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Posts tagged with “Gratitude”

How to Stop Taking Things for Granted and Feel Blessed

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“I count my blessings every day, quite honestly, because I take nothing for granted.” ~Mario Andretti

You know that feeling.

When you feel bad about yourself for not being grateful enough. Maybe not often, but surely sometimes.

You are busy working hard, trying to make things work. Busy at life.

But then you see a nine-year-old painting a picture holding a brush with his toes. He has no hands.

And it hits you: You’re so busy trying to make your life better, you forget that it is already beautiful. You feel guilty for not being happy enough.

How I

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How to Live a Rich Life Without Lots of Money

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“Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” ~Oscar Wilde

Does the race for riches leave you unfulfilled?

Does the thought of constantly chasing ever more cash leave you stressed, depressed even?

Does the whole idea of measuring your personal worth in terms of your personal wealth leave you deeply dissatisfied?

It did for me.

Poor in possessions and somewhat fiscally challenged, I never fit in with my richer friends.

And no matter how much I told myself that money didn’t buy happiness, I still felt …

How to Use Self-Care for a Brighter, Less Stressful Life

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“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney Harris

I was working myself into the ground and I knew it. Balancing a full-time job, my fledgling business, studies, home life, and relationships, I was constantly feeling the pressure and slowly, the cracks were showing.

I was exhausted, I was argumentative, I wasn’t taking care of my health, and my business had transformed from my creative outlet to a source of incredible stress.

I kept thinking, “I just need one day to relax, just one day!” but even when I had the chance, I couldn’t let …

A Science-Backed Habit That Can Change Your Life for the Better

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“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” ~Epictetus

When I lost my aunt to cancer three years ago, her death sat over me for months and acceptance didn’t begin until I had dinner with Kathy, one of my best friends.

Over noodles, I shared with Kathy all the things I wouldn’t be able to do with my aunt: the conversations we would never get to have, the places we wouldn’t get to go, the food we wouldn’t be able to eat, and the grand-nephews …

The Way You Start Your Day

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Source: MesmerizingQuotes.com

Coping with Loss and Heartbreak: How to Get Through the Pain

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“The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.” ~Djuna Barnes

November, 2014. A story you’ve heard a million times. The person I believed with all my heart to be “the one” ceased to feel the same way about me.

My heart and soul shattered, I had no desire to live, the whole works.

Having your heart broken, especially by someone you truly loved is, from my perspective, the worst kind of pain there is. It makes you lose all sense of self, reality, purpose, and faith. To me, it felt like my soul was being severed …

Something Good Can Come from Pain and Struggle

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“How thankful I am today, to know that all my past struggles were necessary for me to be where I am now.” ~Unknown

Ten years ago when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, my first thought was “Why me?” and it was this thought that followed me throughout my journey. It wasn’t until I was well enough to look back that I realized how much of my life was shaped by my anorexia. But not in a bad way.

Today, I am thankful for the struggles I endured, for the deepest lows I dragged myself through, and all the places …

How to Be Your Own Hero When Faced With a Hopeless Challenge

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“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan

Can you remember a time when you felt completely helpless?

I do. It was the day my daughter was diagnosed with a serious digestive illness. The doctor told us in the hospital chapel, and he acted like it was a death sentence. His one and only solution was to hand us sets of harsh prescriptions.

I was in shock, and I knew deep down that something just didn’t add up. Her symptoms hadn’t even been that severe, although she had lost a significant amount of weight. What …

Why We Should Accept Our Foes and Adversaries

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“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” ~George Orwell 

Reading the above title, you may be thinking, “Why should I accept people who are trying to harm or cause me trouble? They are the last people I would want to accept!” I know I used to feel that way.

It’s clearly unnerving to think about accepting those that we feel are toxic, and even more challenging to do so.

However, when I look back, I now realize that I suffered unnecessarily from my refusal to accept such people, both in terms of greater personal anguish and poorer results.

This became …

The 3-Day Happiness Adventure: A Simple Guide to Getting Happy Fast

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“You have a choice each and every single day. I choose to feel blessed. I choose to feel grateful. I choose to be excited. I choose to be thankful. I choose to be happy.” ~Amber Housley

What if I told you that you could dramatically and permanently increase your happiness within three days?

And what if I told you that it was much easier than you think, based on a simple and logical approach, completely free, and you already have everything you need to succeed? Would you be interested? I assume you would be, but you might be skeptical.

First, …

50 Questions That Will Help You Feel Grateful and Good About Life

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“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

There’s very little that upsets me like feeling stuck and out of control. That’s exactly how I felt at the beginning of this year.

Things were going well in many areas of my life, but I was unhappy living in my boyfriend’s childhood home in a Bay Area suburb, after we’d spent years living in LA and traveling. Though I knew this was ideal for him, it just didn’t feel right for me,

And even if I could wrap my brain around …

3 Words That Can Change Your Perspective and Your Life

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“Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light.” ~Dan Brown

It was a cold January morning in California when a woman living on the streets uttered three words that forever altered my life.

It started with my alarm blaring its wake-up call at 6:15AM. I had a Kundalini yoga class at 7:00, but I wanted nothing more than to hit the snooze button. I did. Four times.

Lying in bed with drowsy eyes open, I silently whined, “Do I have to go? I don’t wanna… Why did I sign up for this?” I was in …

How to Find Joy in Every Day (Even the Hard Ones)

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“Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown

It’s the question we’re all trying to answer: What is happiness and how do we get it? We fill our lives with the busyness of searching for happiness in many things, yet it’s possible that the very pursuit is taking us further away from the goal.

I spent many years following society’s recipe for happiness.

I was settled with my partner, climbing the career ladder, dining out, buying clothes, and planning nice holidays, but I was so busy chasing happiness, I missed out …

Thanking the Thankless: A Little Praise Can Go a Long Way

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“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” ~Dalai Lama

The school bus driver that I had throughout elementary and middle school was invariably grouchy. She was gruff and intimidating; she had a look affixed to her face that could best be described as a perma-scowl. As far as I could tell, all of the kids on the bus were afraid of her.

And so it perplexed me each year on the last day before Christmas break when my mom handed me a box of chocolates for me to give to my bus driver as …

How to Show Your Friends You Appreciate Them

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“Life without friendship is like the sky without the sun.” ~Unknown

You love your friends. They’ve been with you through good times and bad. They are the rare breed of humans that accept your weirdness, accept your authentic self, and even love you for it.

You wholeheartedly appreciate them. When you’re with them, you get an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that you have this wonderful human being in your life.

Sometimes, however, you get a sense that you wish you could let that person know just how much they truly mean to you.

Offering to buy a cup of …

Enjoy the Little Things: How to Find the Sacred in Everyday Life

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“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

One of the things I love about the Native American spiritual path is the focus on appreciating the simple things in life.

Simple things are often hard to relate to in today’s world of overwhelm.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, says we human beings currently create as much information in two days as we did from the dawn of civilization up through 2003!

And yet our bodies were, and still are, designed to be in tune with the sun, …

Awakening to Life and Love After a Devastating Loss

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“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” ~Ernest Hemingway  

For years I cursed spring.

During that time my heart woke to the bitterness of life. In the harsh frost of winter my anguish and the season were one, a climate where I felt safe, cocooned in a blanket of grief, a camouflage that ensconced me from the world outside.

Like grief, winter brings the bitter cold to our life, and those withered months drenched in sorrow tasted natural.

In the time I lingered frozen in my shroud of despair, spring had arrived, with feathered …

How to Smile More Every Day (Even if Life Isn’t Perfect)

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 “A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.” ~Tom Wilson

I smile a lot.

In fact, yesterday I smiled eighty-seven times (I counted).

These aren’t fake smiles. They’re big, toothy, open-mouthed grins. And they’ve become a regular feature of my everyday life because I’ve been overcome with an immense happiness.

Everything I see, touch, breathe, and taste brings me delight.

It’s totally spontaneous and outrageously fun, and I want to share with you how it’s done.

What I Smile At

It could be the subtle texture of construction grating.

It could be the way a flower pops out …

When You’re Restless Because Every Day Feels the Same

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“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 …

6 Exercises from Positive Psychology to Boost Your Happiness

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“The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.” ~William Penn

A friend recently asked me, “What’s the worst habit you’ve overcome?”

“Besides eating chocolate for breakfast?” I joked. “That would be complaining.”

I used to be an incessant complainer. Whining was practically in my DNA. When I was growing up, my father blamed the weather for his tennis elbow, the traffic, and his subpar golf game, and he frequently formed judgments and assumptions about other people.

If we drove by a neighbor’s nicely manicured lawn, he’d whisper that the house was bought …