fbpx
Menu

Tiny Wisdom: Believe in What You Can Do

By in Greatness, Possibilities, Quotes

by Lori Deschene

“When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it.” -Dr. David Schwartz

In 1957, Dr. Robert Merton introduced an idea known as the Galatea Effect, which suggests we tend to do what we expect we’ll do.

If you think you can run a marathon, you’re more likely to push yourself through training and eventually cross the finish line. If you expect that you’ll make friends easily, you’ll likely be relaxed enough to make people around you feel at ease.

It also works the other way around. If you believe …

Are You Waiting for Your Life to Start?

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept responsibility for changing them.” ~Denis Waitley

Even though I am just 20, I’ve always been one of those people who is constantly waiting for my life to start. “When I’m older I’ll do this” and “In a few years I’ll do that.”

My Dad took his own life when I was very young. Due to my age and the fact my family struggled so much with the loss, I grew up thinking he died of natural causes and learned the truth by accident when I …

5 Ways to Find Happiness in Nature

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” ~Māori Proverb

Imagine a graph showing the number of hours the average person spends out of doors today compared with 50 years ago. Imagine another graph showing how many people suffer from depression, stress, and anxiety compared to 50 years ago.

I’m confident that there would be a direct correlation between the two graphs; as one has declined the other has risen.

As we’ve turned our backs on nature we’ve lost our natural source of happiness. By turning our faces back toward the sun we find lasting …

Living Fully Book Giveaway and Interview with Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche

By in Blog, change & challenges, Giveaway, happiness & fun, healthy habits, letting go, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha to receive free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

Have you ever felt like the present moment is passing you by while you’re caught up worrying, analyzing, planning, and trying to protect yourself from pain and loss?

It’s one the pitfalls of the human condition: we often paralyze ourselves in the pursuit of happiness and abundance, and in the process, miss out on the joy right in front of us.

Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche has devoted his life to …

Tiny Wisdom: Be Good to Yourself

By in Compassion, Forgiveness, Kindness, Mistakes, Peace, Quotes, Regret, Sorrow, Stress

“Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others.” -Lama Yeshe

All too often we’re unforgiving and cruel to ourselves in a way we’d never treat our friends.

We’d never look a friend in the eyes and tell her she’s not good enough. We’d never beat a friend up over one mistake he made years ago. We’d never expect a friend to move mountains when she’s exhausted and clearly needs a rest.

Why do we sometimes do these things to ourselves?

So often when we think about self-love, we think about the big picture—forgiving ourselves…

Letting Go of Your Past to Create a New Future

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

Woman with outstretched arms

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” -Eckhart Tolle

I grew up in what looked like a happy, all-American household—eight children, a dutiful housewife for a mother, and a father who was both a janitor at my school and a member of the Knights of Columbus and American Legion.

However, in the background, terror lurked. My father, verbally and physically abusive, terrorized us every day. Even after growing up, taking back my life and moving across the country, I still wore my victim story like a badge.

The subtext …

Tiny Wisdom: Do You Talk Yourself Out of Doing Things You Want to Do?

By in Quotes

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake.” –Francis Bacon, Sr.

The other day I planned to work out in my apartment community’s fitness center after I finished writing. But when I left the coffee shop, and walked straight into a bright, sunny day, I felt the last thing I wanted to do was stare at a magazine on an elliptical machine.

What I really wanted to do was pull out my bike from where it had been …

How to Overcome Loneliness

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

After my ex-girlfriend and I broke up several years ago, I never felt more alone in my life. I hung up the phone with tears streaming down my face as I stepped into my new reality.

I only had one friend in the world, who happened to live fairly far away, so most of my newfound singlehood was spent alone.

It was difficult for the first few weeks due to all the painful emotions that usually come with a breakup, but after a while the pain went …

Tiny Wisdom: Act and Create New Possibilities

By in Possibilities, Quotes

“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” –George Bernard Shaw

As you may have noticed, I’m a huge movie buff. It’s largely because most films chronicle a hero’s journey, taking a character through all stages of transformation.

There’s recognition of the need to change, there’s fear, there’s resistance, there’s encouragement, there’s struggle, there’s redemption, and in the end, there’s rebirth, and a sense that things will keep getting better.

Recently I noticed something about the way I experience movies: I generally end a film with a strong desire to do what the main character has …

Finding a Brave Heart and Overcoming Self-Made Limitations

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

It was on the anniversary of Scottish poet Robert Burns’ birthday, or “Burns Night” as it is affectionately known as in Scotland, that my sister rescued a terrified stray dog who came to be named BraveHeart (or Brava for short).

We thought the name was apt as Braveheart is also a film starring Mel Gibson as William Wallace, who was a famous warrior during the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Brava is a big, long-legged black dog, with the limbs of a greyhound and …

Tiny Wisdom: The Same, But Different

By in Change, Courage, Quotes, Strength

“What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” -Unknown

My boyfriend, who is an aspiring screenwriter, has told me that the film industry and moviegoers essentially want “the same, but different.”

We want the same themes, but with different people; the same humor, but in different circumstances.

We want to see good rewarded, and for love to conquer all; we want the hero to change for the better, and the villain to reap what he sows.

We want action, excitement, adventure, and romance; we want to feel terrified and then relieved; …

Create Happiness through Honesty, Acceptance and Persistence

By in Blog, happiness & fun

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” -Dalai Lama

I’ve spent most of my life engaged in “if only” scenarios. I’ve spent hours predicting my ideal future or rehashing the past, imagining what life would be like now if only I had done X, Y, and Z when I was 15.

When not lost in imaginations of my own making I would be cursing myself, telling myself that I should have achieved certain things by now.

Of course this only led to misery and dejection. By focusing on what I didn’t have, or what …

Tiny Wisdom: When Less Is More

By in Quotes, Success

“Don’t use a lot where a little will do.” -Proverb

I recently saw a reality show about reviving struggling restaurants. The premise is that an expert comes in to help save a family business and in the process helps the owners rebuild their relationships and their lives.

In the beginning, the expert suggested the family reduce their menu from multiple pages to just one. They originally created a massive list of selections because they assumed this created more value. In all reality, it was overwhelming.

In many instances, less is more.

This is a big part of the philosophy behind …

5 Tips to Achieve Your Goals Despite the Odds

By in Blog, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

“Excellence can be obtained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, expect more than others think is possible.” ~Unknown

After several excruciatingly painful and profoundly frightening years of undiagnosed symptoms, I was diagnosed with a “progressive and incurable” neurological disease, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (RSD/CRPS). It’s characterized by unrelenting pain that is disproportionate to the inciting event, usually an injury or trauma.

As luck would have it I was diagnosed and, shortly after, hospitalized for the first of three times, just as …

Tiny Wisdom: Choose to Be Here

By in Mindfulness, Quotes, Stress

“Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there.”‘ -Eckhart Tolle

There is little in life that is more stressful than thinking you need be somewhere else but feeling powerless to get there.

There’s this dream I used to have over and over again. I’d want to get somewhere, but my body wouldn’t move. I’d start running, but I would essentially be jogging in place, like Wile Coyote when he was pushed off a cliff but he’d continue moving his legs while suspended in mid-air.

No matter how much energy I expelled, I was immobile; but I always …

Your Most Important To-Do List

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” ~Pericles

Every day we are swamped by tasks. Catch up on work. Buy groceries. Reply to those emails. Do the housework. Hand in that project. Pick up the dry-cleaning. Make that appointment. Go to the gym.

The constant connection to social media, as amazing and valuable as it can be, adds even more tiny tasks to our never-ending to-do-lists. Upload. Download. Tweet. Reply. Blog. Comment. Follow. Pin. Update. Check-in. Watch. Like. Read. Send.

My to-do’s are pinned up …

Tiny Wisdom: Do You Recognize and Receive Love?

By in Love, Quotes

“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

After I wrote yesterday’s post about giving and receiving love, I started to think about the many times in the past when I felt love-deprived.

It’s easy to feel that way when we’ve been hurt or we think we’re alone—as if there aren’t any people who are really looking out for us.

In retrospect, I realize that when I felt this way, it wasn’t that no one loved me. It was that I was too …

Tiny Wisdom: Love Heals

By in Love, Quotes

“Eventually you will come to realize that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” -Gary Zukav

The end of last week was a little tough for me.

I was waiting to be scheduled for surgery, knowing it could fall anywhere within the next three months. I was realizing I will soon have thousands of dollars in medical and dental bills, between that, a recent mammogram to test another suspicious lump, and my eight cavity fillings.

I was worrying about disappointing my engaged sister who is expecting me to fly home soon for dress shopping, while also feeling …

How to Come Home to Yourself

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

There was once a man who loved to complain and find fault with everyone and everything. Nothing pleased him, so he moved from one town to another, declaring as he left each place:

“I am going to another town, where the people are friendlier.”

A wise man perceived what the problem was, and as the angry man began striding along the dusty road to yet another destination, the wise man compassionately called out:

“Oh brother, moving from place to place does not serve you well. Wherever you …

The Fortune in Fear

By in Blog, change & challenges

“He is able who thinks he is able.” ~Buddha

I remember hearing this idea somewhere that courage was not the absence of fear, but rather, the ability to do something in the presence of it.

I am scared of being on a boat. I always was. When I was 18, I dated a guy who had a boat, and I decided to brave my fear and get on it for a three day voyage across the Mediterranean. I know, I could have started by peddling in a canoe in a pond, but no—three days, no sight of land.

There was …