Sometimes Peace Is Better Than Being Right
Learning How to Confront Someone When You’re a People-Pleaser
“The more room you give yourself to express your true thoughts and feelings, the more room there is for your wisdom to emerge.” ~Marianne Williamson
I have always been a people-pleaser, a trait that on the surface seems positive. Like many of us, I want people to like me, and I do my best to make them feel loved. But when someone is angry with me or feels I’ve hurt them in some way, no matter how insignificant or fleeting that anger or pain is, it crushes me.
Over the years, I learned to value other people’s happiness and …
4 Ways to Get Your Mind Off Yourself and Replace Worry with Joy
“The only way to be truly happy is to get your mind off yourself and help somebody else.” ~Joyce Meyer
A couple of years ago, I was dealing with two major life changes at the same time.
The first change was that my husband and I moved from Maryland to Delaware after our son finished high school. And though the distance wasn’t far (about a three-hour drive from my parents’ house in Washington, D.C.), I had grown up in D.C. and this marked the first time I had ever moved away from that area.
The second change was that our …
How to Deal When You Feel Frustrated and Hopeless
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ~Victor Hugo
Last year, my life was in ruins.
I had to visit two different hospitals almost every day of the week. At noon, I’d watch my grandmother suffering on her deathbed. In the evening, I’d sit beside a close friend who’d fallen off a building, broken his spine, and couldn’t even go to the toilet on his own.
All the while, I was toiling in the dark every night until the sun rose. I needed to save my career, which was on the verge of complete failure.…
7 Crucial Steps to Minimize Drama in Your Life
“When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Well into my twenties, all of my friendships with women looked a lot like junior high.
One day, we’d be codependent and attached at the hip, sending incessant play-by-play emails throughout the workday like one too many notes in class.
The next day, we’d be dragging each other by the hair into a heap of combined emotional issues, complete with nasty suspicions, unfounded accusations, and a dramatic reconciliation that would inevitably be short-lived.
Shortly after one toxic friendship eroded, I found …
How to Stop Dwelling: A Simple Practice to Let Go of Anxious Thoughts
“Change your thoughts and you change the world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale
We all encounter times in life when someone says or does something that offends us. After the fact, no matter how hard we try to let go of feelings of hurt or resentment, we might find it hard to move on.
I know, I’ve been there before myself, mostly when I wished I’d told people how I really felt in certain encounters, or when I doubted what I’d said or done and then replayed past events over again in my mind.
I am a reformed people pleaser, …
What I’ve Learned About Life While Volunteering in a Rwandan Youth Village
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” ~Maya Angelou
Have you ever been in a situation where your thoughts and beliefs are put to test and you have to reconsider who you are? Do you adapt to a new environment or hold on to the values and cultural norms of your past?
I’m living in Rwanda for the next year, volunteering at a youth village that also serves as a boarding school …
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