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Posts tagged with “mindful”

How to Get Comfortable Being Alone and Get the Most Out of Solitude

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“The act of sitting down is an act of revolution. By sitting down, you stop that state of being: losing yourself, not being yourself. And when you sit down, you connect to yourself. And you don’t need an iPhone or a computer to do that. You just need to sit down mindfully and breathe in mindfully.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The day my ex-wife moved out was also the day when our dog moved out and when I was laid off from my bankrupt ex-company. It felt like everything around me had suddenly died. Many of our common friends and loved …

Practical Pathways to Inner Peace: A Free Video Series for Inner Calm

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As a mom who works from home while caring for two young kids, I know all too well how easy is to get overwhelmed and stressed out. I also know the deep sense of regret and sometimes shame that bubble up when I lash out from a place of agitation (usually at my boyfriend, who’s equally frazzled).

I sometimes beat myself up when this happens because this isn’t the kind of person I want to be. But this only makes things worse because now I feel bad about my actions, my impact, and myself. So instead, I try to catch …

How Mindfulness Helped Me Become My Own Best Friend

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“With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.”  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I am not a good friend to myself. This realization shook me as I was riding the bus home one day from the local university where I taught.

This realization had been building for some time, but it struck me powerfully that day. I was teaching a summer class on Asian philosophy, and we were reading the Sayings of Buddha. We had been discussing a passage about a monk watching his feelings.

The passage …

How One Fleeting Mindful Minute Completely Changed My Life

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“Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown

I am a self-confessed overthinker. I could spend hours thinking and going down the rabbit hole in my mind trying to find answers to all sorts of situations.

About ten years ago, I struggled with burnout. I was a nurse for about twenty-two years. All I knew was nursing, and I was defined by it. As they say, “A nurse is always a nurse.”

This makes leaving nursing something hard to do, even when it’s unhealthy.

I’ve always worked in high-stress areas like intensive care and trauma emergency rooms, but burnout made it …

Where Are You Right Now? The Importance of Living in the Present

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“The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Where are you right now?

Maybe you are at your desk, scrolling through emails, trying to put off the morning’s work in hopes that it will go away if you don’t acknowledge it.

Maybe you are in your favorite chair with a cup of cheap coffee, enjoying the final moments of morning light.

Maybe you are walking through your school or office building trying to hurriedly read this from your phone before you bump into someone.

Wherever you …

How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety

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“Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” ~Paulo Coelho

“Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?”

This very question weighed heavily on my mind as I found myself in yet another bout of anxiety. I was playing professional baseball at the time, and I just couldn’t seem to free myself from the constant and unending worrisome thoughts racing through my head.

A lot of these thoughts centered around how …

How I Recognized My Fear of Failure and How I’m Mindfully Overcoming It

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“The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

My daughter began taking tumbling classes a week before her eighth birthday. She had been dancing since the age of three, and those classes included instructions for cartwheels and roundoffs. The harder stuff, like the back walkover, required tumbling or gymnastics classes, and she wanted the chance to be able to show …

Making Big Decisions: How to Discern the Whispers of Your Soul

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“Intuition is the whisper of the soul.” ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

“I can’t believe they are taking her side over mine. I gave this job so many years, and she decides to walk in and mess it all up for me,” I said to my husband.

A few years back, when I was working full time at my corporate job, I got into a disagreement with a team member. It spiraled out of control to the point where my boss then had to have a sit-down with us. I was so humiliated and angry that he could not see my side.

They …

How I’ve Eased My Anxiety by Being More Present: 4 Practices to Try

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“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” ~Oprah Winfrey

In 2012, during my community college years, I began to experience mild anxiety.

I assume it was the stress and fear that came with maintaining a good GPA in hope of transferring to a well-known university, alongside deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Or perhaps it was because of the time I knew I’d wasted slacking in high school to fit in with what I was surrounded by and to …

How to Really Live In the Moment and Appreciate Life

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“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein 

Just when you think you have the whole living in the moment thing down, a four-year-old comes along and shows you how it’s done.

I’ve been working hard on this, actually, keeping a gratitude journal and everything. I was feeling pretty good about my progress yesterday when I decided to take said four-year-old on a walk rather than rushing through the to-do list burning a hole in the back of my mind.…

Movement, Stillness, and Insight: My 3 Daily Non-Negotiables for a Busy World

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“Put yourself at the top of your to-do list every single day and the rest will fall into place.” ~Unknown

We live in a busy world. There is always something, or someone, fighting for our attention. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s easy to lose the time we need for ourselves. The white space in our days is often the first thing to get squeezed out as demands on our time escalate.

To combat this pull to overwhelm, I decided to create a list of daily non-negotiables.

Having a list of non-negotiables means I get to control at least a …

The Simple Path to a More Fulfilling, Far Richer Life

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“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” ~Seneca

Many of us say we want a simpler life, but we don’t make any changes because that would require us to make hard choices that go against the flow. We say we want to be less busy and enjoy more of our days, but it feels easier to do what everyone else is doing, even if …

The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

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“We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown

“Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy

I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where he spent the first fourteen days of his life. In that moment, I changed. I’d already had one miscarriage. I couldn’t lose anyone else.

Man, life is fragile. I spent the next decade making sure he played on the swings at the park, but not …

A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

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“I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” ~Anne Lamott

I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience.

The blue, clear sky.

The lake opening up before me.

The whisper of the trees that I love so much.

I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about …

How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It

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One day a man met a hungry tiger. He ran. The tiger chased him. Coming to a cliff, he jumped, catching hold of a tree root to stop himself falling to the bottom where, horror upon horror, another tiger waited to eat him.

He hung on for dear life to that thin root.

Then a little mouse appeared and started to nibble at the root. The mouse was hungry and the fibers started to snap.

Just then, the man saw a ripe red strawberry near him, growing from the cliff face. Holding the vine with one hand, he picked the

…

Why We Need to Be Present to Enjoy Our Lives, Not Just Productive

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“Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living.” ~Maria Popova

I was high on productivity. I had one full-time job, two part-time jobs, and a side hustle. I was getting everything done. Sounds perfect, right?

Then I started hating my life.

I had read enough …

How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body

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“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.” ~Unknown

I began the morning with a meditation. After taking my dog out and brewing the coffee, I sat in my sunny living room, my little dog Frankie nestled beside me. I perched cross-legged, a blue pillow on my lap for warmth. I closed my eyes and began to focus on my breath.

When ten minutes passed, I raised my hands in appreciation. …

How I Overcame the Stress of Perfectionism by Learning to Play Again

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“What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play…” ~Plato

I am a recovering perfectionist, and learning to play again saved me.

Like many children, I remember playing a lot when I was younger and being filled with a sense of openness, curiosity, and joy toward life.

I was fortunate to grow up in Oregon with a large extended family with a lot of cousins with whom I got to play regularly. We spent hours, playing hide-and-seek, climbing trees, drawing, and building forts.

I also attended a wonderful public school that encouraged play. We …

How I Reclaimed My Life When I Felt Numb and Unhappy

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“All appears to change when we change.” ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

The biggest life-changing moment in my life would have looked unremarkable to an outsider looking in.

I was at a point in my life (my late twenties) where everything seemed to look good on paper. I had a great job, I was living in downtown Seattle, and I enjoyed the live music scene. Aside from not being in a relationship, I thought I had “arrived.”

The only problem was, I was miserable, and I barely acknowledged it. A part of me knew that I wasn’t happy, but I tried to …

Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

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“Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” ~Kahlil Gibran

Anxiety has followed me around like a lost dog looking for a bone for years now.

I feel it the most acutely when I’m worried about my health or my daughter’s health. I notice a strange rash or feel an unusual sensation and all of a sudden: panic!

My worries are not limited to health concerns though, and my ruminations go in the direction of dread about the future of the world, worries about my finances, and fears that I’m not good …