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Posts tagged with “Mindfulness”

Put Down Your Phone: Why Presence Is the Best Gift You’ll Ever Give

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“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The only thing worse than not listening to someone is pretending to listen.

Giving the vague murmur of agreement, or a quick nod to communicate “Yes, I’m listening, totally,” when really, we’re not.

I remember vividly a dinner I had with friends about four years ago. I’d been backpacking in New Zealand for twelve months and had just returned to the UK. Traveling in the car to my friend’s house, I imagined how the night …

How I Overcame My Chronic Digestive Issues by Learning to Breathe Right

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“If you know the art of deep breathing, you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers.” ~Chinese adage

Let me share a little secret: I started healing from decades of debilitating chronic digestive issues when I stopped looking for the next best solution and trying to heal. Instead, I did nothing. And I took a breath.

Let’s start at the beginning. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (an irritable bowel disease) at the age of eighteen, which would have marked the beginning of my oh-so-anticipated adult life, but instead, I thought my life was over.

I had every …

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 Find the Courage to Keep Jumping (Even Though the Net Never Catches Me)

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“The future never comes. Life is always now.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“Jump, and the net will catch you.” “Leap, and the net will appear.”

This piece of writing is to make a case for the following argument: there is NO net.

Before I put forward my reasoning, please bear with me for a moment while my ego rattles off the times I have jumped (but the net never appeared).

  1. I quit my well-paid marketing role and traveled across the world to pursue a humanitarian dream job. I failed at the job interview and was jobless and in despair in a foreign
…

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 Increase Your Sense of Control and Boost Your Resilience

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“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” ~Maya Angelou

When I look back, I am amazed at how differently I dealt with adversity the first few decades of my life.

Growing up in a stressful home primed me to experience life with caution. Whether it was being afraid of physical harm, loneliness, or failure, I’ve lived my life with an exaggerated fight-flight response to everything. Adversity …

The Paradox of Less is More (And How It Will Improve Your Life)

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“Don’t use a lot where a little will do.” ~Proverb

One of the most common paradoxical statements we hear is “less is more.”

I, like many others, understand what that means in the context of personal style, where it is commonly used.

I can appreciate, for example, that when we overdress, we are often taking away from the beauty of the outfit or the look and detracting attention from each valuable detail or accessory.

But recently I discovered that the paradox of “less is more” has many other applications.

When I started questioning whether I could apply this simple philosophy …

How I Get Through Hard Times Using Curiosity, Compassion, and Challenge

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“Sometimes the worst things that happen in our lives put us on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” ~Unknown

Until I was thirty-seven, I thought I’d led a pretty charmed life: I had a supportive family and good friends, I’d done well academically, always got the jobs I’d applied for, and met and married the perfect man for me.

In 2013, when I was thirty-five weeks pregnant with my second child, I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. My baby was induced at thirty-seven weeks, and my chemo started ten days later. In …

I Thought Meditation Would Fix My Anxiety – Here’s Why It Wasn’t Enough

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“Your mind, emotions, and body are instruments and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.” ~Harbhajan Singh Yogi

The earliest memory of my anxiety was at ten years old in fifth grade.

I remember it so vividly because in middle school the bus came at 6:22am exactly in the morning.

Each night I would look at my Garfield clock and think, “If I fall asleep now, I’ll get five hours of sleep…. If I fall asleep now, I’ll get four hours of sleep… If I fall asleep now, I’ll get three hours of sleep…”…

One Question I Ask Myself Monthly Since Coming to Terms with Death

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“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

On September 23, 2015, Loukas Angelo was walking to his after-school strength and conditioning class just a few hundred yards from Archbishop Mitty High School.

He was approaching the outdoor basketball courts when he ran out into the street and was struck by a car traveling around thirty miles per hour. The impact sent Loukas flying down the street, and he was immediately transported to the closest hospital where he remained in critical condition.

I remember sitting on …

Living Without a Grand Purpose: Why I Find Meaning in the Little Things

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“Ironically enough, when you make peace with the fact that the purpose of life is not happiness, but rather experience and growth, happiness comes as a natural byproduct. When you are not seeking it as the objective, it will find its way to you.” ~Unknown

I have always enjoyed helping others. Ever since I can remember, my empathic nature has led me to feel what others are feeling and to try and assist them to the best of my ability. Serving others has always been a point of pride for me.

I have built my entire life around the …

When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

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“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl

When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning.

Trust me. I know.

In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home.

During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything.

At the same time, within twenty-four …

When You’re Becoming a New You: 3 Lessons to Help You on Your Journey

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“There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming.” ~Sue Monk Kidd

From a small café overlooking the boat harbor in Seward, Alaska, I looked out the window at the enormous mountain peak of Mount Alice that protruded from the earth behind rows of tour boats, sailboats, and a cruise ship large enough to carry several thousand passengers. The last few days of my summer there were coming to an end, and I reflected with gratitude on my time there.

Located directly off the Gulf of Alaska and within Kenai Fjords National Park, Seward is a …

Measuring the Quality of Your Day with a To-Be List (Not Just a To-Do List)

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“Don’t equate your self-worth with how well you do in life.  You aren’t what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don’t…you aren’t.” ~Wayne Dyer

As you crawl into bed, thump your pillow to make the perfect little cave for your head to rest in, pull the covers up tight under your chin, and let go of that big sigh that indicates the day is finished, how do you look back on the waking hours you just experienced? How do you measure the quality of your day?

Measuring Your Day by What You Do

Most of …

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 …

How a Simple Morning Routine Helped Me Heal from PTSD and Grief

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“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass

In an eighteen-month window, I had a landslide of firsts that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

I ended my first long-term relationship with someone I deeply cared for but did not love. She had borderline personality disorder, and I was not mentally strong enough nor mature enough to be what she needed in a partner. Within five minutes of me saying our relationship was over, she slit her wrist as we sat there in bed. This was the beginning of it all.

Drug overdoses, online personal …

How to Trust Yourself After the Trauma of Being Dismissed and Invalidated

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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” ~Steve Jobs

I was a sensitive child growing up, and I felt everything deeply. Unfortunately, my childhood home was dominated by chronic tension, fear, and anger—not an ideal environment for anyone, let alone a perceptive and empathic child.

My father was rather authoritative and controlling, and he disciplined us harshly. I was raised to obey without questioning and punished for mistakes or not falling in line.

Love was only assumed but never shared, and so I grew up feeling alone, unsupported, …

Life is Fragile: Love Like Today Could Be Your Last

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“I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.” ~Steven Pinker

He was splayed out in the middle of the road. The paramedics had yet to arrive. That was the scene on our way to meet some friends.

Over dinner, they relayed the tragic story of their neighbor’s twenty-something son who was killed recently in a motorcycle accident.

Two others lost their lives in an instant on a nearby suburban road.

An acquaintance told me about the fatal hiking accident of a young man who was …

How to Access Awakened Consciousness Through Meditation [Free eBook]

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If you’re anything like me, you’ve likely tried meditation, or even adopted a consistent habit, only to question if you’re doing something wrong. You show up and put in the time, but despite your best efforts, you’re not reaping the expected benefits, or at least not with the consistency you originally hoped to see.

Perhaps you initially turned to meditation for stress-relief, some way to defuse the constant sense of pressure and overwhelm that’s prevalent in our achievement-focused society.

Or maybe you first tried meditation to help you focus and be more present so that your days don’t go …

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 …