Menu

Why You Have 43 More Choices That Matter in Life (or Not)

By in Blog, change & challenges, meaning & passion

“Life is the sum of all your choices.” ~Albert Camus

Ever wondered what might have been?

Ever thought about where and who you’d be if only you’d done something differently, gone somewhere else, chosen something or someone else?

Probably so, if you’re like most.

But have you ever imagined where you might go and what you might still become, with the choices you yet have left?

My friends and I were hanging out not too long ago, before I moved away from them (totally escaping their awesome grasp) to start a new life of sorts in this surface-of-sun-like heat …

Giveaway and Interview: Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner

By in Blog, Giveaway, happiness & fun, healthy habits, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Note: 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:

In the past decade, I have read more than my fair share of self-help books.

Though I’ve enjoyed the ones with countless action steps and workbook sheets to change my life, I’ve felt the most moved and inspired by honest, personal stories of overcoming adversity.

That’s how I felt in reading Priscilla Warner’s brave book, Learning to Breathe—like I was seeing straight into the heart of someone else …

Being Honest with Ourselves and Removing Our Masks

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

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

For almost two-and-a-half decades, I hid behind masks. I sensed as a very young child that I lived honoring my true self, like most children do, but as I got older, I started putting on masks as a way to fit in. One of my first masks was that of a juvenile delinquent.

Over time, this mask became almost embedded in my skin. I discovered the world of alcohol, drugs, …

4 Powerful Lessons from a Life Well Lived

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

Lori and Grammy

“We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

This year on June 4th, one of my greatest heroes passed away.

I’d been planning to travel back to Massachusetts mid-month for my sister’s bridal shower, but I learned at the end of May that my grandmother was in the hospital.

I knew she’d been in rehab since she’d fractured her hip, but I didn’t know she’d gained 30 pounds of water weight and her kidneys would soon fail …

When Painful Things Happen and You Can’t Stop Obsessing Over Why

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“We all have problems. The way we solve them is what makes us different.” ~Unknown

I used to be a “why” person. Why, you ask? Because after receiving my middle daughter Nava’s diagnosis of a neurological condition, I got really hooked into “why me” mode, and it just ate away at every fiber of my core.

I obsessed over “why.” Why did it happen? I needed to make sense out of a senseless fluke of nature.

I was devastated and beside myself with the raging emotions of grief—the anger, bitterness, and resentment—and the dance in my head …

Peace Is Learning the Lesson

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

It’s strange to feel peace while a part of your heart is being chipped away.

I’m in the middle of a heart chipping, but the longer it goes on, the more I’m realizing that it needs to be removed before it hardens the rest of the organ. Maybe the chipping is kind of like pruning a diseased tree so the remainder grows stronger and more resilient.

The cuts hurt like hell though.

The last few months have been some of the most difficult of my life. I’ve been …

Living in the Now When It’s Stressful: 4 Mindfulness Tips

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

A few weeks ago, I learned that my beloved dog, Bella, had become ill with kidney disease—a condition that will most likely not allow her to live longer than a year. I was devastated when I heard this news.

At only eight years old, Bella didn’t seem old enough to be so sick, let alone be a year (or less) away from dying. Coping with her condition and the impending loss has been incredibly difficult—nearly impossible at times—but amid all of …

When Friends Fear We May Judge Them

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

“When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.” ~Wayne Dwyer

One of the times I felt my lowest was when I found out a best friend didn’t tell me something important that had happened in her life. I felt about an inch tall when she said she feared I would judge her if she told me, and that’s why she kept it a secret.

At that point, I broke down. Do all my friends feel this way? Why? I’ve always felt very protective of them and tried my best to be a great friend.

I’m an …

3 Keys to Staying Present under Pressure

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

Relaxed Man

“The only pressure I’m under is the pressure I’ve put on myself.” ~Mark Messier   

Back when Earth was cooling, I was a broker at Shearson Lehman Brothers. I still have nightmares about the pressure there—the pressure to sell stocks and bonds, to succeed, to be the best in the office, and to forget what is really important in life.

Now I write books and lead workshops. I live on thirty-three acres with a couple hundred blueberry plants, foxes, incredible people, sunrises, sunsets, and cold dips in a mountain pond all in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.

While it …

Tiny Wisdom: Rebuilding Trust After Being Hurt

By in Quotes

“When mistrust comes in, love goes out.” ~Irish saying

An old friend of mine felt betrayed by her boyfriend, but chose not to leave him. Instead, she made him pay for it over and over again.

Through subtle digs and less subtle slights, she repeatedly expressed that she felt contempt for him. But instead of forgiving or walking away, she stayed behind a wall of resentment.

Soon he started responding in kind, until their relationship became a container for mutual silent bitterness. It was two people sharing a suffocating space, overwhelmed by the weight of everything they didn’t say.

I …

Tiny Wisdom: What We Pay Attention To

By in Quotes

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” ~Jose Ortega y Gassett

Have you ever suddenly stopped yourself after realizing you’d been dwelling on something insignificant for way too long?

Maybe it was something that didn’t go right in your day, or something mildly offensive that someone said. Whatever it was, it was something you knew wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and yet you felt a need to mentally rehash it over and over in your head.

I’ve done this many times before. Though I know it’s draining …

Speaking Up When You’re Bullied, in School and Beyond

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“Sometimes the biggest act of courage is a small one.” ~Lauren Raffo

During the summer of 2001, I experienced three months of torment.

My days were filled with verbal lashings, public humiliation, and pushing my body to its physical limits. I was being broken down. I chose to accept this as my normal. I accepted my punishment like I thought I should. I was seventeen.

Nothing made my anxiety fly away and quieted the constant chatter in my brain like dance. I may not have been the best, or most technically proficient dancer (my fouettes would never land …

Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

“Always concentrate on how far you’ve come, rather than how far you have left to go.” ~Unknown

It is laughably easy to forget to stop and take stock of how far we have come in our lives. Our world focuses so much on what we lack—be it money, beauty, prestige, or romantic success—that it is far too common for us to get trapped in the loop of needing to have, be, or do “more” before thinking that we might be good enough. I, for one, do it all the time.

A year and a half ago I was unemployed …

Giveaway and Author Interview: Choosing Me Before We

By in Blog, Giveaway, love & relationships

Note: This 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:

We all have it: a voice inside our heads that tells us what we can and cannot do and undermines our self-esteem. Sometimes it’s cruel. Sometimes it’s condescending. Most of the time, it’s completely inaccurate.

If we’re not mindful, it can limit our ability to live peaceful, purposeful lives, guided by our interests and passions. We need to love ourselves to love our lives, and in order to love …

5 Ways to Let Go of Limited Thinking and Create a Limitless Life

By in Blog, letting go, mindfulness & peace

 

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~Albert Einstein

As so often happens when I go on vacation, valuable insights come in unexpected ways. It happened again during a recent fly-fishing trip (through Fly Fishing for the Mind) with my adult son, Brandon, to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere, a government protected nature and wildlife reserve at the eastern tip of Mexico.

I got in touch with a major difference in Brandon’s and my thought patterns. Brandon thinks expansively about life’s possibilities—particularly those involving fun and …

Eliminate Proxies for a More Authentic, Present Life

By in Blog, happiness & fun, letting go, mindfulness & peace

On the web, there is something called a proxy server. It often sits in between a request (for example, let me watch YouTube!) and what is requested (in this case, the YouTube video file) and “passes” the request, and the result, back and forth between two computers.

In the early days of the Internet, it was created as a way to make easier and more efficient the incredible complexity of so much information and so many people wanting to access it. There are other benefits, too—security, speed, protecting identities and information. But, it’s still an intermediary between Thing A and …

Tiny Wisdom: What Makes Us Rich

By in Quotes

“If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.” ~Lau Tzu

In the Pixar movie Up, Carl and Ellie save all their lives to visit Paradise Falls only to realize they’re never able to save enough. Every time they build a substantial nest egg, life happens and they need to spend it.

This is a reality I know all too well. Several months back I told my boyfriend it frustrates me that every time I come into an unexpected sum of money, a need emerges to use it.

One time I got an extra freelance gig and …

Embracing Uncertainty: The Future is Open, Not Empty

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion, work fulfillment

“As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A month ago, I was at a crossroads. I was unhappy with my job, I no longer wanted to be living at home, I was tired of being three states away from my boyfriend, and I was sick of feeling unfulfilled.

I knew change was coming, but what I did not know was that I was to be the catalyst.

I had moved back in with my parents after college, as I started the daunting task of job searching. I worked retail …

Tiny Wisdom: Enjoying the People We Love

By in Quotes

“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown

In the past, whenever I heard someone say that relationships take effort, I assumed it was a person who wasn’t in a happy one.

When it’s right, it shouldn’t feel like work; it should be effortless—or so I thought, ironically, in a time when I had few relationships.

What I didn’t realize then is that things change over time—we change over time—and that we need to choose each day to see the people we love with new eyes.

I’ve been …

A Beautiful Thing Is Never Perfect

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“A beautiful thing is never perfect.” ~Proverb

There are so many reasons to think that we, as humanity, have far to go to reach a certain stage of happiness. Yet with every step we take toward a “golden future,” we seem to take two steps backward.

Our demand for technological advancement causes great stress upon the Earth: Medical achievements aim to eliminate ailments, but serve as crutches for our poor health choices; and we push ourselves to reach great heights of “success,” which then fuels our self-rejection because we think we aren’t good enough.

In this sense, our progress …