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Search Results for "anxiety" — 1273 posts

Authenticity May Feel Risky But It’s Worth It

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” ~Brené Brown

Growing up I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I would be on top of the world and the next I felt overwhelmed by anxiety. I didn’t know how to share my difficult emotions in a healthy way with my friends and family, so I started suppressing them instead.

I realized early on that it felt safe to hide my feelings, because no one could judge me if I kept them to myself. I believed …

How to Turn Your Fear into Excitement So You Can Pursue Your Dreams

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.” ~John Lennon

When it comes to facing fear and moving past it in order to see my dreams realized, I was always advised to power through it. Do the thing that scares you, no matter how much it makes your heart pound. Take that step that makes your stomach knot up in tight balls. Do it and power through, or else miss out …

How Meditation Calms Your Mind and Makes You Feel More Alive

“While meditating we are simply seeing what the mind has been doing all along.” ~Allan Lokos

People around the globe have practiced meditation for centuries upon centuries, and it’s quickly becoming one of the most popular pastimes in the modern world. It’s one of the most effective ways to find inner peace, relax, and cope with stress.

I’ve had my share of stress and troubles over the years. I remember one time, nearly eight years ago, when the stress and anxiety really got to me and made my life miserable.

I was facing the prospect of being made redundant at …

5 Steps to Coming Back To Life After Hitting Rock Bottom

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” ~Nelson Mandela

Living through the past several years of my life has been a humbling experience. I guess I shouldn’t say I lived through those years. I existed.

Through those years, life threw me punch after punch. I suffered through public shaming and online bullying, was crippled for six months with devastating anxiety and depression, gained fifty pounds, lost a lucrative job, and saw my marriage crumble before my eyes.

I hit rock bottom, and I hit it hard.

The thing is, …

40 Ways To Live, Laugh, And Love Like A Child

“Children see magic because they look for it.” ~Christopher Moore

Adulthood? No thanks!

All too often, being grown up is the pits.

It can leave you drowning in responsibility, suffocating from anxiety, and sinking with doubts about your ability to be all that you should.

Frazzled, you fall into bed to fortify yourself for tomorrow’s craziness. Then you lie awake fretting over your lack of action you regret, scary debt, and all the targets you haven’t met.

Life’s supposed journey has left you dreading where you’re heading.

What the hell happened?

Somewhere between making daisy chains and making money, …

Your Feelings Have Messages for You (So Stop Ignoring Them)

“But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” ~Anne Frank

As a sensitive person, I have a complicated relationship with my feelings. They are the sensors I extend out into the world, to pull it in. They are the guides that help me decide what works or doesn’t work for me. But there are also times when my feelings rise with such force that I am left gasping for breath.

Then, I am tempted by the thought that not feeling so much would have definitely made things easier.

And yet, I don’t feel all my …

7 Habits That Keep You Strong (Even When Things Go Wrong)

“I’m stronger because of the hard times, wiser because of my mistakes, and happier because I have known sadness.” ~Unknown

It’s happened to most of us.

Despite our best intentions, something goes dreadfully wrong.

You suffer a heartbreaking loss, make a terrible mistake, or get blindsided by an injury.

In disbelief your mind cries, “Wait. What?”

And then, “No, no, no, this can’t be happening.”

After the initial shock, when the surge of stress hormones has subsided, you realize that yes, this is happening.

And you can’t help thinking: “But how could this happen? It’s not fair. I can’t bear

How to Get Started with Meditation

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

It’s so easy in our busy, results-driven world to lose track of ourselves in a drive to address the needs of others. What with your work performance demands, evening dinner preparation, the Facebook post from a friend that requires your response before the sender gets upset… Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed just writing about it!

The world demands our constant attention, and we willingly give it. But what about attention to ourselves?

Underneath every hood is an engine, behind any piece of artwork is the artist, and beneath your ability …

How to Heal from Buried Pain: You Must Go Through It

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ~Robert Frost

When I was a child my friends and I often played a game called “Going on a Bear Hunt.” Each of the verses told of a different challenge, but offered the same advice—that you must go through it. One of the verses went like this:

“We’re goin’ on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. I’m not scared. What a beautiful day! Uh-uh! A cave! A narrow gloomy cave. We can’t go over it.

If It’s Hard to Say Goodbye, Your Life’s Been Truly Blessed

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” ~Unknown

On the evening of my high school graduation it hit me—the familiar faces and places I’d grown so accustomed to over the last twelve years would soon be changing.

The anxiety of that reality had started to creep into my psyche weeks ago, when I was being fitted for my cap and gown. Standing there looking in the mirror, I remember thinking to myself, “How did I get here?”

Somehow I had gone from a seven-year-old schoolboy to an eighteen-year-old teenager, and I …

Fear Can Only Hurt Us If We Let It

“Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I lay in bed staring into the darkness feeling physically ill with an acute sense of anxiety the like of which I hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

It felt like I had a soccer ball sized, black, …

You Have a Choice: Your Future Can Be Better Than Your Past

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” ~Mary Oliver

On the January 17, 2000, I was in a car crash. I was living in France at the time. I don’t remember much about the crash. I know that we all walked out of the car relatively unscathed. Shocked, scared, and confused, yes. Injured, no.

I remember thinking that I should probably call my mum and dad back in England. Tell them what happened. What I didn’t know in that moment was that back in …

A Powerful Guide for People-Pleasers (and a Giveaway!)

Update: The winners for this giveaway are Galit Erez and Granny Nate.

I’ve often wondered if I suppressed my tears when I was born, in fear of upsetting the doctor and my parents.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this about myself, as many of my childhood memories involve a fear of causing trouble, and an even greater fear of the consequences.

As I grew older, I began to shape-shift to please the people around me. It was exhausting, but I frequently tried to control their perception of me so I could feel confident I was likely to receive …

40 Ways to Let Go of Anger Right Now

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” ~Buddha

Anger is merciless.

It leaves you feeling torn up inside.

Your head pounds. Your jaw locks. And your muscles scream. Every inch reels in pain with the electric shock that shoots through you.

You can’t eat, or sleep, or function like a rational human being.

You’ve good reason to be afraid of unleashing that screaming monster of rage lurking inside you. You’ll likely lose control, lash out, and retaliate.

Even though you have been wronged, you’ll end up feeling guilty, ashamed, even horrified by

How Losing All Hope Can Be Freedom

“Losing all hope was freedom.” ~Edward Norton in Fight Club

We naturally think of hope as a positive thing, as we do freedom, but this quote says that losing hope brings freedom. It may seem contradictory, but losing hope has been my most unexpected lifesaver.

My Mental Breakdown

I struggled with severe anxiety four years ago. The onset was abrupt.

Until I was twenty-five, I was the healthiest person I knew. I never got sick, would play basketball six hours straight, and always felt great. That changed suddenly in 2011.

I woke up one morning with an itchy spot on …

5 Habit Makeovers That Will Help You Turn Your Life Around

“Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days ahead.” ~Kris Carr

Around this time four years ago, my life was a mess.

Work-wise, I felt like I had hit a wall. The relationship I was in (or so I thought I was) was turning out to be a one-way street on which I was being taken for a long, long, painful ride.

Taking care of myself was something I did only when I remembered to, or during unpredictable moments of clarity or calm within the little emotional tornado I was spinning around and around in.

Just …

How to Overcome Emotional Overload When You’re Highly Empathetic

“When someone throws you a stone, throw back a flower.” ~Gandhi

“Ouch,” I cried out instinctively as my husband, Barry, and I walked through the beach parking lot, barefoot. It was only when Barry turned to me and asked me why I yelled out that I realized it was him who stubbed his toe, and not me.

“Because it hurts,” I answered him. He looked at me curiously and said, “But it didn’t hurt you. It hurt me. I’m the one who stubbed my toe.”

It hadn’t dawned on me that feeling other people’s pain wasn’t a “normal” reaction.

All …

6 Fears That Keep You Busy and How to Enjoy More of Your Life

“All the mistakes I ever made in my life were when I wanted to say no, and said yes.” ~Moss Hart

Do you ever feel like you’re always too busy to truly enjoy life?

I know the feeling.

I work multiple jobs to care for my family and have many responsibilities at work and at home. My to-do list never seems to end, leaving precious little time for leisure and rest.

But here’s the funny thing: whenever I do have some downtime, my anxiety kicks in because I’m thinking about all the things I “should” do to help move my …

Keep Your Heart Open to Love When Life Knocks You Down

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.” ~Pema Chodron

I was nineteen weeks pregnant when my husband and I went for a routine ultrasound. We were to confirm that our child’s anatomy was as it should be, and we were to discover our child’s sex.

We were choosing names in the waiting room. We ran into the receptionist at the fertility clinic and exchanged hugs. We had graduated from the clinic. The tuition was expensive and the education detailed and grueling. But we were a …

Be Your Own Role Model: Visualize Your Way to Your Goals

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

One day, I’d had enough.

I heated up my yoga studio, rolled out my mat, and prepared to change this voice that I am embarrassed to admit torments me every day.

I stood at the top of my mat, closed my eyes, and tuned into my inner voice.

“I am tired.”

“I should …