Show Your True Colors


“People aren’t always going to be there for you. That’s why you need to learn to handle things on your own.” ~Unknown
Anxiety is a box around your mind. It’s the cage in which your deepest worries start to pace, then walk, and gain momentum until they’re out of control.
Once these worries and scenarios take off and hit the walls of this box, they’re trapped, and tension starts building.
It can be an exhausting cycle of stress that you might think you have to face alone if you want to avoid opening yourself up to pity or rejection.
You …

“Anxiety happens when you try to think what you need to feel.” ~Unknown
Anxiety results from unfelt feelings. I battled anxiety for years because I was scared to admit that I was scared. When I felt a wave of anxiety, I would harden myself like a concrete pillar and refuse to be moved. I thought this made me strong, but it halted my emotional progress.
I didn’t have anxiety until my last major breakup four years ago. I was ashamed to consider myself weak, so I hid the pain in the back of my mind like skeletons in a closest.…
Note – This winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are:
A few years back, Tiny Buddha contributor Lisa Esile wrote a post about negative thinking that was incredibly eye opening.
Titled 3 Reasons to Stop Worrying About Your Negative Thoughts, her post suggested that instead of trying to suppress negative thoughts or replace them with positive ones—as conventional wisdom suggests—we should observe them, choose not to believe them, and let them naturally pass.
Brilliant, I thought. Don’t feel bad about the thoughts that go through your head (which adds guilt on top of the …

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” ~Theophrastus
We’ve all been there.
We’re supposed to write a paper, send an email, do our job!
We have deadlines, places to see, people to meet, and yet we find ourselves (for the umpteenth time) perusing our Facebook timeline, scrolling our Instagram feed, or catching up on Twitter updates.
Whether it’s YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, we are all experts at self-distraction, and we wonder where all that time goes!
It’s actually getting a bit scary. Social media addiction is a real thing, and research from the University of Maryland shows …

“Love isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” ~Steven Hayes
Things go wrong in life. Distress and confusion can take root, sometimes leading to harsh self-criticism, depression, or anxiety.
We sense that love heals, and it does.
I once visited an orphanage for abandoned infants, and every toddler who I carried clung tightly to me. I can still feel their little arms clasping me desperately.
We crave love as we crave oxygen.
But what is love?
Is it something you wait for?
What if love is more than a feeling?
What if your choices and actions can bring the spirit …

“When a person is born we rejoice, and when they’re married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.” ~Margaret Mead
It was five years ago this month that my father passed away from cancer. About four months before his death, his oncologist gave him a bleak diagnosis, telling him to get his affairs in order because he could die at any time.
Our entire family was dumbstruck. Here was a man who appeared to be strong and generally healthy.
He was a youthful sixty-eight years old. Just months into his retirement after a long …

“No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That’s the only way to keep the roads clear” ~Greg Kincaid
How is it that some people can breeze through physical and emotional pain, whereas others wince at the mere thought of it?
Is it their genes? Their individual circumstances? Their support network?
Or is it a certain strength of character, something each and every one of us can develop with the right tools and training?
Two years ago I found myself needing to answer these questions.
I was sitting in a cafe in East London, wiping the tears …