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How Our Beliefs and Expectations Hold Us Back and How to Let Them Go

By in Blog, change & challenges

 

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

Just because you’ve believed something is true, even if you’ve believed it for a long period of time, that doesn’t mean that it is actually true or that it has to be true for the future.

For a long time I believed that my body was broken. I believed that I could never be super lean and ripped even though I really wanted to be. I also believed I had irreversible digestive issues that seemed to be getting worse and worse.…

3 Simple Ways to Turn Failure into Success

By in Blog, change & challenges, work fulfillment

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

I’ve always been an optimist, looking for the good in situations, even when they seem like the bleakest thing that could happen to me or the people around me.

But failure is a difficult one to turn on its ear.

You know when you don’t reach your goal. You know when you don’t get what you wanted.

Now I know the Rolling …

Book Giveaway and Interview: Rewire Your Brain for Love

By in Blog, Giveaway, love & relationships

Update: 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:

An old friend once told me that women frequently say all the men they’ve dated have been jerks; and men frequently say all the women they’ve dated have been crazy.

You could chalk this up to gender differences, men being from Mars, women being from Venus and all that. But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe it’s actually our biology that influences how we act and interact—and why we often …

Loving Ourselves and Each Other, Imperfections and All

By in Blog, love & relationships

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

I heard this story the other day about the collection of homes called Favelas surrounding Rio De Janeiro.

If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a large collection of small run-down homes built on the side of the hills surrounding the city. They scatter and protrude across the landscape like paper litter in the tall grass along the highway.

The conditions can be poor, and unsanitary, often with raw sewage running down the side of the hill where …

When Will You Find a Moment for Yourself?

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” ~Etty Hillesum

For the second time in a week, the gas light comes on in my car. I’m busy, as usual, and so I push it a little farther, run just a few more errands. But I know that I do need to stop and refill before too long, or I will be left on the side of the road. I’ve been stranded before, and have learned my lesson.

Most of us know that when our cars try to tell us they …

9 Guidelines to Get Through Challenging Times

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll

I’ve recently dealt with numerous challenges that range from the ridiculous to the life-threatening. I’ve had friends telling me they “can’t bear to hear any more” about illness, financial loss, and an array of physical and emotional accidents that have broken parts of me, but not all.

Every aspect of my life is changing: career, relationships, health, and beliefs. I have to make the most of every situation and so I’ve created my own set of rules to keep me focused and to remind …

3 Ways to Forgive and Create Peace

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.” ~Buddha

It was a beautiful spring morning when I was terminated from my job. Before it happened, there were rumors, but I refused to believe that something like that could actually happen to me. I felt betrayed by the manner in which the termination occurred.

Without any substantiation, my company suggested that my ethics were compromised and I embezzled from the company funds. Soon thereafter I learned that the sole motive for the company was to replace me and my assistant with part-time employees to avoid paying full-time employee …

9 Lessons on Loss, Forgiveness, and Healing

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships, meaning & passion

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

I’m trying to meditate but I find myself overcome by sadness; I’m still grieving after all this time.

I’ve gone through phases of forgiveness recently that have shown me how to acknowledge the painful relationship I had with my mother, the anger and resentment we shared, and the loss of each other that we both went through the older we grew. Maybe it’s not as bad as that, but it feels like it.

My reflections have brought me closer to the woman who I never took …

Embrace Fear and Find Your Center: Riding With No Hands

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

My mom leaned in and gave me a goodnight kiss. The only light illuminating her face was coming from the hallway. I looked up at her, and in the confidence of the dark confessed, “I saw it.”

“It” was my birthday present, waiting patiently for me to wake up in the morning and claim it from its place in the garage. “It” was a turquoise blue Stingray bicycle with a white pleather banana seat and an extra tall sissy bar.

I’d seen it by chance, tucked back …

Giveaway and Interview: Journey to You by Steve Olsher

By in Blog, Giveaway

Update: 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!

Also, Steve’s team has informed me that you can download the digital version of Journey to You for free by subscribing for his newsletter! You can access that here.

The winners:

Have you ever felt like there’s one thing you were born to do, and you’re not doing it?

This isn’t actually something I’ve thought, because I don’t believe in fate.

For this reason, I felt a little reluctant when I …

Change Your Attitude, Change Your Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~Gandhi

It was 1999 and my life stunk. I had failed miserably as a missionary for my church, I’d been sent to a mental hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I was in the process of losing the woman I thought I was going to marry.

I was in bad shape, and didn’t have a clue as to how I could right the ship, so to speak.

Now, 13 years later, I have a great job that provides for me …

Emotional Blind Spots: On Feeling Uncomfortable Feelings

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Feelings or emotions are the universal language and are to be honored. They are the authentic expression of who you are at your deepest place.” ~Judith Wright

On March 12th of 2006 I faced an important decision: life or death? From my perspective, death seemed reasonable, logical, and easy. Life on the other hand was difficult and full of disappointment.

That was the day I realized I had no idea how to be happy or live with my true self. All I knew and felt in my soul was aloneness; an emotional black hole that consumed me.

Being Emotional

…

4 Tips to Tell the Truth About Yourself and to Yourself

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

There’s almost nothing I hate more than honesty.

I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. You may be doing a double-take, thinking “did she mean there’s nothing she hates more than lying?”

I wish.

Most people probably think I’m an honest person, and in general, I suppose that’s true. I am honest with many people. However, I’m rarely honest with the person who matters most—myself.

As someone whose drug of choice …

Remember to Breathe: How to Feel Calm, Peaceful, and Loving

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~Gandhi

At some point during 2005 I discovered the sense that I am connected to everything, that nothing exists outside of me. This realization came while surfing with a friend of mine. From that moment, surfing became a religion for me.

I sat on top a surf board about 100 yards off the sand, just a little north of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant in San Clemente, California, for hours on end every single day.

At some point during each …

Giveaway and Interview: Aging as a Spiritual Practice

By in Blog, Giveaway

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

The winners:

Have you noticed there are certain things you can’t do as easily as you could when you were younger? Have you ever felt resistant to the inevitable changes that come with age? Have you put thought into your own mortality?

And have you considered that perhaps all of this can contribute to a greater sense of spirituality?

Buddhist author and teacher Lewis Richmond tackles these questions and more in …

What Are You Worth?

By in Blog, work fulfillment

Have you ever worked a job where you were grossly overqualified or underpaid?

I once had a job where I was getting paid $12/hour for doing stuff that I thought I liked.

I was working in a field very closely aligned with what I wanted to do in the future, and I had access to all kinds of experts that I could talk with.

At the start, I thought it was great; I was young, the pay was tax free, and it was my first job after a long absence from the United States.

But as time wore on, I …

The Intimacy of Loss: Being Together in this Fleeting Moment

By in Blog, letting go, love & relationships

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

I love my wife, so it stung the other day when she said, “Hmm … You’re going to have trouble letting me go, aren’t you?”

She’s not walking out on me. You see, she has multiple sclerosis (MS), and she’s referring to the day she can’t walk any more. She’s convinced herself that she can’t handle the guilt of ruining my life, and expects me to leave when she says so.

I knew Caroline had MS when I married her. I also knew I loved her.…

9 Essential Tips to Face Fear and Live a Bold Life

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” ~Unknown

Too often, we allow fear, worry, and doubt to dominate and define our lives. We allow them to steal our joy, our sleep, and our precious dreams.

I made up my mind, very young, that I would push forward no matter what.

I was 17 and pregnant when I married my boyfriend. We were young and foolish, and because our only plan was “love,” I gave birth to three more daughters by …

3 More Days to Enter the Life’s Hard Questions Contest to Win a DSLR Camera or Kindle

By in Blog

Two months back, I thought of a fun, creative contest that I’d enjoy running in conjunction with my book promotion efforts. In case you haven’t seen the million and one links all around the site, I recently launched my first book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions.

Incorporating nearly 200 tweets from the community on pain, meaning, fate, happiness, love, and more, the book includes some of my own experiences in overcoming depression and creating joy and purpose, along with insights and suggestions from wise teachers throughout time.

It’s a book that acknowledges that much is uncertain …

Everyone in Your Life Is You

By in Blog, love & relationships

 “You validate people’s lives by your attention.” ~Unknown

When my husband and I lived in New Providence, the capital island of the Bahamas, we rented a charming wooden cottage with a sweeping vista of the ocean from a sweet, elderly man who was 88 years old.

Our landlord Leslie lived alone in an elegant house next door to our cottage and I made it a habit to visit him each day, after arriving home from teaching at a local high school.

Leslie was lonely and my heart would ache for him. Having lost his wife a few years earlier, he …