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Posts tagged with “happy”

We All Need to Define “Success” for Ourselves

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“There’s no such thing as what you ‘should’ be doing with your life.” –Lori Deschene

How often have you thought about what success means to you?

If you’re anything like my younger self, that would be almost never. It’s not that I didn’t want to be successful. It’s just that it wasn’t something I’d given much thought to. No one ever asked me about it or even encouraged me to think about success. I’d just absorbed it from the people and culture around me, watching how they lived and what was important to them.

From what I saw around …

A Simple Practice to Help You Appreciate How Wonderful You Are

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“Stop criticizing yourself for everything you aren’t and start appreciating yourself for everything you are.” ~Unknown

Are you your own best friend, your own worst critic, or somewhere in between? Do you tend to focus on what you see as your flaws, mistakes, and imperfections, comparing yourself to others you think are better than you? Sometimes, do you even wish you were someone else?

It’s easy to get trapped in that way of thinking, especially in today’s consumer culture. From magazine ads to TV commercials, we are trained to compare ourselves to others and are subtly told we are not …

Why I Got Caught Up in the Drama of an On-and-Off Relationship

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“One reason people resist change is because they focus on what they have to give up instead of what they have to gain.” ~Rick Godwin

Dave and I met earlier this January. I was immediately attracted to his aquamarine eyes and his tattoos. I met him on the eve of my twenty-sixth birthday and, based on our interaction, I assumed we’d have a casual fling. Things didn’t end that simply, to my surprise.

When we were lying in bed together that first night, holding hands, he turned to me and asked if there was any chance we could get to …

How Journaling Helped Me Heal from Grief and How It Can Help You Too

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“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” ~C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The day I was told that the man I loved was going to die from cancer, I did two things: I made a pact with myself never to have more than one bottle of wine in the house. I knew the risks of numbing pain and I knew that it didn’t work. Then I went to a stationery shop and bought a supply of fine moleskin journals.

My journey through grief started the day the pea-sized lump behind my husband’s ear was given a …

“You’re Too Sensitive” Is a Lie

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“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation of the little things, my vivid inner life, my keen awareness of others pain and my passion for it all. ~Unknown

My phone rang and it was my boyfriend. I slipped out into the hall. “Hey you,” I answered. We’d been texting about getting together that night.

“Why don’t you just come over to my …

Healing, Forgiving, and Loving After a Painful Break Up

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“People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.” ~Anonymous

About five years ago, I learned the biggest lesson of my life about self-love and losing oneself in a relationship, through a breakup that almost killed me.

After going through another night of three hours of sleep, I drove myself to the ER to save my own life. I hadn’t eaten or slept much in three weeks, and the scale pointed to ninety-seven pounds. I felt weak, malnourished, and unloved.

Three weeks …

Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Myself and How I Healed by Doing Nothing

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“Everything in the universe is within you.” ~Rumi

When I was twenty-three, I lost my job through chronic illness. I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few years an anxious, panicky mess—often hysterical. Eventually, I took off to scour the globe for well-being techniques, and searched far and wide for the meaning of life and how to become well again.

If you’re chronically ill, like I was, whether physically or emotionally, you’ve probably experienced the same misunderstanding, the same crazy-making “well, you look okay to me” comments, the same isolation, depression, and frustration that I …

How I Stopped Chasing Highs and Self-Destructing

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“Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.” ~Albert Einstein

In our culture, it’s pretty common to think of rock ‘n’ roll hedonism a little wistfully. From Keith Richards to Hunter S. Thompson, the wild nights and strung-out days of the world’s most iconic party animals are seen as integral to their sparkling creativity, rebellious nature, and untouchable glamour.

So many people, especially if they want to make it in the creative industries, idealize and inevitably attempt to mimic these lifestyles. Whether they want to be a “work hard, play hard” music producer, channel Hemingway …

What Helped Me Love and Accept My Imperfect Body

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“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.” ~Amy Bloom

“Just look at yourself!”

“That chubby face, those massive hips and thighs. The stumpy legs.”

“No wonder he doesn’t love you anymore. No wonder he left you for her! She is so much prettier than you are.”

I stood in front of the mirror. Tears streamed down my face. My body was shaking uncontrollably as I stared at it in disgust.

Resentment and anger accumulated in my chest. Heavy, dark, and painful, the all-consuming emotions tried to crush me. My throat felt tight, I couldn’t breathe, my …

Someday This Will Be Funny

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“A great attitude becomes a great mood. A great mood becomes a great day. A great day becomes a great year. A great year becomes a great life.” ~Unknown

I was already in a terrible mood by the time we arrived at the hotel around 7:30pm. It was Thanksgiving, and my family and I had spent four hours in the car in order to visit out-of-town family. My daughter had an accident in car seat on the way out there, and my husband and I were both battling colds. Oh, and it was my birthday.

We’d spent the afternoon …

When the Euphoria Fades: Dealing with the Highs and Lows of Love

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“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

When we fall in love, we feel excited to experience some of the most joyful moments of our lives. Because love is supposed to be the source of the best feelings, right? But what about when that relationship churns up some hard stuff and leaves you feeling hurt, annoyed, sad, and irate?

For many of us, especially deep-feelers like me, when we start to experience these inevitable lows in our relationship, we may conclude that something is inherently wrong …

Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal – Last Day for Three Free Bonus Gifts!

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Hi friends!

Today’s the day! Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal is officially available for purchase, and today is the last day to claim the three free bonus gifts.

Stored high in my closet I have a collection of more than a dozen journals from my childhood and teenage years.

The early ones are full of angst, pain, and rage. During the later years I began to use journaling not just to vent my feelings but also to reframe my thoughts and recognize and overcome negative patterns. This helped me feel less stressed, depressed, and fearful and more peaceful, empowered, and optimistic.…

5 Practices That Helped Me Stop Being a People-Pleaser

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“If you spend your life pleasing others, you spend your life.” ~Cheryl Richardson

Looking back on my life, I came to realize that I spent quite a high amount of my precious time trying. Trying to be perfect. Trying to be appreciated and liked by everyone else around me. Trying to fit in with different groups of people so that I could feel accepted and approved of.

I can recall many situations in my life when I did things I didn’t really want to do to comfort or please others. I was a master of people-pleasing and, to be honest, …

Why I Chose Authenticity Over Fitting In or Standing Out

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“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” ~EE Cummings

For many years I felt like a fish out of water, but I desperately wanted to belong in the pond. I grew up wanting to be ‘normal,’ to fit in and be like everyone else. As a result, I was not in touch with who I was because I didn’t think there was another choice.

The blueprint was clear: find a …

How to Stop Losing Yourself and Giving Your Power Away in Dating

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“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” ~Brené Brown

I was a serial dater for a decade.

Dating can be fun and exciting, but it can also come with lots of disappointment and emotional pain.

All those rejections, ghosting, and shattered hopes had a huge impact on me.

They left me feeling exhausted and heartbroken. Probably because I dated too much but also because I didn’t do much to protect myself and my energy on these dating adventures.

I’d say yes to many men who were …

What My Dog Taught Me About Self-Acceptance

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“Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.” ~Lao Tzu

We all have recorded messages playing in our heads, from long ago.

Listen to parents talking to young children. Often the message is less than approving.

“Don’t put that in your mouth!”

“Go wash your face right now.”

“If you keep acting like that nobody will like you.”

“Look at Cindy, how well she’s doing. If you worked harder you could do as well as her.”

Those examples are kind compared to what many people will have heard growing up.

Many of these messages enter our brains …

Some People Want Material Things

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The Top 7 Reasons We Stay in Bad Relationships

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“Some of us think that holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse

She knew it sooner than I did. And more intensely than I did.

I, on the other hand, may have considered our differences but never thought of them as deal-breakers. I tried to justify the many struggles we had between us and believed that our marriage could work despite the challenges.

I had this feeling things would get better and stayed hopeful no matter how bad our relationship got.

I told myself that her extraverted personality and my more introversion could …

Life Lessons from a Wanderer: From Lost Boy, to Carnie, to U.S. Marine

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“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~Rumi

How did this happen?

I remember the wind tearing at the walls of my tent, bending the humble, graphite rods almost double. I was burrowed down in my sleeping bag, which was one of my sole possessions in life, along with that tent, a pack of books, some canned food, $200, and clothes.

I dug even lower and thought—what the hell am I going to do?

It was sometime in October of 1994. I was camped by a dry …

How to Stop Worrying About the Future and Start Living Your Life Now

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“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

Retirement. A word that fills people with both excitement and fear.

On the one hand, we’re excited about the possibilities that retirement brings. The possibility to travel, to try new hobbies, to live our lives the way we want.

On the other hand, we worry about whether we’ll have enough money to survive until that unknown age at which we’ll die. And maybe not just survive but to actually thrive in our later years.

That …