Posts tagged with “wisdom”
How I Found Forgiveness and Compassion When I Felt Hurt and Betrayed
“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” ~Haruki Murakami
I’ve always felt like someone on the outside. Despite having these feelings I’ve been relatively successful at playing the game of life, and have survived through school, university, and the workplace—although, at times, working so hard to ’survive’ has impacted my emotional well-being.
I have been lucky enough to have healthy and supportive relationships with a few loved ones who have accepted me as I am (quirks and all). To anyone else I’ve come across, I suspect I’ve been perceived as inexplicably normal and inoffensive.
Like many …
I Don’t Know Who I Am: How I’m Finding Myself Again After the Abuse
“When you turn the corner / And you run into yourself / Then you know that you have turned / All the corners that are left.” ~Langston Hughes
Nearly two years ago I left a long-term controlling and abusive relationship.
I didn’t know that I was in one. I just knew that I was desperate.
Abusers take everything away from you. I don’t just mean your money or your home or your children, although they take those as well. I mean everything, including your sense of self.
Toward the end of the relationship, I wrote in my journal: “I …
How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome
TRIGGER WARNING: This post briefly references sexual abuse.
“Never hold yourself back from trying something new just because you’re afraid you won’t be good enough. You’ll never get the opportunity to do your best work if you’re not willing to first do your worst and then let yourself learn and grow.” ~Lori Deschene
The year 2022 was the hardest of my life. And I survived a brain tumor before that.
My thirtieth year started off innocently enough. I was living with my then-boyfriend in Long Beach and had a nice ring on my finger. The relationship had developed quickly, but …
Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is
“Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck
I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.
I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.
At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.
I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very …
Why Life Felt Hard for Me for Years (and 7 Lessons That Have Helped)
“You’re so hard on yourself. But remember, everybody has a chapter they don’t read out loud. Take a moment. Sit back. Marvel at your life; at the mistakes that gave you wisdom, at the suffering that gave you strength. Despite everything, you still move forward, be proud of this. Continue to endure. Continue to persevere. And remember, no matter how dark it gets, the sun will rise again.” ~Unknown
All my life I knew I was different. If I didn’t look so much like my mom, I would have believed the jokes my brother told me about how I was …
How I Feel the Best I Can Despite My Struggles with Depression and Anxiety
“There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.” ~John Green
I remember being fifteen. I was a high school freshman who loved drawing, books, Harry Potter, and Taylor Swift. I hated math class with a passion. I had a loving family and a small white dog named Maddie. I wanted to be a writer, and to have a boyfriend. I also wanted to die.
It started in seventh grade, when my best friend, Meghan, dumped me. You hear about romantic breakups all the time, but no one seems to talk about friendship breakups. They hurt a …
You’re Never Too Old To Feel Inspired, Excited, and Alive
“I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman
I’m in the business of watching people take risks. I observe them tackling challenges, fear, and discomfort, and sometimes, “making firsts” in their life.
I observe a lot as a flight attendant, and sometimes wonder if my official title should rather be “Human Observer,” or “Social Experimenter.” It feels more accurate, or at least it’s the part that I typically enjoy the most. I’m …
Why Relationships Matter Most: We’re All Just Walking Each Other Home
“We’re all just walking each other home.” ~Ram Dass
Living in the hyper-individualist society that we do, it’s easy to forget our obligation to those around us. Often in the West, we are taught to prioritize ourselves in the unhealthiest ways, to ‘grind’ as hard as we can to achieve wealth and status.
We are taught, between the lines, that our first responsibility is to create a ‘perfected‘ version of ourselves to such an extreme that it is alright to forsake our relationships with others to accomplish it.
From day one, it is embedded in us that it …
How to Ease the Pain of Being Human: From Breakdown to Breakthrough
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know” ~Pema Chödrön
We are all works in progress.
We all have skeletons in our closets that we may wish to never come out. We have all made mistakes. We will all make mistakes in future. We all have our scars.
None of us are close to reaching that mythical ‘perfect’ status. Never will be.
None of us should consider ourselves fully evolved. Not even close. There will always be space for improving an area of our lives.
Truth be told, most of us are a contradictory …
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 