Posts tagged with “freedom”
5 Choices to Help You Overcome Your Demons and Be Happy
“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.” ~Wayne Dyer
I sat, exhausted and alone after a long night, on the stairs outside the train station.
It was 3:00AM, and it was raining. I’d been drinking all night and I wanted nothing more than the warmth of my bed.
But my journey home hadn’t even begun. The gates weren’t due to open for another two hours, the wait for the train would be yet another hour, and the ride itself another hour on top of that.
My misery was …
The Experiences That Keep Repeating: Finally Learning the Lesson
“Humbleness, forgiveness, clarity and love are the dynamics of freedom. They are the foundations of authentic power.” ~Gary Zukav
I love the way the universe doesn’t let us get away with anything. Its loving energy allows us to repeat similar life experiences over and over again until we learn that spiritual lesson. Lately, I have been having the most profound healing around my stepson James.
This one particular night, the universe was offering a chance to love my own father and forgive myself for how I treated my brother, through my relationship with James.
When he got home from …
The Path to Freedom: Stop Controlling and Defining Yourself
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ~Albert Einstein
I had drawn a line so deep in the sand about who I was.
I was certain I was on my way to becoming a better version of me.
And then.
Water rushed in, softening that line, revealing that I was part of something much bigger than I saw myself to be.
Something much bigger than I could control myself into.
So many children grow up with circumstances far …
Solve Your Problems and Set Yourself Free with Perceptual Language
“Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Imagine using a new language that prevents you from blaming others, being reactive, manipulating, fearing anything in the outside world, needing social approval, being offended by others, and being controlled or controlling others.
Imagine that these problems were simply eliminated from your life because your new language makes them impossible. Welcome to Perceptual Language.
Refined by Jake and Hannah Eagle of Reology, Perceptual Language represents a major development in psychology, perhaps the greatest breakthrough since the days of Freud.
When you learn …
4 Simple Steps to Freedom
“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Once upon a time my mind was filled with negative talk and self-doubt. Those thoughts were so loud I could not hear my authentic self shine through. On a deeper level I knew she existed, but I didn’t how to connect with her.
I believed I would have to work at it, change myself, somehow be good enough so I could be free to be myself. I believed the key to happiness was figuring out how to fix everything that was wrong with me…
We Need to Give People the Freedom to Choose What’s Right for Them
“You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
I’ve read a lot of articles about loving without attachment and respecting other people’s choices, but it wasn’t until one day that I truly got it. And I will tell you what happened to me that day.
My boss and I have a very special relationship. He’s the boss everyone would want to have. He appreciates me for my work and for everything I do. He thinks that I’m a great kid. Every time he has the chance, he praises my results and he …
How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Let Your Life Shine
“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz of Shiraz
I have been on a quest to be happy for as long as I can remember.
I thought I had looked everywhere. I tried relationships, work, adventure travels, and a life filled with friends and activity, but still I felt anxious. I was disenchanted with life. Years of therapy attempting to work out my problems didn’t give me the sense of peace I somehow thought was possible.
I knew there had to be more, and I …
3 Powerful Benefits of Accepting Yourself and Your Differences
“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
Our common culture is one that values acceptance from the group over self-acceptance. We base our self-worth on how we measure up against who society tells us to be, and our culture views those who are different as being anomalies that could bring the group down.
And yet deep in our hearts (and in the books that tell our collective history) we know that individuals who go against the grain are the …
What to Do When You Feel Caged: The Key to Lasting Freedom
“Wherever you go, there you are.” ~Confucius
Everything I do is about living and sharing freedom. But what is freedom anyway?
To understand freedom, it’s helpful to understand its opposite. The opposite of freedom is feeling caged, constricted, and ruled by guidelines you don’t believe in.
For many people, their job feels like jail. For some people, their community feels like jail. For others, school feels like jail.
I’ve been in all those jails. And for the most part, I was in those jails because I didn’t know there was an alternative. Now that I know the alternative, I have …
A Place to Release Your Secrets and Shame: Share Your Truth in the Forums
Ten months ago when I launched the Tiny Buddha community forums, I hoped they would better enable us all to connect with and support each other.
Since then, I’ve been amazed and inspired to see the love and compassion people extend there, without any agenda beyond helping others feel less alone and more at ease in our uncertain, often confusing world.
There are now over 10,000 active forum members, and there have been more than 1,600 conversations on a wide range of topics related to spirituality, self-esteem, relationships, purpose, parenting, health and fitness, and more.
Whether you’re an active …
Why Bad Things Happen to Good People: How Is This Supporting You?
“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival… Be grateful for whatever comes. Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” ~Rumi
Yesterday my boyfriend’s father told me that he doesn’t believe that everything happens for a reason. He explained, “Where I can’t get on board is, if that’s true, then why do bad things happen to good people?”
It touches close to home for their entire family because not only does one of their sons’ girlfriends have a rare and terminal form of cancer, she met their son because he successfully removed a …
Are You Limited by the Fear of What Other People Think?
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle
A few months ago, I found myself on the busy streets of London’s Covent Garden.
It was a mild Friday evening in the capital and the masses were out celebrating the end of the working week, looking forward to the weekend ahead.
But that’s not why I was there.
I’d come to Covent Garden on that day for a special project.
For most of my life, the fear of what other people thought of me had kept me trapped. It had prevented me …
6 Tips to Help You Free Yourself from Your Fearful Thoughts
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Here I am, huddled up close to the wood burner, my only source of heat, sitting on an old recliner chair that was given to me, in a rented apartment with windows soaked with condensation. Outside it is cold, wet, and dreary, a typical English winter’s day.
My business folded in July with substantial personal debt and I turned forty-four in August.
Perhaps not the most heart-warming start to a post, but rather some raw facts of how …
Letting Go, Trusting, and Allowing Yourself to Be Happy and Free
“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
First, let’s be clear about something…
Surrender is not about giving up, handing power over, or failing. It is not waving the white flag of defeat.
We are so used to striving and trying so hard for an outcome that anything outside of that formula seems like self-sabotage.
It isn’t. In fact, surrender is the pinnacle of evolved and enlightened behavior.
Surrender is the beautiful soft space of acceptance. It is an allowing—allowing life to unfold and to be what it is, irrespective of …
Encourage, Don’t Criticize; Help Instead of Trying to Fix
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hahn
When you think you’re an evolved and conscious woman and your partner tells you in no unclear terms that you’re “hard to be with,” it does a number on you.
Those words landed like a well-aimed boulder, smashing the immaculate vision I’d created of evolving myself: an exemplary girlfriend who was “doing the work” to grow, to become generously loving, spiritually awake, and to wholeheartedly support and encourage her beautiful partner to open to his fullest potential.
We met under messy circumstances. Both …
Say Goodbye to Your “I” and Hello to Freedom
“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” ~Francois Gautier
It’s the last place in a million years I ever thought I would find myself.
Stuck in a day job I had originally taken to fund my art and still feed my family when times were lean. It all sounded so logical back then.
Except that after several years, this “I” that was showing up to work had zero passion, was totally unmotivated, and not exactly someone I was too proud of.
Which was very strange since I was always so committed with my dedication to …
Freeing Yourself When You Feel Limited or Stuck
“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.” ~Thucydides
The society I was born in—urban, rich, conservative India—did not encourage women to make life choices for themselves. I was not given a vote in my own education, or in the choice of a husband when I turned twenty years old. These decisions were left to the family elders.
And yet, my heart was always a bit of a free bird.
Despite being “expected” to be a homemaker after marriage, there was always a yearning in me to be somewhere else, doing something else. I …
How to Forgive When You Don’t Really Want To
“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” ~Jean Paul Sartre
Like so many other women, I had a complicated, often fractious relationship with my mother. I had moved thousands of miles away, but an email or a phone call was enough to irritate me.
Visits were tense, nail-biting experiences, where I couldn’t help but analyze each thing that she said to see if it contained a passive-aggressive double meaning, at which point an argument would brew.
For years it had not mattered what anyone told me about how to forgive, and they had told me …
Live Every Day Like You Travel: 4 Lessons from the Road
“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~ Gandhi
What if we lived the way we travel?
It’s been my experience that we let go of many things when we travel. I’d like to propose that those things—the things we loosen our grip on while travelling—are things that don’t need to be held quite so firmly.
1. Notice. Slow down. Reflect.
San Miguel de Allende is one of my favorite places on earth. I’ve visited nine or ten times. If asked to describe heaven, I’d say that it …
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