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Search Results for "inner child" — 728 posts

Lessons from Infertility: What’s Helped Me Cope with Disappointment

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“When you find no solution to a problem, it’s probably not a problem to be solved, but a truth to be accepted.” ~Unknown

For the longest time, I swore I’d never get married or have kids.

Growing up with an alcoholic father, in a domestic violence situation, shattered my young spirit and left me putting the pieces back together for years.

Since I didn’t see healthy coping skills growing up, it’s no wonder I grappled with my own addictive behaviors. I struggled with self-worth, focusing solely on accomplishments to fill a void inside of myself.

Externally, people saw a well-adjusted, …

Travel Tips for the Anxious Spirit

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“Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.” ~Yogi Bhajan

For years, I avoided travel. Just the thought of leaving home made me anxious. I dreaded the crowds, the confusion, and the sense of disconnection from both my daily routine and my spiritual practice.

Over time, I came up with some great reasons not to travel, but I always knew those excuses were keeping me from exploring new places, meeting new people, and living my life to the fullest.

I continued to avoid traveling until family members moved across the country, and then I had no choice. …

Why We Close Ourselves Off to Friendships and How to Open Up

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“If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.” ~Louise Hay

Picking the flimsy gold lock on my groovy denim-covered childhood diary, I’m instantly transported back to my ten-year-old life.

Each page duly describes what I what I ate for dinner that day as well as what my two best friends and I got up to. It was 1976 and we were obsessed with Charlie’s Angels, cruising around “undercover” on our bikes, solving fresh crimes around the neighborhood.

Every couple of weeks I’d report the latest drama amongst the three of us. Either my …

My Needs Matter Too: How I Started Speaking Up and Setting Boundaries

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“Setting boundaries is a way of caring for myself. It doesn’t make me mean, selfish, or uncaring just because I don’t do things your way. I care about me, too.” ~Christine Morgan

In my early twenties, I could shout into a megaphone at a political rally of thousands, but I couldn’t decline drinks from strangers at the bar. I could perform original music for an attentive audience, but I couldn’t tell my friends when I felt hurt by something they’d said. I could start a business, advocate for new laws at City Hall, and share deeply personal poetry on Facebook, …

9 Lessons from my 9-Month-Old Nephew, Who’s Taught Me How to Live

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“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~William Arthur Ward

Oliver.

Ahh, my heart skips a beat at just the sound of his name.

In 2018, a tiny human being arrived on the planet, one who would change my life. In the short nine months my nephew Oliver has been in my life, I’ve learned a lot. I’m not talking about changing nappies and bottle-feeding, although I’m getting to grips with these essentials too. No, Oliver has taught me valuable lessons about life itself. Here are nine of the biggest.

1.

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How to Avoid Petty Fights and Get What You Need in Your Relationship

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“It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.” ~Amy Poehler

It was yet another stupid argument that escalated from nothing to a hundred miles an hour in seconds. I’d been there so many times before, entrenched in warfare with us both preparing our defenses and priming our attacks.

The intense emotions of the moment always took over, denying me the opportunity that hindsight would later afford me. Huge issues were, upon reflection, only minor disagreements about who had said what about the cooking, or where something had been left in the bathroom.

On this occasion, once …

Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma: We Can Break the Cycle of Abuse

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“Our ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles. One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal. One cannot live without the other, each is the other’s hope, meaning and strength.” ~Gemma B. Benton

I thought I had no value, my opinion meaningless. My sense of self was decimated. Finally, I got angry and attacked.

“You can’t imagine the pain you’ve put me through!” I yelled. “You don’t even know who I am. You can’t see it. You’re refusing to take responsibility for the way you raised me! Not thinking is not an excuse! …

How 5 Simple Habits Made Me Love My Life More

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“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.” ~John Irving

Your habits are directly related to the quality of your life. Good habits lead to joy and fulfillment in your life, while not-so-good habits leave you yearning for your life to be different.

I think I always knew that, I just wished I took it to heart sooner. Better late than never, right?

Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits, says that “Habits are the invisible architecture of our daily life. We repeat about 40% of our behavior almost daily, so our …

How I Learned to Like and Trust Myself When It Was Hard

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“Loving yourself starts with liking yourself, which starts with respecting yourself, which starts with thinking of yourself in positive ways.” ~Jerry Corsten

Useless. Hopeless. Broken.

This was how I saw myself.

I didn’t completely loathe myself, but I didn’t like myself either. At best, I tolerated myself.

I felt I had good reasons to.

I’d gotten myself into, as we say in England, a right old pickle.

If you’re not familiar with this charming expression, I had gotten myself into a big mess.

In my early twenties, over a painful period of about eighteen months, I’d gradually buried myself …

How Recovering People-Pleasers Can Discover What They Really Want

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“When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you’re not saying ‘no’ to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho

People-pleasers regularly subvert their own needs for the needs of others. We spend years saying “yes” when we mean “no,” signing up for commitments we’d rather avoid, and occupying our minds with others’ desires.

When we finally clear out the clutter to put ourselves first, we look around at the empty space, bewildered, with endless questions. What do we want? What does true happiness look like for us? What would a life lived on our own terms be like?

For me, these questions once …

5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Trying to Lose Weight

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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

I struggled to maintain a healthy weight for a large part of my life.

Had I known these five things before my weight-loss journey, I would have had a much easier time shedding the pounds and would have realized that weight loss isn’t a magic fix-all solution to my issues.

If you’re trying to lose weight, perhaps some of my lessons will be helpful to you.

Here we go…

1. This has to be for you, not someone else.

Growing up as a closeted …

Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

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“No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” ~Robert Holden

In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with the newest and best things to improve ourselves and/or our quality of life. Unfortunately, this leads to the belief that we need to obtain some sort of thing before we could accept ourselves as we are.

When I was a child, I constantly battled with my weight. By the age of fourteen, I was 225 pounds (mind you, I am 5’2,” on a good day).

Fortunately for me, a doctor pointed out the concern of childhood obesity. …

3 Healing Practices to Connect with Yourself and Release Your Pain

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“Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.” ~Sharon Salzberg

One of the symptoms of living in today’s fast-paced world is the underlying feeling of loneliness, overwhelm, and disconnection. Chronically stressed and under financial and familial pressures, we often feel alone in the world, out of touch with others, overwhelmed by our emotions, and disconnected from our own bodies and ourselves.

Our world is ego-driven. We constantly compare ourselves to others, judge our performance (usually harshly), define our worth by our financial and career achievements, and criticize ourselves for failure.

This ego-based …

How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

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“My biggest fear is that I’m not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I’ve been battling for years that says, ‘You’re not really talented enough. You don’t really deserve this.’ ” ~Rachel Platten

When we’re continually surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards in the media and highlight reels of others’ success on social media, it’s no surprise that many of us feel like we don’t measure up or fit the ideals of perfection.

At some point in our lives maybe we were rejected for the color of our skin, the shape of our bodies, or for the …

How to Tackle Fear and Anxiety Cognitively, Behaviorally, and Spiritually

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“The beautiful thing about fear is that when you run to it, it runs away.” ~Robin Sharma

During my first-grade choir concert, my classmate, Meg, fainted from the top row of the bleachers, and in a subconscious gesture of empathy, I went down right after her, breaking my glasses and flailing on the gymnasium floor.

It’s possible that this triggered some kind of coping mechanism in my brain, because I started fainting again and again.

One time I fainted at the dentist’s office—immediately after the dentist injected me with my first round of Novocain—then months later in a hospital parking …

50 People Share What They’re Grateful to Do Every Day

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At night, when you think about how you spent your day, how often do you focus on all the things you had to do?

I worked. I ran errands. I went to the gym. I made dinner.

And when you tell someone about this kind of day, how often do you do it with a less-than-enthused tone?

I suspect this is the norm for many of us, at least during the workweek.

Commitments, to work and family, can engulf our lives and seem like chores, not choices and chances.

I distinctly remember one day, years ago, when my day felt …

How I Stopped Feeling Guilty About Doing What’s Best for Me

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“A good rule of thumb is that any environment that consistently leaves you feeling bad about who you are is the wrong environment.” ~Laurie Helgoe

Do you ever worry that if you fulfill your needs you will disappoint others? Do you ever feel guilty for doing what’s best for you?

For years, I felt guilty about taking time for myself. I thought that being alone, away from the rest of the world, meant being selfish. This was especially true in one toxic relationship that kept dragging me down because I was afraid to make a change. As a peaceful, …

The ABCs of Personal Growth: How to Live a Meaningful, Fulfilling Life

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“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

Throughout my life, I’ve moved countries, studied a foreign language, changed careers, launched a business, run a half marathon, written a book, faced agonizing loss and grief, won awards, been deeply hurt, created awesome charity campaigns, lived with huge uncertainty and pain, found love and friendships to cherish, and given birth to three miraculous humans.

Throughout these and plenty more crazy, insane, complex, and utterly beautiful life events, I have collected treasured building blocks that help me live a life of meaning, purpose, and joy every single day.…

How Yogic Breathing Helped Me Overcome Chronic Panic Attacks

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“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” ~Amit Ray

I’ve battled chronic anxiety and PTSD my entire life and am no stranger to that tight pressure grip that dread and panic can have on the body and mind.

On my worst days, I’d feel my chest and throat tighten as I struggled to breathe.

Chronic panic attacks would leave me curled up in the fetal position, unable to move or stop panting.

On my best days, I’d manage to get by, thanks to my numbing out with food and alcohol, …

Anxiety Is Not My Enemy: How I’ve Learned to Accept It And Cope

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“You are strong for getting out of bed in the morning when it feels like hell. You are brave for doing things even though they scare you or make you anxious. And you are amazing for trying and holding on no matter how hard life gets.” ~Unknown

I couldn’t take it anymore. I no longer wanted to answer to the heart beating on my ribcage, my sweat on my palms, or the breath that got caught in the upper part of my lungs. I wanted the swirling thoughts in my brain to settle. I imagined them falling like leaves finding …