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Search Results for "Meditate" — 478 posts

How to Take Care of Yourself During Tough Times

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“Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield

Several years ago, within a matter of months, I experienced the death of a parent, the breakdown of a committed relationship, and the death of a treasured animal companion.

I’d been doing okay with “normal” life tension, but when all that crap hit the fan… Wow.

I handled it okay. Just okay. I’m not sure it was a time to expect myself to be amazing.

Life is much better now.

One of the biggest lessons I learned going through those experiences was that I …

What to Do When You Find It Hard to Do What’s Good for You

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“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.” ~Lao Tzu

I know how you feel.

You know you shouldn’t eat that cookie, but it’s as if there’s something from deep within that compels you to move your arm forward, pick it up, and consume it in one, grandiosely guilty gesture.

You find yourself performing entire series of behaviors—like reaching into your pocket, picking out the pack, getting the cigarette, and lighting it—without even realizing what you’ve done until you’ve got the thing in your mouth.

You promise yourself you won’t complain, judge, or …

50 Ways to Find Creative Inspiration

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“If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

I have always loved that scene in American Beauty when Ricky Fitts shows his video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind.

He’s the complete opposite of his neighbor Lester Burnham, who seems to have decided long ago to live life in a comatose state of submission, completely disconnected from authentic joy.

Ricky seems inspired by everything that most people simply overlook. He explains of his bag video:

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute …

Realizing You’re Enough Instead of Trying to Fix Yourself

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“If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ~Oprah Winfrey

Seven years ago I discovered a world of healing, energy, and spirituality. It came at a particularly hard time in my life. Everything that could go wrong seemed to have.

First, I picked up a bug while travelling, which left me unable to hold down food for over eight weeks, and doctors told me there was nothing more they could do.

Then, there were secondary infections, which I learned I might have to live with for life.

I was being bullied at work and …

Mystical Moments: 10 Ways to Feel More Engaged and Alive

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“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.” ~Kahlil Gibran

I had to learn the hard way that you don’t have to walk across hot coals or move to the desert and eat locusts and honey in order to have a mystical, life-changing experience.

As a young man I was anxious and driven, always looking ahead to another goal, always hoping to find some ultimate experience. I believed that life was a challenge that needed to be constantly tackled. Often, this meant feeling overworked and pulled-apart, and I failed …

There’s a Difference Between Alone and Lonely (And We All Need Time to Recharge)

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“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius

At the end of August I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. This was my second major move in a year.

In both cases, I was separated from almost my entire prior social network. After college, making friends seems like a totally different ball game.

Here in Madison, I wake up before five in the morning to go to work and don’t get back until six or seven on most days of the week. This leaves me feeling exhausted, but it hasn’t stopped me from going out …

Let It Be: Using Mindfulness to Overcome Anxiety and Depression

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“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

When I was twelve years old, I figured out how to get out of things.

It was a rainy Saturday morning and I was supposed to be getting ready for choir practice—an eight-hour rehearsal before a big concert. Eight hours! I began to obsess about how much time this was in my then tiny life.

As though by my own will, a heavy sensation of dread and nausea arose. I wasn’t aware of …

The Path of Heart: Live a Passionate Life Full of Love and Joy

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“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

In my late thirties, I attended a workshop that was led by a group of coaches. One of the exercises we did was called the “future self-exercise,” a visualization that took me twenty years into my future.

During the meditation, I was greeted by my future self: a gorgeous, happy, free older me dressed in purple, one of my favorite colors. Her hair was long, flowing, and brown. (So I guess the future me dyed her hair!)

She was walking on the beach in Maui …

How to Fill the Emptiness in Your Life

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“Find your Calcutta.” ~Mother Teresa

Something is missing in your life, isn’t it?

You’re working hard, trying to get ahead, doing everything you possibly can to make life just a little bit better. You’re trying to keep it all balanced, though. You won’t be one of those people who commits every waking second to work and the pursuit of career.

Not you. You’ve got it figured out. You even make time to exercise, eat right, meditate, or maybe spend time with friends and family.

You’ve got it all figured out—except for that one stupid thing that keeps tugging at …

Your Reality Is a Reflection of What You Believe You Deserve

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“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan

Over the last ten years I have learned time and time again that our reality is a reflection of what we believe we deserve, often on an unconscious level.

I discovered this about a decade ago while living in Belize—a diving vacation hotspot on one end and gang-infested, poverty-ridden land on the other.

Back then I was avoiding the 9-5 life. You may say I was running from something, such as routine and following the status quo, but I was also looking to find my worth by …

Encourage, Don’t Criticize; Help Instead of Trying to Fix

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“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hahn

When you think you’re an evolved and conscious woman and your partner tells you in no unclear terms that you’re “hard to be with,” it does a number on you.

Those words landed like a well-aimed boulder, smashing the immaculate vision I’d created of evolving myself: an exemplary girlfriend who was “doing the work” to grow, to become generously loving, spiritually awake, and to wholeheartedly support and encourage her beautiful partner to open to his fullest potential.

We met under messy circumstances. Both …

The Labels We Take On: How They Limit Our Potential

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“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

We live in a society of labels. Everyone will try to label you, including yourself. It’s been happening since the beginning. It takes some honesty and objective reflection to see it, but take a moment or two and really think about it.

Eventually, we each begin to subconsciously believe those labels and we start to feel as though to be whole, to be someone in this world, we need to appease our egos and the voices around us by “fitting-in somewhere,” …

How Simple Mini Habits Can Change Your Life

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“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

It was late 2012, just after Christmas, and like many others I was reflecting on the year.

I realized that I had ample room for improvement in too many areas of my life, but knowing that New Year’s Resolutions have a poor 8% success rate (University of Scranton research), I wanted to explore some other options. I knew I wanted to start before January 1st too, because arbitrary start dates don’t sit well with me.

On December …

How Acceptance Gives You Power (and How to Use It)

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“Of course there is no formula for success except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” ~Arthur Rubinstein

I have the opportunity to meet fantastic people through my online radio show interviews. One of those people is an Australian author whose life circumstances led her to work alongside Mother Teresa.

Among the most impactful statements my guest made was that Mother Teresa was a woman of action. The dire environment of the streets of Calcutta required the help of someone with a big heart but also with a strong will to make change happen.

When my marriage …

5 Surprising Things I Learned During a Year of Silence

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“Freedom is instantaneous the moment we accept things as they are.” ~Karen Maezen Miller

Four years ago I spent the better part of a year being silent.

A friend had told me that in silence, the bits of you that need healing heal themselves. He was talking about the bits of me that had pushed me until I was sick and depressed, too anxious to answer the door.

I call it my year of silence, but it was more like a year of “doing nothing” because I wasn’t silently reading a book or silently reorganizing my cutlery drawer; I was …

7 Ways to Form Deep, Meaningful Friendships

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“To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile.” ~Unknown

I am fascinated by friendships.

Not the acquaintances you see occasionally or the Facebook friends who wouldn’t recognize you on the street.

I’m talking about your real people. The people who know and love the deepest parts of you. Their soul sees yours.

They’re the kind of people you can talk to about how hard it’s been to meditate lately or what’s really going on in your marriage. They’re the kind of people you call for a ride when you get a flat tire and they’re …

You Can Make a Difference: Just Open Your Eyes

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“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” ~William James

My mind wasn’t able to percieve the reality around me. It had been ten days since I’d woken up with a feeling of constant energy flowing through my whole body.

It was so intense that I didn’t want to let it go. But I wasn’t ready for it. It was way too much for my unprepared body and mind. I didn’t even know what it was back then.

Everything had happened so fast. I was on the way to Chicago with my friends after seeming to check …

Why Accepting Your Imperfections Is a Gift to the World

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“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” ~Anna Quindlen

Being yourself seems like it would be an easy thing, right? Just be! But when you’re someone who has lived their life seeking the approval of others constantly, it’s not such an easy thing.

You have to attempt to move past years of trying to appear this way, wondering if people will judge you if do that, or doing your best not to cause waves and avoid conflict.

When you don’t fully understand who your “self” …

Why We Struggle to Find Ourselves and How to Do It

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“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” ~Eckhart Tolle

For a long time I’ve had a bit of an obsession with coming home. Not my physical home, but Home with a capital H. Being with myself. Knowing who I was. Leaning back into me and having that “ah” feeling of being totally whole, and totally at peace.

I felt like there was something missing, and that I needed to find that missing piece to complete the puzzle.

I thought that if I found the right …

7 Benefits of a Surprisingly Simple Meditation Technique

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“Our way to practice is one step at a time, one breath at a time.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

I blinked my eyes, wiggled my toes, and carefully heaved my right foot out from under me. It had gone completely numb after twenty minutes of meditation. I prodded it tentatively.

“The idea is to be able to meditate wherever you are,” our teacher said, pouring out some green tea as we stretched, “to be really present in whatever it is you are doing—cutting the lawn, doing the dishes, whatever it is. To simply breathe in…and out…and just be.”

“You don’t have …