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Posts tagged with “happy”

5 Steps to Coming Back To Life After Hitting Rock Bottom

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“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” ~Nelson Mandela

Living through the past several years of my life has been a humbling experience. I guess I shouldn’t say I lived through those years. I existed.

Through those years, life threw me punch after punch. I suffered through public shaming and online bullying, was crippled for six months with devastating anxiety and depression, gained fifty pounds, lost a lucrative job, and saw my marriage crumble before my eyes.

I hit rock bottom, and I hit it hard.

The thing is, …

A Simple Yet Powerful Method for Making Big Changes

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“Whenever I go on a ride, I’m always thinking of what’s wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.” ~Walt Disney

As a kid, I never realized how lucky I was to grow up less than an hour away from Disneyland.

I was spoiled by how often I would visit the park and get the whole Disney. Unsurprisingly, I have been a fan of Walt Disney and Disneyland since I was young. He was even the subject of my first book report.

When I was about seventeen years old I had an annual pass …

40 Ways To Live, Laugh, And Love Like A Child

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“Children see magic because they look for it.” ~Christopher Moore

Adulthood? No thanks!

All too often, being grown up is the pits.

It can leave you drowning in responsibility, suffocating from anxiety, and sinking with doubts about your ability to be all that you should.

Frazzled, you fall into bed to fortify yourself for tomorrow’s craziness. Then you lie awake fretting over your lack of action you regret, scary debt, and all the targets you haven’t met.

Life’s supposed journey has left you dreading where you’re heading.

What the hell happened?

Somewhere between making daisy chains and making money, …

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 Free Yourself from the Pain of High Expectations

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“Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise.”  ~Rob Bell

During my pregnancy, I was the poster child for prenatal health. From taking my supplements and participating in birthing and breastfeeding classes to doing downward dogs up until three days before my birth, postpartum depression never crossed my mind.

I am married and financially and professionally successful.

I hungered to be a mom.

I have a robust community …

Why It’s Essential to Find Humor During Your Darkest Hours

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“A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

During my pregnancy with my second daughter, Grace, a routine scan showed that the baby had a rare and serious heart defect.

From that moment onward, my husband and I started walking along the most challenging, heart-breaking, and grueling road either of us has ever traveled. The journey often saw us cry, but you may be surprised to hear that we laughed a lot too.

On the day of the scan, the fetal cardiologist spent a long time scanning our baby’s …

Your Feelings Have Messages for You (So Stop Ignoring Them)

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“But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” ~Anne Frank

As a sensitive person, I have a complicated relationship with my feelings. They are the sensors I extend out into the world, to pull it in. They are the guides that help me decide what works or doesn’t work for me. But there are also times when my feelings rise with such force that I am left gasping for breath.

Then, I am tempted by the thought that not feeling so much would have definitely made things easier.

And yet, I don’t feel all my …

Let Other People See the Awesome Person You Are

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“Sometimes I panic; what if nobody finds out who I am?” ~Billy Joel

At home, you want to go out and be social. When you’re out being social, you want to go home and be alone.

At home you feel free, joyful, and ambitious. You’re smart, funny and insightful. Out in the real world, you’re quiet, non-confrontational, and you struggle to connect with others.

That person you remember from being home alone is a thousand miles away, and you feel like a shell of yourself.

Does this sound like you? Why does this happen? Who are you really? How will …

7 Habits That Keep You Strong (Even When Things Go Wrong)

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“I’m stronger because of the hard times, wiser because of my mistakes, and happier because I have known sadness.” ~Unknown

It’s happened to most of us.

Despite our best intentions, something goes dreadfully wrong.

You suffer a heartbreaking loss, make a terrible mistake, or get blindsided by an injury.

In disbelief your mind cries, “Wait. What?”

And then, “No, no, no, this can’t be happening.”

After the initial shock, when the surge of stress hormones has subsided, you realize that yes, this is happening.

And you can’t help thinking: “But how could this happen? It’s not fair. I can’t bear …

5 Ways to Experience the Kind of Love You See in the Movies

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“Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” ~Unknown

Growing up, I often pretended my life was a movie, and created quite a few awkward situations by trying to force real life to look like a romantic comedy.

In the movies, everything was so electric.

People didn’t just care about each other; they adored each other. They didn’t just date; they had a montage of amazing memories, complete with tandem biking, skipping, hand-in-hand, in a field of flowers, and dancing in the rain.

That’s the kind of love I wanted—the intense, always exciting, never disappointing, made-for-the-big-screen …

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 …

Finding Strength and Moving On from Heartbreak

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“Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.” ~Marilyn Monroe

Whether we’re processing disappointment or a tragedy, heartache can seem irrevocable, as if our entire existence has been nuked into bleak devastation.

While it can be hard to consider the possibility that these barren circumstances could be necessary, or fruitful, heartbreak can show us a great inner strength that exists in unsuspecting, subtle ways.

I was never the kind of person who was convinced that consuming, true love was real. (You know, the kind that Celine Dion sings about.) Yet, that is exactly where I found myself …

3 Behaviors That Keep Us in Unhappy Relationships

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“Don’t settle for anybody, just so you can have somebody.” ~Unknown

Here I was again, sitting in front of my computer looking at things I could involve myself in to occupy my time now that I am newly single.

Should I pay $125 for a private tennis lesson and still be terrible afterward? Could I buy a soul cycle package and not eat lunch or dinner for the next month? How many paint nights could I do over the course of the summer? Do I even have enough friends to join me?

As I sit here and think about what …

Keep These People Around

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How Taking No Action Can Help You Change Your Life

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“If you’re still looking for that one person who will change your life, take a look in the mirror.” ~Roman Price

For years and years I was in denial. I denied the obvious dysfunction in my marriage, and how terribly unhappy I was in it.

I told myself over and over that things would change and get better, that it wouldn’t be this way forever, and that I could find a way to be happy with how things were.

I had long given up hope that my spouse would change, but I have to admit, I joyfully splashed around …

The Truth About Failure: How Hitting Hurdles Makes You Successful

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“There are no failures. Just experiences and your reactions to them.” ~Tom Krause

I had spent years training for this race. This was the big one. If I won and made the qualifying time, I would go on to compete in the Canadian National Track and Field Championships.

I was burning to win. Only the winner of this race would qualify. Second place wouldn’t cut it.

Competing at the national level could lead to all kinds of opportunities: sponsorship, athletic scholarships, and a career in athletics.

My favorite form of self-torture was the 110-meter hurdles. I lived and breathed sprinting …

How to Start Dreaming Again When Others Have Discouraged You

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“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” ~Wolfgang von Goethe

I was one of the lucky few people that always knew what I wanted to do with my life when I was young.

Unfortunately, when the time came to pull the trigger and go full steam ahead toward my passion, I got talked out of the dream.

When I brought up what I wanted to do (Chinese Medicine) to people I knew, I saw them raise their eyebrows:

“Chinese medicine? How much will you make when you graduate …

5 Tips to Help You Stop Being a People Pleaser

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“One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t have to like everyone, everyone doesn’t have to like us, and it’s perfectly okay.” ~Unknown

I have a confession to make: I am a recovering people pleaser.

If I had a dollar for every time I did something that I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want people to be angry or disappointed if I said no, I would be a rich woman.

I say that I am recovering because, as with any ingrained pattern, sometimes I slip back into the tendency to put other …

What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

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“No one saves us but ourselves. We alone must walk the path.” ~Buddha

I got a frantic message from a friend last night.

Everything was going wrong—her job, her relationship, her life—and she didn’t know what to do.

“Help me, please,” she kept saying. “I don’t know what to do.”

I tried hard to stifle a giggle. I know, completely inappropriate. But I found it really funny.

Why? Because I’m the last person anyone should be asking for advice. If I knew what to do, if I knew how to help her, I’d have:

  1. implemented this a long time ago
…

The Magic of Momentum: A Simple Path to Achieving Any Goal

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“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” ~Confucius

What stops so many people from changing their lives is a lack of momentum. They feel daunted by the sheer size of the task ahead and so revert back to inertia. It’s so much easier to just trudge along and hope that one day it gets better.

I used to get up at 5.30 in the morning every Tuesday to attend a business networking breakfast. It was a severe shock to the system at first, and as I drove to the hotel where the event was held, …