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Category “love & relationships”

Are You Too Nice? How to Be Kind and Be Good to Yourself

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“We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

I finally decided that I would call my friend. By then, our lunch plans wouldn’t have made any sense since it was getting close to midnight.

She answered and started speaking immediately. “Hey, I lost track of time. I’ve been running a lot of errands today. Oh, did you hear about this new job opportunity I’m getting? No? Let me tell you about it…”

I felt a wave of emotion within …

See the Love Around You and You’ll Feel More Love Within You

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“The most important thing in this world is to learn to give out love, and let it come in.” ~Morrie Schwartz

There is a Native American tale that tells of a young boy speaking with his grandmother. She tells the boy that she has the spirit of two wolves living and battling inside of her; one is vengeful and unkind, as he sees all the world as a threat, and the other is loving, secure, and nurturing.

The little boy asks his grandmother, “Which one will end up winning?” and the grandmother replies, “Which ever one I feed.”

We all …

You Deserve Love, Including Your Own

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“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Several years ago, I was in an unhealthy and unhappy relationship. It didn’t start out that way, of course. During the first year that we were together, I was in heaven. I was blissfully happy and everything seemed perfect.

My partner and I were so in love and happy just to be together; you couldn’t keep us apart.

It was years later that the trouble started. It was when my husband reconnected with a woman from his past …

7 Ways to Manage a Break Up and Work Through the Pain

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“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

Some breakups are so bad that they make you hate the sunshine. It’s up there gleaming, looking down on you, being all sunny despite the fact that you feel like a slice of hell. The suffering is relentless. The sky is ugly.

The ending of my last relationship was awful. I think it hurt as bad as it did because this wasn’t some random young woman who had just walked into my life. This was someone whom …

8 Reasons to Buy the Tiny Wisdom eBook Series (Available Now!)

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Since Tiny Buddha launched in 2009, I’ve written hundreds of “Tiny Wisdom” blog posts. In the beginning, I kept these short and peripheral.

Over time, I started putting more of myself into them and giving them a lot more love and attention. Suddenly, these posts became far more popular than I ever thought they’d be.

They aren’t lengthy how-to posts with lists of action steps. They’re short reflections on the little things that make a huge difference in our daily lives. They’re reminders of what matters and how to embrace it, right now, instead of focusing on all the things …

Stay Safe or Risk Opening Your Heart?

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“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless.” ~Pema Chodron

As a child I learned boundaries. I learned what I wasn’t allowed to talk about outside of the family. I learned how far I could go with my parents before I faced their disapproval. I also learned that this boundary was unpredictable.

Because it was unpredictable, I honed the ability to sense when it seemed safe to do something, and when I couldn’t, based on the emotions of those around me. It kept me safe for the most …

4 Easy Steps to Deal with Difficult People

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“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

It seemed like a simple task. Please switch my gym membership from gold to silver level. I’m not cancelling, just switching.

That was now the third time I repeated my request, each time a little more calmly and a little more slowly, despite the beginnings of blood boiling feelings.

The person on the other end of the phone could not have been ruder. It was as if I was asking for a kidney instead of a membership change. A harsh tone …

Life is Happening FOR Us: All Things Are Gifts

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“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

Up to a certain point in my life, I was always seeking approval and validation from everything outside of me. All I ever wanted was to feel loved. I longed for this feeling and wondered how the world could be so cruel as to reject me when I was so loving and available.

I have since learned that I was not as available as I thought.

It has been my experience that everyone that crosses …

Simple Ways to Give Back and Help Others Starting Today

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“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” ~Winston Churchill

Thirty-plus years ago, when I was applying to college, one of my friends used to say regularly, “We’ve gotta get involved with more extra-currics.”

He was talking about extracurricular activities. His (and our) interest was to build our “resumes” to enhance our attractiveness to college admissions officers.

Today, kids are building their resumes at younger and younger ages, and that’s a good thing. Even if their parents have an eye on enhanced college applications, there is a huge benefit to involving …

Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

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“Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

This June marked twelve years since I got divorced and moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown. It’s an anniversary that I usually remember, but not one that I tend to dwell on… until this year.

This year, the memories of the demise of my first marriage were hovering at the forefront of my mind.

Maybe it’s because I saw a friend who is roughly the same age I was, going through similar hard decisions. Maybe it’s because my spouse and I were struggling …

How to Forgive When You Don’t Really Want To

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“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” ~Jean Paul Sartre

Like so many other women, I had a complicated, often fractious relationship with my mother. I had moved thousands of miles away, but an email or a phone call was enough to irritate me.

Visits were tense, nail-biting experiences, where I couldn’t help but analyze each thing that she said to see if it contained a passive-aggressive double meaning, at which point an argument would brew.

For years it had not mattered what anyone told me about how to forgive, and they had told me …

4 Powerful Lessons from a Life Well Lived

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“We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

This year on June 4th, one of my greatest heroes passed away.

I’d been planning to travel back to Massachusetts mid-month for my sister’s bridal shower, but I learned at the end of May that my grandmother was in the hospital.

I knew she’d been in rehab since she’d fractured her hip, but I didn’t know she’d gained 30 pounds of water weight and her kidneys would soon fail …

Peace Is Learning the Lesson

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“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

It’s strange to feel peace while a part of your heart is being chipped away.

I’m in the middle of a heart chipping, but the longer it goes on, the more I’m realizing that it needs to be removed before it hardens the rest of the organ. Maybe the chipping is kind of like pruning a diseased tree so the remainder grows stronger and more resilient.

The cuts hurt like hell though.

The last few months have been some of the most difficult of my life. I’ve been …

When Friends Fear We May Judge Them

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“When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.” ~Wayne Dwyer

One of the times I felt my lowest was when I found out a best friend didn’t tell me something important that had happened in her life. I felt about an inch tall when she said she feared I would judge her if she told me, and that’s why she kept it a secret.

At that point, I broke down. Do all my friends feel this way? Why? I’ve always felt very protective of them and tried my best to be a great friend.

I’m an …

Giveaway and Author Interview: Choosing Me Before We

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Note: This 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:

We all have it: a voice inside our heads that tells us what we can and cannot do and undermines our self-esteem. Sometimes it’s cruel. Sometimes it’s condescending. Most of the time, it’s completely inaccurate.

If we’re not mindful, it can limit our ability to live peaceful, purposeful lives, guided by our interests and passions. We need to love ourselves to love our lives, and in order to love …

How to Release Shame and Love All of You

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“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” ~African Proverb

If you’ve had any experiences where you had to keep your truth quiet, particularly as a child, it’s time to reclaim your truth and value its power. By doing so, you will release energy, old shame, and subconscious blocks that may now be holding you back from living your life to the fullest.

It could be that you had lots of family secrets that your parents made sure you told no one about (which creates shame), or it could be you were bullied and felt unable …

The Freedom of Not Needing To Be Right

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“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 Nietzsche

Yesterday I drove my mother and father to the VA hospital in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. I had never been to a VA hospital before. I guess I should have expected the numbers of crutches and canes, armless and legless veterans, young and weathered faces alike.

I was personally witnessing the costs endured when humans war against each other.

“Isn’t it odd,” I said to my mother, “that human beings war with each …

20 Ways to Give Without Expectations

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“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” ~Samuel Johnson

Some people say there’s no such thing as a selfless act—that any time we do something to help another person, we get something in return, even if it’s just a warm fuzzy feeling.

I’ve spent a lot of time playing with this idea in my head. It doesn’t really bother me to know it feels good to help someone else. That, to me, is a completely acceptable type of selfishness. What give me cause for concern are the underlying expectations …

The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

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“Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough

Even though it was 18 months ago, I still remember my climb up Kilimanjaro like it was yesterday.

Taking those final steps toward the summit with tears in my eyes because I never believed that I—someone who grew up this sick little kid who held a deep-seated belief that she’d never be “an athlete”—would do something that thousands each year, including world-class athletes, cannot.

Yet there I was.

But I certainly didn’t get there alone. I had help—a lot …

Are You Shut Down and Disconnected?

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“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield

I had to work on Easter at my job in a coffee shop. I missed out on my family’s big holiday party, and I struggled with quite a bit of resentment about the whole deal. I could have gotten someone to cover for me, but because I’m one of the more experienced employees and we were short-staffed, I was told that I needed to work.

I wasn’t too terribly happy. I came in to work and immediately launched into …