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How Do You Motivate Yourself: With Love or Fear?

By in Blog, change & challenges, healthy habits

“The heart is like a garden: it can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” ~ Jack Kornfield

My whole life has been a story of discipline. I started exercising and eating healthier in eighth grade. I planned out my studies meticulously so I would finish school assignments exactly on time. I always arrived five minutes early for any appointment or meeting. Disciplined.

When I began my yoga studies in earnest at the age of twenty-two, I applied the same disciplined nature to my yoga practice. I had extensive practice plans and had scheduled …

5 Tips to Help You Take Action to Overcome Your Fear

By in Blog, change & challenges

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.” ~W. Clement Stone

I made it all the way to my thirtieth birthday without learning how to drive. After I turned twenty-one, people often asked me why I hadn’t learned yet. My go-to story was that I lived in a place with abundant public transportation options and never had any intention of buying a car.

The truth is that I wanted to learn, but I was terrified, and the fear grew with each year.

What if I got in an accident? What if people laughed at me for learning so late or …

The Movement of Thoughts

By in Fun & Inspiring

The Movement of Thoughts

Source: Teesha’s Circus

3 Things to Do When a Friendship Starts to Fade

By in Blog, love & relationships

Parting Ways

“When we can no longer change a situation, we must change ourselves.” ~Victor Frankl

There are a million reasons why a friendship may change over time. You grow older, relocate for a job, have a fight, or start having kids.

It is an inevitable fact that life takes people in new directions; growing apart from old friends becomes a part of our lives. But, somehow I thought that I was immune, that this was someone else’s story.

My friends would be there with me forever.

We celebrated every single New Year’s together. We survived college, breakups—you name it.  Our bond …

Keep Moving Toward Success, One Failure at a Time

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

Running

“If you get up one more time than you fall, you will make it through.” ~Chinese Proverb

I remember clearly the day in March 2003 when I would receive the kind of news that no aspiring musician wants to hear.

“Sorry, but you aren’t currently at the level needed to enter our school.”

Five years of blood, sweat, and tears for what? To be told that I sucked? I sat there, lost in my own thoughts. Was I having a bad day? Was I simply not as good as my ego led me to believe?

There I was, …

Stress, Snowfall, and the Inner Child

By in Fun & Inspiring

I love when people send me inspiring videos that include their own thoughts, voice, and illustrations. It’s like gaining access to a piece of their soul in one entertaining, thought-provoking work of art.

This short film by Mike Biagiotti really spoke to me. In his own words, it’s “a meditative journey about one man’s escape to his back country cabin.”

What does you inner child need today?

Painting the World

By in Fun & Inspiring

Painting Your World

Source: So the Rainbow

There’s a Difference Between Alone and Lonely (And We All Need Time to Recharge)

By in Blog, healthy habits, mindfulness & peace

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius

At the end of August I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. This was my second major move in a year.

In both cases, I was separated from almost my entire prior social network. After college, making friends seems like a totally different ball game.

Here in Madison, I wake up before five in the morning to go to work and don’t get back until six or seven on most days of the week. This leaves me feeling exhausted, but it hasn’t stopped me from going out …

20 Ways Sitting in Silence Can Completely Transform Your Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu

For over two years I spent one out of every four weeks in silence. At the time I was living at a Zen Monastery and every month we would have a week-long silent retreat.

During this retreat we sat meditation in silence, ate in silence, worked in silence, and only communicated through hand gestures and written notes.

At first living like this was hard, but over time I learned to grow to appreciate silence. By the time I left I learned that silence was my friend and teacher.

What did silence …

Why Giving to Others Is Also Giving to Ourselves

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

Free Hugs

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities.  Seize common occasions and make them great.” ~Orison Swett Marde

I stood at the library counter waiting to check out a stack of books when I overheard an overworked woman explain to the librarian why her books were late.

“My boss has me running his errands after hours. It’s a miracle I made it on time to pick up my daughter from daycare,” she said.

“Are you a personal assistant?” the librarian asked.

“No, I’m a paralegal,” the woman explained. “But staffing is tight, and if I don’t take on the extra tasks I might …

5 Simple but Often Forgotten Ways to Keep a Relationship Strong

By in Blog, love & relationships

Couple

“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown

Out of our six loving years together, my partner and I spent two and a half years in a long-distance relationship. During these years there were times we communicated nearly daily, but there were also times when we couldn’t even email or text for a month at a time while I was living in an African village.

Being separated by an ocean from the person that is the most important to me was of course difficult and painful, but I …

Why It’s Hard to Be Happy

By in Fun & Inspiring

Hard to Be Happy

Source: Lupytha Hermin

The Difference Between Setting Boundaries and Shutting People Out

By in Blog, love & relationships

Fence

“The most important distinction anyone can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others.” ~Anne Linden

After growing up in a household with extremely loose emotional boundaries, I soon learned the importance of establishing my own personal boundaries as quickly and clearly as possible. And, in recent years, I have even managed to become more eloquent about when and how to set them.

I grew up in a home with my grandmother, mother, and older sister. Grandmother was an immigrant from Hungary who came to America right after WWI. Her …

Let It Be: Using Mindfulness to Overcome Anxiety and Depression

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

When I was twelve years old, I figured out how to get out of things.

It was a rainy Saturday morning, and I was supposed to be getting ready for choir practice—an eight-hour rehearsal before a big concert. Eight hours! I began to obsess about how much time this was in my then-tiny life.

As though by my own will, a heavy sensation of dread and nausea arose. I wasn’t aware of it …

Forgiving and Letting Go When You Feel Resentful

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, love & relationships

Heart

“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 …

Life Happens Now, and Other Lessons from a 500-Mile Walk

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

Walking

“If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.” ~Fay Weldon

In September of 2012, I flew from Idaho to Spain and began a 500-mile pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago. I arrived in St. Jean Pied-de-Port without any expectations and a blank canvas in my mind. I will treasure the imaginary painting that developed over the next thirty-five days until my last breath.

This trail has attracted at least 2,000,000 people over the past 1,300 years.

From prior experience, I know that being in an environment where everything is on the outer edge of comfort zones always results in …

Buddha Doodles: Ask All from Yourself

By in Fun & Inspiring

AskAllFromYourself_MollyHahn_BuddhaDoodles

Source

5 Tips to Help You Stop Limiting Your Potential

By in Blog, meaning & passion

Like Flying

“Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield

I learned one of my biggest lessons in life when I ran into a high school bully many years ago. He was totally different from the last time I saw him. He was now passionate about life and adventure, and he looked very happy.

He had a thriving textile trading business and he was set to open a clothing store in less than a year.

After hearing his story, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of myself.

I realized that in my resentment toward …

How To Keep Yourself Motivated When You’re Not Feeling It

By in Blog, meaning & passion

“A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well.” ~Unknown

I’m great with short-term goals. In fact, I prefer them. Work my butt off for a few months to reach a goal? I’m down with that. I’ll give up a social life, down time, spending money, eating yummy food (read: sugar), drinking alcohol—whatever it takes, for the short-term. Long-term goals… ugh, not so much.

Despite this preference for pretty immediate gratification, I have followed through with many long-term goals in my life (school and various trainings, long-distance relationships, starting and re-starting businesses, to name a few).…

Danny and Annie: A Love Story

By in Fun & Inspiring

This video is three years old, but I just saw it and it moved me. I believe this is the greatest kind of love, the kind that makes the mundane magical and the banal beautiful. It’s the romance of everyday living with someone whose very presence makes the ordinary seem extraordinary.

From the YouTube description:

Danny Perasa and his wife, Annie, came to StoryCorps to recount their twenty-seven-year romance. As they remember their life together from their first date to Danny’s final days with terminal cancer, these remarkable Brooklynites personify the eloquence, grace, and poetry that can be found in …

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