Posts tagged with “wisdom”
How I Healed My FOMO and Started Saying No
“When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho
My sister-in-law returned to Montreal after spending three months in Portugal. She told me that the biggest adjustment to being back was spending twenty minutes in the pharmacy aisle deciding which shampoo brand to get because the options were endless. She missed life in Portugal, where she only had one brand to choose from.
Ah, the paradox of choice.
I am a recovering indecisive person. I used to stand in line at restaurant counters, telling people to go ahead of me with their …
We Can’t Run from Ourselves and 6 Other Lessons from Living Abroad
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you… so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~Unknown
From the outside looking in, my life was picture-perfect. I had a corporate job that paid more than just the bills, a charming little apartment in a boho neighborhood of Denver, a gorgeous SUV that took me on adventures in the mountains on the weekends, a vibrant dating life where I met some pretty amazing guys, and a group of incredible girlfriends that most people only dreamt …
Why People-Pleasers Don’t Get the Love and Respect They Desire
“Niceness is the psychological armor of the people-pleaser.” ~Harriet B. Braiker
I used to think that being kind, gentle, and agreeable was guaranteed to win me love and acceptance from others. I’d tiptoe around destructive people’s behaviors, no matter how uncomfortable I felt about it, believing to my core that if only I could be nice enough to them, they would one day lead a better life.
I lived my life constantly avoiding anything that might make me look like a bad, imperfect, antagonistic, or unlikeable person. Because as every people-pleaser knows, being disliked or disapproved of feels …
Why We Need to Stop Chasing Success and Start Enjoying the Little Things in Life
The philosopher Alan Watts always said that life is like a song, and the sole purpose of the song is to dance.
He said that when we listen to a song, we don’t dance with the goal of getting to the end of the music. We dance to enjoy it.
This isn’t always how we live our lives. Instead, we rush through our moments, thinking there’s always something better, there’s always some goal we need to achieve. This is my journey through a song without the dance and the lessons I’ve learned, from Alan Watts, along the way.
“Existence is
…
Facing the Fear of Change: Big Risks Can Bring Big Rewards
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ~Barack Obama
If someone said to you, “Hey, you know how you are feeling the need for change and you’re not sure what to do? Well, I can’t tell you what to do, but I can guarantee that if you follow where your heart leads you, you’ll create the possibility of more joy than you’ve ever felt before. All you have to do is walk through …
How I Turned Fear and Anxiety into Joy and Fulfillment
“The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness.” ~Alain de Botton
I know fear and anxiety. We’re old friends. When I was fifteen, and school was over, I’d have to force one foot in front of the other. It was time to go home. I always kept going, and with every step I’d psych myself up.
You see, once I’d gotten home, fixed my dinner, and finished my homework, my mother would come home. It was then that we would begin the nightly ritual of me talking …
Why Letting Go of Your Tight Grip Actually Gives You More Control
“Anything you can’t control in life is teaching you how to let go.” ~Unknown
I was growing impatient. I wanted an answer about something and it just wasn’t coming, no matter how hard I tried to prod it into happening. I was growing frustrated. And I was growing frustrated with my frustrations about it.
So I decided to take a walk. The act of breathing in fresh air and hearing birdsong is centering for me. Just putting one foot in front of the other in rapid succession for an hour or two always helps to clear my head. I receive …
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