Learn to Appreciate Time and People
How to Activate the Life Purpose That’s Right Under Your Nose
“Our obligation is to give meaning to life, and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.” ~Elie Wiesel
After surveying 3,000 people, psychologist Cynthia Kersey discovered that 94% had no clue as to their purpose in life—94%!
As painful as this statistic is, it’s even more painful in light of how relatively simple it is to discover a worthy and fulfilling life purpose.
For most of us, a meaningful purpose lurks just beneath the surface of conscious awareness and can be discovered in a few minutes.
This is the easy part. What happens after you discover your life …
When Life Feels Crazy: 6 Questions for Cracking Up & Breaking Through
“Every really new idea looks crazy at first.” ~Abraham H. Maslow
Once, when I was in a painting workshop, I hit a wall of resistance, totally stumped by what to paint next.
My painting teacher came over to explore some questions that could help unblock me. But my “wall” was concrete, or industrial metal, or super-duper spy-movie-like with some computer-code contraption locking all security systems down.
“What if a crazy woman came into the room?” she asked me. “What if the crazy woman painted for you? What would she do?”
“She would explode everything up!” I answered.
“What would she …
Your Reality Is a Reflection of What You Believe You Deserve
“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan
Over the last ten years I have learned time and time again that our reality is a reflection of what we believe we deserve, often on an unconscious level.
I discovered this about a decade ago while living in Belize—a diving vacation hotspot on one end and gang-infested, poverty-ridden land on the other.
Back then I was avoiding the 9-5 life. You may say I was running from something, such as routine and following the status quo, but I was also looking to find my worth by …
5 Ways You Attract Great People When You Like Yourself More
“By accepting yourself and being fully what you are, your presence can make others happy.” ~Jane Roberts
Several years ago, I was so unhappy with my harsh loneliness that I decided that I was going to try anything under the sun to build a social life and have friends that cared about me.
I read all the books I could find and tried all the techniques they shared, but I still had to make a lot of effort to build friendships and hold my social life together.
Then I started to learn and apply the principles of self-esteem.
I used …
Piano Juggling!
I am in awe of the unique talent this man possesses. If you enjoyed this, you’ll enjoy the several other ones at pianojuggler.com!
The Greatest Act of Love Is Letting Go
“Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.” ~Sonia Ricotti
I was brought up in a family and culture that was riddled with fear.
My elders were terrified of the world and always on the defensive for something bad to happen. They believed that love meant closely protecting others from the dangers of the world and the pain of life.
This smothering behavior kept me small, and left me totally ill-equipped and ill-educated for living in the real world.
With this as the root of my upbringing, breaking free and learning to …
How to Practice Self-Compassion: 5 Tips to Stop Being Down on Yourself
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Jack Kornfield
I never wanted to see a therapist. I imagined settling onto the storied couch and seeing dollar signs appear in concerned eyes as I listed the family history of mental illness, addiction, and abuse. I feared I’d be labeled before I’d ever been heard.
But after experiencing the emotional shock of witnessing a murder, I knew I needed a space to grieve. So I gathered all of my courage and laid myself bare to a very nice woman who had Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements on her …
Encourage, Don’t Criticize; Help Instead of Trying to Fix
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hahn
When you think you’re an evolved and conscious woman and your partner tells you in no unclear terms that you’re “hard to be with,” it does a number on you.
Those words landed like a well-aimed boulder, smashing the immaculate vision I’d created of evolving myself: an exemplary girlfriend who was “doing the work” to grow, to become generously loving, spiritually awake, and to wholeheartedly support and encourage her beautiful partner to open to his fullest potential.
We met under messy circumstances. Both …
The Antidote to Criticism: Turn Others’ Doubt Into a Standing Ovation
“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” ~Aristotle
Gangly and skinny, I never attracted much attention from the opposite sex during high school. I was the friendly and funny sidekick to the popular girls—fun to hang out with but not to date.
When an older guy approached me during my last year of high school, I thought it would be a normal high school romance.
It turned out that our relationship wouldn’t be anything close to “normal.”
As I began to get to know him, everyone around me started to object to …
You’re Not Behind; You’re Just on Your Own Path
“To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.” ~Sven Goran Eriksson
Endlessly comparing ourselves to others and idealizing their best qualities while underestimating our own are self-defeating behaviors, and they hurt our self-esteem. Yet in the competitive nature of our world, many of us do this.
As a result of my own self-defeating thoughts, throughout my life, I’ve repeatedly felt like I was five years behind where I “should” be.
After high school graduation, many of my peers went away to school and into a new wave of social experiences.
I stayed home, worked, and …
The Labels We Take On: How They Limit Our Potential
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts
We live in a society of labels. Everyone will try to label you, including yourself. It’s been happening since the beginning. It takes some honesty and objective reflection to see it, but take a moment or two and really think about it.
Eventually, we each begin to subconsciously believe those labels and we start to feel as though to be whole, to be someone in this world, we need to appease our egos and the voices around us by “fitting-in somewhere,” …
Meditation Remixed: Movies, Pop Culture, and Inner Peace
DJ/VJ and Audio Visual Artist Brett Belcastro created an awesome remix video using over 80 scenes from movies and TV shows to entertain and inspire viewers to find peace within their minds. And entertain and inspire it does!
As a huge movie buff, I appreciate how Brett used pop culture to share the power and importance of meditation.
From the Vimeo page:
“The idea for this video remix came to mind about a year ago while I was listening to a guided meditation by the Deepak Chopra. I was so inspired after attending his ‘Seduction of Spirit’ seminar this …
How Simple Mini Habits Can Change Your Life
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts
It was late 2012, just after Christmas, and like many others I was reflecting on the year.
I realized that I had ample room for improvement in too many areas of my life, but knowing that New Year’s Resolutions have a poor 8% success rate (University of Scranton research), I wanted to explore some other options. I knew I wanted to start before January 1st too, because arbitrary start dates don’t sit well with me.
On December …
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