Posts tagged with “Change”
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 …
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 …
5 Lessons from a Dog on Overcoming Life’s Hardest Challenges
“A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” ~Ray Davis
I remember very clearly the first moment I saw our dog, Carmichael, or Carmy, as we called her for short.
One tiny pup in a litter of eight Golden Retrievers, it was love at first sight, and I knew she was “the one.” As the years progressed, she became my best friend, confidante, and companion. We were inseparable.
Opening the front door when returning from school, she would be there waiting, wagging her tail, with the biggest grin on her face.
She would patiently wait for me …
You Are Broken, Let Me Fix You
“To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.” ~Sven Goran Erikkson
Let me fix you.
You really should try not to be so sensitive, Leah. The world is sometimes a difficult and upsetting place, but you shouldn’t let it affect you so much.
Let me fix you.
You know, you really ought to spend more time with people, Leah. It’s not good for you to be alone so much.
Let me fix you.
You know, you really shouldn’t make such quick, spur-of-the-moment decisions, Leah. It’s not good to do that in life and you’ll end …
Create Lasting Habits: The 4 Psychological Triggers That Catalyze Change
“Things do not change; we change.” ~Henry David Thoreau
The world knows no joy like an evangelist with an opening. My eyes lit up as I jumped into my sermon on the incredible power of lifestyle change.
The year previous I had decided it was time to take charge of my health, and I had made some big changes.
I transitioned to a whole food diet, put plants at the center of my plate, started meditating regularly, and began attending yoga classes multiple times a week.
I was absolutely astounded at how the synergy of these three lifestyle changes completely …
The Art of Pain: Why the Dark Times Make Life Beautiful
“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice… No one can live in the light all the time.” ~Libba Bray
Happiness, and the quest for it, is not all it’s cracked up to be. What I mean is that I think we’re making a mistake in reaching only for happiness, lightness, good days, and good moods.
I think that we’re restricting ourselves.
We’re fishing in an ocean of emotions, looking to only reel in one or two kinds, throwing back the ones we don’t want without even noticing …
What Would Your Future Look Like If You Took a Leap of Faith?
“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make. ” ~Unknown
Have you ever thought about making a big change in your life?
Chances are, just that very idea produces a mild sense of anxiety and discomfort. But what if you were to actually go ahead and make that change? What would that look like, what would that feel like?
A rhetorical question, I realize. You only know if you go through with it. If you don’t, you will never know. It’s a …
How to Change Your Habits and Your Life in 5 Steps
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass
We all experience struggles. Some are seemingly insurmountable. Others, like mine, are comparatively small. Regardless of their scale, it’s what we learn from our struggles that counts.
Mine began while at university in London. Originally from a small town in the Welsh valleys, the move to the big city was a scary one for me.
A mum’s boy at heart, I didn’t deal well with being so far away from home. I’m also an introvert who didn’t embrace the uni lifestyle of drinking to failure, so I didn’t make …
When You’re Restless Because Every Day Feels the Same
“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Years ago I found my self at a low point. It wasn’t a big, life-changing event that got me there; just a sudden realization that life sucked. Every day of that horrible summer, this question nagged at me: “Is this as good as it gets?”
My sons were very young then and always happy, a joy to be around. My marriage was healthy and my husband was doing great. The problem was …
Rediscovering Yourself and Rebuilding Your Life After Loss
“He who sits in the house of grief will eventually sit in the garden.” ~Hafiz
My life has fallen apart around me.
I ended a five-year relationship with a man I thought I wanted to marry, quit a full-time office job with no further prospects, and moved back to my tiny hometown to live with my parents.
All of these transitions occurred within the same week.
I was twenty when I met my boyfriend, and he was twenty-eight. We spent every waking moment together, dating for four-and-a-half years and living together for two. This time was punctuated with moments of …
Share Your Privilege: Your Story Could Change Someone’s Life
“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.” ~Brené Brown
I think most of us can reflect vividly on the turning point that brought us toward where we are today.
Often during these transitional periods, major life events push us to pursue the peace of mind we have always dreamed of having.
For me, this journey started my sophomore year in college. My father had just passed away from suicide, and subsequently I was diagnosed with major depression for the second time in my college career.
It wasn’t the most pleasant diagnosis to receive, but I was relieved that I now …
Life Changes When We Change
“We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.” ~Earl Nightingale
Last Christmas, I was jobless.
With piling bills and debts, I was trying to switch from a freelancer to a full-time employee. I had been job hunting for weeks, with zero results. I started wondering why. I was qualified, I had a great resume, and I was willing to work hard. So why did I feel so helpless, like the reins were in someone else’s hands?
I didn’t like the feeling, but I couldn’t see how I could take control. …
Changing Your Life Story and Finding Your Happy Ending
“Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” ~Unknown
For the longest ever time, I had no idea what my own story was.
Desperately uncomfortable in my skin as a child, I was equal parts pathologically shy with strangers and fearless with my sisters and brother, running wild over the boulder-strewn southern California land during summers.
As a young girl, I was also, more than once, the target for predators and perps.
The nameless elementary school janitor who invited me into his dark and dirty closet one day. The terrifying neighbor who stopped me in a …
4 Tips to Live a Balanced, Happy Life with Fewer Regrets
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton
Balance has become an ever-elusive thing these days. The onslaught of technological breakthroughs, aimed at making life easier, has given way to a societal expectation that we are available around the clock.
This has bled into our careers, where our employers have ever increasing expectations that we can do more in less time. We have 168 hours in our week to sleep, work, rest, be with our loved ones, and pursue personal interests.
Unfortunately, the majority of people in the world today …
How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale
I used to watch people on the streets and in restaurants and think that their boisterous conversations and broad smiles were evidence that they lived a life much better than mine.
I assumed that they were happier than me, smarter than me, and worth more than me. All around me was evidence that this was true: my meager bank account, my junky car, my thrift store clothes.
I would sit in my apartment and try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.
I wondered what …
How to Intentionally Embrace Change in the New Year
“Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud
What do you do when you come to the end of a calendar year as it approaches the start of another one? Do you get caught up in the festive season hype and then, as you roll into the new year, find it all a bit anticlimactic? Or, are you a bit like me and prefer to keep it a quieter, reflective time?
We know that calendar time is really artificial, for true time is simply an infinite and continuous cycle of day and night, seasons, birth and death, and change.…
Why We Feel Stuck in Life and the Secret to Dealing with It
“It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings.” ~Dale Carnegie
We’ve all felt like we’re drowning in mud.
You feel stuck, worthless, and confused.
You want to move. You should. You have to. But you can’t.
And then it evolves into anxiety, fear, and overwhelm.
But what if—just what if—being stuck isn’t the problem, but how we perceive it?
The Truth About Being Stuck
Every year, I have periods where I feel “stuck.”
Yet when I look closer, I see that “being stuck” is a label I give to a natural part of …
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