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Posts tagged with “freedom”

Trapped in Shame: How I Found Mental Freedom After Prison

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“If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” ~Brené Brown

I was in two prisons.

One physical. One mental.

The physical version was Otisville Federal Prison.

I was living so out of alignment with who I was and who I wanted to become and self-sabotaged in a colossal way, defrauding one of the largest tech companies in the world.

My mental prison, my personal hell, was the all-consuming …

How I Stopped Worrying About What Others Think of Me

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“Live your life for you not for anyone else. Don’t let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself.” ~Sonya Parker

On August 4, 2022, I buzzed off my long, thick, luscious hair.

I marched up Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, walked into Take Pride Barbershop, and sat in the chair with the most badass barber. She quelled my last-minute fears and boldly took the clippers to my never-shorter-than-shoulder-length hair.

It was instant liberation.

I had finally worked up the courage to do so after four years of internal debate and worry, which went something …

Not Fitting In

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How I Stopped Worrying About Running Out of Time to Achieve My Goals

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“The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.” ~Alan Watts

One thing that is promised to each one of us in life is death. No one will avoid dying or feeling the pain of losing others. From a young age I remember being aware of this fact, and it scared me.

As I got older, I began to feel a sense of pressure that I was running out of time and loss was imminent. The thought of losing my loved ones and …

3 Key Benefits to Forgiving and Why I Thanked My Imperfect Parents

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post mentions physical abuse and may be triggered to some people.

“Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” ~Marianne Williamson

The subject of forgiveness comes up often in conversation, but I find that when it comes to the details of what that truly entails, what that process feels like is not actually talked about.

Over the years, I’ve heard the following statements most often from people when the subject of forgiving someone came …

4 Things I Needed to Accept to Let Go and Heal After Trauma

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post references sexual abuse and may be triggered to some people.

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli

My family immigrated to the U.S. from India when I was sixteen. Being Indian, my traditional family expected me to have an arranged marriage.

At twenty-two, as a graduate music student, I fell in love with an American man. When my family found out about our secret relationship, they took me back to India and …

Freedom Is the Space Between Each Judgmental or Righteous Thought

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“It is inner stillness that will save and transform the world.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Life is hard. Impenetrable at times. How can we use our spirituality to navigate through the density of life?

That question inspired this piece of writing. And my navigation tool is almost effortless; I feel compelled to share it.

When my mind is churning and burning with thoughts and fears and worries, I take myself off to a quiet place, get still, and watch my mind. I wait for the tiny gap between each thought. Bingo.

That space, that little gap, is freedom in its truest, purest …

How I Stopped Carrying the Weight of the World and Started Enjoying Life

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“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” ~Najwa Zebian

During a personal development course, one of my first assignments was to reach out to three friends and ask them to list my top three qualities. It was to help me see myself the way others saw me.

At the time, my confidence was low and I couldn’t truly see myself. I didn’t remember who I was or what I wanted. The assignment was a way to rebuild my self-esteem and see myself from a broader perspective.

As I vulnerably asked and then received the responses, …

Our Creative Genius Shows Us Possibilities the Rational Mind Can’t See

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“There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.”  ~Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

In my twenties, I worked for a Fortune 500 company at 401 North Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. It was fun to work in the city, and my office overlooked Lake Michigan—I never got tired of the stunning view. Weekends were spent with friends eating at unique ethnic restaurants and visiting comedy clubs, blues bars, art galleries, museums, and …

5 Simple Ways to Overcome Your Mind’s Constant Judgments

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“It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” ~Doe Zantamata

If you don’t live in a cave, you have probably noticed two things. First, there are a lot of annoying, incompetent, stupid, and very difficult folks living in this world. Second, assuming you agree with my previous sentence, you have a very judgmental mind.

For better or worse, you’re not alone. A hundred thousand years ago, the ability to judge people quickly helped our species …

Let Go of Control: How to Learn the Art of Surrender

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“You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

I’ve noticed that things go much more smoothly when I give up control—when I allow them to happen instead of making them happen. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at this.

Although I’m much better than I used to be, I’m a bit of a control freak. I often use perfectly good energy trying to plan, predict, and prevent things that I cannot possibly plan, predict, or prevent.

For example, I wonder if my baby is going to get a proper nap when we travel …

The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

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“We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown

“Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy

I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where he spent the first fourteen days of his life. In that moment, I changed. I’d already had one miscarriage. I couldn’t lose anyone else.

Man, life is fragile. I spent the next decade making sure he played on the swings at the park, but not …

The Freedom of Being Ourselves (Whether Others Like Us or Not)

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“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

“Cringey” is what my kids called it. Me? I was just being Sam.

After hitting “post” on my highly emotive Instagram video—one of those more-than-one-minute jobbies that winds up on Instagram TV—I closed the app and had a brief moment of panic. Maybe I said too much? Maybe I screwed myself by being too honest? Too open? Too… vulnerable?

A few hours after sharing that five-minute, tear-filled video on not giving up on our dreams, I still didn’t have the courage to log back in to see how many followers I’d …

What You’re Most Afraid of Doing

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How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

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“Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Six years ago, I came across a line from an old poem that punctured my present moment so profoundly it seemed to stop time.

On an average Tuesday, there I was, sitting at my desk, ignoring the stack of papers I was responsible for inputting into a spreadsheet and procrastinating as usual on the Internet instead.

At this particular time, Pinterest was my drug of choice—anyone else?

As I was aimlessly scrolling through wacky theme party ideas and spicy margarita recipes, suddenly, here …

The Cages We Live In and What It Means to Be Free

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“Cages aren’t made or iron, they’re made of thoughts.” ~Unknown

I recently read Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, and like many who have read it, I felt as if it had changed my life—but not because it made me think of all the things I was capable of (as was the case with many of friends who read it), but because it made me realize how capable I had already been.

The book on the whole is beautiful and inspiring, but the part that stuck with me the most was the story about Tabitha, a beautiful cheetah that Glennon and her …

Freedom from Food – This Time for Good!

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“Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I cannot say that I didn’t struggle in my life. But there’s one area in which I have overcome the challenges I was facing with hardly an effort: letting go of the eating disorder I was suffering from, getting rid of the extra weight I was carrying, and maintaining the results easily for twenty-eight years.

How Did I Do That?

In a minute I’ll tell you exactly how I did that and how you can do it too. But first let me take a moment to explain …

My Powerful Personal Code for a Limitless Life

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“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.” ~Miyamoto Musashi

This post is about a code of life. There isn’t a single code, and everyone must choose their own truth. I’ve been searching for my truth in the face of many books and since I haven’t founnd it anywhere I decided to write it myself.

What is the Limitless Life?

When I was young, my father told me, “Son, all limits exist only in your head.”

These words stuck …

How to Let Go of Your Family’s Expectations and Be Who You Want to Be

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My parents often spoke about coming to America from Nigeria with one portmanteau.

I imagine that their suitcase was filled with their hopes, dreams, and expectations, and in many ways, I feel like I was metaphorically handed this suitcase of desires and things the day I was born. It would now be my load to carry and make sense of.

But when I opened that portmanteau, I realized that the clothes didn’t quite fit, and there were notebooks full of expectations I would never meet.

Although I had a reverence for this great object and the hands that had …

Why I Appreciate Simple Things in Life After The Coronavirus

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“It’s not a bad idea to occasionally spend a little time thinking about things you take for granted. Plain everyday things.” ~Evan Davis

Let me go back in time. Not too long, but only six months ago when the virus outbreak hadn’t occurred yet. I was cursing the traffic, complaining the beer in a bar was not chilled enough, and hating that the supermarket next to my house did not have my favorite deodorant.

Soon after, due to the global pandemic, my country was under lockdown like many others. When I was indoors, I realized how beautiful and blessed …