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Search Results for "past relationship" — 1211 posts

Clear Your Emotional Clutter and Open Up to Joy (Interview and Giveaway)

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UPDATE – The winners for this giveaway are:

  • C
  • Lori Pacheco

When I was in my early twenties, I spent three months in a residential treatment center in a last-ditch effort to heal from depression and bulimia. Among many different treatment modalities, I participated in an experiential therapy that involved a ropes course and other adventure activities.

One day, along with a dozen other frail women, I strapped a backpack full of tennis balls on my back and climbed to the top of a rock wall. It was hard enough to walk on some days; getting to the top with …

Discover Your Emotional Age: Heal Yourself & Change Your Life (Interview & Book Giveaway)

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Update – The winners for this giveaway are:

  • Toni Nash
  • Katherine Poff

When I first discovered Crystal Andrus Morissette’s new book The Emotional Edge, I was intrigued. I knew the book would offer a process for discovering our “Emotional Age,” a term that was new to me, but I didn’t realize it would provide a powerful roadmap for healing the wounded parts of our psyche and growing into our most empowered, authentic self.

From the Amazon page:

The Emotional Edge empowers you to stop reacting in knee-jerk ways that hurt and instead start expanding your life to become the …

How to Bring the Fun and Excitement of Traveling to Your Everyday Life

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“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” ~Seth Godin

Over the last few years I’ve felt a little trapped in a cycle of travel, normal life, travel, normal life, constantly changing externals in an attempt to find a level of contentment.

I travel because it excites me, makes me feel alive, and brings me satisfaction. Then, when the draw of home and seeing loved ones sets in, I’ll return, determined to get a “real job” and settle into daily English life.

This usually lasts a …

What Causes Panic Attacks and How to Stop Them for Good

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“You empower what you fight. You withdraw power from what you release.” ~Alan Cohen

Panic attacks can seem to come out of nowhere, without any warning. There is no obvious logical connection between a panic attack and what is happening around us at the time they arise.

Is it really possible to be free of them, without medication? In my personal experience, the answer is yes. I used cognitive, emotional, and physical methods that eradicated my panic attacks.

What Causes Panic Attacks?

The short version of my story is that I experienced a less than peaceful upbringing and had a …

What to Do When People Always Underestimate You

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“You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.” ~Stevie Wonder

Being blatantly underestimated is simply a part of my life.

No matter what I’m doing, the ordinary will seem extraordinary, and the extraordinary will seem insurmountable to those who look at me for the first time. There is no way I am contributing the same amount to society as the rest of the world.

These are not drawn conclusions on my part; I have been told these very things straight to my face. People perceive me this way because of the white cane in my hand, the badge, letting …

What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

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“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

The whole time I was growing up, I was told, incessantly, that I was “too sensitive.” These words, when I first heard them, came from the mouth of the person I vowed I would never become.

And yet, as I grew up, these words didn’t stay within the darkness of my childhood home. They began to roll out of the mouths of kids …

Create an Extraordinary Life: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Daily

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“We have one precious life: do something extraordinary today, even if it’s tiny. A pebble starts the avalanche.” ~K.A. Laity

Do you have a vision of a life you want to lead?

Doing work that you enjoy, being happy, healthy, and having great relationships?

You probably have your own idea of what an extraordinary life means. But how often do you feel that you are living that life?

Life is bound within the confines of our schedules, our money, and our limited resources.

There are many things that you want to do, or want to be, but most of the …

The Beauty of Being Single: 6 Benefits of Solitude

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“I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ~Henry David Thoreau

Shock. Rage. Sorrow. Excitement. Terror. These are just a handful of the emotions one experiences in the aftermath of a separation or divorce. Emotional rollercoaster? It’s more like being hit with the speed and velocity of a bullet train.

I should know. After twenty-five years of marriage to a kind and accomplished man, I found myself alone.

Our decision to divorce was neither acrimonious nor cruel; neither sudden nor impulsive. Rather, our decision to file for divorce was an incremental process.

We had more disappointment than …

Pushing Yourself to Try When You’re Afraid of Failing

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“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” ~Beverly Sills

Before I became a teenager, I developed a characteristic and a disease that went hand-in-hand: I was a perfectionist, and I had an eating disorder.

While my perfectionism was helpful in succeeding at things such as school and sports, the same perfectionism helped to fuel a dangerous relationship with my own body.

Fortunately, I received treatment in high school, and I learned to handle my issues related to anorexia and bulimia in healthy ways. This process was neither easy nor simple, but …

4 Tips for Managing Stress from a Combat Veteran

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“Buddha was asked, ‘What have you gained from meditation?’ He replied, ‘Nothing.’ ‘However,’ Buddha said, ‘let me tell you what I lost: anger, anxiety, depression, insecurity, fear of old age, and death.’”

“I never get stressed.”

I used to say and think this all the time when I saw someone freaking out about an upcoming test, a bad grade, relationship problems, or a boss or coworker.

I had a false sense of being “carefree” because I wouldn’t get stressed over the trivial things that most people did.

I was a “battle hardened” soldier recently back from a deployment in Afghanistan. …

6 Signs You Have a Strong Friendship That Will Stand the Test of Time

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“Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” ~Muhammad Ali

Doesn’t it hurt?

You develop a friendship with someone who appeared to be decent but turned out to be a huge problem in your life.

I’m not talking about those occasional slip-ups like keeping you waiting at the coffee shop until 4:10 when the rendezvous was scheduled for 4:00.

I mean those things that completely slash the fabric of your friendship—stuff that truly hurts, like harsh words that prey on your weaknesses and sensitivities, or complete …

How to Reclaim Your Energy So You Can Follow Your Dreams

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“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~Dan Millman

I don’t care who you are or where you live, we all have one thing in common: We like to dream—to close our eyes and imagine that we’re living the life we were meant to lead. It’s a desire that’s imbedded in our DNA. To want more. Achieve more. Become more.

It’s why we start new businesses, write novels, learn to play the guitar, get our MBA, change careers, learn to cook, sew, or speak Swahili.

We’re …

What to Do When You Love Someone Who Hurts You

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“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chödrön

There is a person in my life who I love with all my heart, but in this relationship I struggle to keep a full cup myself. They are family, the situation is complicated and tender. But learning to have compassion for this other person begins with having compassion for myself.

A nasty divorce spanning most of my childhood set the stage for our current situation. My mother was deeply emotionally wounded by my father, and carried that pain into her parenting of my …

How to Let Go of the Stuff That Keeps You Emotionally Stuck

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“The totality of my possessions reflects the totality of my being. I am what I have … What is mine is myself.” ~Jean Paul Sartre

What kind of relationship do you have with your stuff?

Embracing who we are naturally requires a letting go of who we aren’t, but perhaps want to be. That ties directly to our physical belongings, which can renew and inspire us in the direction we’re headed—or hold us back.

Over the years, I’ve found that the objects with the most powerful grip on us are not necessarily those we use frequently and with ease, but …

Freedom Is Knowing We Don’t Need to Be the Best

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“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego.’” ~Frierich Nietzsche

At a young age, the bar for the rest of my life was set very high. I was a natural at anything I tried to do, and I was lucky enough to have my friends and family support me in just about every venture, so I became incredibly confident in my abilities and hopeful that life would always be easy and painless.

Eventually, I solidified the expectation for myself to always be number one because that is what my identity was based upon.

To give you a …

How to Stop Blaming Your Parents for Messing Up Your Life

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“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” ~Pema Chodron

I was nineteen when it happened.

Legally an adult, but in no way equipped with what I was expected to deal with.

As I found myself agreeing to a marriage arranged by my mum, my thoughts turned to my dad.

We had buried him two days prior. He’d suffered a lot before he died. I wondered what he’d make of all this.

What followed my agreement was nothing short of a whirlwind, but not the romantic whirlwind that’s often associated with marriage.…

12 Ways to Turn Your Crippling Stress into Happiness

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“More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.” ~Roy Bennett

You are a slave to stress.

I can relate. Stress crushed my life and dreams.

I started a business and faced intense criticism over this decision.

Everyone was sure I’d fail. My friends and family attacked me while I was combating my own self-doubt.

My stress level was insanely high.

Then the worst happened. My business failed and I lost all my savings. I was crushed.

It took a long time to finally accept this failure.

Today, whenever I work, stress still …

The Pain Won’t Go Away Until We Learn the Lesson

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“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

Wounds I thought were healed began to burst open after a recent breakup. I had obviously not learned the lessons I was meant to years ago.

As a child I put 100% effort into everything I did, from schoolwork and swimming training to leadership positions. I remember feeling so sure of myself.

I drew my confidence from many areas of my life. A good student, swimming champion, school captain… I had my life sorted. Although the swimming accolades and A’s on my report …

How to Turn Everyday Life into an Adventure

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“Every day is an adventure.” ~Joseph B. Wirthlin

Be honest.

It gets to you, doesn’t it?

You feel trapped in a life of monotonous everyday routine. One dull day merges into the next, each equally forgettable. The months slide past until you look up from your desk and suddenly another birthday’s here.

So you avidly consume programs and articles on fearless adventurers and bold entrepreneurs who risked everything to pursue their dreams.

And you follow them hoping someday to have your own stories to tell, your own daredevil memories to post and tweet. But instead, you end up doing …

How to Recover and Find Strength after Losing a Parent

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“When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.” ~Dalai Lama

There was a period in life I called “the golden era.” Not in hindsight but at the actual time.

I named it such because I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

Everyone I loved was alive and well. I had a good job, a home, and a loving companion. All the things everyone longs for.

Little did I know, this “golden era” would end too …