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Posts tagged with “Love”

Lessons from a Former Liar: The Power of Owning Our Stories

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“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~Brené Brown

I don’t know about you, but I used to lie. I used to lie a lot. I remember one particular instance when I lied about being a passenger in a drive-by.

I lied about my age, my weight, and the reason for the injuries on my body. Sure, I’d just bruised myself by walking into a table, but it made a much more seductive story if I told people that I’d fallen from the rooftop of …

When You Don’t Feel Good Enough for Someone Else

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“Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.” ~Lululemon

I recently started going through what has been the most difficult situation I have ever had to bare in my life: the end of my twelve-year relationship.

I have gotten to know the darkest and most hidden places inside me, and pain so deep that I did not know we as a species were capable of feeling it.

It has been through this process and my will to endure, survive, and overcome that I have had to dig deep to find meaning and answers.

I …

Love Yourself and Your Life: 7 Reasons to Buy the New Tiny Buddha Book

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10/9/13: The pre-order promotion is now over. You can learn more about Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself here!

If you visited the blog any time during September, you likely saw some of the many self-love interviews featuring contributors from the new book Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself: 40 Ways to Transform Your Inner Critic and Your Life.

I’m excited to announce that today is the official launch date! If you already ordered a copy on Amazon, it’s possible that you already received it, as I’ve recently learned they shipped a little early.

If you haven’t redeemed …

3 Often Overlooked Causes of Anxiety (And What to Do About Them)

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“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein

An anxious mind is a hard burden to bear. In fact, if you suffer from an anxious mind it can truly feel like a curse.

The racing thoughts. The daily tirade of “what ifs.” The relentless voice of your inner critic constantly nagging you and deriding your every move.

And the worst part is that the mental chatter feels uncontrollable. Truly, there were times when I struggled in vain to quiet my mind.

It was like there was some hub or center in my …

No One Should Feel That They Don’t Deserve Love

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“We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky

There are those moments in life when things suddenly shift from a deep, sad shade of blue to a lighter shade of sky, and then eventually the beautiful reds and pinks and oranges of a sunrise.

When a light bulb snaps on in your head and you see something that you’ve been missing for days, months, maybe even years, though it doesn’t change what caused the sea of blue, it makes it look more like a calm lake than a raging ocean.

I had one of those moments not too …

6 Lessons from a Poor Childhood That Lead to a Rich Life

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“If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.” ~Proverb

I grew up on a farm with a father that was a hired hand and a mother that took care of the elderly.

I had six siblings and was the fifth in line. We had little money, but I always felt loved, not deprived. In many ways I was a rich person.

When I was four years old I lived in a two-room house, with two bedrooms built on within the year.

We had no real kitchen (it was just a room), no …

Finding Love: A Video About Seeing What We Look For

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After moving to the beach, Filmmaker Hailey Bartholomew decided to search for heart-shaped rocks in the sand and water to prove that “what we see mainly depends on what we look for.” Over a three-week period, she and her loved ones found more than 350 of them–the rocks being a metaphor for beauty in the world around us.

What are you looking for? And where have you found it lately?

You Are the One: 5 Helpful Tips for the Brokenhearted

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“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

Anyone who has ever gone through some sort of heartbreak knows what awful pain it can cause, both physically and mentally. It can be devastating, shattering, and overwhelming for your spirit.

In the beginning of 2012 I had my heart broken by a person who I thought was “the one.”

Between tears and desperate calls, I found myself searching the Internet for remedies to get over an ex. I knew I was a strong person, but I just couldn’t see anything becoming brighter or better ever.

I constantly …

Get Unstuck: Stop Believing the Negative Stories You Tell Yourself

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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

We’ve all done it, right? Somehow, somewhere, something bad happened to us and since that moment we’ve continued to tell ourselves the story about what might and could go wrong in our future.

For me, the biggest negative pattern I’ve had to release stems from my parents’ divorce. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a positive person. When I was a kid I was happy-go-lucky, nothing much bothered me, and life was pretty awesome.…

What Makes Life Worth Living: Create Tiny Epic Moments

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“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

What do you think you’ll see as you lie dying?

Upon first reading this quote, I thought “Unknown” was talking about living life large. Filling days with great achievements and big moments. Going for it. Having no regrets.

I lived much of my life to create those major moments.

And maybe that is what “Unknown” was talking about.

But it’s no longer what I’m talking about when I think about the worth of my life.

High school English teacher Monique Cassidy wrote about a short …

How to Find the Motivation to Change Your Life When You Don’t Feel Capable or Worthy

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“Eventually you will come to realize that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” ~Gary Zukav

Following a path of personal development isn’t easy. Oh, it’s rewarding and can be life changing, but it can also be confusing, challenging, and scary.

What if you take the wrong path? How do you know which piece of advice is right? Can you still get the results you desperately want, even if you go against some of the assumed wisdom?

One such piece of wisdom is that people should make changes in their lives and their behavior for themselves, not for …

The One Thing You Need to Know to Overcome Perfectionism

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 “You’re imperfect and you’re wired for struggle but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brene Brown

There’s nothing perfect about me, and I’m okay with that… now. This wasn’t the case for most of my life, though. In fact, I’ve been a perfectionist for almost thirty years. I’m not counting the first five years of my life when I was free to be as messy and magical as I wanted.

In third grade I asked my mom to buy me a stack of lined notebooks and colored pens. I spent hours neatly labeling each notebook by class, date, and …

Dealing with Loneliness: Hold onto Patience, Not the Past

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“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Last night, I discovered the tiniest of creatures in my shower: a minute scorpion, no larger than the average human fingernail.

I could not for the life of me work out how it had ended up here because I live on the third floor of an apartment building in a busy South African city. Nonetheless, there it was—a little fellow in the corner of the tiles, receiving ricocheted water droplets on his tiny little carapace.

My main personal learning theme for this year …

Improve Any Relationship by Challenging Your Perceptions

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“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

This morning, I found my wife desperately trying to make her printer work after having set herself one hour to get some good work done. I told her she should use my printer and concentrate on more important things. Surely her printing goal was to get the document in hand, not to spend her one precious hour fighting the machine?

When our argument had died down (yes, it really did get that far!) …

6 Helpful Things to Consider If You’re In an Unhealthy Friendship

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“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

For much of my life, I lived for approval and acceptance from family members, friends, and co-workers. I can’t recall not considering what people thought about my actions or what I had said, wondering if I could have done them better. I was always thinking of others and their feelings toward me.

It was a constant battle in my head, and it was starting to drain me of my peace.

No matter what they had done to me in the past, no matter how …

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 …

Discovering the Elusive Truth and Falling in Love with Yourself

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“Pleasure can be supported by an illusion, but happiness rests upon truth.” ~Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort

In today’s world, we are bombarded day by day and moment by moment with images and messages of who we should be, what we should be doing, and exactly how we should be doing it.

The promises of happiness and fulfillment in those mirages of ultimate perfection are all too often shallow and elusive, constantly evading us and leading us time and time again to nothing more than dead ends and empty hopes.

With a natural craving for transcendence and supremacy, we grab our …

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 …

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 …

Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

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“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” ~Havelock Ellis

I would have done anything for my friends, until one of them nearly broke my heart and spirit. He was my best friend. We felt like platonic soul mates.

We had a standing lunch date every week, called each other terms of endearment, cried together, laughed together—the standard best friend things.

Then, tragedy struck him. Over and over.

His long-time partner left him. Then he lost his executive-level job. Next, he had a string of major medical issues that put him in …