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Learn to Love and Accept Yourself, Wherever You Go

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

Man and the sun

“Wherever you go, there you are.” ~Confucius

The sweat of my palms saturated our boarding tickets. Even as I stepped onto the plane, I still could not entirely believe we were doing it.

My husband and I finished our master’s degrees and instead of immediately securing jobs, buying a house, and starting a family, we decided to travel.

We thought escaping our lives was living on the wild side—rediscovering ourselves. Well, at least that’s what I thought.

I lived in Spain during my undergraduate degree ten yeas ago and had ceaselessly fixated on the idea about returning ever …

Use Self-Acceptance to Learn from the Past and Let It Go

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Let Go

“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

We are all familiar with the concept of “releasing the past.”

As one who has experienced lots of events in my life that I’ve been anxious, at times, to let go of, I’m very familiar with this concept.

We want to be present to fully experience everything in our lives, without being tethered to what has already occurred; we want to be ready, willing, and in the moment so we can take what comes at its face value. (Just in case you’re wondering, for …

Dharma Comics: The Present

By in Fun & Inspiring

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Let the Energy of Unhappiness Power Your Purpose

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

Energy

“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

The summer of 2007 was simply terrible. I wish I could find something positive to say about it but there really was nothing that I can think of. I was underemployed, the economy was tanking, and I was in a shame spiral of depression and self-hatred.

Following a fight with my husband, I found myself driving aimlessly, snot and tears running down my face. I’m not comfortable saying I was on a mission to stop living, but the thought had definitely crossed my mind.…

When You Don’t Have a Clear Purpose: 4 Helpful Mantras to Adopt

By in Blog, happiness & fun, letting go, meaning & passion

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.” ~Elbert Hubbard

I have always defined my life by my career. I think that was my first mistake.

For the last six years, I worked at a publicity firm in Los Angeles.

It was a job where your email is the first thing you check in the morning before getting out of bed. A job where you are on your phone while eating your dinner. A job where your boss calls you out of a funeral in order to send out a press release. Frequent travel, evening events to attend, …

50-Year-Old Paraplegic Woman Surfs with Her Sons

By in Fun & Inspiring

Pascale Honore has lived without the use of her legs for the last eighteen years, but that hasn’t stopped her from taking risks and trying new things.

After commenting that she wished she could join her sons surfing, a family friend offered an interesting solution: duct taping her to his back so she could ride the waves with him. And though others thought the idea was crazy, Pascale agreed–after, of course, the friend trained with a forty-five-pound backpack.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and seeing the sheer joy and exhilaration on her face, it’s clear it was well …

How to Be Happy Now (Because Future Happiness Never Comes)

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

I used to think I was falling behind. Not on my rent or my taxes, but in life.

One moment, things were progressing fine. I had friends. Good teeth. A boyfriend. I even had my own did-I-really-do-all-that-study-to-be-doing-this first job.

But then it all went away. I became ill. And as the years went by, I watched from my bed as my friends led a version of the life I’d expected for myself.

It was as if everyone had gotten on the …

10 Ways to Enjoy More: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure?

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” ~Leo Tolstoy

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an epic list of guilty pleasures.

As a young girl, my top three guilty pleasures included dressing up and dancing in my living room to Madonna (“Annnnd…VOGUE!”), watching over-the-top nighttime dramas with my mom over bowls of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream (“Kevin…I’m pregnant! And you’re not the father!”), and penning addictive, soap-opera-worthy novellas about the kids in my fifth grade class (they’d line up and beg …

Buddha Doodles: Self-Acceptance

By in Fun & Inspiring

Buddha_Doodles_Self_Acceptance_MollyHahn

Source: Buddha Doodles

Confessions of a Love Junkie: Recovering from Love Addiction

By in Blog, love & relationships

Heart in the Sand

“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others” ~Sonya Friedman

Love is a funny thing. According to modern day psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists alike, the consensus is that it is just as easy to become addicted to falling in love as it is to get hooked on street drugs. But I think maybe my favorite drug is love. I guess they’d call it my drug of choice.

The irony in that statement is beyond comprehension. Any one of us who has fallen in love, or struggled with addiction on some level, knows damn well that choice seems to …

Find Yourself Before You Find Love

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

After a few years of living through the betrayal and anger of my divorce, my friends decided it was time for me to start dating again.

They took me out to the bars, dressed me up, bought me drinks, and showed all the men how cute I was.

I didn’t feel cute. I felt like a fraud.

The bar scene was not for me. I felt like a piece of meat wrapped in cellophane on the shelf waiting for a man to …

How We Can Embody Abundance Regardless of What We Have

By in Blog, happiness & fun

Embody Abundance

“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Embody abundance. I heard someone say those two words the other day. What does that mean, really? To truly embody abundance, do we need to have everything we want? Or can anyone who holds space for truth experience a way of being that is free of lack?

Maybe to embody abundance is to recognize the realness that underlies the illusory film that covers much of what we see in our day-to-day lives. Maybe abundance is always there, but we …

How I Found Peace When Anxiety Was Controlling My Life

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

For five long years during my mid-twenties I was a recluse.

Anxiety so badly affected my life it became impossible for me to venture outside my front door or to interact socially with other people.

Fear and panic would envelop my mind and body, rendering me paralyzed from doing the things I dearly wanted to do. My hopes of being a normal human being lay in tatters. Everything seemed impossible.

Seeing my old friends on Facebook and other people enjoying life, attending parties, finding partners, getting …

AJ’s Art Journal: Change Your Thinking

By in Fun & Inspiring

AJsArtJournal_Change

 

Source: AJ’s Art Journal

Looking for Security: We Can Be Our Own Safe Places

By in Blog, love & relationships

Sitting on the Edge

“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

I have always been the independent type. I started buying my own clothes when I was 12 with money I made from babysitting gigs. I got my first “real” job the summer I was 16. I went to live with my mother’s cousins (whom I’d only met a few times) in Boston and worked in a bakery. That was a great summer. I got to explore Boston and learned how to ride the subway.

In college I spent my summers having grand adventures and saving up my money for …

Becoming More Authentic: Accept Yourself and Forget Approval

By in Blog, love & relationships

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

For most of my life, I was a chameleon. I stayed under the radar, hoping I’d blend in and not draw attention to myself. I was full of self-doubt, so I molded my personality and beliefs based on my company. I traded my authentic self for the security of being liked by my family and friends because of my fear of being judged.

By suppressing my opinions, I was perceived as easygoing, but at what cost? I disrespected myself by allowing others to influence major …

Dharma Comics: You Can’t Get It Wrong

By in Fun & Inspiring

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The Time You Have (in Jelly Beans)

By in Fun & Inspiring

The average life spans 28,835 days. It’s easy to go from one to the next without thinking of how you’re spending them. Artist Ze Frank broke it all down–in candy–to put things in perspective. What if you had just one left? How would you want to use it?

Why Empathy Can Sometimes Help More Than Advice

By in Blog, love & relationships

Hug

“I have just three things to teach simplicity patience compassion these three are your greatest treasures.” ~Lao Tzu

I have two teenagers. Anyone with children knows these years can bring their challenges. One minute they behave like a four year old and the next they are as mature as an adult. These fluctuations can pose difficult times.

One day, after a particularly emotional and tough interaction with my son, I called my mother for advice. She had by all accounts raised three successful sons.

After a long and detailed discussion of what had happened, she said, “Oh honey, I’m so …

What Seems Obvious to You Could Help Someone Else

By in Blog, love & relationships

Friends

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” ~Mary Catherine Bateson

Despite being a professional blogger, I am not particularly adept at technology.

I don’t have a data plan on my phone. I don’t have an iTunes account. I have no idea how people do that thing where they connect their computer to the TV. What is this witchery?!

But because of my age and my profession, people frequently assume that I’m a computer genius. They are sadly mistaken. One day, my significantly-more-tech-savvy BFF was looking over my shoulder as I checked email. She …