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Category “mindfulness & peace”

How to Connect with Yourself in a World Designed to Distract You

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“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” ~Plutarch

We live in an age of information overload. Our televisions and the Internet are flooding our senses with a myriad of things.

Researchers carefully craft all the advertisements we watch and all the magazines we read to prime us to think certain thoughts and take certain actions. A particular color, a special tone in the voice, a slight gesture with the eyes—all are designed to do one thing, and one thing alone: influence our minds.

They affect us just enough that the subsequent thoughts …

40 Ways to Create Peace of Mind

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“Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it.” ~Brian Tracy

There was a time when I thought peace was a destination, in much the same way I imagined I’d eventually arrive at happiness or success.

It seemed like something I needed to chase or find—definitely not something I could experience without dramatically changing my life.

I needed to work less, relax more, and generally revamp my circumstances and relationships in order to be a peaceful person.

Despite seeing peace as an endpoint, I also saw it as something passive; after all, that’s why …

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

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“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 to Make Anxiety A Lot Less Painful

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“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 …

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

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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 …

Quit Trying to Be Perfect (You Already Are)

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“Perfectionism doesn’t make you feel perfect. It makes you feel inadequate.” ~Maria Shriver

Like many of us, I spent a big part of growing up feeling like I wasn’t enough. I was quite a studious kid, and this coupled with being terrible at sports and also quite chubby meant I was a bit of a target. Indeed, when your first and last names both rhyme with “fat” it’s pretty easy for bullies with even limited wordsmith skills to come up with insults.

And it’s easy to say what words can’t hurt and that it says more about them than …

How to Identify Your Emotional Triggers and What to Do About Them

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“Awareness is the birthplace of possibility. Everything you want to do, everything you want to be, starts here.” ~Deepak Chopra

Ever wonder why some people respond in the same destructive way over and over even though they keep getting the same bad results?

Many of us can relate to having unhealthy coping mechanisms and responses to things like stress, fear, or other agitating emotional states. Often, we are unaware of the subconscious processes going on and we may, for example, instinctively reach for an alcoholic beverage at the end of a long, hard day, never realizing we are setting …

Why We Need to Stop Chasing Success and Start Enjoying the Little Things in Life

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The philosopher Alan Watts always said that life is like a song, and the sole purpose of the song is to dance.

He said that when we listen to a song, we don’t dance with the goal of getting to the end of the music. We dance to enjoy it.

This isn’t always how we live our lives. Instead, we rush through our moments, thinking there’s always something better, there’s always some goal we need to achieve. This is my journey through a song without the dance and the lessons I’ve learned, from Alan Watts, along the way.

“Existence is

…

How I Turned Fear and Anxiety into Joy and Fulfillment

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“The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.” ~Alain de Botton

I know fear and anxiety. We’re old friends. When I was fifteen, and school was over, I’d have to force one foot in front of the other. It was time to go home. I always kept going, and with every step I’d psych myself up.

You see, once I’d gotten home, fixed my dinner, and finished my homework, my mother would come home. It was then that we would begin the nightly ritual of me talking …

How to Dissolve Social Anxiety by Doing Nothing

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“Your thoughts have to understand one thing: that you are not interested in them. The moment you have made this point you have attained a tremendous victory.” ~Osho

“What do you do when you go out alone to the forest for the whole day?” my friend asked.

“Nothing. I just sit there, enjoy the peace, and let my thoughts be,” I replied.

“So you meditate,” she said.

“No,” I objected. “I just sit there and do nothing.”

“But that’s meditation,” she insisted.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, if that’s what you want to call it.”

At that …

Breaking the Chains of Victimhood When You’ve Been Abused

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“Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive, and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior).” ~John Bradshaw- Healing the Shame That Binds You

Do you feel like a victim? Are those around you suggesting that you are acting like a victim? Are these same people telling you to get over it and move on? Do these judgments and statements feel harmful or helpful for you?

Most people making …

7 Misconceptions That Keep You from Achieving Peace of Mind

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“There is no greater wealth in this world than peace of mind.” ~Unknown

Achieving (and keeping) peace of mind is high on my priority list, yet my choices didn’t always reflect this, particularly when it pertained to my work.

Over time, I realized that I needed to change to live a more peaceful life.

If you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and frustrated, it may be time to bust a few misapprehensions. Here are a few of the main ones that compromised my peace of mind.

1. Money will make me happy.

I formerly considered money and material possessions to be …

Overcoming Defensive Thinking: If You Try to Avoid Criticism, Read On

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“We are used to thinking of thinking as a good thing, as that which makes us human. It can be quite a revelation to discover that so much of our thinking appears to be boring, repetitive, and pointless while keeping us isolated and cut off from the feelings of connection that we most value.” ~Mark Epstein

I grew up with parents who seemed to love me until I was eight but then turned on me inexplicably.

Suddenly, my father would hit me, two knuckles on top of my head, yelling, “Why don’t you listen?”

My parents gave me grudging credit …

How a 10-Day Silent Retreat Helped Heal My Grieving Heart

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“In a retreat situation, you are forced to come face to face with yourself, to see yourself in depth, to meet yourself.” ~Lama Zopa Rinpoche

When I was at university, doing a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat was considered a hardcore rite of passage only the toughest among us attempted. Those who lasted the distance referred to it as a “mind-blowing” and “life-changing” experience.

“Think of how you feel after an orgasm,” a friend said when I considered finally doing a Vipassana meditation retreat to reconnect with myself after a decade in full time employment. “Imagine feeling for two months …

A Powerful Technique That Can Help Heal the Pain of Regret

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“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” ~Rick Warren

Regret—whether for things that you have done or things that you had no control over—can keep you frozen in the past, unable to move forward. Sadly, there are no magic wands that can turn back the hands of time and change what has happened, but despite this I believe we’re not entirely powerless to affect the past, after all.

I first began thinking of this subject when my daughter was young and having serious ongoing problems with fear. She wasn’t able to go …

When Negative Thoughts Keep You Down: How to Break the Addiction

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“We think we are our thinking, and we even take that thinking as utterly ‘true,’ which removes us at least two steps from reality itself.” ~Richard Rohr

Do you frequently obsess over worst-case scenarios? Do you struggle to think well of yourself or others? Are you frequently stressed, anxious, or depressed? You may be suffering from an addiction to your negative thoughts.

We all fall into patterns of negative thinking from time to time, often triggered by difficult circumstances or everyday stress. But when that pattern occurs over a long period of time, it can degrade our health …

Boost Your Happiness: 10 Mindfulness Tips for Busy People

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“There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Do you ever feel as though you would be happy if only things were a little different?

You know that happiness is important, but you keep putting it on the backburner because there simply isn’t enough time to prioritize your own inner joy.

And at the same time, you know that meditation would help, but you can’t even imagine where you’re going to get the spare time you need to sit still and meditate.

In an ideal world, we would schedule moments every day in which …

How to Get Out of Your Head and Stop Overthinking Everything

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“It’s not a matter of letting go, you would if you could. Instead of ‘Let it go,’ we should probably say ‘Let it be.'” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

I always believed that a busy mind was a bad thing.

And for a large part of my life, it was.

Looking back, I don’t ever recall a time when I wasn’t caught up in my thoughts. There was always a “narrator” in my head. A constant commentary.

I tried meditating but would spend ten agonizing minutes trying desperately to push my thoughts away or make them stop, which we know is impossible. Not …

5 Reasons Why I Tried Mindfulness and How It’s Changed My Life

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“We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.” ~Jack Kornfield

Almost two years ago, I kept seeing the word “mindfulness” pop up everywhere I was looking, and I had no clue what it was.

I kept seeing blog posts with titles like How Mindfulness can Help You at Work¸ How Mindfulness can Help You in Relationships, and How Mindfulness can Help You in the Bedroom.

Then, I saw a short video explaining mindfulness. It was a monk drinking coffee, and the narrator was talking about how much better …

Letting Go of the Worry That Weighs Us Down

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“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.” ~Eckhart Tolle

As a child, I remember my daily walks to elementary school. It was an uphill walk for the most part. Quite symbolic of later years, now that I think about it.

I would walk to school every morning with my backpack filled to the brim with things that weren’t even necessary for my day at school. I had extra clothes, toys, and books. It was so heavy that after a few months the straps would begin to break down due to the pressure.

Fast forward a few decades …