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Search Results for "uncertainty" — 367 posts

A Simple Way to Light Up Your Life with Meaning, Love, and Joy

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“Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.” ~Viktor Frankl

Picture this: it was 3am but I couldn’t fall asleep. I had little to complain about, except a feeling that life seemed to be passing me by.

My father had died abruptly some years earlier, my mother had come through a major operation, our children were growing increasingly independent, and our marriage was strong.

Work was admittedly a bit stressful, and colleagues were less helpful than they might have been. But I ate a healthy diet, exercised, maintained a reasonable work-life balance, and did …

21 Tips to Release Self-Neglect and Love Yourself in Action

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

The most important decision of your life, the one that will affect every other decision you make, is the commitment to love and accept yourself. It directly affects the quality of your relationships, your work, your free time, your faith, and your future.

Why, then, is this so difficult to do?

Your Family of Origin

I grew up with nine siblings. I had two older brothers, three older sisters, three younger sisters, and a younger brother.…

How to Get Better at Something New Without Beating Yourself Up

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“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

I love learning. I am fueled by acquiring new skills, understanding human behavior, and observing the beautiful gifts that the universe has for all of us, hopefully all in service of feeding my own curiosity as well as being a better contributor to the world.

I enjoy learning through different mediums—formal classes, reading, meeting new people, traveling, and taking on new challenges.

I have a professional background in analytics, insights, and storytelling and am currently …

3 Things That Can Help You Bounce Back from Failure

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“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

The year was 2011 and I had been working as customer relations officer in a private healthcare firm for three years. It was as boring as it sounds, and I had been planning my escape toward self-employment for around a year by working in the evenings as a personal trainer.

I imagined that on the final day I’d exit the office for the last time in a blaze of happiness and jubilation, thrilled that I’d finally taken …

A Reason to Feel Less Anxious During Times of Transition

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“How ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.” ~Elizabeth Lesser

This past May I graduated from college, where I majored in Environmental Science. I chose this subject for one simple reason: I love learning how the world works.

There are always strong connections to be made between humans and other species. Every time I hear a unique, astonishing fact about other animals, I feel more connected to the world around us rather than more separate.

My latest …

How Pain Can Lead to Pleasure and Why We Should Embrace It

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“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown

We all hate to suffer, and avoid suffering at all costs. I’ve gone through great lengths to avoid discomfort, pain, and sorrow.

I stayed with the wrong people to avoid the suffering of letting go; I indulged in tasty, fatty snacks to avoid the suffering of not eating them; and I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day to avoid the suffering involved with quitting.

I stayed in bed for longer than I should to avoid the discomfort of waking up when I needed to. I …

We All Have Bad Days and All Need a Little Kindness

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”Be kind to unkind people. They need it the most.” ~Unknown

A couple weeks back I had what Alexander would call a no good, terrible, very bad day.

I’d slept poorly the night before—possibly because I had caffeine, which I usually avoid, somewhat late in the day, and possibly because I have a toddler-sized bladder that doesn’t seem to understand or care about REM cycles.

In addition to being physically exhausted, I was feeling emotionally spent. I’d been dealing with a high level of uncertainty, as my boyfriend and I were preparing to move yet again, after months of discussion …

40 Ways To Live, Laugh, And Love Like A Child

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“Children see magic because they look for it.” ~Christopher Moore

Adulthood? No thanks!

All too often, being grown up is the pits.

It can leave you drowning in responsibility, suffocating from anxiety, and sinking with doubts about your ability to be all that you should.

Frazzled, you fall into bed to fortify yourself for tomorrow’s craziness. Then you lie awake fretting over your lack of action you regret, scary debt, and all the targets you haven’t met.

Life’s supposed journey has left you dreading where you’re heading.

What the hell happened?

Somewhere between making daisy chains and making money, …

3 Behaviors That Keep Us in Unhappy Relationships

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“Don’t settle for anybody, just so you can have somebody.” ~Unknown

Here I was again, sitting in front of my computer looking at things I could involve myself in to occupy my time now that I am newly single.

Should I pay $125 for a private tennis lesson and still be terrible afterward? Could I buy a soul cycle package and not eat lunch or dinner for the next month? How many paint nights could I do over the course of the summer? Do I even have enough friends to join me?

As I sit here and think about what …

What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

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“No one saves us but ourselves. We alone must walk the path.” ~Buddha

I got a frantic message from a friend last night.

Everything was going wrong—her job, her relationship, her life—and she didn’t know what to do.

“Help me, please,” she kept saying. “I don’t know what to do.”

I tried hard to stifle a giggle. I know, completely inappropriate. But I found it really funny.

Why? Because I’m the last person anyone should be asking for advice. If I knew what to do, if I knew how to help her, I’d have:

  1. implemented this a long time ago
…

Let Loss Remind You to Live

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“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

Experiencing a death of someone, no matter how close you were to them, is a shock to the system.

One moment you’re just drinking your morning cup of Joe and then suddenly, you’ve collided with the uncertainty of existence.

Daily, we do everything we can to numb ourselves from our own fragility, but sudden death reminds us all that impermanence is still there under the surface, throbbing.

The other day, I logged onto Facebook and received …

Ending the Cycle of Breaking Up and Getting Back Together

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“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Almost all of my romantic relationships have had some kind of long ending. At some point I’ve gained clarity on the relationship, I’ve acknowledged the truth that it’s not working out, and then I’ve ended it.

I would like to say that was the end of the story, that I moved on each time with peace and ease. But the reality is that I second-guessed myself and ended up excusing all of my partners’ faults to justify giving them another chance.

There have been …

5 Habit Makeovers That Will Help You Turn Your Life Around

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“Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days ahead.” ~Kris Carr

Around this time four years ago, my life was a mess.

Work-wise, I felt like I had hit a wall. The relationship I was in (or so I thought I was) was turning out to be a one-way street on which I was being taken for a long, long, painful ride.

Taking care of myself was something I did only when I remembered to, or during unpredictable moments of clarity or calm within the little emotional tornado I was spinning around and around in.

Just …

Feeling Trapped? Step into the Unknown and Set Yourself Free

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“Don’t call it uncertainty—call it wonder. Don’t call it insecurity—call it freedom.” ~Osho

My daughter loves birds. So, as a treat, we all went to a Bird of Prey center near to where we live. Here in the UK, there is a long tradition of keeping these birds. As stated on one hawking site, falconry is “the noble sporting art of flying trained birds of prey.”

Noble or not, I have an issue with keeping birds captive. I had hoped that, in the center we would be visiting, these would be rescue birds.

They weren’t.

They …

The Bright Side of Having Little Money: 9 Reasons to Stay Upbeat

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“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.” ~Proverb

Ever been in a bad money situation?

Life might have been cushy before, but all of a sudden you find yourself having to carefully watch your spending. You start worrying about how to make ends meet.

You’re unable to afford the luxuries you’ve grown accustomed to—the ones you used to take for granted, like a Starbucks coffee or a meal at a restaurant.

I found myself in such a situation not too long ago.

I used to have a well-paid corporate job that …

Awakening to Life and Love After a Devastating Loss

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“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway  

For years I cursed spring.

During that time my heart woke to the bitterness of life. In the harsh frost of winter my anguish and the season were one, a climate where I felt safe, cocooned in a blanket of grief, a camouflage that ensconced me from the world outside.

Like grief, winter brings the bitter cold to our life, and those withered months drenched in sorrow tasted natural.

In the time I lingered frozen in my shroud of despair, spring had arrived, with feathered …

Don’t Wait Until the End to Wake Up to Your Life

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“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babbitt

My friend died recently.

I saw him just a few hours before he died too. He stopped by my office as he had done numerous times before to say hello. I’d seen him go through various challenges and come out better. His life was great, and the future looked bright. And I was happy for him because he had worked so hard to get to this place.

My friend died that night …

3 Courageous Choices That Make Us Better, Happier People

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“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” ~Mary Anne Radmacher

My daughter is the most courageous person I know. She’s two years old and fierce.

So often we think courage looks like a warrior, soldier, or athlete.

But I think we have it all wrong. Courage has a soft side that we have ignored for centuries.

Take my daughter for instance. The other day she was running full speed ahead at the playground. She was so focused on getting to her favorite slide that she …

Lessons from Almost Dying: How to Appreciate the Everyday Awesome

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“We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” ~Bill Watterson

“Rare as hell.” That’s how my doctor described my leukemia.

The cancer had gotten real aggressive, real quick, and I’d need some heavy-duty chemo and a risky bone marrow transplant if I had any chance of surviving. How good a chance? “Forty to fifty percent,” said my doctor.

Oof.

As an otherwise healthy twenty-seven-year-old, cancer had been the furthest thing from my mind. Now, every waking thought was consumed by it. But I wasn’t ready to die. …

The Art of Pain: Why the Dark Times Make Life Beautiful

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“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice… No one can live in the light all the time.” ~Libba Bray

Happiness, and the quest for it, is not all it’s cracked up to be. What I mean is that I think we’re making a mistake in reaching only for happiness, lightness, good days, and good moods.

I think that we’re restricting ourselves.

We’re fishing in an ocean of emotions, looking to only reel in one or two kinds, throwing back the ones we don’t want without even noticing …