How Beautiful Your Broken Is
Are You Being Roached in Your “Relationship”?
“Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz
Online dating and dating apps have revolutionized the experience of dating in recent years, and those changes continue to accelerate at a dizzying pace.
These new technologies have given rise to a brand new culture that singles never had to navigate in years past. Dating online and using dating apps is like a new “Wild West,” …
Radical Compassion: How to Heal Our Hostile World
“An enemy is a person whose story you do not know.” ~Irene Butter
We all know the status of our currently hostile nation—it feels as though you can’t make it through a single speech or read an article or engage in a conversation with friends that doesn’t somehow touch on polarizing topics or divisive politics. The focus is on our differences instead of our shared humanity.
It’s all too easy to blame other people, other groups, and other political parties for the endless strife in our world—civil wars, famines, natural disasters, school shootings, homelessness, environmental destruction—just as it’s easy …
Love Yourself, on Valentine’s Day and Always
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” Brené Brown
Growing up I watched my grandparents’ relationship with longing. They anticipated each other’s needs, they did small loving gestures for each other every day, and they put the other first without resentment. I longed to have a relationship like theirs one day and meet someone who understood me the way they understood each other.
In contrast, I observed the relationship between my parents. My mother was constantly in a state of panic trying desperately to please my father. Her actions …
What to Do When You’re Stressed, Distressed, or Overwhelmed
“Picture a pattern of upright dominoes that have been positioned just far enough away from one other to highlight the gap between them, but just close enough to hit each other if one of them tips over. Hit a single domino and it sets off a chain reaction. Oftentimes, our own actions, reactions and counter-reactions, criticisms and defensive responses function like dominoes. When we’re not able to access our mindfulness, reactivity takes over.” ~Alicia Muñoz
Before my husband and I were married, he lived in New Zealand and I lived in the States. One way we coped with the distance …
How Anxiety Became My Guide, Not My Enemy
“You are not a mess. You are a feeling person in a messy world.” ~Glennon Doyle Melton
I have suffered with some type of anxiety for as long as I can remember.
The stomach aches at age five. Trips to the specialist, always coming back with no known cause.
The feelings in grade school of being different, of sticking out, or being mortally embarrassed to give a wrong answer.
As I got older, I strived for perfection in every way, so as to avoid criticism and feeling less-than. I was a people-pleaser to a fault, because to say NO would …
Connecting to the Sacred in the Chaos of Everyday Life
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.” ~Thomas Merton
Seth: When Aria and I decided to devote a year to encouraging one another in our mindfulness practice, we couldn’t have known what those twelve months had in store.
I had always enjoyed good health—“taken for granted good health” is more accurate—and suddenly I was faced with major health challenges of unknown origin. Countless trips to doctors and other professionals provided no explanation for my chronically low energy, nightly insomnia, digestive issues, vocal problems, and eventually a …
Radical Gratitude: How to Turn Your Pain into Peace
My journey to living in gratitude began in 2010. And let me say that up until that time, until I was age forty-five, I was a complainer, griper, and a whiner, with absolutely no reason to complain!
Luckily, I was saved from these very wasteful, counter-productive habits when I was given a blank journal one Thanksgiving season by a New Thought minister, who told us if we journaled five things we were grateful for forty days, our life would change exponentially for the better.
I dutifully wrote my gratitude lists, and oh my god, my life did change. It …
Why I Was a People-Pleaser and How I Stopped
“When you say “yes” to others, make sure you aren’t saying “no” to yourself.” ~Paulo Coehlo
For as long as I can remember I have been a people pleaser. I have prided myself on being well-liked, on saying yes and never saying no. I go out of my way for people even when it’s inconvenient for me. I have felt proud that a skill of mine is accommodating people so much so that I am needed. I avoid conflict; I make the jokes. I am happiest when I feel like people are happy with me.
For some time, this …
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