Mindset and Stop Fearing Criticism and Failure

By in Blog, change & challenges, work fulfillment

“There are no failures. Just experiences and your reactions to them.” ~Tom Krause

Ever found yourself working for a bad boss? I was shocked to learn recently that three out of every four people report that their boss is the most stressful part of their job and that it takes most of us up to twenty-two months to free ourselves of them.

I thought it was just me!

A few years ago I joined a large accounting firm to help them manage their employees. Though they were nice enough people outside of work, at the office, their professional pride …

How to Keep Your Strengths from Becoming Weaknesses

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my youth, I strived to be “nice.” I tolerated a lot from others. I forgave easily and learned to “turn the other cheek.”

I made myself constantly available to other people and asked nothing in return. I remained loyal even if people mistreated me. I helped friends even when my need for help was greater. When friends started calling me their “angel,” I was proud at first.

But soon I became resentful of what that implied.

If my purpose was solely to help them, then who would help me?…

Overcome Fears Through Lucid Dreaming

By in Blog, change & challenges

“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan

It took me a second to realize what was happening.

I was hanging onto a rope and headed straight for the sky.

I must have been around 100 feet in the air. I was looking at the ground and it kept getting smaller and smaller. I couldn’t take it anymore and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again I was lying in my bed.

But this was no ordinary dream. I was actually aware of what was happening, as it happened. I was “awake” inside my …

Dealing with Exhaustion: How to Function Better When You’re Tired

By in Blog, Featured, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

I’ve written about ways to get better sleep, and yet I am writing this post from a state of exhaustion.

Despite knowing all the right things to do, sometimes it’s difficult to follow through.

You can have the most calming, zen bedroom, and still toss and turn because of an ache or something on your mind. You can avoid stimulants and start unwinding early in the evening, and still wake up to the sound of a blaring siren at 2:00 AM.

Sometimes the best laid plan can fall apart when you can’t seem to remove that pea from under …