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Why We Feel the Need to Explain Ourselves and Justify Our Choices

By in Blog, love & relationships

“You are responsible for your intention, not your reception.” ~Amy E. Smith

I’ve realized that I put a lot of energy into trying to explain my decisions. Sometimes those explanations are an honest attempt to connect with another person or to step a little further out of hiding. Often, they are a result of my own self-doubt and desire for people to like me.

For example, I feel an obligation to say yes to any invitation or request I receive. Sometimes I’m glad to agree, other times I’d prefer to do something else. It gets tricky when the thing …

20 Things You Don’t Have to Apologize For

By in Blog, love & relationships

If you’re anything like me, you apologize far too often, and most of the time, when you haven’t done anything wrong.

Sometimes we apologize for things beyond our control—like bad weather during a party we’re hosting.

Sometimes we apologize when someone else was actually in the wrong—when a waiter brings us food not cooked to our specifications, for example.

And sometimes we apologize for life choices we have every right to make—like the decision to change jobs, or end a relationship.

We’re wired to seek a sense of belonging, and we fear being ostracized from our tribe, so many …

Why I Believe That Feeling Offended Is a Choice

By in Blog, love & relationships

“The feeling of being ‘offended’ is a warning indicator that is showing you where to look within yourself for unresolved issues.” ~Bryant McGill

As I ponder back over my forty-odd years on this planet, I can’t really remember going lengths of time without feeling offended. By someone’s words, or actions. It was simply my default reaction.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t enjoy it. Feeling offended never feels good. Ever. There’s always a sting. Which is probably why the (many) “feeling offended” memories are so prominent. And clear.

Some of them were simple and relatively unimportant.

Like the time I …

Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself On Sale for 99 Cents

By in Blog, love & relationships

 

Hi friends! I’m pleased to announce that the eBook version of Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself has been selected for The Great Autumn eBook Sale, which is offering twelve powerful eBooks for just 99 cents each, from now until October 19th.

About Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself

Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself  shares forty unique perspectives and insights on topics related to loving yourself, including:

  • Realizing you’re not broken
  • Accepting your flaws
  • Releasing the need for approval
  • Forgiving yourself
  • Letting go of comparisons
  • Learning to be authentic

Featuring stories selected from hundreds of Tiny Buddha …

If Only I Knew My Worth…

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~Albert Einstein

Looking back on my past, I see that I have spent most of my precious time striving to improve myself instead of celebrating the very gift of being alive and healthy. For many years, I though I wasn’t good enough, and perfection was my worst enemy.

I considered myself pretty but not beautiful, somewhat smart but not truly intelligent. In other words, I thought of myself as average, not …

Letting Go of Our Past Identities: When It’s Time to Move On and Evolve

By in Blog, letting go, meaning & passion

“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” ~Eckhardt Tolle

The day I decided to leave acting felt like being exorcised from my own body.

I was twenty-nine and had been dreaming of being an actor from the time I first saw a regional production of Cats around the age of eight.

I spent the next twenty-one years with laser focus on making that dream a reality—voice lessons, dance classes, summer theater intensives, constant late night college rehearsals, and finally, top conservatory training.

Even my mother, who was initially highly uncomfortable with the idea, tossed up her hands …

Honesty Is a Gift, So We Don’t Have to Hide Our True Feelings

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

I’ll never forget my progress report from third grade: “Jennifer shows disappointment when she’s not called on.”

This must have been a bad thing, because my mother sat me down to talk about it. Apparently, when I raised my hand and wasn’t called on, I frowned. I was to work on that, to try to stay neutral, to not show I was upset.

I also clearly remember the day my dad came over to my mom’s house to tell me his father, my grandfather, …

Why We Need to Learn to Let Go and Adapt If We Want to Be Happy

By in Blog, letting go

Charles Darwin is believed to have said that in nature, it’s not the strongest or most intelligent that survives but those who are most adaptable to change.

No matter what kind of life we live, we all need to learn to adapt, because everything changes. Good and bad come and go in everybody’s life. It’s one of the reasons resilience is so critical.

We plan our lives expecting good to come our way, to get what we want, and for things to work out how we planned. At the same time we’re chasing the good, we try to avoid …

How To Be Open-Minded When Others See the World Differently

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Most disagreements are caused by different perceptions that created different realities.” ~Unknown

When I was thirteen, I experienced a monumental change in my young life.

It wasn’t a big move, no one close to me died, and although puberty was rocking my world in the worst way, it was something else altogether that shook me to the core:

The movie Titanic came out.

I know, I know, it’s just a movie, and I was just another swooning teenager wishing that I was the one Jack never wanted to let go of, but it hit me hard. Truth, love, the pain …

How Embracing My Sexuality Helped Cure My Need to People Please

By in Blog

“If you are busy pleasing everyone, you are not being true to yourself.” ~Jocelyn Murray

The love I felt for her wasn’t like the romantic love our culture idealizes in books or movies. There was no moment where I knew that she was the one for me, and I didn’t feel lots of butterflies when our paths crossed.

Instead, the love I felt for her was deep and sustaining. While she is one of the most kind, gentle, and loyal people I had ever met, the way she loved me was the most remarkable thing to me. I could be …

How to Make Anxiety A Lot Less Painful

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

“You are not a mess. You are a feeling person in a messy world.” ~Glennon Doyle Melton

Anxiety can be hardwired and genetic. It can be passed down from generation to generation. It can be a result of trauma and high-stress scenarios, including divorce, moving, and death. These things are out of our control, and can be really challenging to work through.

But, anxiety can also come as a result of certain behaviors, lifestyle choices, and beliefs that you have about yourself and the world. And that, my friend, is always within your control.

I want to challenge the …

What It Means to Be Loyal to Yourself and Why We All Need to Do It

By in Blog, love & relationships

“This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” ~William Shakespeare

A little while ago, a friend gave me a compliment that stopped me in my tracks. “I really admire how loyal you are to yourself.”

In time-honored self-questioning mode, I immediately thought, “Oh my gosh, what does that mean? Does she think I’m selfish?” But once I decided not to go down that road, I started pondering what it might mean to be loyal to one’s self, and how it truly is …

Overcoming a Negative Body Image: 4 Things to Remember

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of anorexia and may be triggering to some people.

“You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” ~Philip Arnold

I really don’t remember my life before anorexia. I think back to my early teenage years when I ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank hot chocolate without a single thought of how many calories I had consumed. There was no guilt, no worry, no need for perfection. How I wish I could get those carefree moments back.

A few years ago anorexia completely …

We Can Choose Different Ways Without One of Us Being Wrong

By in Blog, love & relationships

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Many of us are committed to a journey of change and personal growth. While these are traits to be admired and celebrated, they can also have a darker side. We can become a little militant and dogmatic when we’re on our journeys.

As we focus on our attempts to make changes in our own lives, our views can start to narrow and become very black and white. We become so tuned into what …

Book Giveaway: Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and The Self-Love Experiment

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway are Alexandra Martinez and Kathy Kortegaard.

Happy October, friends! Over the past several months since I launched Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal, I’ve been excited to receive some wonderful feedback on the thought-provoking prompts and questions, and the coloring pages.

I decided to create this journal because adopting a gratitude practice has been life changing for me; it’s shifted my perspective, boosted my mood, and enabled me to hold on to optimism during some of the darkest times of my life.

And I chose to include coloring pages because I’ve been obsessed with adult …

Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Living the Life You Want

By in Blog

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers

When was the last time you stopped trying to improve something about yourself or your life?

I’ve spent a lot of my life chasing goals. I guess it goes with the territory as a cancer survivor who always felt like she had something to prove, even twenty years later.

For everything the doctors told me I could not do because of my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (or as a result of the chemotherapy that healed me), I gave my all to accomplish and …

Why I Keep My Heart Open Even Though I’ve Been Deceived

By in Blog, love & relationships

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you’ll live in torment if you don’t trust enough.” ~Frank Crane

I’m heading home with a latte in hand, listening to This American Life through my headphones when a woman sitting on a bench outside the café waves me down. She looks like she’s in her sixties with grayish brown bangs and a worn pink winter jacket. I pull my headphones out of my ears.

“Excuse me, can you tell me how far it is from here to 77 Westwood?” she asks. I take my phone out, Google map the …

How to Prevent Blame and Criticism from Destroying Your Relationship

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Who is it that’s unhappy? The one who finds fault.” ~Anonymous

If you are anything like me, you yearn to know in your bones that you are showing up in your primary relationship as your best self. You want to be loving, kind, and supportive (and to reap the gifts those qualities sow in your love life). But certain habits of interaction get in the way, making you feel inept and ashamed.

Like many of us, I grew up in a family that was steeped in criticism and blame. Though I rebelled against this behavior intellectually, it found its way …

3 Ways to Decide Whose Opinion of You Matters

By in Blog, love & relationships

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” ~Coco Chanel

“You know, Joui, I really like how you look tonight. I always thought your style before was… just a little wacky,” smiled Harry, a man I’d met during a forced networking meeting. He then smirked knowingly, like he was doing me a great favor.

Inside I screamed.

As a stylist one of the biggest fears my clients mention when we discuss any big change is feedback, judgment, and shame from their peers. And they are right to be fearful.

People will have commentary, trust me. …

3 Empowering Ways to Reframe Anxiety: Work With It, Not Against It

By in Blog

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life—and only then will I be free to become myself.” ~Martin Heidegger

If you are a lifelong anxiety warrior like me, you’ve been on a journey of ups and downs.

Anxiety fills our whole bodies. Tension. Heart pounding. Sometimes I feel like my heart must be visibly pulsating so much so that if there are others around, they can see it.

There are varying levels and types of anxiety, including clinical disorders. But …