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What to Do When You’re New: In School, Work, or Your City

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” ~Buddhist saying

Moving to a new country as a kid can be traumatizing because of the challenges of fitting into a new culture and new social customs.

When I arrived in Northern California at the age of ten with my parents and younger two brothers, we were excited about being in America (home of Disneyland) but apprehensive about our how our classmates would react to us and how we would fit into the social environment of a school in a new country.

My earliest memories of …

40 Little Things That Make a Big Difference in Your Day

By in Blog, Featured, happiness & fun

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

I believe life is in the details. Ongoing small gestures can mean so much more than one grand display of love. Simple pleasures throughout the day can be far more gratifying that one amazing weekend. When you connect the dots between all these little joys, life seems fuller and more satisfying.

I’ve created a list of all the little things that fill me with bliss. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

1. Breakfast in bed. You don’t need someone to …

You Deserve Love, Including Your Own

By in Blog, love & relationships

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Several years ago, I was in an unhealthy and unhappy relationship. It didn’t start out that way, of course. During the first year that we were together, I was in heaven. I was blissfully happy and everything seemed perfect.

My partner and I were so in love and happy just to be together; you couldn’t keep us apart.

It was years later that the trouble started. It was when my husband reconnected with a woman from his past …

7 Ways to Manage a Break Up and Work Through the Pain

By in Blog, love & relationships

Break-Up

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama

Some breakups are so bad that they make you hate the sunshine. It’s up there gleaming, looking down on you, being all sunny despite the fact that you feel like a slice of hell. The suffering is relentless. The sky is ugly.

The ending of my last relationship was awful. I think it hurt as bad as it did because this wasn’t some random young woman who had just walked into my life. This was someone whom …

When Thoughts Cause Stress: Steps on the Path to Mindfulness

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” ~Charles Swindoll

The notion that how we feel is directly caused by events around us, or directly involving us, is a scourge of our modern times. To believe that the external world and its perceived relationship to us is the major determinative factor in how we feel (“I can’t believe he/she said that to me—that’s so outrageous!”) is disempowering and self-destructive.

We impose our “shoulds” on what we perceive as “the world out there,” and then when it fails to live up to our arbitrary and …

Giveaway and Interview: Seeing, Knowing, Being by John Greer

By in Blog, Giveaway, mindfulness & peace

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

The winners:

Regardless of our individual beliefs, we all want to feel a sense of wholeness to experience the present moment with peace and connection.

It’s the foundation of spiritual practice, however we define that individually: We want to stop feeling a need to fix ourselves, and instead awaken to the infinite beauty of who we already are.

In his powerful new book Seeing, Knowing, Being, meditation teacher John …

The Beauty of Nothing: Reflections on Impermanence

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.” ~Heraclitus 

I’m reclining on a pebble beach, my bag tucked under my head, a can of Fanta to the right of me, above me, the sky and before me, the sea. It’s a few miles out.

I came here alone. Friends had no time for me today. I’ve been reading instead, the cast of Anna Karenina filling the places where friends should be, and eating rich Italian ice cream, fudge flavored, even though it’ll give me an upset stomach later.

The sun is scorching everything today, partner-in-crime with …

Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Life

By in Blog, change & challenges

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

As I start a new day, grateful that I am pain-free, healthy, and strong, I reflect on the true meaning of health and how I ended up in this wonderful place.

An outsider looking in might say I worked hard in the gym and spent thousands of dollars on treatments and services.

I would simply say that I believed and continue to believe—and that is all.

Four years ago, I was defeated by a diagnosis called Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction. What this means is that abnormalities in …

Tiny Wisdom: Think Less, Feel More

By in Quotes

“Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.” ~Osho

Have you ever felt attached to your thoughts—like you knew you were thinking yourself in circles, but a part of you wanted to keep getting dizzy?

Now that I’m healthy and energized, three months after my surgery, I’m developing a consistent yoga practice again, and I’m feeling better mentally and physically as a result of doing that.

But sometimes, when I get to the end of the day, particularly when I know I have a lot to do, I feel resistant to making that time …

How Worrying Makes Life Less Joyful

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” ~Leo Bucaglia

As I stood on the street corner, tears streaming down my face, I called friends for confirmation that what I had just been told wasn’t true.

My meeting with my “friend” had gone horribly wrong. And when I say gone wrong, that’s because she was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

But what if she wasn’t wrong?

What if her words, which stung so badly that I couldn’t stop myself from crying publicly, were true?

Two weeks prior to this fateful day, three families had gotten …

Simple Reminders to Focus on What Matters in Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

“Before someone’s tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today.” ~Michelle C. Ustaszeski

As tough as it sometimes feels, change and loss are woven into life. We cannot live a full life without them.

Although both can be painful, they push us into a greater understanding of what matters in life, and they can help us become clearer about who we are since they provide a platform for substantial growth.

Over the past couple of years I’ve experienced many changes as I’ve transitioned from one chapter to the next. The one constant through all of …

Creating Peace by Finding a Connection to the Earth

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind.” ~Remez Sasson

In a world that constantly barrages us with information, it becomes a daily struggle to unplug and find peace. The “need to” and “should do” and “must do” of our ever-frantic lives overwhelms us and creates a stress that threatens to unravel.

As a child my happiest days were those spent outdoors. Even then, peace came while watching the flowers bend in the wind and the clouds stretch across the sky.

As an adult it became …

When You Fear Making the “Wrong” Decision

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

For the past three weeks, I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to move to Korea for a year. Some days I’ve completely made up my mind to take the trip. I get excited about teaching myself Korean and spend hours and hours online learning about the culture.

Other days, I’m an emotional wreck, terrified that I’m making the wrong decision.

What if I get homesick? What if I’m supposed to be doing something else? What if I don’t like kimchi? What if? What if? What …

6 Tips to Tame Negative Thoughts (So You Can Live a Less Limited Life)

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“You are your choices.” ~Seneca

Lately I‘ve been feeling a bit down in the dumps. A few things have happened at work to make me feel like nothing’s going my way.

I’m guessing that pretty much everyone experiences weeks like this from time to time. You know, where it feels like the whole world is against you. No matter what you do, nothing goes right.

This has been my life for the past few weeks.

And my initial reaction was to feel sorry for myself. To retreat to the safety of self-pity where nothing’s my fault—it’s simply the world ganging …

Tiny Wisdom: Remembering the Good Things

By in Quotes

“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” ~Albert Einstein

As I was walking to my apartment just now, I heard the voice of a child who was walking in the same direction with an adult across the street.

With his enthusiastic, high-pitched voice he asked, “Remember we went on a plane? And it was really, really high in the sky?”

Then just a few seconds later he asked, “Remember we saw a baseball game?”

And then a few seconds after that, “Remember we had spaghetti?”

A part of me wanted to keep walking parallel from them, even …

8 Reasons to Buy the Tiny Wisdom eBook Series (Available Now!)

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun, love & relationships, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

Since Tiny Buddha launched in 2009, I’ve written hundreds of “Tiny Wisdom” blog posts. In the beginning, I kept these short and peripheral.

Over time, I started putting more of myself into them and giving them a lot more love and attention. Suddenly, these posts became far more popular than I ever thought they’d be.

They aren’t lengthy how-to posts with lists of action steps. They’re short reflections on the little things that make a huge difference in our daily lives. They’re reminders of what matters and how to embrace it, right now, instead of focusing on all the things …

A Letter from Your Calling

By in Blog, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

“Every calling is great when greatly pursued.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

It’s me. The one who keeps talking to you about that thing. That project. That possibility.

I know you think you couldn’t be the one for the job, but honestly, if you weren’t the one for the job, I wouldn’t have come to you with it.

I wouldn’t have come knocking at the door of your mind. I wouldn’t have come into your dreams, into your imagination, into your heart.

I wouldn’t have made it so compelling to think about me.

I wouldn’t have planted in you the frustration with …

Why We Need to Keep Growing: Lessons from Firewalking

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

I recently ran across a chat site called “Why Grow Up?” Their tagline reads:

“Why Grow Up? Why be responsible? Why act mature?

Why play by rules? Why eat healthy? Why sleep early?

Why become a doctor? Why this? WHY ME? WHY WHY WHY?”

I laughed aloud when I read that remembering something I had said 18 years ago to my husband, Jake: “I just want to retire and garden.”

I was tired of …

Tiny Wisdom: Caring About What Others Think (and Do)

By in Quotes

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Growing up I often heard the phrase “You shouldn’t care so much.”

Derivatives of this idea included: So what if they’re talking about you. Who cares what they think? He’s a jerk; why do you care about him? You’re your own person; why do you care about what she’s doing?

I associated the word “care” with stress, because in all these instances, caring meant feeling bad.

It meant being overly worried about someone’s opinion of me, or feeling for someone who didn’t feel for me, or thinking someone …

Stay Safe or Risk Opening Your Heart?

By in Blog, love & relationships

“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless.” ~Pema Chodron

As a child I learned boundaries. I learned what I wasn’t allowed to talk about outside of the family. I learned how far I could go with my parents before I faced their disapproval. I also learned that this boundary was unpredictable.

Because it was unpredictable, I honed the ability to sense when it seemed safe to do something, and when I couldn’t, based on the emotions of those around me. It kept me safe for the most …