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Search Results for "trust " — 1318 posts

4 Tips to Create Meaningful, Authentic Connections Online

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“The most important things in life are the connections you make with others.” ~Tom Ford

Three years ago I was living in the Bay Area, working for a start-up website as a community and content and manager. Every day, I signed online and wrote for hours about a topic that meant absolutely nothing to me.

I accepted the position because it was a dramatic pay increase from my previous temp and freelance lifestyle, and it afforded me my first solo apartment. I’d held dozens of different jobs in my time as I searched for meaningful work, and I certainly …

Tiny Wisdom: On Perfect Plans

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“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” -Proverb

Tomorrow always seems like a safe bet for action. Then you’ll be ready to get started, or get serious, or get over it, or get on with it. Tomorrow you’ll finally set your plan in motion instead of shaping it into something just right. You’ll take the offer, the plunge, or the road less taken tomorrow, when you feel sure.

Tomorrow can become a moving target while todays pile up and expire.

Sometimes we need to be patient, but oftentimes we use it as an excuse to wait …

On Planning Less: How to Let Go & Enjoy the Ride

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“Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand – relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it.” ~Osho

As I drove home today, I embarked on a familiar exercise: planning out, in ridiculous detail, the next week, month, and year of my life.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that planning is bad. In my world, a complete lack of planning would be anarchy. And anarchy equals anxiety. So I try to avoid it—both the anarchy and the anxiety.

But, historically speaking, I plan to a …

How You Made Tiny Buddha Beautiful This Year: Our 2010 in Review

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“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.” ~Anonymous

Before September 2009, I thought I wanted to run a personal development blog—a place to share the lessons I’ve learned and generally build a community around the idea of teaching people to improve their lives. Then I realized that wasn’t my vision.

There were a couple reasons for that.

I feel the biggest challenge isn’t gaining new information; it’s learning to apply it.

Instead of trying to build authority, I wanted to embrace my humanity—to be both strong and vulnerable, willing to share what I’ve learned …

5 Lessons about Being Present: Freedom is Where My Feet Are

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“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.” ~James Thurber

As I begin each day, I must remind myself, “Erin, stay where your feet are.”

If I keep my attention on the place where my feet reside, I have a better chance of remaining in the here and now. What’s here and now is all there is, so we’re told.

Most of us know this in our heads, but integrating it into our daily living is another thing. It’s a practice, one that must remain a part of our awareness if we hope …

Cracking Your Comfort Zone: How to Face a Fear

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“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

I’m about to write something that’s freaky and a bit philosophical, but true. Really take this in: You become your comfort zone.

Getting out of your comfort zone is crucial to actualizing your aspirations.

If you want something that you don’t already have, there’s a good chance you’ll have to do things that you haven’t already done.

Doing those things may not feel natural to you. You may even feel uncomfortable and awkward. But ultimately, behind the frightening facade of fear is a bigger version …

How to Love Your Authentic Self

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“You, yourself, as much as anybody else in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

In our personal development-focused, life coach-dependent world, it’s all too easy to think you need to change. Not just the things you do, but who you are.

It’s one thing to invite transformation for the sake of growth, improvement, and new possibilities. It’s another thing to feel so dissatisfied with yourself that no amount of change could possibly convince you that you’re worthy and lovable.

This type of intrinsic self-loathing formed the basis of my adolescence and some of my …

Starting a New Life: The Courage of a Seed

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“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” ~Lao Tzu

At lunch the other day, a new friend and I were discussing changes in our lives and how everything feels very new and different.

I remembered the most beautiful description Mark Nepo wrote in The Book of Awakening. Mark is a poet, and he sees the world through such a lovely light. His work opens my heart to images I’ve never thought about that are so compelling.

I can see the way Mark describes the process of change in my own life. He …

Desperate to Be Seen: Learning to Shine a Steady Beam

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“If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

While in the process of “re-branding” my business, I’ve been reading a lot about business marketing. One of the articles that I really loved contains an analogy of a lighthouse for a business model, but to me, it speaks of so much more. It’s really a life model.

The example highlights how a lighthouse doesn’t run up and down the coast, anxiously seeking any boats in the water. It doesn’t cast its beam north and south, right and left, desperate to be seen. …

5 Ways to Masterfully Navigate Life Challenges

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“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~Pema Chodron

In my twenties I had dreams that I could fly. Literally. In my mind’s eye, I had a vision of myself dancing in the air. I thought if I were an animal, I would be a graceful eagle soaring through the skies.

Never mind I am just shy of six feet tall and aerodynamically inept. I had a dream and I was going to follow it. Hence, I called the local circus teacher to pursue the hobby of aerial acrobatics.…

Better Together: We Are Not Alone

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“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~Helen Keller

My patient, John Done, rolled in by ambulance from his home in rural Oregon. As his story unfolded I understood why the nurses and ER doctors in the room were slack-jawed and shaking their heads, and I understood why I had been called to see what the nurse called a “DIY’er.”

I have been a surgeon for over ten years and had never been consulted for a case of do it yourself surgery. John had had a belly button hernia sticking out a couple of inches …

A Simple Guide to Being Yourself Instead of People Pleasing

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To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Many people I talk with feel that they have no joy in their life. They feel obligated to do so many things that they don’t have time for themselves and the things they really want to do.

As a result, they feel drained, anxious, and resentful. With so many outside forces competing for their time, energy, and financial resources, is it really any wonder they feel this way?

So what do we do? How can we remain …

10 Happiness Tips for Busy People: How to Reclaim Your Joy

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“Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” ~John Lennon

I am someone who enjoys doing a lot of different things, and yet I don’t always enjoy being busy. Sometimes when my schedule gets full, I feel almost as if I’ve lost a part of me.

Just like some people become codependent in relationships, I can be codependent with work. When it has my attention, everything else can easily fall to the wayside—my social life, my hobbies, you name it.

It’s all too easy to get caught up in a riptide of doing without ever evaluating what you’re …

How to Forgive Someone When It’s Hard: 30 Tips to Let Go of Anger

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“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Up until my early twenties, I carried around a lot of anger toward someone in my life. I’d been hurt by a person I trusted, and for a long time in my adolescence I wanted to hurt them back.

I lived in painful stories and in visions of what could have been if I hadn’t been wronged. I blamed someone else for the life I didn’t have, and felt vindicated in the soul-sucking resentment I carried around from day to day.

I realize it makes less …

4 Active Choices for Success & Happiness

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“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

These last few months I’ve been digging myself out of a hole, which ironically enough, I had put myself into. I spent so much time in the last two years constantly being negative, and I could tell by the people surrounding me that it had been enough.

People were starting to leave my life; they were tiring of same repetitive mantra. And come to think of it, I was tiring of it also. It was becoming more and more exhausting to try and get people …

LOVE Versus Fear

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LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL (fear is conditional)

LOVE IS STRONG (fear is weak)

LOVE RELEASES (fear obligates)

LOVE SURRENDERS (fear binds)

LOVE IS HONEST (fear is deceitful)

LOVE TRUSTS (fear suspects)

LOVE ALLOWS (fear dictates)

LOVE GIVES (fear resists)

LOVE FORGIVES (fear blames)

LOVE IS COMPASSIONATE (fear pities)

Childhood Dreams That Are Attainable Now

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“A man is not old until regrets take the place of his dreams.” ~Proverb

Something beautiful just occurred to me.

I spend so much time stressing over my future adult achievements—a good career, a home for life, getting published, an adult relationship, possibly a kid and a large dog—that I don’t often revel in the things that seven-year-old me would have been stoked about.

How many of us do?

I try to treat my inner child with something every week, like painting, playing with my cat, or indulging in some candy—a very rare thing! But I don’t often think of …

5 Ways to Find Your Balance

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“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

The yoga class I attended yesterday included a number of balance posts, from simple tree pose to a “floating” ardha chandrasana. I am not certain why, but I was struggling to find a steady balance on one side.

I arrived late feeling flustered, and my mind was spinning and worrying as we worked our way into the flow. I had to struggle to make my gaze steady, and I was starting to beat myself up for the wobbling on my left leg.

Then I …

7 Ways to Deal with Uncertainty So You Can Be Happier and Less Anxious

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“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

In three weeks, my boyfriend and I might move from the Bay area to LA, or we might move in here with roommates if he decides not pursue a film career.

I am starting a new work-from-home writing gig to pay my bills while I write my book. It might be something I can do in under two days a week, or it may require more time. It may provide enough money, or I might need to get some …

On Perfect Timing: When Things Aren’t Happening Fast Enough

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“After winter comes the summer. After night comes the dawn. And after every storm, there comes clear, open skies.” ~Samuel Rutherford

I was talking to someone this week about his feeling that things weren’t happening fast enough. That with all he was doing, intending, and putting out there more should be happening, and faster.

My question to him was, “Really? Should things really be happening faster? Or are you exactly where you’re supposed to be?”

We have a tendency to think we have it all figured out. When it should happen, how it should happen, who it should happen with—and …