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Posts tagged with “wisdom”

7 Tips to Love Where You Are Right Now

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“Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.” ~Margaret B Runbeck

It had been months since I’d gotten a good night’s sleep.

I’d wake up gasping from bad dreams throughout the night, and I’d feel an immediate knot in my stomach as soon as it was time to get up and face the day.

When the morning beckoned, all I wanted to do was hide under the covers.

But even when hiding from the physical world, my thoughts could still find me, belaboring on in an incessant stream of “have-tos” and “should-bes.”

I’d wake up …

How to Start Feeling at Peace with the Way You Look

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“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel” ~Steve Furtick

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had issues with the way I look. Back when I was at school, I stood out, being one of the only Asian students in a small English village. This heightened my awareness of how different I looked in relation to my peers and started my obsession of comparing myself with others.

It is often stated that adolescence can be a painful period in everyone’s life, and mine was no exception. By …

Why Be Healthy in the Present When the Future’s Uncertain?

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“The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” ~Pema Chodron

The idea of an open future can be thrilling. What lies before us often feels as though it’s just waiting to be written by a mix of our personal willpower and luck.

Lately, however, the reality of uncertainty has been frightening me. The lack of anything certain to grab onto has destabilized me in a way it never has before.

You see, as we move around the calendar year, the day darkening quickly and the temperatures dropping, I am circling back to what was a …

How to Find Happiness Through Gratitude When Life Gets Hard

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“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” ~Brother David Steindl-Rast

In the summer of 1993, my father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

He was only fifty-eight. Still just a kid.

This was a devastating development, to say the least. Things had already been challenging for my family for several years before this blow.

Dad had lost his corporate banking job in Boston—quite unjustly, in our view—kicking off a nearly three-year-long bout of unemployment.

This was not an easy time for our family, but we …

Brushes with Mortality: 5 Lessons On Dealing with Hard Times

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“When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature.” ~Wayne Muller

As someone with a serious chronic medical condition, I have danced with mortality. Many times. It wasn’t until our most recent pas de deux, however, that I truly understood just how much this dance could impact me.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in my work as a hospice volunteer.

The mission of the San Francisco-based Zen Hospice Project—a Buddhist-inspired organization where I have volunteered for five …

You’ll Always Have This Day, No Matter Where It Leads

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“If you surrender completely to the moment as they pass, you live more richly those moments.” ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Last week on Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend Ehren and I had a meeting we’d both spent months working toward.

After writing and rewriting a romantic comedy screenplay for over a year, and consulting with a screenwriter friend to improve it, we’d finally secured a meeting with an agent—her agent. At one of the largest agencies in Hollywood. Presumably to represent us.

We couldn’t have been more thrilled to know our project might have a real future, and the timing …

4 Tools to Reframe Stress to Feel Less Overwhelmed

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“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Stress, strain, tension, worry, overwhelm, nerves, feeling wound up, freaking out. Whatever we call it, the effects are universal.

Our adrenals rev up, uneasy thoughts cycle on the brain’s hamster wheel, butterflies flitter in the stomach, our moods swing. There are many different ways that stress manifests, and none of them are particularly enjoyable.

Stress is basically an emotion. It’s the way we feel when things aren’t going our way. “Things” can be as insignificant as feeling annoyed because we woke up two minutes …

Empower Others and Make a Positive Difference in Their Day

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“Praise is like sunlight to the human spirit. We cannot flower and grow without it.” ~Jess lair

One of the more important lessons I learned as a child came from my father.

One day a beggar knocked on our door looking for a giving hand. Though I was a small child, I still remember how he looked. He was old, with an untamed beard and tattered clothes. He had a wretched odor; I imagine he hadn’t showered in months. He was, more likely than not, homeless.

I remember how my father treated him. I remember my father inviting him into …

30 Questions to Ask Yourself If You Have Doubts About Your Relationship

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“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” ~William S. Burroughs

When I was in college, I could only afford to visit my family during summer and Christmas breaks. While I was at home, I particularly enjoyed spending time with one dear friend. We had known each other since junior high school, and I considered her the younger sister I never had.

During my sophomore year in school, she contacted me and revealed she had romantic feelings for me. She wanted us to start dating.

I was completely caught off guard. I …

Why Relationships Fail: 4 Tips to Make Love Last

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“Happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors.” ~Dalai Lama

If you get married today, there is a 60% chance that your relationship won’t last. Is finding true love really that hard or is there something else going on?

A research group from the Heriot-Watt University found that many people have a “warped sense of the perfect relationship” and “unrealistic expectations from their romantic partner.” They concluded that they got these unrealistic expectations from Hollywood love stories.

These movies have us longing for a Cinderella or Prince Charming who will sweep us off our …

3 Tips to Escape the Perfectionism Trap and Feel Good Enough

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“I have done my best. That is all the philosophy of living one needs.” ~Lin-yutang

Perfectionism—the word brings to mind images of order and organization, of effectiveness and efficiency. This is what society expects from a “perfectionist,” and this is what is projected as desirable and attainable. There is an aspirational value to being a “perfectionist.”

Many people believe that perfectionistic tendencies motivate people to do their best and achieve their goals.

However, I can vouch for the fact that it actually feels like being caught in a trap. There is a feeling of suffocation and dread at not being …

Dealing with Painful Memories to Find Peace in the Present

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“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~Marianne Williamson

I awoke early one morning, the cries and pleas of my dreams slowly dissipating, and though I could no longer hear or see what was happening, it stayed with me as I drifted back to the real world. I knew this story; I had dreamed a memory, and the remains of it stayed with me in my body.

Like a dark cloud it made me pull my knees into my chest, and it forced salty tears from my closed eyes.  I had dreamed …

From Broken Heart to Open Heart: When Breaking Up Is a Good Thing

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“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Dr. Robert Anthony

On March 18th, 2011, I received an email that forever changed my life.

“You got me—I’m seeing someone else.”

That’s the only line I remember. I had noticed that my boyfriend at the time had been acting “strange” and confronted him on it. He fessed up to me in an email while I was at work. There was nothing I could do and nowhere I could go.

I felt that burning sensation on the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what to …

7 Realizations to Help You Deal with Feeling Judged

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“Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” ~Sri Chinmoy

Are you judgmental? Not many people would be aware if they were, let alone admit to being so, but it’s so easy to form an opinion about a person or situation without knowing all the facts.

What if the conclusions people spring to could really hurt someone? I like to think there are very few people who would actively want to upset others. Has someone passed judgment on you? What can you do if you feel misunderstood?

I want to …

Ending Codependency in Relationships: Find Who You Really Are

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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  ~Oscar Wilde

I remember clearly and will never forget the golden moment when I revealed my truth. Out through the locked up, suppressed little voice hidden deep down within, I allowed myself to say, “I always feel as if I need to give people what they want.”

It was almost as if lighting struck and the clouds parted at the same time. I sat there comfortably in the chair of my therapist’s office, and with a deep breath I knew that “it” was over. I did not know what “it” was, or the …

3 Little Questions to Help You Deal with Life’s Big Changes

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“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

Change happens.

It’s often unnoticed, or it may simply be a slight nuisance. It’s sometimes uncomfortable, or excruciatingly painful. Once in a while, it’s life-changing. But it’s also transforming.

Sometimes I awake in the morning or I simply look out the window into the woods, and I realize I’m not the person I was the day before, or even a moment ago.

That realization brings me such pleasure, to know that I am becoming a better version of me than I was. The newness, the now-ness, the opportunities to …

Leaving the Safety of Something Familiar When You Feel Scared

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“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~Pema Chodron

Winter is a time for hibernation, I told myself, drinking a second cup of coffee under the duvet, flicking absent-mindedly through old magazines and self-help books bought in a brief conviction that I wouldn’t begin another year reading in bed.

It seems perverse that, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, this time meant for reunion and resolution (neither of which is easy or straightforward) should occur in the darkest of seasons—when the sun barely even rises and the general inclination …

The World Is a Kinder Place When You’re Kind

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“Don’t wait for people to be friendly. Show them how.” ~Unknown

Sometimes I stop to think about how in the world I ended up where I have. I started off with very little, and somehow along the way I have ended up generally happy and on my own two feet.

My adolescence up to my early twenties had its share of dark days. Whether or not we are lucky enough to have a small handful of people that stick by us no matter what, more often than not we can find ourselves feeling incredibly lonely.

For a long time through …

Learning to Trust: Let Go of Your Fear and Let Your Guard Down

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“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ~Ernest Hemingway

In love and in life, our vulnerability is one of our greatest strengths. We often believe that we risk too much by being vulnerable, but, in fact, the opposite is true. When we build a wall around us to protect ourselves from our big, bad fears, we miss out on so much.

When we live with the mindset that something may be taken from us (physically or emotionally), or that we need to be in control of everything that happens, we endure …

Wanting to Feel Good and Look Good: Why Do We Do What We Do?

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“Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” ~Shakespeare

Have you ever stopped to question why you do what you do? Or how it looks to other people?

I’ve done this pretty much all through my life. In fact, an outsider might say that I’ve spent more time analyzing my place in the world than experiencing it.

In some ways, this is true, and not uncommon for someone who’s chosen to be a writer.

As a young child I used to silently mouth the words of what I’d just said after every sentence I uttered.

Even as …