Some Things Take Time
Dealing with Difficult People: 5 Effective, Compassionate Practices
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle
It’s morning; you’re in a great mood. You’re relaxed and have plenty of time to practice your morning routine. After a delicious breakfast, you head out to start your day. Then it happens: You encounter a difficult person, and your calm turns to calamity.
We all have encounters with people who prefer to stay miserable, making everything difficult. They exist, and perhaps there was a time in your past when you once where one of those negative people. Perhaps you still can be at times.
As a …
How to Love More and Hurt Less in Relationships
“Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.” ~Ram Dass
In my personal experience, I’ve learned that it is sometimes easier to dance this journey of life solo rather than in partnership. Many of us have experienced life both in relationships and outside of them. Both are just as sweet.
I’d like to offer up some lessons I have learned in my dance in and out of relationships:
1. They are not meant to last forever.
Our society seems to put a lot of pressure on the idea that things will last forever. But the truth …
Tending to Your Garden of Thoughts and Keeping Your Mind Weed-Free
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha
Imagine your mind as a garden. Positive thoughts are the beautiful flowers that brighten your life. Negative thoughts are the ugly weeds that spread and suffocate the flowers.
Tending to my garden is an ongoing process.
I’m not into chemical pesticides, but my natural weed killers are yoga, meditation, inspirational reading, and hanging out with positive people.
Sure-fire weed food is worrying about what other people think, taking things personally, and stressing out about situations that don’t …
How to Keep Our Thoughts from Making Us Miserable
“Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare
I thought I knew what happiness was. I experienced it, and did so for a while—that is, what I thought was happiness.
What I was calling happiness was merely an emotion. Emotions, feelings that arise in the body, come into existence when we have thoughts related to them.
When I have certain thoughts having to do with anger, then I will feel, actually physically feel, angry. When I have thoughts that are positive, then I will feel the feeling, or emotion, that we call happiness.
In …
Feel Like You Should Have Accomplished More by Now?
If you’ve ever felt a sense of pressure to hurry up and do something you can feel proud of, or if you’ve ever considered that maybe it’s too late, you will appreciate the message in this inspiring video, titled “Nothing Changes.”
Learning to Forgive Our Imperfect Parents for Their Mistakes
TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” ~Oscar Wilde
I couldn’t tell you if Oscar Wilde’s quote is entirely accurate. You see, my biological parents abandoned me and left me with my grandparents at birth.
Growing up with grandma and grandpa was the best childhood I could have ever imagined, and I didn’t miss my biological parents at all. I guess in that sense they were my parents, and perhaps Oscar Wilde’s …
The Blessing of a Broken Heart: How Pain Can Lead to Healing
“Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~Ruth E. Renkel
My last breakup was on April 16th, 2012.
I remember the date because on the evening of April 17th, as I sat with a blotchy red face and tears in my eyes, my dad told me I soon would remember that day and be glad I was no longer sad. “Men are like buses,” he said. “If one leaves you behind, rest assured another will come.”
I found his support very touching, but it did little to console me. If …
7 Steps to Move Through Sadness (and What We Can Learn from It)
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha
He had been ignoring the symptoms for months, possibly even a year. When my husband came home from the doctors, he told me his PSA score was high, and he needed to have a biopsy. That date came and went, and we were waiting for the pathology report.
The doctor assured us it was nothing.
The image of standing in the car dealership parking lot, talking with my son and son-in-law will be forever etched in my memory. When the phone rang, I saw that it …
We’re Not Against Each Other: Choosing Cooperation Over Competition
“If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path.” ~Buddha
It’s long been declared that the nature of life is based on survival of the fittest; that we all must constantly compete to survive.
And maybe, in some ways this is true.
But what if there were another truth, something that is even more powerful than competition?
What if cooperation is our true natural state?
Consider this: love is more powerful than hate.
Hope is more powerful than fear.
And if we believe in love and hope, then we believe in the power of unity. …
How to Tackle the Top 6 Fears That Keep Us Stuck
“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” ~Isabel Allende
When you think of a fearless person, you might imagine a real-life James Bond who performs death-defying stunts knowing he could die at any second.
But for most of us living “normal” lives, fear operates at a subconscious level and prevents us from being the best we can be.
For a long time, I struggled with these fears. I could not get myself to speak in front of people without experiencing extreme nervousness. When it came to talking to girls I liked, …
What Do Strangers Think of You?
We all hone in on our “imperfections.” Most of us are harsher toward ourselves than other people would ever be. But what if those imperfections are actually things others might find beautiful? And what if other people see us for so much more than just our skin and body type?
BuzzFeed asked people to look in a mirror and describe what they saw. What they didn’t know was that there were strangers on the other side of the mirror, giving their first impressions.
Let Go of Shoulds and Stress and Let Yourself Do Nothing
“When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing. Sometimes you just need to relax, breathe, let go and live in the moment.” ~Unknown
I am a recovering doing addict. My whole life I have been committed to getting things done. I do, do, do until I can’t do no more.
I have a very clear memory of myself in college, sitting at an evening lecture. I am not paying attention at all. I am writing a huge, long to-do list on the back of a blue folder.
Things keep popping into my mind, things that must get done right …
8 Things I Learned from a Phone-Free Month
“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” ~Jose Ortega y Gasset
I used to live in San Francisco, a city celebrated for its carnivals, free music festivals, thriving bar culture, Mexican food markets, beautiful parks, fantastic literary events, thrift stores, and… (Can you tell I miss it?]
The effect of having all this culture available is that quite often, we spend more time around the doing of an event than the doing itself. I’ll elaborate.
I would spend x amount of time on my phone searching for cool events to go to. …
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 