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Posts tagged with “growth”

When Family Members Push Our Buttons: How This Helps Us Grow

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“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” ~Pema Chodron

You love them most of the time. You can’t stand them some of the time. But in the end, family is family.

I’ve never liked to admit it, but I am just like my dad. Close in birthday, same number 5 life path in numerology, both risk takers, very passionate and adventurous, fun-loving, and witty, and we lead by example. That’s positively speaking.

However, it becomes a negative pattern to focus on the other side of the coin. We …

Post-Traumatic Growth: How Pain Can Lead to Gain

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“When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” ~Shauna Niequist

It’s been over five years since the unexpected death of my oldest son. The first couple years were fraught with depression, despair, and a sense of hopelessness like I had never felt before. I even kept a notebook in my purse outlining the plan for how I would ultimately end my life.

It wasn’t until this past year that I told my friends about how close I had been to the edge. After outing myself, I found out they …

You’re More Than Your Mistakes

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Source: NotSalmon.com

You Don’t Have to Appear Perfect: It’s Okay to Admit You’re Flawed

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“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” ~Sigmund Freud

If you’re anything like I was, you have an image of yourself that you want other people to adopt. You think people expect that of you or would like you better if that’s who you were, so you pretend to be that person.

Over time, you put on layers of protection to prevent people from seeing the imperfections that would undermine that perception. You refuse to admit to those imperfections. You may also blame others, the weather, or fate for any perceived failure—anything but yourself.

As a result, you can’t …

Don’t Carry Your Mistakes

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Source: Lessons Learned in Life

Your Biggest Fear Carries Your Greatest Opportunity for Growth

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“Your largest fear carries your greatest growth.” ~Unknown

I was twenty when I met him. A naive apprentice of love, I plunged into romance with no fear and I was left speechless.

It was all so new and thrilling, all I had ever dreamed about and more. It’s hard to describe how strong our bond grew in such a short time. We knew we had met our perfect match; we knew we would spend the rest of our lives together.

But one day it all suddenly became too good to be true: he confessed he had cheated on me.

My …

Bounce Back and Thrive: The Secret to Turning Adversity into Opportunity

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“Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” ~William Shakespeare                                                                        

It’s hard for me to write about this. I suppose it stems from being a mutt of Italian and Irish ancestry, two cultures famous for intense pride and keeping personal things “in the family.”

I wonder if my parents ever loved each other.

By the time I was eight years old, it was clear they did not get along. I never witnessed them getting along, or even being affectionate toward one another. But I always felt …

Share Your Privilege: Your Story Could Change Someone’s Life

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“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 …

Why Accepting That You’re Not the Best Is the Key to Getting Better

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“In fear, we expect; with love, we accept.” ~Kenny Werner

It’s easy to let our ego and fear get in the way of our own success. I’m not talking about the aspects of ego that create a desire to “win” over others, which plague some more than others; I’m talking about the more inherent aspects of our inward facing ego that plague us all.

When I was in high school I played a lot of piano. For Christmas one year, my dad (a professional musician) gave me a book called Effortless Mastery.

It was a book that, among other …

How to Intentionally Embrace Change in the New Year

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“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.…

Rethinking Mistakes and Recognizing the Good in “Bad” Choices

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“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

For most of my life, I’ve seen the world in black and white, and I’ve felt constricted and pained as a result.

When I was a young girl, I believed there were good people and bad people, and I believed I was bad.

When I was an adolescent, I believed there was good food and bad food, and because everything tasty fell into the latter category, I channeled the shame from feeling bad into bulimia.

And when I grew into adulthood, I believed there were good decisions and bad …

How Painful Relationships Can Be The Best Teachers

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“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

“This is it,” I thought. I finally found the man I had been waiting for.

Of course, it had taken me thirty-nine years and a painful divorce from my husband of ten years. But that was all worth it, I told myself, because it had led me to the man who seemed to see, understand, and love me the way I had always hoped someone would.

Things were blissful in beginning. We made breakfasts together, took romantic vacations to exotic locations, we fantasized about buying vacation houses. Our developing …

How to Turn Pain into Strength and Wisdom

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“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown

Some would say that when it rains, it pours—a fitting statement for the events that have recently taken place in my life.

In mid-September my life took an unexpected turn. My wife, to whom I had been married for only four months (having been together for six years prior), had been acting strangely toward me.

She was suffering from fits of depression that would range from her sobbing on the couch to sitting by the fireplace, drinking heavily while listening to songs that would make your heart …

Saying Goodbye to One Adventure Is Saying Hello to Another

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“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” ~Paulo Coelho

When I was born, the nurse lifted me from the bed, placed me on a cold metal operating table, and prepped my umbilical cord to be severed. As my parents put it, I “screamed bloody murder” when she attended to me, then grabbed ahold of the index finger of her latex glove and pulled it clean off.

“You just wouldn’t let go,” my dad recalls, chuckling.

That often-told family tale has risen to consciousness many times during the last few months, especially …

How to Redefine Yourself by Letting Go of the Past

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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

When I was eight years old, my mom had her first mental breakdown. The illusion of a typical suburban family shattered as the household descended into chaos. When the counselors and child protective services stepped in, I knew: I was undeniably different.

When you’re a child, family life is the classroom through which you learn how the world works. Once my mom was hospitalized, I realized how very different my lessons were.

Mortified, I retreated into a …

How to Use Comparisons for Growth Instead of Feeling Inferior

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“The heart is like a garden: it can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” ~Jack Kornfield

Comparison is something we all struggle with at one point or another. Although it’s something that conventional self-help wisdom urges us to avoid, it’s also a way of gauging where we fit in the world.

Usually, when we engage in comparison, we do so from an ego-based perspective and find ourselves (or others) lacking. This approach doesn’t benefit anyone involved, but, until recently, this was my predominant experience of comparison.

I also had the belief that healthy …

How Our Addiction to Struggle Holds Us Back

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“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tzu

Do you feel, on some level, that your life is hard work? That you need to struggle in order to improve things in your world? Do you feel that you even need to struggle to reach a desired goal, to overcome adversity before achieving something worthy?

Our addiction to struggle is an impediment to us feeling the joy of quiet and the now, the place from which subtle and natural development can occur.

This addiction to struggling—the addiction to striving, always trying to achieve—used to hold me back from experiencing …

How Relationship Issues Can Lead to Growth (and Why It’s a Daily Process)

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“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

Relationships are tough. Even more difficult is maintaining healthy boundaries within a relationship.

My head hurts and I feel like I’m going to throw up. Let me explain. I’m in a loving, healthy relationship with a beautiful woman, and I’m proud to call her my partner.

Great, so why do I feel like I want to throw up? Well, because last night was a tough night for us, for me, and today I have …

Realizing You’re Enough Instead of Trying to Fix Yourself

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“If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ~Oprah Winfrey

Seven years ago I discovered a world of healing, energy, and spirituality. It came at a particularly hard time in my life. Everything that could go wrong seemed to have.

First, I picked up a bug while travelling, which left me unable to hold down food for over eight weeks, and doctors told me there was nothing more they could do.

Then, there were secondary infections, which I learned I might have to live with for life.

I was being bullied at work and …

Embracing Change and Living with Passion: Awaken your Phoenix Spirit

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“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

As history claims, the phoenix began as a common bird that’s nest caught on fire by the hand of a god-like figure. As the fire started to consume the bird, instead of suffering, she decided to dance in the flames.

Eventually, the fire reduced the bird to ashes. However, this was not the end of that wise bird, for she knew her ending was only the beginning—the beginning of something greater than what she ever thought possible, a resurrection.

The seemingly done-for bird emerged, more powerful and more …