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Finding Peace: Take Power Away from Your Thoughts and Emotions

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace

“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” ~John De Paola

My almost three year old, Willow, is obsessed with playing doctor.

She lies on the couch, hands down at her sides. She hands me a small flashlight and a toy frying pan (which I’m told to pretend is a stethoscope) and orders, “Check me out, Doctor Mommy!”

She methodically points out every scratch, scrape, bruise, and freckle on her body. She tells me how much snot she feels in her nose and how many times she coughed, sneezed, and hiccupped that day so that …

Overcoming Anxiety: Moving from Fear to Presence

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” ~Nelson Mandela

When I was a trainee teacher at a Cambridge University, I attended one of the oldest, most sought-after colleges, where most of the other graduate students were astrophysicists and economists, and 90% male.

They also seemed to come from families that were in some way related to the Queen of England, whereas I was a young, pregnant, trainee high school teacher whose nearest connection to Queens was owning a Freddie Mercury single, and I was a little shy.

Formal college dinners were a …

6 Steps to Release Your Fear and Feel Peaceful

By in Blog, change & challenges, mindfulness & peace

“We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” ~Mary Catherine Bateson

It was a balmy spring morning and I started my day as per usual, but I soon realized that my mind was entertaining fearful thoughts about my financial insecurity.

With many new ventures within the seedling stage, my income flow was erratic and unpredictable, while my financial responsibilities were consistent and guaranteed. At the time I ignored these thoughts as “petty,” like a parent dismissing a crying child after a mild fall on the pavement.

What I didn’t realize was that my mind wanted …

10 Powerful Gifts to Give and Receive Today

By in Blog, happiness & fun, love & relationships, mindfulness & peace

“Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.”  ~Ruth Ann Schabacker

Regardless of what holiday you celebrate, or how you honor it, there’s no denying this is an emotionally loaded time of year.

We either remind ourselves how grateful we are for all the people we love, or we remember how much it hurts that we don’t have people like that in our lives.

We either celebrate all our blessings, or we look toward the year to come, wondering if we’ll have more then.

You may find yourself reflecting on last Christmas in awe of how much …

35 Simple Ways to Be Beautiful

By in Blog, Featured, happiness & fun, meaning & passion, mindfulness & peace

“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” ~Sophia Loren

Even though I got Joey McIntyre from The New Kids on the Block to sign my scoliosis back brace in the sixth grade, I still felt ugly wearing it.

I didn’t realize the irony back then, but in retrospect it seems a little funny that I grew crooked considering I convinced myself I was wilting in my sister’s shadow. (I also had braces and headgear, but that’s another story.)

I was a kid who wanted to be beautiful, but more desperately …

Being Grateful for the Imperfect Present

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” ~Oprah Winfrey

I live in an old house.

It is 212 years old this year, to be exact.

We’ve added onto it over the years so it presents itself as more youthful than its age. The old bones remain, though, as well as many of the quirks. Those “quirks” give it character, right? It’s much like my emerging crow’s feet give my face character.

That’s the positive spin on crow’s feet, at least.

We have uneven floors, to the point where most of our furniture is …

Choose Your Battles: Fighting Less in Relationships

By in Blog, love & relationships

“A more peaceful way to live is to decide consciously which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone.” ~Richard Carlson

Have you ever been in a relationship that seemed more like work than fun? Where every day you seemed to have a new issue to discuss?

Maybe it had to do with little miscommunications, or an ongoing dispute, or a difference of opinion that regularly complicated your daily interactions.

Whatever it was, you always found yourself wanting to hash things out to get everything back to normal.

Except that was normal—conflict, friction, and disagreement; you just held …

Tiny Buddha Book Holiday Giveaway, Week 3

By in Blog, Giveaway, happiness & fun, letting go, mindfulness & peace

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

To celebrate the holiday season, I’ve decided to do a series of giveaways for my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions, which launched right around this time last year.

If you’ve already learned about the book or purchased it, this post will be redundant for you! For those who haven’t read it, here’s a little information about it:

This is the first book of its kind—with …

The People We Need to Forgive Can be Our Greatest Teachers

By in Blog, change & challenges, love & relationships

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

I lay huddled in a ball, my arms tightly around my knees, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Stop!” I wailed.

It was November 30, 2006. The next day I was turning 13, and it seemed like my life was crumbling before my eyes.

Earlier that night I was on my computer mindlessly clicking, with the usual soundtrack in the background, my mother and stepfather screaming at each other—until I heard a shattering smash. For minutes the house lay silent.

I …

The Real Secret About the Power of the Mind

By in Blog, happiness & fun, mindfulness & peace

“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.”  ~Buddha

Unless you spent the last decade in a Tibetan monastery or under a rock, you probably know about Rhonda Byrne’s book/DVD The Secret.

This 2006 self-help volume, highly endorsed by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, erroneously educated readers on “The Law Of Attraction,” a hypothesis that suggests we have the power to influence events and circumstances of our live in three simple steps:

1. “Ask the Universe for what you …

Happiness Comes to Those Who Live Their Calling

By in Blog, happiness & fun, meaning & passion

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.” ~Rumi

I was on tour with a famous rock legend, Joe Walsh from the mega-successful seventies band, The Eagles.

We were riding around in one of those air brushed tour busses, living the party life and flying to exotic places. Staying in the finest hotels. Beautiful women hanging around the backstage door trying to get my attention.

You would think this would be a dream come true, right?

Here I was rubbing shoulders with people like Stevie Nicks, Willie Nelson, and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and yet, …

The World’s Top 7 Life-Changing Gurus

By in Blog, change & challenges, happiness & fun

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

Where do you turn when life gets you down? Who’s your hero, your mentor, your pillar of strength amidst the turmoil?

Haven’t we all had those days when life just seems to be a battle? I know I certainly have. And then there are times when there’s an ongoing challenge that grabs hold of us and just won’t let go.

What can you do? Where do you get your strength—your answers?

For a lot of us, we look to …

We Belong When We Connect with Each Other

By in Blog, love & relationships

“When you live on a round planet, there’s no choosing sides.” ~Wayne Dyer 

Te holiday season is a time to connect with others, to celebrate our common humanity, even if the holidays we celebrate are different.

Instead sadly people all over the world are still taking sides. They seek to identify with one “side” or another (tribe, culture, religion, politics, nationality). They seek to belong by being distinct from others.

They seek to belong by hating the other side, sometimes by killing the other side.

But finding identity in reinforcing our differences will never give us a true sense of …

Active Contentment: 5 Tips to Have Both Peace and Ambition

By in Blog, mindfulness & peace, work fulfillment

“Peace is not merely a distant goal we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

Stress equals success.

I wholeheartedly believed this for many years. Who had led me so astray? I have only myself to blame.

The concept of peace had no practical application in my life. Peace was something that was necessary in war-torn countries, not in my mind.

This toxic belief began in college. The library often felt like a boxing ring where my fellow students and I competed to be the most stressed out.

Who had the most …

Direct Your Emotional Memory to Feel Good Now

By in Blog, happiness & fun, work fulfillment

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” ~Henry Ford 

You’re stuck at work and you dream of something better.

This dreaming usually starts off great. You imagine yourself sitting at a desk working on a million dollar project or teaching underprivileged kids how to multiply seven times three.

Whatever your vision is, it’s good to daydream about this, but what usually happens is that we snap out of it, and reality smacks us in the face. We’re answering phones, running errands, and hating our lives.

I’ve been …

Moving on from a Mistake: 5 Tips to Relieve Your Pain

By in Blog, change & challenges, letting go

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

We all make mistakes, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that when we’re in the midst of them. We try to avoid them at all costs because the pain and price can be high.

It can cost us our jobs, our reputations, or our driving records.

In their election ads, political candidates often focus on their opponents’ negative aspects in order to make us vote for them instead. It’s almost as if we’re voting for the person least likely to …

Relationships That Hurt: When Enough Is Enough

By in Blog, love & relationships

“Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than hurt yourself trying to put them back together.” ~Unknown

There was a time when I was quite black-and-white with relationships. I either trusted you implicitly, assuming you’d never intentionally hurt me, or believed you wanted to cause me pain and questioned everything you did.

Once you moved yourself into the latter category, there was no going back.

Eventually, I realized I was limiting my relationships by not recognizing the grey area, where people are human, they make mistakes, and they need forgiveness and understanding.

From there I …

Catch Anger Before It Catches You

By in Blog, happiness & fun, letting go, mindfulness & peace

“For every moment you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m not an angel. In fact, my husband used to lovingly call me a “fierce creature.” This fiery inclination can be due to inborn temperament, but it can also be a result of post-traumatic stress or similar brain-impacting life events.

It’s taken a concerted effort, over many years, for me to become more loving, tolerant, and peaceful.

But I still lose it from time to time. Like today, for example, it must have been a triple critical day because I lost it three times in …

Tiny Buddha Book Holiday Giveaway, Week 2

By in Blog, Giveaway, happiness & fun

Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The Winners:

This is the 2nd in a series of 4 holiday giveaways for my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions, which launched right around this time last year.

If you’ve already learned about the book or purchased it, this post will be redundant for you! For those who haven’t read it, here’s a little information about it:

This is the first book of its kind—with tweets woven …

Body Betrayal: How to Cope with Chronic Pain and Illness

By in Blog, healthy habits

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Up until fairly recently, I often felt betrayed by my body. It was always breaking down, leaving me frustrated and bitter.

No one else seemed to have as many problems.

I’ve had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, an inflamed gall bladder riddled with stones that ended in surgery. Chronic migraines, chronic hives, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Whenever I get sick, it never seems to be something trivial. A cold becomes bronchitis. Hayfever leads to a sinus infection.

One year after holidaying in Thailand, …