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5 Tips to Stop Making Comparisons and Feeling Bad About Yourself

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick

I remember one day when I was around six years old, my older brother came home from school with one of those star-shaped highlighters that had a different color on each point. I laid my eyes on it and in that moment I wanted nothing more than I wanted that highlighter.

It didn’t matter that as a six year old, I had less use for it than paper shoes in rainy weather; I just simply had to have it.

Being the …

Landfill Harmonic: Beautiful Music Made with Trash and Passion

By in Fun & Inspiring

Most of us know we should open our eyes and appreciate what’s around us, but sometimes it may seem like there’s nothing of value there. That’s when we need to open our eyes further and ask ourselves, “How can I use this to make something beautiful?”

3 Lessons to Help You Find Peace When Fighting a Hard Battle

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.” ~Proverb

August 3, 2001. I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was around six o’clock in the evening when she sat us down. Luther Vandross was singing in the background on the radio: “And it’s so amazing and amazing, I can stay forever and forever. Here in love and no, leave you never.”

Quite ironic when you think about the news I would soon receive.

I had just finished summer school and my sister had just returned from an internship on the East Coast. My …

Facing Life’s Big Challenges and Coming out on Top

By in Blog, change & challenges

On Top of Mountain

“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho

I will never forget that day.

It is still as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.

My son was just a little over three. He was going to a mainstream kindergarten and, well, his teacher had very gently suggested we seek a professional’s help.

You see, he didn’t understand what the teachers were saying to him. He was restless and fidgety. He also bounced form activity to activity.

This was our first ever visit to a speech pathologist, and she …

AJ’s Art Journal: Build Your Wings

By in Fun & Inspiring

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Forgiving the Unforgivable and Ending Your Own Suffering

By in Blog

Man Thinking

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Malachy McCourtro

I was completely unprepared for the emotional hailstorm that bombarded me when, back in 2001, I learned that my wife had been having an affair with my best friend of twenty-plus years.

My normal, predictable life (which I absolutely loved, by the way) had been virtually shattered overnight. Not only did it culminate in a very bitter war (see: divorce), it also marked the onset of a toxic poison that had begun to work its way into my veins: resentment.

It began with …

How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” ~Alice Duer Miller

As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, I had become accustomed to keeping secrets. Silence, I was taught, was a good thing. It protected people that I loved.

So for over a decade, I carried the dark and overbearing weight of my past in secrecy and in silence, believing I was the only one in the world who’d ever experienced such abuse—until I learned from a college workshop that one in four women and one in five men fall …

Do You Take Up as Much Space as You Deserve?

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

Take Up Space

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

As a child, I got bombarded with the message that I was too much. Everywhere I turned, people said I was too loud, too smart, too heavy, too talkative, too impulsive, too intense, too happy, too forward, too silly.

My too-eager little self took those opinions as commandments, so I tried to fit the image of what others said I should be.

I made myself smaller. It never worked. Our authentic selves force their way to the …

6 Simple Personal Commitments to Overcome Low Self-Esteem

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.”  ~Iyanla Vanzant

You’re smart, funny, and genuinely good at heart.

You have ideas that could solve many of the problems you see around you. You could regale people with interesting stories that crack them up. You could be the perfect partner, parent, or friend.

But you don’t always live up to that potential.

Something holds you back.

Something tells you that your ideas are not worth announcing …

Buddha Doodles: Every Step Counts

By in Fun & Inspiring

Buddha_Doodles_everystep_MollyHahn

Source: Buddha Doodles

Loving Others Without Expecting Them to Fill a Void

By in Blog, love & relationships

couple

“You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Conventional notions of what it means to love are populated with expectations for reciprocity, which often gets us into trouble. I know this personally, because whenever I have “freely” given my love and it has not been rewarded with reciprocity, I have often come face to face with my resentment.

This has been especially true of my intimate relationships. I want the people who fall into this category, in particular, to reciprocate my love. I expect them to. But, as Thich Nhat Hanh points …

Preserving Kindness in a Busy World: We Are All Connected

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships

We Are All Connected

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest good intention.” ~Oscar Wilde

Three times in the last two months I have nearly been run over by a fellow shopper’s grocery cart. Each time the customer rushing closely behind me had to suddenly swerve and push past, clearly annoyed with the obstacle, which was me.

As unpleasant as this was, I can relate to that shopper’s sense of urgency. Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite tasks. I focus on my list, sometimes while talking on the phone, and get done as quickly as possible.

There has …

Today Can Be the Day You Turn Things Around

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

Sad Man

“In chaos, there is fertility.” ~Anais Nin

How did I get to this point?

This question pulsed through my brain repeatedly as I drove to my parents’ house in a state of complete exhaustion. My young daughter was strapped in the back seat, my pregnant belly pushing against the steering wheel, hot tears streaming down my face.

I was done. I had nothing left to give. How did I get here?

Gradually, then suddenly.

With eternal gratitude to Hemingway, three simple words so elegantly summarize how I ended up in a situation I didn’t want or expect.

“How did you …

Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

Sitting and reflecting

When I was in fourth grade, a girl from another class bullied me. I was in the bathroom during class when I heard the door creak open and whooshing shut. There was silence for a moment, then the girl’s hands appeared on the top of the stall door, followed by her face.

“Whaddaya doin’ in there?” she asked.

I quickly covered myself and replied as nicely as I could, “I’m using the bathroom.”

“Well, hurry up,” she said. “Because I want to go.” There were three other stalls, so I knew I was in trouble.

I had no idea who …

Dharma Comics: Perfect Time

By in Fun & Inspiring

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My Shoes: A Short Film About Wanting to Be Someone Else

By in Fun & Inspiring

We are more fortunate than we think. What blessing can you recognize and celebrate today?

Don’t Respond to Drama and Drama Won’t Come Back Around

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.” – Eckhart Tolle

One day several years ago, I was fraught with anxiety over with how to handle an uncomfortable personnel situation at work. I had an employee that was borderline explosive and insubordinate. I was a wreck over how to best handle the situation because before I was this employee’s manager, I was her friend.

I found myself wanting to fix the problem by delving deeper into her drama, wanting to know why she felt a certain way, what I had …

Get Some Perspective: 4 Ways to See Yourself and the World Differently

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Self Reflection

“Your outlook on life is a direct reflection on how much you like yourself.” ~Lululemon

Several months ago I wrote an article that sat for months without being published. A few weeks ago the editor emailed me to say how pleased she was with it and that it would post the following week.

Since I hadn’t thought about it in a while (and she’d sent me the preview link), I figured I’d check out her edits and re-read the post. As I sat back and took in what I wrote, I was genuinely astonished at how well done it was. …

Becoming More Positive When Negativity Feels Instinctive

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.” ~Shirley MacLaine

If you have ever felt the depths of depression, you know it’s not the same as being sad or having “the blues.” It’s the hopeless, overwhelming feeling of melancholy where nothing, not even the people you love, can pull you out.

It can feel like being under water in the ocean while the waves keep washing over you, pushing you further and further underneath, while no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to break the surface to get that much needed air in order to survive.

Unfortunately, …

Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

By in Blog, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” ~Havelock Ellis

I would have done anything for my friends, until one of them nearly broke my heart and spirit. He was my best friend. We felt like platonic soul mates.

We had a standing lunch date every week, called each other terms of endearment, cried together, laughed together—the standard best friend things.

Then, tragedy struck him. Over and over.

His long-time partner left him. Then he lost his executive-level job. Next, he had a string of major medical issues that put him in …