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Search Results for "past relationship" — 1212 posts

You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings, and They Don’t Have to Bring You Down

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“Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ” ~Reinhold Niebuhr

Think about the future! Don’t do something you’ll regret! You need to plan for tomorrow! I wish I hadn’t done that! Will things ever work out? Why did they do that? Will I ever find happiness? Why has life made me the way I am? What’s wrong with me?

Around and around it went inside my mind, a never-ending internal conversation full of questions and uncertainties—the not knowing driving me insane …

Rekindle Your Joy by Harnessing the Power of Play

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“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was one of those weeks that felt like I was dragging my feet through mud. Everything seemed like an effort and nothing seemed to be flowing.

I was caught up in conflicts from the past—a miscommunication with my boyfriend, which resulted in hurt feelings on both sides, and a professional crisis that plunged me into fear and self-doubt.

In an attempt to calm my mind and become more present, I meditated and chanted mantras, but the tape of negative self-talk continued to play in my head. …

How to KISS Your Way to A Less Stressful, Overwhelming Life

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“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” ~John Maeda

The past few months of my life were a myriad of things, to say the least: busy, chaotic, overwhelming, exhausting, frustrating, and stressful. I felt like my fuel tank was on zero, but I had to get up and do it all over again the next day.

I wasn’t stopping to take it all in and check in with myself to see how I was doing. It took catching up with a friend in town on a whirlwind trip to give me a big, smack-bang wake-up call. I …

From Conflict to Compassion: Put Love Above Winning

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“Let go of your attachment to being right and suddenly your mind is more open.” ~Ralph Marston

When we face a conflict we face an opportunity to learn from pain. It’s like putting your hand against a hot burner on the stove. The burn warns that you have to do something differently.

You pull your hand back reflexively and you don’t touch the stove again. You’ve learned. As with the hot stove, if we get the lesson that is in front of us, we don’t need to keep repeating that particular pain.

Inconveniently, our natural inclination when we feel the …

Why Joy Trumps Happiness (And 3 Ways to Coax It Into Your Life)

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“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” ~Henri Nouwen

Once upon a time I was on a relentless hunt for happiness. I’d root around for it in romantic relationships, search for it in visits to exotic locales, and scour self-help sections of bookstores, hoping to run across a volume that, once and for all, would reveal its thorny secrets.

The books I read said happiness couldn’t be found outside of me, but I was always skeptical of that advice. I longed to believe that if I got what I …

When You Fear Emotional Abandonment: Do You Know Your Worth?

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“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…says Lady Liberty. She was speaking to immigrants wanting to start a new promised life in America, but those words could be my tagline for the men I have had my most intimate relationships with.

If you were broken, emotionally unavailable, complicated, and confused, I was your girl.

I would love you more than you loved yourself, or could love me. 

I would put all my energy in trying to make it work, trying to …

I’m Not Broken, and Neither Are You

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“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” ~Marianne Williamson

I used to have this secret habit of flipping through the DSM—The Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders—and diagnosing myself with every disorder in the book.

Reading over the criteria for borderline personality disorder, cigarette in hand and eyes wide open, I scanned the diagnosis criteria.

Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment? Check. Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships? Check. Unstable self-image? Check. Impulsivity that’s self-damaging? Check. Suicidal behaviour? Check. Unstable moods? Check. Chronic feelings of emptiness? Check. Inappropriate and intense …

Releasing Painful Memories to Live More Fully in the Present

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“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.” ~Eckhart Tolle

For thirteen years I’ve lived a high-risk lifestyle that focuses very much on the here and now, because I’m an entrepreneur, and that means making lots of fast decisions that affect the future.

It took a while for me to develop confidence in myself, as we tend to doubt ourselves much more than other people might doubt us. Our thoughts form our doubts, so I knew I had to do something to move forward from the thoughts …

Why We Compare Ourselves to Others on Social Media and How to Stop

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

We all have certain triggers that can cause our confidence to take a sudden nosedive.

For some, it’s a trip to the gym. If you’re self-conscious of your body, watching fit people strut their stuff in their tightest fitting gym clothes likely has you over analyzing your every body part.

For others, it may be a certain individual—a family member, friend, or enemy that, for whatever reason, leaves them with the dreaded feeling that they just aren’t enough.

We all …

Dealing With Uncertainty: When You Don’t Know What to Do Next

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“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” ~William S. Burroughs

There’s a lot of advice out there that tells us when to let go of something and make a change in our lives, as if moving on were as simple as your brain notifying your hand to loosen it’s grip and release a balloon in the air.

But when it comes to grappling with your heart and soul, it’s not such an easy thing to do. You cannot choose to amputate your feelings on a moment’s notice.

Maybe you’re sitting in …

When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

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“I’ve discovered that you can’t change people. They can change themselves.” ~Jim Rohn

This is indeed a fact—a fact I took a long time to learn.

You may argue that we help each other change, and it’s true. But the deepest truth is that only we are responsible for our own growth.

The most difficult work is the seemingly minuscule shift from resistance to willingness, which allows us to face the difficult things we’ve been hiding from, and only we can do this for ourselves. 

I had boyfriends who had issues. One of them lacked ambition; he was already lost …

The Art of Reflection: Feel Your Way to a Happier Life

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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” ~Steve Jobs

One of the best ways I’ve found to develop wisdom is through reflection. While reflection might look like a quiet session of daydreaming, it’s actually an active process during which you enrich your life and encourage personal growth by reviewing parts of your day or your life.

It was January 2001 and I was sitting in New York’s La Guardia airport waiting for my flight to Atlanta. I had moved to New York to attend a graduate program there, and in spite of doing …

Letting Go of Expectations and Letting Joy Find You

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“The best things in life are unexpected, because there were no expectations.” ~Eli Khamarov

Are there situations in your life where letting go of a desired outcome could potentially improve the outcome?

I’d been invited to the Stern Grove festival, the free summer concert series, to see Andrew Bird. A friend of mine texted me the night before, letting me know he was setting up a picnic for it.

I was feeling agitated that evening after spending more than I’d wanted to at a birthday dinner (which I was happy to attend, notwithstanding), and I anticipated wanting to recharge …

Unbecoming Who You Are and Embracing Your True Self

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“View your life with kindsight. Stop beating yourself up about things from your past. Instead of slapping your forehead and asking, ‘What was I thinking,’ breathe and ask yourself the kinder question, ‘What was I learning?’” ~Karen Salmonsohn

I’ve never been particularly risk adverse.

If you asked my friends or family, they’d tell you I’d be the first person to try something new and challenging. I did things in my twenties with very little thought about the consequences and dove headlong into many situations without batting an eyelid.

Except, I was avoiding one thing and that was the real me. …

Are You Frustrated in Your Search for True, Unconditional Love?

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“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

Have you ever wondered if there is such a thing as true love, like in the good old movies of Casablanca or The Notebook? Maybe you’ve found your true love. Or perhaps you’re still searching.

When I was a teenager, I was mesmerized by this dream that someday there would be someone who would love me so unconditionally that he would literally die for me. After all, you see that all the time in …

3 Keys to Jumpstarting Your Life If You’ve Been Living on Hold

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

One key lesson I learned on my journey to developing my business knowledge base is that everything is built from the ground up, and each stage has important lessons for the subsequent stages. Sometimes we are only privy to the first stages.

Other times, we only see the middle and final stages. These are the times when we are wowed at how fast things have happened for others, and we become insecure and worried about the pace of our growth.

No one …

Why We Should Look Forward to More of Each Day

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“Use your smile to change the world; don’t let the world change your smile.” ~Unknown

For most of us the average day includes a mix of things we both look forward to and things we don’t look forward to. We look forward to coffee in the morning, we regret that we have to go to work; we look forward to coming home at the end of the day, we dislike that we have to do laundry.

But how much of your life are you giving up if you dread, dislike, regret and don’t look forward to, say, 50% of your …

Pacing Yourself When You Want the Pain to Stop

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“The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I was in pain.

My legs hurt, I felt nauseated, my heart thumped hard and fast, and I labored for every breath.

I was halfway up a steep, three-mile hill, and I was so exhausted I could barely keep my bike upright.

My mind tried desperately to solve this problem: “Should I stop? I should stop. No! I’ve done this hill in the past without stopping—what’s the problem this time? I hate this! Why is this so painful?”

I glanced over at my …

How to Let Go of Guilt and Regret and Forgive Yourself

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“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boes

In October of 2010 I was engaged after only three weeks of dating. I was scared to tell my family, but I was terrified to tell my father. My parents divorced when I was five, and I couldn’t spend weekends at Dad’s because he lived thousands of miles away. I saved him for last and decided to take the cowardly way out by emailing him.

It was not the best decision I’ve ever made. Not only did it infuriate and hurt him, it ended up producing …

Be Part of the Next Tiny Buddha Book: 365 Tiny Love Challenges

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*The deadline to submit a story has now passed. Thank you to everyone who submitted one! You will receive an email by the end of November if I’d like to include your story in the book.

When I started this site in 2009, after struggling for over a decade with depression, bulimia, and shame-induced isolation, I hoped it would be a place where we could all feel less alone with our struggles and more empowered to overcome them. I’m beyond thrilled to see that’s just what Tiny Buddha has become.

Over the past five years, I’ve been honored to help …