Page 312 – Tiny Buddha

How to Make Anxiety Work for You, Not Against You

By Anonymous in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.”  ~Jean Vanier

I got fired from my job, my boyfriend left me, and my father died in one day.

In reality, my career was going super well, I didn’t have a boyfriend, and my father was amazingly healthy, but what I did have was something I call an ultra amazing imagination, where I would make up fascinating stories about things that could happen and worry about them. (Or as other people call it, general anxiety disorder.)

I met my now BFF anxiety when I was about ten years old. Initially, …

Out of Every Crisis Comes the Opportunity to be Reborn

By Kelli Fultz in Blog, change & challenges

“Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.” ~Og Mandino

In November of 2007 my life burned to the ground—quite literally.

I lost my house, four foster dogs, my sixteen-year-old cat, four pet rats, all of my possessions—and with that, my sense of peace and safety in the world.

I had called every fear I ever had into my life on that one, dark day. In short order, I was homeless, jobless, and for the most part, friendless.

I was downsized from my full-time job, let go from my part-time job of five years (on my birthday), and …

Freedom Is Being You Without Anyone’s Permission

By Lori Deschene in Fun & Inspiring

50 Questions That Will Help You Feel Grateful and Good About Life

By Lori Deschene in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

There’s very little that upsets me like feeling stuck and out of control. That’s exactly how I felt at the beginning of this year.

Things were going well in many areas of my life, but I was unhappy living in my boyfriend’s childhood home in a Bay Area suburb, after we’d spent years living in LA and traveling. Though I knew this was ideal for him, it just didn’t feel right for me,

And even if I could wrap my brain around …

How Expectations Undermine Our Relationships and Happiness

By Jen Picicci in Blog, love & relationships

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” ~Bruce Lee

A few years ago, my husband was away from me for a few weeks, working in another town. It was summer, and we were living close to the beach at the time, so I often spent my Saturday nights walking along the ocean at sunset, enjoying the colors and sounds.

One Saturday night I was in a simply glorious mood. The beach was filled with happy families and couples, the Atlantic was a particularly lovely shade …

What If Success Was Measured by How Well You’ve Loved?

By Anushree Baikerikar in Blog, love & relationships

“That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was a child, I learned a lot from my parents and other authority figures. I learned the difference between wrong and right, the value of hard work and perseverance, that one must not mistreat or use people, but be good.

I learned about love too, for when my loved ones were happy, the same joy always came back to me.

Making the difficult transition into adulthood, I picked up a whole lot of other things from whatever environment I managed to …

What You Think of Yourself

By Lori Deschene in Fun & Inspiring

Create a Kinder Mind: How to Stop Your Mean, Hurtful Self-Talk

By Vanessa Heuser in Blog, happiness & fun, healthy habits

“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens!” ~Louise Hay

In my quest to learn to love myself I did therapy, read plenty of self-help books, and took personal development courses, hoping I could learn to love myself like I could learn accounting.

This was all helpful; however, when I reached the self-talk stage my progress came to a standstill.

Before then, I hadn’t consciously realized that I used powerfully negative words when speaking to or about myself. I was the first to put myself down, the first to …

4 Positive Lessons from the Betrayal of Infedelity

By Kayla Albert in Blog, love & relationships

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~C.S. Lewis

My eyes leapt open sometime after 2am and, after feeling the empty space next to me, I knew.

The cell phone I laid on the pillow beside my head was silent, my previous text messages left unanswered. Panic swelled in my throat as I frantically dialed his number, calls separated by no more than thirty seconds.

Checking phone logs and driving past houses at night had never been something I pictured myself doing. So, …

Why We Need to Share Our Honest Feelings

By Rene Brookbank in Blog, love & relationships

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~Nelson Mandela

She hurt my feelings. She was leaving soon to live in another country for up to six months. I knew that if I held on to my hurt, this resentment would fester, and my best friend would be the recipient of my anger.

I prayed for courage to find the right words. I didn’t want to hurt her. I knew I had to say something or …

8 Ways to Reclaim the Joy We Knew as Babies

By Mithu Ann Abraham in Blog, happiness & fun

“The soul is healed by being with children.” ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Last year, my husband and I became proud parents of a delicate little baby girl. And since then we have entered into a whole new world of unimaginable joy, love, and frustration.

As we embark on this lifelong journey of being parents, I am starting to appreciate some of the simple joys that our daughter has brought into our life. Here are some of the little life lessons our tiny Buddha is teaching us on our journey as newly minted parents:

1. Laugh.

I have discovered that my new favorite …

Just Breathe and Have Faith

By Lori Deschene in Fun & Inspiring

Surviving Life’s Storms: Have Hope That Life Will Carry On

By Stephanie March in Blog, change & challenges

“I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.” ~Cheryl Strayed

I have weathered my fair share of storms.

When I was in college, I met a boy a month after arriving on campus. I was eighteen, naive, and completely in love. The red flags were there by the truckload. As each red flag appeared, I darkened the tint on …

A Simple Way to Light Up Your Life with Meaning, Love, and Joy

By Joel Almeida in Blog, love & relationships, meaning & passion

“Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.” ~Viktor Frankl

Picture this: it was 3am but I couldn’t fall asleep. I had little to complain about, except a feeling that life seemed to be passing me by.

My father had died abruptly some years earlier, my mother had come through a major operation, our children were growing increasingly independent, and our marriage was strong.

Work was admittedly a bit stressful, and colleagues were less helpful than they might have been. But I ate a healthy diet, exercised, maintained a reasonable work-life balance, and did …

When Being Positive Can Hurt You and What To Do About It

By Michele Lian in Blog, happiness & fun

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

While confiding in a friend one day, I mentioned how I’d been feeling a little blue.

“Snap out of it,” he said, matter-of-factly.

While this wasn’t the first time I’d received advice like this, or heard someone else being on the receiving end of the likes of it, it still left me feeling as if there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t just snap out of it.

He went on: “You’ve just got to be positive.”

If only it was …

7 Things Your Inner Child Needs to Hear You Say

By Lucy Chen in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Stop trying to ‘fix’ yourself; you’re not broken! You are perfectly imperfect and powerful beyond measure.” ~Steve Maraboli

Have you ever thought about why you can’t move forward? Have you wondered why you sabotage yourself? Have you ever questioned why you so easily feel anxious, depressed, and self-critical?

Inside each of us there’s an inner child that was once wounded.

To avoid the pain, we’ve tried to ignore that child, but s/he never goes away. Our inner child lives in our unconscious mind and influences how we make choices, respond to challenges, and live our lives.…

You Don’t Have to Control Your Thoughts

By Lori Deschene in Fun & Inspiring

7 Vital Choices for Happy Relationships

By Lori Deschene in Blog, love & relationships

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~Lao Tzu

A little over a decade ago I thought I was going to marry my college sweetheart and become a young bride, which made it all the more devastating when happily ever after didn’t pan out. When we broke up, I felt literally like I lost a limb, complete with phantom sensations of his hand in mine.

It didn’t take long for a dark guilt to bubble up—a constant festering reminder of all the mistakes I’d made. I was highly unstable and insecure back …

21 Tips to Release Self-Neglect and Love Yourself in Action

By Tess Marshall in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The most important decision of your life, the one that will affect every other decision you make, is the commitment to love and accept yourself. It directly affects the quality of your relationships, your work, your free time, your faith, and your future.

Why, then, is this so difficult to do?