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Posts tagged with “Challenges”

How to Navigate Loss and Fear and Emerge Resilient

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“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

Sailing on a beautiful day in calm seas can feel like a spiritual experience and can convince your senses that life should always be like this.

My family life was smooth sailing for many years. My husband and I were committed to our family and our responsibilities of building and running our businesses, leaving little time for anything else. Gradually, the weather changed, and we found ourselves in the uncharted, turbulent waters of divorce.

I was unprepared for the toll it would take. My anxiety caused me to lose weight, …

How I Found the Good Within the Difficult

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“Inner strengths are the supplies you’ve got in your pack as you make your way down the twisting and often hard road of life.” ~Rick Hanson

“I had a rough day. Can we talk?” I asked my husband in 2015 after coming home from work. He nodded, and we sat down on the couch.

I continued: “I got really challenging performance feedback from my manager today. It was hard to hear because I know it’s true.”

It was the most significant critical feedback I had received at once. All afternoon, I’d ruminated on the conversation. I had sat in the …

How Admitting Your Weaknesses Could Actually Make You Stronger

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“The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.” ~Nathaniel Branden

Do me a favor and don’t tell my wife what I’m about to share with you.

I have an absurd number of weaknesses.

Just kidding. My wife, of course, knows this. She is well aware of my many shortcomings. While she would be happy to add to the growing Encyclopedia of dumb shit I do, I will keep this short and sweet out of respect for your time.

We live in a weird culture that’s afraid to admit any of us have weaknesses or struggles. We’re …

A Simple Plan to Overcome Self-Doubt and Do What You Want to Do

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“Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.” ~Roy T. Bennett

Ahh yes, self-doubt. Something that affects every single one of us at different times and at different magnitudes—even those that seem supremely confident.

Why do so many of us experience self-doubt, and how can we overcome it?

On a personal note, I can tell you my self-doubt comes any time I am trying something new. I’ve learned over the years …

The One Thing You Need to Make the Best Decisions for You

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“If you are not living your truth, you are living a lie.” ~Joseph Curiale

Her sobs break my heart. We have all been there. When the relationship starts feeling like a war-torn city as opposed to home.

I close in for a hug. “You can’t go on like this,” I whisper.

“Well, I don’t know what to do. Please don’t tell me to break up,” she looks up pleadingly. “I can’t do it. I won’t be able to bear it. I am not as strong as you.”

A familiar musical refrain from Tina Turner comes to mind albeit with …

You’re Invited: FREE Wisdom of Pema Chödrön Online Summit

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Hi friends. I know that many within the community are grappling with uncertainty right now—as really, we always are—and I also know how terrifying it can feel to embrace not knowing. Whether you’re dealing with health issues, unemployment, or relationship struggles, the question of what’s going to happen can keep you up at night. And then there’s the uncertainty in the world at large.

When we’re overwhelmed by groundlessness and fear, it can feel like we’re free-falling with nothing to hold onto. In those moments of panic, we search for something, anything, to help us calm the voice within and …

BetterHelp: The World’s Largest Online Therapy Platform

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**Though this is a sponsored post, you can trust I only recommend products and services I personally love!

If you’re like most people, you’re probably starting to consider the goals and dreams you’d like to pursue in the New Year.

Maybe you’re visualizing the person you want to be, reflecting on what you hope to accomplish, and strategizing about everything you need to do (and stop doing) to finally feel happy with your life.

Most of us spend our lives chasing happiness, checking accomplishments and milestones off a life to-do list, as if each pen stroke brings us one step …

How Life’s Daily Challenges Can Actually Be Gifts in Disguise

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“Smile at your patterns.” ~Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Partway through Eckhart Tolle’s Conscious Manifestation course, I furiously jotted down his teachings about challenges and obstacles to remind myself that they’re not only a normal part of the human experience but necessary for spiritual growth. “Yes!!!!” I wrote in agreement.

When faced with difficulty, the human tendency is to react and resist, and when we do this, we add suffering to an already difficult situation. This tendency is reflexive within me, and my mindfulness practice has enabled me to either observe the cascading habit pattern as it unfolds, which disentangles me from its

…

Are You Sick of Waiting, Wanting, and Wishing for a Better Life?

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“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” ~Walter Elliott

I often find myself impatient with the pace of my progress. Waiting for my life to move forward can sometimes feel like I’m watching paint dry.

There are so many moments when we feel like our life is at a standstill. This is generally where I double down with my intensity. I hit it with everything I can. The crash comes soon after from the inevitable violent collision of my mind, body, and spirit as they’re pushed beyond their limits.

The idea of having …

Everyone Has Struggles, and We All Have Our Own Lessons to Learn

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“The more we love the more we lose. The more we lose the more we learn. The more we learn the more we love. It comes full circle. Life is the school; love is the lesson. We cannot lose.” ~Kate McGahan

I remember reading somewhere that we are all here on this earth to learn a lesson.

It’s one that is made for us, and only us. Like a special recipe concocted in the stars and implanted in our tiny developing foetus.

While it may sound a bit “woo-woo,” it was extremely comforting to read that.

For much of my …

The Art of Self-Soothing: How to Make Resilience More Sustainable

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“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~Micheal Jordan 

I believe that self-soothing is the key to accessing all happiness and success. All things being equal, when someone is able to self-soothe, they are more resourceful and more powerful than those who haven’t learned that skill yet. Here’s why.  

Great success (whether professional or personal) comes with a great deal of responsibility. That …

How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

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“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha

Just the other day, I had one of those moments with my husband, and not the kind of moment they write about in romance novels.

The world has been so different these last several months, and so many are feeling the effects of months of struggle, uncertainty, frustration, and limitations.

I consider myself to be someone who works to see the positive, finds the silver living in situations, and believes in the best of people, and that things can and will always get better. But lately, that has …

Radical Gratitude: How to Turn Your Pain into Peace

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My journey to living in gratitude began in 2010. And let me say that up until that time, until I was age forty-five, I was a complainer, griper, and a whiner, with absolutely no reason to complain!

Luckily, I was saved from these very wasteful, counter-productive habits when I was given a blank journal one Thanksgiving season by a New Thought minister, who told us if we journaled five things we were grateful for forty days, our life would change exponentially for the better.

I dutifully wrote my gratitude lists, and oh my god, my life did change. It …

What Helps Me Put Things in Perspective

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” ~Douglas Adams

The Buddha famously said that life is full of suffering. While I acknowledge there is much suffering in the world, for my privileged life in the West, I like to think of it more as life being full of challenges. You see, sometimes the suffering part is optional.…

When Things Go Wrong, I Remember This Day

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“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” ~Richard Bach

I’d wanted to visit Alaska nearly my entire life. I’d always wanted to see the vast landscape, majestic scenery, and awesome wildlife. So as a single, middle-aged mom with two boys aged fourteen and twelve, we went.

It was going to be an epic trip—travel from our home in the Midwest to Anchorage, a few days to Denali and back, then down to the coast and a cruise all the way to Vancouver. So …

How to Find Your Fighting Spirit When Life Gets Tough

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“Sometimes, life will kick you around, but sooner or later, you realize you’re not just a survivor. You’re a warrior, and you’re stronger than anything life throws your way.” ~Brooke Davis

No matter how positive we are, how healthily we live, or how much kindness, generosity, or fairness we practice, shit happens. To all of us. And suddenly, we find ourselves juggling more balls than it seems humanly possible to juggle.

I’ve had my share of this…

When my father died suddenly when I was in my twenties. When I was lost in a bottomless depression for two …

10 Powerful Quotes on Overcoming Adversity (and a Book Giveaway)

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UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are Kristie St. Germain and Suzanne Hermary.

As the year is coming to a close, now seems like a perfect time to shine a spotlight on one of my favorite books of 2017.

Tiny Buddha contributor Harriet Cabelly has crafted a masterpiece in her book Living Well Despite Adversity: Inspiration for Finding Renewed Meaning and Joy in Your Life.

Harriet’s faced her share of personal challenges in life, from going through a life-threatening medical crisis with her daughter to rebuilding her life after divorce. But this book isn’t just …

4 Ways to Get Your Mind Off Yourself and Replace Worry with Joy

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“The only way to be truly happy is to get your mind off yourself and help somebody else.” ~Joyce Meyer

A couple of years ago, I was dealing with two major life changes at the same time.

The first change was that my husband and I moved from Maryland to Delaware after our son finished high school. And though the distance wasn’t far (about a three-hour drive from my parents’ house in Washington, D.C.), I had grown up in D.C. and this marked the first time I had ever moved away from that area.

The second change was that our …

7 Crucial Steps to Minimize Drama in Your Life

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“When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Well into my twenties, all of my friendships with women looked a lot like junior high.

One day, we’d be codependent and attached at the hip, sending incessant play-by-play emails throughout the workday like one too many notes in class.

The next day, we’d be dragging each other by the hair into a heap of combined emotional issues, complete with nasty suspicions, unfounded accusations, and a dramatic reconciliation that would inevitably be short-lived.

Shortly after one toxic friendship eroded, I found …

The Power of Staying Put When You Feel Like Running Away

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“You cannot keep running away from your fears. At some point in life you will have to build up the courage to face and overcome them.” ~Unknown

Last year my family and I relocated overseas from Australia to Singapore, which meant new jobs, new schools, new relationships—an entirely new way of living.

My husband was busy with his work, and I had two wide-eyed children looking up at mummy for direction. A part of me was excited for the challenge, but another part of me, of equal measure, was feeling overwhelmed by the prospect and struggling to let my feelings …