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Search Results for "peace " — 1998 posts

Why I Hate Getting My Hopes Up and What Happened the One Time I Did

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“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.” ~Oprah Winfrey

When I was a little girl, I made many wishes. At first, I believed all of my wishes would come true, just like in the fairy tales my mother read to me before bed. However, slowly but surely, life changed my attitude, stole my optimism, and I stopped wishing.

My parents fought a lot, and their unhappiness made me believe that I was not good enough. Poverty replaced my birthday wishes with socks, the bible, and sheets for my bed.

When my parents …

The Grief We Can’t Run from and Why We Should Embrace It

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“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Grief creeps up on you when you least expect it. It reminds you of the person you have lost when you’re out for coffee with friends, watching people hug their loved ones goodbye at the airport, and when you’re at home thinking about people you should call to check-in on.

Even when you think that enough time has passed for you to be over it, grief pulls at your heartstrings. You think about all the ways that life …

Discovering Pleasure in Movement Instead of Exercising from Fear

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“The choice that frees or imprisons us is the choice of love or fear. Love liberates. Fear imprisons.” ~Gary Zukav

I come from a family of runners. When I was a young girl, my father would rouse us out of bed on the weekends to run the three-mile par-course at the local park, competing with my siblings for who could do the most sit-ups at the stations along the route. We would end the event with a bunch of chocolate eclairs from the local 7-11 as a reward.

As benign as this story may be, it describes a pattern of …

Movement, Stillness, and Insight: My 3 Daily Non-Negotiables for a Busy World

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“Put yourself at the top of your to-do list every single day and the rest will fall into place.” ~Unknown

We live in a busy world. There is always something, or someone, fighting for our attention. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to lose the time we need for ourselves. The white space in our days is often the first thing to get squeezed out as demands on our time escalate.

To combat this pull to overwhelm, I decided to create a list of daily non-negotiables.

Having a list of non-negotiables means I get to control at least a …

How to Trust Yourself After the Trauma of Being Dismissed and Invalidated

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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~Steve Jobs

I was a sensitive child growing up, and I felt everything deeply. Unfortunately, my childhood home was dominated by chronic tension, fear, and anger—not an ideal environment for anyone, let alone a perceptive and empathic child.

My father was rather authoritative and controlling, and he disciplined us harshly. I was raised to obey without questioning and punished for mistakes or not falling in line.

Love was only assumed but never shared, and so I grew up feeling alone, unsupported, …

How I Stopped Resisting Change and Embraced the Road Ahead of Me

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“Just when the caterpillar thought her life was over, she became a butterfly.” ~Unknown

Change is constant, from small changes like trying a new hobby to big changes like making a drastic career move. Even though change is all around us, it can feel scary. While change could lead you to something great, there are a lot of unknowns with something new, and that can cause anxiety.

When I was younger, I used to embrace change. For example, each school year was a new and exciting experience.

But somewhere along the way, I started to resist change.

What Does Resisting

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What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

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“Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner

Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious?

Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.”

It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “Something’s wrong with me, I’m flawed, I’m bad, …

If You’ve Been Abused and You’ve Lost Your Joy and Sense of Self

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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can choose not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

I know what you’re feeling because I’ve been there. You’re sitting quietly with your pain asking yourself if the abuse really happened or if you just fabricated it in your mind like they said you did.

You’re wondering if you’re too sensitive. If you really did hurt them as much as they claim you did. There’s a small part of you that wonders if you actually deserved to be treated poorly because of what you said or …

4 Things I Learned from Being Possessive and Controlling in a Relationship

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As she stood there watching the puppet show, our eyes locked. I was instantly attracted.

After what felt like the longest fifteen minutes torn between the desire to talk to her and the fear of rejection, I mustered the courage to introduce myself.

She gave me a smile, then without saying a word, walked away.

“What just happened? How can such a beautiful lady be so rude?” I stood there in disbelief, overtaken by embarrassment, pretending nothing had happened.

Two weeks later, as if by pure serendipity, a mutual friend reconnected us. That was the beginning of a relationship I …

19 Techniques to Calm a Highly Sensitive Nervous System

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“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

The sun is setting, the cold wind is gently blowing in my face. I’m sitting on a rock that’s about ten feet tall, overlooking the Peruvian city of Cuzco. I can hear dogs barking, groups of teenagers laughing, the low hum of traffic and the music blaring from cars in the distance. As it goes dark, the lights of thousands of houses begin to flicker on like fireflies.

I should be enjoying this picturesque scene, but I’m not. My …

How to Stop Reacting in Anger When You’re Triggered

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“Freedom is taking control of the rudder of your life.” ~Yukito Kishiro

“What’s for dinner?” It’s a simple enough question. Yet it’s one that has made me lose my mind at my husband on more than one (or ten or twenty) occasions.

It’s not the question itself. It’s a valid question and one that needs an answer (at least by one of us).

A trigger of mine is being asked to answer a question when I’m already in the middle of something, feeling overwhelmed, emotionally exhausted, or just sick of answering questions.

So then I snap and overreact.

I’ve come …

How I Stopped Making Men My Everything and Losing Myself in Love

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“Yes, love is all about sacrifice and compromise, but it’s important also to establish a limit. You shouldn’t have to throw your whole life away to make a relationship work. If you have to lose yourself to please your partner, you’re with the wrong person.” ~Beau Taplin

When I was twenty, I fell in love with a man who became my everything. My close friends watched me becoming someone else because I found myself trying to ceaselessly knead myself into someone who would perfectly fit into this man’s world, even if it meant betraying myself in the process.

I changed …

Emotionally Numb and Physically Disconnected? DDD May Be the Problem

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“Of all things, it would seem, make friends with depersonalization. Enemies within consciousness never work, and only escalate the problem. Befriend it, consider it part of life to work with it. We can’t expel it or cancel it. When we try, the pressure makes a volcano out of it. This is true of so many things, it must be true of DDD too.” ~David Hench

Do you ever feel like you’re not feeling anything, although you know that you have feelings? That you’re operating on autopilot, more like a robot than a living person? That your self is hiding …

How I’m Winning Over My Inner Critic by Letting It Exist

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“Winning the war of words inside your soul means learning to defy your inner critic.” ~Steven Furtick

We all have that voice in our head, the voice that’s always negative about ourselves. Our inner voice.  Our inner critic.

The one that tells us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough. That voice that continuously compares us to other people, so we come up lacking and feeling less than.

Sometimes that voice is our own. Other times, and for some people, maybe those of us who have felt unloved or disliked by a significant person in our …

What I Really Mean When I Say I’m Fine (Spoiler: I’m Not)

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“Tears are words that need to be written.” ~Paulo Coelho

It was lovely to see you today. I haven’t seen you in such a long time. So much has happened since the last time we saw each other.

You asked me how I was. I politely replied, “I’m fine” and forced a smile that I hoped would be believable. It must have worked. You smiled back and said, “I’m so glad to hear that. You look great.”

But I’m not really fine. I haven’t been fine for a very long time, and I wonder if I will ever know what …

Let Go of Control: How to Learn the Art of Surrender

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“You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

I’ve noticed that things go much more smoothly when I give up control—when I allow them to happen instead of making them happen. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at this.

Although I’m much better than I used to be, I’m a bit of a control freak. I often use perfectly good energy trying to plan, predict, and prevent things that I cannot possibly plan, predict, or prevent.

For example, I wonder if my baby is going to get a proper nap when we travel …

3 Reasons to Stop Worrying About Your Negative Thoughts

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“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Do you ever catch yourself being critical, judgmental, or full of fear and worry? And do you ever worry about how many negative thoughts you have? If you do, this post is for you.

We’re taught that negative thoughts are bad, that they’re “toxic,” they “lower your vibration,” keep you stuck, and so on.

We’re taught that in order to feel self-assured and confident, we should banish negative thoughts from our lives. Kind of like, goodbye, negative thoughts; hello, higher vibration, better boyfriend, nicer car, inner peace, …

How I Created Opportunities in a World Full of Obstacles

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“I really want to, but I can’t because [add semi-valid reason here].”

That’s a template sentence to let yourself off the hook.

It’s not copyrighted, so feel free to use it any time you want to let go of your dreams and not feel bad about it.

Honestly, it hurts me every time I hear someone say it. I see it for what it is—an excuse.

Every single one of us has ambitions, hopes, dreams, and goals. We fantasize about them on our commutes to work and before we sleep. We talk about how we will one day achieve …

Recognizing Our Human Goodness May Be the Most Radical Act We Can Take

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Most of us can be way too hard on ourselves, when life is already hard enough. We spend our days taking an inventory of all the ways we’re falling short, tell ourselves we’re not good enough, and even question our basic goodness, as if there’s something wrong with us at our core. I know I’ve done this countless times before.

When I respond harshly instead of pausing before reacting or make a mistake I keep making over and over again, it’s easy to conclude I am fundamentally bad or damaged, or else I would more consistently do better.

Then, waddling …

Why “Find Your Purpose” is Bad Advice and What to Do Instead

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“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso

I was fifty-two when I found my purpose. I wasn’t even looking. It literally just smacked me upside the head. That’s a funny thing about life. It throws things your way, and you either grab them and run with them or you turn a blind eye and walk on by.

I used to turn a blind eye. I don’t anymore. These days I’m taking in all that life tosses my way. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

How

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