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Posts tagged with “happy”

Your Loving Presence Is Enough: Helping Someone Who’s Hurting

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“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee

As the only child of a single parent, my family of two was small and our relationship could be intense.

My southern belle mom, with her stories and easy laugh, her quick wit, and her love of all things literary was the mom who all my high school friends adored and loved—the one who my teenage friends could talk to when they were too angry or irritated with their own mother.

I loved her too, but I also worried about her. A lot. Because I knew a secret about her …

Don’t Wait for a Major Wake Up Call to Start Loving Your Life

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“Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus.” ~Robert Brault

“Lay still. We think both your arms are broken.”

I obeyed the police officer and stopped struggling to rise from the hard, cold pavement.

An ambulance soon had me in emergency, where I discovered that my problem was a lot worse than broken arms.

My right arm had to be amputated. My left arm was paralyzed. I had no more use of my arms.

I laughed my way through my long hospital stay.

No one could understand how a man who …

8 Lessons About Living Fully from a Journey of 500 Miles

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“The journey is the reward.” ~Proverb

I should start by clarifying that even though there’s a lot of walking involved in this story, I’m not a walker, or particularly sporty. So what was I thinking going on a 500-mile pilgrimage you may (rightly) ask? I wasn’t. I was feeling it. In my gut.

You know those butterflies that wreck havoc in your tummy when you have an exciting idea? Well, I had about a thousand of those. Butterflies, not ideas. I only had one idea, and I didn’t even think that one through.

El Camino de Santiago. St James Way. …

Are You Stressed, Rushed, and Aggravated?

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“Meaning is not what you start with but what you end up with.” ~Peter Elbow

As a boy, I had a romantic notion about having a job where I traveled for business. It sounded so important and stylish. I liked the idea of dashing through airports to my next big meeting.

I thought it meant that mine would be a wider world. And so it was.

Be Careful What You Wish For

As often happens, what you think about comes into being. I found myself on my very first “business trip.” I was going to the exotic location of Moline, …

The Power of Poise: How to Stop Losing Your Cool

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“Poise is an unseen power, and this unseen power is always ready to come to the aid of the outer action.” ~Sri Chinmoy

Poise is the seeker’s goal because poise is our highest state of consciousness. Poised, we are in a state of balance, composure, and equanimity, all of our powers at our disposal.

When I am able to achieve poise, I am present, connected, grateful, creative, and light-hearted. Poised, my love flows.

Like most of us, I have been poised much of the time, especially when life was easy, absent any major challenge. But I have also lost …

Happiness is Not a Destination: How to Enjoy the Journey

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“Happiness is a direction, not a place.” ~Sydney J Harris

Being happy is for most of us one of the key aims in life. But where we often go wrong is in figuring out which path to take to achieve that happiness.

My own path has been a somewhat unconventional one. In my last year at college, most of my peers were busy applying for full-time jobs with large companies, but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

I wanted to see the world, which (long before gap years became so common) was met with disapproval by many. …

The Rabbit Hole of Stuff: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to Happiness

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“Happiness can only be found if you free yourself from all other distractions.” ~Saul Bellow 

When I was twenty I bought my first serious piece of furniture.

It was a sofa covered in a nubby sort of fabric, a creamy shade of white with tan and light brown threads woven through that made the modern style seem warm and welcoming.

It was beautiful. And on the day my sofa arrived, I celebrated. I celebrated not only a beautiful addition to my little apartment but also a step into adulthood.

After all, I bought it on credit, and I was thrilled …

Dealing with Dark Days: Help for When You Don’t Feel Your Best

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“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” ~Theodore I. Rubin

I live in a rainy city. For most of the winter it’s endless grey, weeks in which you’re lucky to get a glimpse of the sun at all.

It might be drizzling, it might be pouring, or it might be merely fog. It is certainly wet.

For me and a lot of the people who live here, it’s almost a deal breaker. When I first arrived, I spent a lot of time complaining that it was …

How Anger Leads to Anxiety and What to Do About It

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“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~Buddha

I have a confession: I’m mildly obsessed with anger.

Not the negative feelings, the volatile outbursts, or the fly-off-the-handle reactions, but rather how humans express anger.

I’ve largely made my living by dealing with various states of anger. More on that in a bit…

Years ago I was shopping at a bookstore with my friend Alex. We were first time parents with toddlers at home.

The idea was to find resources on …

Why It’s Not Selfish to Ask Someone You Love for Help

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“Learn to appreciate what you have before time makes you appreciate what you had.” ~Unknown

I’m a woman in midlife who thought she was set after a long successful career and the promise of financial security. I supported my own way through most of my life, fending for myself and then my two children, even during a 15-year marriage that ended badly and another that never really began.

For a number of reasons my plans for an early and secure retirement ended a few years ago. The long story is for another time; the short story is health, burnout, spiritual …

Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

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“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

Several years ago, a colleague and I were invited to give a presentation on mindfulness at our State Mental Health Conference. I was a novice and flattered to be asked.

Singing bowls, which are metal and look like a mortar and pestle, are useful tools in mindfulness practice. The bowl is placed on a cushion and, when struck, makes a beautiful sound like a bell.

The tone and pitch are determined by the size of the bowl and thickness of the metal. They’re …

5 Tips to Stop Making Comparisons and Feeling Bad About Yourself

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“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick

I remember one day when I was around six years old, my older brother came home from school with one of those star-shaped highlighters that had a different color on each point. I laid my eyes on it and in that moment I wanted nothing more than I wanted that highlighter.

It didn’t matter that as a six year old, I had less use for it than paper shoes in rainy weather; I just simply had to have it.

Being the …

3 Lessons to Help You Find Peace When Fighting a Hard Battle

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“He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.” ~Proverb

August 3, 2001. I still remember it like it was yesterday. It was around six o’clock in the evening when she sat us down. Luther Vandross was singing in the background on the radio: “And it’s so amazing and amazing, I can stay forever and forever. Here in love and no, leave you never.”

Quite ironic when you think about the news I would soon receive.

I had just finished summer school and my sister had just returned from an internship on the East Coast. My …

Facing Life’s Big Challenges and Coming out on Top

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“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho

I will never forget that day.

It is still as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.

My son was just a little over three. He was going to a mainstream kindergarten and, well, his teacher had very gently suggested we seek a professional’s help.

You see, he didn’t understand what the teachers were saying to him. He was restless and fidgety. He also bounced form activity to activity.

This was our first ever visit to a speech pathologist, and she …

Forgiving the Unforgivable and Ending Your Own Suffering

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“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Malachy McCourtro

I was completely unprepared for the emotional hailstorm that bombarded me when, back in 2001, I learned that my wife had been having an affair with my best friend of twenty-plus years.

My normal, predictable life (which I absolutely loved, by the way) had been virtually shattered overnight. Not only did it culminate in a very bitter war (see: divorce), it also marked the onset of a toxic poison that had begun to work its way into my veins: resentment.

It began with …

How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

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“Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” ~Alice Duer Miller

As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, I had become accustomed to keeping secrets. Silence, I was taught, was a good thing. It protected people that I loved.

So for over a decade, I carried the dark and overbearing weight of my past in secrecy and in silence, believing I was the only one in the world who’d ever experienced such abuse—until I learned from a college workshop that one in four women and one in five men fall …

6 Simple Personal Commitments to Overcome Low Self-Esteem

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“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.”  ~Iyanla Vanzant

You’re smart, funny, and genuinely good at heart.

You have ideas that could solve many of the problems you see around you. You could regale people with interesting stories that crack them up. You could be the perfect partner, parent, or friend.

But you don’t always live up to that potential.

Something holds you back.

Something tells you that your ideas are not worth announcing …

Loving Others Without Expecting Them to Fill a Void

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“You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Conventional notions of what it means to love are populated with expectations for reciprocity, which often gets us into trouble. I know this personally, because whenever I have “freely” given my love and it has not been rewarded with reciprocity, I have often come face to face with my resentment.

This has been especially true of my intimate relationships. I want the people who fall into this category, in particular, to reciprocate my love. I expect them to. But, as Thich Nhat Hanh points …

Today Can Be the Day You Turn Things Around

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“In chaos, there is fertility.” ~Anais Nin

How did I get to this point?

This question pulsed through my brain repeatedly as I drove to my parents’ house in a state of complete exhaustion. My young daughter was strapped in the back seat, my pregnant belly pushing against the steering wheel, hot tears streaming down my face.

I was done. I had nothing left to give. How did I get here?

Gradually, then suddenly.

With eternal gratitude to Hemingway, three simple words so elegantly summarize how I ended up in a situation I didn’t want or expect.

“How did you …

Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

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When I was in fourth grade, a girl from another class bullied me. I was in the bathroom during class when I heard the door creak open and whooshing shut. There was silence for a moment, then the girl’s hands appeared on the top of the stall door, followed by her face.

“Whaddaya doin’ in there?” she asked.

I quickly covered myself and replied as nicely as I could, “I’m using the bathroom.”

“Well, hurry up,” she said. “Because I want to go.” There were three other stalls, so I knew I was in trouble.

I had no idea who …