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Search Results for "inner child" — 726 posts

10 Life-Changing Lessons I Wish I Learned Sooner

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“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” ~Albert Einstein

I recently turned thirty-eight.

Birthdays and new years always make me quite reflective and, for a long time, critical about my achievements—what I’ve done and what I have to show for it.

This time, though, there was finally a wonderful difference.

Over the past twelve months what’s mattered has been about the people I’ve met, the places I’ve seen, the experiences I’ve had, and the things I’ve discovered about myself—none of which have brought me anything physical to show for it.

I’ve learned character building life lessons, the kind …

4 Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re Unhappy with Your Work

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“What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” ~Unknown

In my working lifetime, I have been the poster child for seeking work-life balance. I have spent hundreds of hours curled into complex yoga asanas, breathing into the resistance and unexpected openness.

I have meditated sincerely, flowering into a quieter mind. Add to that a happy, growing relationship, stable social connections, and purposefully cultivated hobbies, and you would think that I go humming and beaming to work each morning.

The startling truth is that for every minute that I have spent …

Life Happens When You Listen: Let Yourself Learn from the Moment

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“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” ~Jose Ortega y Gasset

Something magical and wonderful happened to me over Christmas. For the first time in my life I was able to make sense out of a string of seemingly random events that made no sense at all, that is, until I bothered to stop, listen, and check in with my heart.

My family and I were staying in a hotel in Brisbane, Australia, for three nights over the Christmas period. It was a special Christmas this year because it was my big …

How to Maintain Healthy Habits and Stop Sabotaging Yourself

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“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

About two years go, I felt horrible about myself and where I was in my life: single, struggling to lose weight, miserable in my job (and no clue what to do about it), and unfulfilled in general.

I kept trying to bully myself in order to be the person I wanted to be and have the things I wanted to have.

I kept saying to myself, “I can’t believe you said/ate/did that. There’s something wrong with you” and giving myself strict rules to follow, …

How to Embrace Your True Beauty (Not the Media’s Ideal)

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“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” ~Kahlil Gibran

A few years shy of my fiftieth birthday, I went on a road trip with one of my best friends from high school. We’d taken some version of this trip many times during our teens and twenties, but as we started raising young children, we didn’t have much time for getaways.

But on this occasion, our kids were old enough to fend for themselves, and we hit the road with same excitement and silliness that characterized all of our youthful adventures.

We spent the next …

How to Stop Judging and Being Hard on Yourself

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“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

For a long time I joked that if I had a time machine, I would go back to 1989 and give my sixteen-year-old self a swift butt kicking. But then a few months ago, on my fortieth birthday, a friend posted a picture of me at sixteen on Facebook.

Seeing this image of myself totally threw me for a loop. Other than a school photo, it’s probably one of the few pictures I am aware of from that time in my life.

I spent …

How to Heal From Rejection: 5 Steps to Soothe the Pain

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“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

I spent years training as a psychologist, waiting for the day I would graduate and finally have time to explore my second passion—writing.

When I opened a private practice I left my mornings free, and over the next fourteen years I wrote six screenplays, two novels, and a children’s book. But mostly I wrote letters, thousands of them, to agents, editors, and producers, asking them to read my work.

They rejected every manuscript I sent them.

After fourteen years of rejection, my mood, my confidence, my motivation, and …

Forgiving and Letting Go When You Feel Resentful

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“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~Mahatma Ghandi

My childhood was in many ways a nice childhood. I feel like a complete twit to complain about it.  I know other people have gone through so much worse. I’ve read really difficult childhood stories and my heart literally bleeds for these people.

Growing up I was shy, un-confident, and withdrawn. I treated school mostly like a prison sentence. I put my head down and tried to do my time without falling in with the wrong crowd.

My parents were, and are, good parents. They provided …

The Power of Surrendering: Let Go of Control to Be Peaceful and Free

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“The reality is that tomorrow is most certainly uncertain and no matter how many expectations we form, tomorrow will come, tomorrow will go, and it will be what it will be.” ~Lori Deschene

I have never known how to surrender to just about anything. Surrendering is giving up control, and this is something I have never been good at doing.

From an early age I coped with tension and negativity by trying to will things to be different. This caused me a great deal of anxiety because trying to will anything to go your way is not only exhausting, …

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,” …

A Lasting Romance Is Built on Flaws: 6 Tips for a Strong Relationship

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“Let our scars fall in love.” ~Galway Kinnell

We all bring our own baggage to any relationship. I know that my past relationships have shaped my approach to love and romance. When we seek out that special someone to share our life, the disappointments of our past relationships tend to get in the way of new discoveries.

It’s human nature to size up a potential partner by drawing from past experience.

There are so many ways to catalog the possible flaws: He’s too short. She’s too tall. Too fat. Too thin. Not enough education. Too much education. Or you become …

4 Tips to Help You Keep Going When You’re Filled with Doubt

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“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake.” ~Francis Bacon Sr.

“Just research, research, research. That’s what grad school is.”

It seemed as though that was all I was hearing from my professors, and it wasn’t helpful.

Since returning to school to get my master’s degree, I had maintained a 4.0 average, but I also hadn’t taken more than two classes at a time. Until now.

When I enrolled for the fall semester, I chose to take twelve …

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 …

When Things Don’t Go As Planned: Transform Disappointment into Action

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“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” ~James Joyce

I’ve had a bit of experience with disappointment. I got very motivated to change my relationship with it when I was in my twenties and starting my acupuncture practice.

I knew it would take time to build my client base; what I didn’t realize, or more likely was in denial about, was that a very effective way of doing that was by arranging public speaking gigs. I absolutely hated public speaking. Big disappointment.

I also didn’t consider how much work running a business really was. I had to talk to …

Developing Self-Compassion When You Don’t Think You’re Enough

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“He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.” ~Lao Tzu

I’m at war with enoughness.

My stomach isn’t flat enough; I’m not extroverted enough; I don’t have enough money in my wallet; I’m not creative enough; I’m not getting enough work done.

There are times when the Jaws of Life cannot free me from my expectations and negative self-talk. The battle with enoughness is a vicious cycle. 

Here’s an example: I’m both shy and introverted, so I’m afraid of being judged and I prefer quiet environments.

I was easily overlooked in school because I was reluctant …

Learning to Enjoy the Process and Stop Worrying About the Outcome

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“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you” ~John De Paula

Remember the Tasmanian Devil?

That crazed Loony Tunes cartoon character spinning out of control, crashing into everything in his path? Arriving in a blur. Leaving chaos in its wake.

That was pretty much me and my approach to “living my passion.”

This is hard to write but here goes (deep breath)…

Not too long ago I was seriously trying to accomplish all of these things at the same time:

  • Play in a rock and roll band of middle aged men living in New
…

Free Yourself from Regret and Transform Your Life

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“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~Marianne Williamson

I always had a hard time accepting all of me. As early as I can remember others defined me by saying “You are so weird.” Not in a malicious way but more in a “you don’t fit into our familiar box” sort of way.

I spent most of my teens and twenties attempting to conform to others or numbing myself to a point of not caring what they thought. If someone would have told me that forgiveness and compassion would lead me to …

When Following Your Passion Makes You Miserable

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“The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

It seems that in recent years people have really started waking up to the fact that they can do what they love, which is great. But what’s not so great is when it makes you miserable.

Finding your passion can become another goal to be achieved in the future.

Suddenly you find yourself believing that if you could just find that perfect passion, your life would be perfect and then you’d finally be happy. But life doesn’t work that way.

You already …

Stop Assuming the Worst: Your Thoughts Shape Your Reality

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“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.” ~Buddha

My morning bicycle ride had been uneventful until I spotted a small lump in the middle of the bike path. It wasn’t a twig, a dead mouse, or a smelly “gift” from a dog, which are some of the most common sightings during my rides.

It was a perfect, intact slice of bread.

In a nanosecond, my mind created several versions of how this piece of bread had ended up where it was.

I pictured a young mother pushing a stroller and her two-year-old tossing the …

How to Eat Mindfully and Actually Enjoy Your Food

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“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s Sunday night. A steaming plate of spaghetti is set in front of me. Salivating with wide eyes I grab my fork and prepare to dive in. We know how this will end. I will say to my husband while patting my tummy and undoing my top button, “Tomorrow we will start our healthy eating plans.”

This scene raises a number of questions:

Why can’t I resist the urge to inhale my meal like an out of control Scooby Doo bingeing on Scooby snacks? Even when my body is screaming “Enough—you’re …