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Posts tagged with “Happiness”

Finding Beauty in Your Scars

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“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Beauty is a concept I struggle with—what it means, why it matters. I struggle because huge chunks of my life have not been beautiful. They have been ugly, marred by trauma, with pain, and anger.

We think of beauty and often visualize glossy magazine pages and wafer thin models. We see beauty as superficial—eye color, hair texture, and numbers on a scale. We see beauty as something to be measured and weighed.

I don’t see beauty that way. I see beauty as the grace point between what …

How to Help Someone Feel Loved and Understood

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“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”  ~Ralph Nichols

Did you know that one in ten U.S adults suffer from depression? (This is according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.) How do I know? I was one of them. Starting in 2008, I suffered from depression for more than a year.

Many factors contributed to my depression. Of course loneliness and lack of social support were the obvious factors, but the major contributor was that I didn’t feel understood. …

How to Carve Time for Yourself and Pursue Your Dreams

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“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” ~Etty Hillesum

There was a time that I wished I had more than 24 hours a day to finish everything in my long to-do list. I have a full-time job editing news stories for a media agency while tending to my side business as a content marketing strategist for entrepreneurs.

That’s just the work thing. Like most single women in Asia, I live with my parents, so I do my share of household chores. I’m also writing my thesis for my masters …

How to Make a Difficult Decision: 30 Ideas to Help You Choose

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“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.” ~Flora Whittemore

I have been running this website for almost two years. A few months back, I met a goal I set for myself: I eliminated most of my other freelance work and focused my energy on Tiny Buddha.

Since I don’t require much money to live—and since my eBook has been selling regularly—I was able to transition in the spring. As a consequence, I decreased my workload dramatically.

Now that I have more time, I realize that I need to discover a sense of purpose…

10 Ways to Make Your Life More Playful

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“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~George Bernard Shaw

I was 25 and traveling through Ireland by myself. I was in Cong, a rural small town outside of Galway. It was quiet. Very quiet. Even though I had met people on my trip, I was starting to feel lonely.

I was thousands of miles from home. I had nobody around who knew me well or cared for me, and in the days before cell phones or internet cafes, I couldn’t just get in touch with my friends or family at the …

Balanced Living: How to Stay on Track

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“Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” ~Winston Churchill

I declared myself a mess a long time ago. I lived in a constant, dull state of fear and anxiety. My emotions were more volatile than hurricane season, and not even I could predict how any given situation would affect me.

I may not have known it at the time, but I was miserable. I was trying to be someone I wasn’t and fit into a fast-paced life that I just wasn’t made for.

I was constantly overwhelmed by just about everything—being stuck in traffic, waiting …

21 Ways to Build Strong Friendships

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“To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile.” ~Unknown

I lost my beloved husband from complications following a routine surgery. His sudden death changed every facet of my life and rocked me to my knees. Now, more than a year after his passing, I am openly speaking of my grief experience with others and sharing how I’ve coped being a young widow.

I was asked recently what was one of the great lessons I learned from losing my husband, and I knew what my answer was without hesitation:  the importance of having a diversified life.…

What Annoying Situations Teach Us about Ourselves

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“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” ~Carl Jung

He was shorter than me with a mustache, and he was positioning himself in front of me, but just off to the side of the line. He was traveling with a young teen, probably his son. I knew that when the line moved, he would take one assertive step and insert himself and his kid into the line ahead of me.

I sneaked a look at his boarding pass and it read B53. I was holding A51. It was my first time being …

How to Sustain Happiness

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“If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy.”  ~Ajahn Chah

After accomplishing three lists of tasks from three different buckets—professional, personal, and entrepreneurial—I felt accomplished and content.

And then I felt bored. And then a little irritated. So, I decided to explore and check in with myself:

I practice gratitude throughout my day. I acknowledge the abundance in my life. I am surrounded by genuine love and relationships.

I have every reason …

4 Simple Mantras to Help You Stay Positive and Happy

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“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

Mantra, according to the dictionary:

Any sacred word or syllable used as an object of concentration and embodying some aspect of spiritual power.

Mantra, according to Sirena:

Things I say to myself to help me deal.

There are times we all go through that just straight up suck.

During these times, it can be hard to think about anything other than what’s going on. We can become so consumed in our own misery that we often overshadow any glimmer of hope.…

5 Questions to Ask Yourself When You Aren’t Sure What You Want in Life

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“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with.” ~Tony Robbins

There are times in life when we just don’t know what we want. These are the awkward in-between places where we feel uncertain and unsure, and perhaps even question our purpose.

There was a pivotal time in my life, after I got my Counseling Psychology Masters degree and had a private practice, when I knew I did not want to be a therapist.

I left counseling to help my husband start his fashion business, even though this was not …

Leaving a Secure Job When the Risk Feels Scary

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“It’s not who you are that holds you back. It’s who you think you’re not.” ~Unknown

Over the past four years, I followed a career path that felt soulless.

As I moved from city to city, climbing the corporate ladder, I noticed that, ironically, the bigger my paycheck, the emptier I felt. Something about advertising felt lifeless, cold, and desperate to me.

But I ignored this feeling and worked over it, drank over it, binged, exercised, and ate over it.

I pressed forward like a steel freight train on a mission to find my happiness. When I got to that …

4 Reasons to Let Go of Envy and Celebrate Your Greatness

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“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown

When I arrived home after a brief stint living in another state, I was anxious to reconnect with places from my childhood and the friends I’d left behind.

But while I was healing from a heart-wrenching breakup, suffering through sleepless nights on my parents rock-hard couch, and mulling over where all my freelance writing work had gone, my friends seemed to be successful, happy, and right on track.

Realizing that I had hit rock-bottom and that it …

Overcoming the Power of Suggestion: Make Your Own Choices

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“People who urge you to be realistic generally want you to accept their version of reality.” ~Unknown

I’m often open to suggestion. I like to gather opinions and feedback about my writing so that I can use it to improve the impact and make it a better read.

The thing I’ve learned about listening to other people’s thoughts on my writing is that sometimes what seems like good advice is little more than personal preference; changing an image or an entire scene to suit one person isn’t always the right path, especially if my gut is saying, “You know you …

How to Be Fully Awake Instead of Living on Autopilot

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“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”  ~Pema Chodron

It’s tempting. Staying in the nest means life feels safe and we are protected. If we get thrown out of the nest we either stretch our new wings and fly or plummet to the ground.

Flight poses new challenges. How do we embrace spaciousness when we desire solidity? How do we stay aloft and open?

A friend of mine recently showed me a nest of robin’s eggs. Beautiful, blue like the sky, and full of bright possibility, we admired the …

How to Reduce Stress by Doing Less and Doing It Slowly

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“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates

In April, NPR ran a story titled, “The Slow Internet Movement.” It reported that hipster cities, like Portland, Oregon, are sprouting Internet cafés that only offer dial-up access to the web.

These cafés give customers, “Slow pours and slow Internet. Here, you can order your coffee and spend four hours checking your email, all for $.99 an hour.”

“Wow,” I thought.” That’s just my speed!” (No pun intended.) But the story didn’t just run in April. It ran on April 1st and was NPR’s little April Fools joke at the expense …

6 Questions That Will Make You Feel Peaceful and Complete

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“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

When I was in my mid-twenties an unhealthy relationship with an unhealthy guy sent me packing off to the corner of New Mexico to find myself. In a new age, self-discovery kind of world—a hubbub of a town filled with people in transition—I was graced to meet many powerful healers, gurus, shamans, and teachers.

I became a workshop junkie. I went on Shamanic power journeys to spiritual centers around the world, chanted with Indian gurus, and became a certified yoga instructor and …

The Secret to Instant Self-Confidence

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“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama

Self-confidence is an interesting concept.

You see, we all have ways of feeling good, bad, low, light, and peaceful. We all have triggers that tell us when to experience these states.

The really interesting part is that you can challenge how you respond to those triggers and change the strategies you use.

There have been countless times in my life where I haven’t felt absolutely confident.

For example, I used to be very shy around people. I just didn’t believe I had anything to say, so …

51 Things That Will Make You Smile

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Some days, it’s easy to smile. You wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, with the warm glow of the morning sun cradling your face. You take several deep, cleansing breaths standing beneath a perfectly cascading shower, just before drawing a smiley face on the steamed-up glass with your index finger.

Your roommate or significant other makes your coffee, just the way you like it. You hit every traffic light. You sing to your favorite tunes. And you arrive at work refreshed, excited, and anxious to create and collaborate.

But not every day starts this way. Sometimes you wake …

5 Immediate and Easy Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

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“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare

I love to paint. I’m not a professional artist. I have no technique, and I am not trained. But I love how the brush feels as it dips into color and moves across a white page.

Painting allows me to be free, to have fun and play. It also does something else: It shows me how I judge myself and how I can get in my own way. It reveals what I believe about myself that stops me from creating whatever I want.

Even as I …