“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.” ~Robert Brault
My ex-boyfriend is angry with me.
I met him soon after he had broken up with his then fiancée, and he thought he was ready to move on, but wasn’t. After many months of messing me about, we ended it. I cut off contact because it still hurt me and I still cared for him.
Eventually, I wrote to him to see if I could get some closure and to consider if we could salvage a friendship. His reply was scathing, vitriolic, angry. He blamed …
“Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” ~Mooji
I once thought that the goal of meditation was to reach a state of constant positivity, a natural euphoria in which a person simply does not get angry or depressed.
I think that a lot of people begin practicing meditation thinking that their teacher has reached this euphoric state of being. I have learned, though, that these negative feelings are never permanently banished from anyone’s mind.
As someone that has been struggling with anxiety and depression disorders since early childhood, I turned to meditation as a teenager as a …
“Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at anytime and be yourself.” ~Hermann Hesse
As a child, I hated when someone told me to sit still and be quiet, and rightly so. I was young and full of energy; every minute of being still and silent was a minute of missing out on this magnificent life.
Then, as I grew older and entered into teenage and young adult years, it grew into a fear with a capital “F” of being still and silent; for as soon as I was quiet and still, the …
*The deadline to submit a story has now passed. Thank you to everyone who submitted one! You will receive an email by the end of November if your story will be included in the book.
Tiny Buddha is all about bringing people together to share their experiences and what they’ve learned—both on the blog and in print.
Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions, published in 2011, includes 150 tweets of wisdom addressing some of life’s most complex topics, like meaning, pain, love, fate, and control.
Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself, published in 2013, features forty …
“By living deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better and we can prepare for a better future.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
When I was in high school, a hit-and-run car accident changed my world. My boyfriend at the time lost his nineteen-year-old brother to the accident. I had never met his brother, but it didn’t matter; a dark veil had been cast over my life.
In the days, weeks, months, and years following the accident, I sank into a deeper and deeper depression. I started to have panic attacks and I cut myself daily, trying to feel …
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“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown
Some would say that when it rains, it pours—a fitting statement for the events that have recently taken place in my life.
In mid-September my life took an unexpected turn. My wife, to whom I had been married for only four months (having been together for six years prior), had been acting strangely toward me.
She was suffering from fits of depression that would range from her sobbing on the couch to sitting by the fireplace, drinking heavily while listening to songs that would make your heart …
“Ask for what you want. Give other people the opportunity to say ‘yes.’ Stop saying ‘no’ for them. “ ~Roger Ellerton
I never realized until very recently exactly how hard it’s been for me to speak up for my needs. To ask for what I require and want. I honestly don’t know how I’ve navigated through life.
Let me rephrase that: I’ve managed life by being very passive, ignoring my own desires. Then that small grain of resentment would build into frustration, and I would explode.
I became a fiery and angry woman. I expressed my needs in a destructive …
“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown
Regret can be such a paralyzing emotion, yet it is also universal. At some point in our lives, in one way or another, we each wrestle with regret.
Regret seems to rear its ugly head most when it comes to relationships. It happens when a relationship ends and we feel as if we could have done something more. This feeling intensifies when the other person decides that a second chance is not worth the fight. Most of all, we face with regret once it sets in that the past …
“Taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them.” ~Byron Katie
I had spent five horrible years in and out of rehabs and support groups for my substance use problems. Along the way, there were a few periods where I cleaned up for six months, eight months, and almost a whole year one time, but nothing seemed to stick.
The worst part was that even with all of the painful effort it took to keep the drug and alcohol use going, and all of the painful consequences that were piling up, I was happier in …
“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~ Unknown
Most of us have experienced a day or event in our life that changes us forever.
I remember that day vividly, and it still invokes incredible pain in my heart. It was the middle of the night in February. I was twelve years old, and I awoke to my mother screaming and crying to my brother that our dad was dying. He died in his sleep from a massive heart attack.
I will …
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” ~Bruce Lee
I have always been timid when it comes to expressing myself, speaking my mind, and standing up for something. This stems from being raised in a culture where showing emotions is frowned upon.
Nothing I ever did seemed good enough. There was constant criticism that I could do better, and be better. I was raised to never to talk back to my seniors and not to say anything when I had nothing nice to say.
So …
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha
I always felt invisible whenever my husband and I got together with a certain couple.
Every time we saw them, it triggered feelings of rejection because they would go on and on about themselves and never ask about how I was doing or feeling. I went home feeling ignored and sad every time.
Finally, after putting up with this non-reciprocal relationship for a number of years, I decided that it was best for us to break free from it.
For the longest time I couldn’t figure …
“I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Our daughter is seeing a counselor to help her deal with anxiety. She’s only ten. Cue mother guilt.
There are a whole lot of (mostly crazy) worries running around her little head, some that even I can’t wrap my head around. So I wrap my arms around her and reassure her that things will be okay.
I give her permission to be anxious, but try to instill resilience so she won’t worry so much. I try to teach her mindfulness …
“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson
Some of us experience more adversity and painful events in our lives than others. We wonder why our difficulties don’t happen to the “bad” people out there instead of us. Unfortunately, life is not fair.
Awful things happen. Dreadful circumstances or tragedies will affect most of …
“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese
On a snowy winter day in the dark month of January, I got hit by a car. My left leg was immediately amputated. A darkness started growing in my seventeen-year-old heart that day.
Harvey was the man driving the car that hit me.
Because of Harvey’s decisions, I didn’t have my leg. Because of Harvey, I walked in pain. Because of Harvey, I lost my confidence as an attractive woman.
At the trial two years later, Harvey and I weren’t allowed to talk to each other. …
“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~ James Allen
We all have a picture of ourselves in our minds. A picture of what we believe we are like. A picture we choose to believe no matter what.
We can cling to this idea about ourselves all we want, but that will not make it true. This is not as easy to realize and even harder to accept, but it’s an important step toward a conscious life.
I believe we all go through dark phases when our image of ourselves breaks …
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Von Goethe
I am on a journey of trust. It’s been about trusting my body, knowing that it can take care of itself without the control of my mind.
For three and a half years, my body and mind have been enemies and I have been trying so hard, and knowingly, too hard, to get back to where I was at seventeen.
It all began when I had an episode of hyperventilation in January 2010, when I heard that my Granny, who was terminally ill, had just …
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~Einstein
“Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself fall into landslide. Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself give into low tide. Go do!”~Jonsi
I recently heard from a friend whom I had not heard from in over two years. He sent me an email just to check in and see how I was doing, congratulate me on my recent marriage, which he had heard about, and let me know that he had faced some hardship over the past couple of years.
He had …
“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere. I keep telling myself that every time I am stuck.
Well, I’ve been a widow for year and a half, and I am twenty-four years old. Maybe that’s the way to start here.
My husband had cancer. We tried to enjoy the time before his passing as best we could, so he would die with memories, not dreams. And I guess that the fact that he died content is quite an accomplishment in our relationship.
But it doesn’t change …
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