fbpx
Menu

Posts tagged with “lessons”

A Letter to a Kindergartener: 7 Lessons for a Life Well-Lived

By

“Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart.” ~Mencius

I have an amazing sister who is currently in kindergarten. I wrote her a letter summarizing everything I’d like her to know as she goes through life. It occurred to me that these lessons are things we could all stand to remember, so I’ve decided to share it here.

Dear Natasha,

Times are hectic now. It won’t be long until I leave home and move to a magical place we seniors call “college.”

I have one semester left to learn from amazing teachers, one season left to wrestle …

10 Things Everyone Should Learn as a Kid

By

“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other wings.” ~Johann Wolfang von Goethe

In 2010 two major life events marked my life forever: my father lost his battle with melanoma and I become a mother.

Both events came unexpectedly. My father was only fifty-six years old and had never been sick for one day of his entire life. Also, I had other plans at the time, focusing heavily on my career, so I did not want to have a baby just yet.

But life is what actually happens …

Rethinking Mistakes and Recognizing the Good in “Bad” Choices

By

“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 …

Releasing the Need for Certainty and Trusting Our Decisions

By

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

If you’re like me, you’re hard on yourself—and I mean hard.

You analyze your decisions and try to somehow calculate the results of your actions to feel a sense of certainty. Little did you know that searching for the certainty causes all of your insides to do flips and only causes more uneasiness.

What I always wonder is where did the need to know come from? I remember being a free spirit with no worries as a child (as …

Life Lessons on What Really Matters from a Dying Man

By

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

You know how you can remember exactly when you found out that Michael Jackson died? I think it’s called flashbulb memory. It’s when something traumatic happens and because of that, you remember everything else that was occurring at the time. I was on a bus in Santorini after watching an amazing sunset in Oia.

The day I found out my boyfriend was dying was just like that, but worse. I remember everything.

Let me digress.

We spent the week leading up to …

Kid President’s Letter to a Person on Their First Day Being Alive

By

It’s hard to be a person sometimes. That’s where Soul Pancake’s Kid President comes in. In this short video, he lays it all out–everything we need to know to be an awesome person. No matter how far is from your first day on Earth, this is one worth watching!

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

By

“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 …

Make Peace with Your Past: Find the Good and Embrace the Lessons

By

“It’s not the events of our lives that shape us but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins

Daughter of an alcoholic. Welfare recipient. Teenage mother. Non-college attendee. Poor decision maker. Unhealthy relationship participant. Financial disaster. Evictee.

All of these statements described me. They also propelled me into action, transforming me into an over-achieving perfectionist. Yet they still weighed me down because I felt like I had to constantly prove I was better than my past—better than the circumstances from which I came.

It took a lot of effort.

It took a lot of energy.

It was …

Two Strangers in a Sandbox: Lessons for Life

By

Soul Pancake, one of my favorite sites, built a sandbox with the sole purpose of connecting strangers and enabling them to share life lessons. Though it certainly makes it more fun, you don’t need a slide to ask yourself: what do you wish you knew as a child?

Stop Being Hard on Yourself: 5 Tips for Learning Life Lessons

By

“When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

I learned a big lesson this week. It’s been a lingering challenge that has popped up in many ways recently. Mostly it’s presented itself in other people, or rather, in the qualities of other people.

Over the last few months, I’ve been introduced to quite a few new acquaintances, and I’ve continuously come up against traits that I considered ugly, like arrogance, materialism, insecurity, and ignorance.

It really riled me up to the point that I felt a physical change in myself.

I interpreted …

Use Self-Acceptance to Learn from the Past and Let It Go

By

“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

We are all familiar with the concept of “releasing the past.”

As one who has experienced lots of events in my life that I’ve been anxious, at times, to let go of, I’m very familiar with this concept.

We want to be present to fully experience everything in our lives, without being tethered to what has already occurred; we want to be ready, willing, and in the moment so we can take what comes at its face value. (Just in case you’re wondering, for …

The Top 10 Tiny Buddha Insights from 2012

By

Happy almost 2013!

It seems like just yesterday I wrote “Happy almost 2012!” before summarizing the top lessons from 2011.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, as I like to think that any moment is an ideal time to make a change, but I always appreciate looking back and recognizing progress and growth.

The site grew by leaps and bounds this year, surpassing two million monthly page views. However, what I’ve found most exciting is the increased interest in contributing to the blog.

Each month, I’ve received more submissions than the month before, but what inspires me …

Moving on from a Mistake: 5 Tips to Relieve Your Pain

By

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

We all make mistakes, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that when we’re in the midst of them. We try to avoid them at all costs because the pain and price can be high.

It can cost us our jobs, our reputations, or our driving records.

In their election ads, political candidates often focus on their opponents’ negative aspects in order to make us vote for them instead. It’s almost as if we’re voting for the person least likely to …

The Wisdom of Learning What’s Right and True for You

By

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” ~Lao-tzu

There seems to be a common perception in our culture that knowledge equals wisdom; however, I don’t believe this is true.

I would say that wisdom is what knowledge becomes when we have brought it into our hearts and experienced it as true.

Wisdom cannot be gained by passively accepting what we read or by believing what another person tells us. We must take an idea or thought and test it, truly investigate it, before it can become wisdom.

Wisdom requires awareness and a willingness to ask ourselves—and experience firsthand—what …

11 Lessons for a Life Filled with Peace, Love, and Happiness

By

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of his dreams.” ~Proverb

When Lori wrote her list of thirty-three lessons she’d learned in life (one for each of her years) to celebrate her recent birthday, she gave us some amazing insights (thirty-three to be exact) for someone so young.

It got me thinking of what wisdom I could possibly add to the list from the extra years of life I’ve led, eleven extra years to be exact. (Did I just admit that!)

As someone still so young (well, sort of), I’m still learning too, and hope to keep …

Peace Is Learning the Lesson

By

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

It’s strange to feel peace while a part of your heart is being chipped away.

I’m in the middle of a heart chipping, but the longer it goes on, the more I’m realizing that it needs to be removed before it hardens the rest of the organ. Maybe the chipping is kind of like pruning a diseased tree so the remainder grows stronger and more resilient.

The cuts hurt like hell though.

The last few months have been some of the most difficult of my life. I’ve been …

Uplifting Depression: 15 Unexpected Lessons from Adversity

By

“Whenever something negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Two years ago, reading this quote, I would smirk and think, “What a cliché.”

In the last two years, I would read this quote and be in utter disbelief that anything can be learned when one is in the depths of hell.

Today, I read this quote and resonate confidently, that yes, even though I tried to end my life, even though I had to quit a high paying job, even though I still suffer from major depression, good has come out of my …

10 Journaling Tips to Help You Heal, Grow and Thrive

By

“The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.” ~Shakti Gawain

Keeping a journal has many positive benefits. Journaling can help with personal growth and development. By regularly recording your thoughts you will gain insight into your behaviors and moods.

Journaling can be used for problem-solving and stress reduction. It’s been proven to improve mental and physical health. It can lead to increased self-esteem.

Dr. John Grohol, CEO of Psych Central, estimates that one in three people suffer from a mental illness.  Anxiety disorders, mood disorders and substance abuse can be …

60 Life Lessons: Insights from Oprah’s Life Class

By

Call me a traitor to my gender, but I didn’t grow up watching Oprah. I didn’t have parties with other ladies that involved a television and tissues. I didn’t fill my library according to her book club recommendations. And I didn’t live my life around the question, “What would Oprah do?”

Considering my penchant for drama back then, I was more likely to curl up to Jerry Springer than a show without paternity tests and chair throwing.

But recently Oprah called to me. Literally.

It started when the network reached out to my friend Mastin Kipp of The Daily Love…

When Struggles Keep Reappearing: How to Learn the Lesson and Move On

By

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

I’ve been self-employed for many years now. This is no accident. I’ve always liked to do things my own way. I like to arrange my diary in exactly the way I want to and make my own mind up about how I do things. I like to work without having to justify anything to a manager.

I’m not always comfortable in working relationships where the other person is “higher up” than me—when they’re in authority. You could say that I’m a teensy bit of …