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Category “letting go”

Letting Go of Stubbornness: Appreciate Your Loved Ones While You Can

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“Before someone’s tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today. “ ~Michelle C. Ustaszeski

My brother Greg and I were the closest of friends growing up, even if you weigh in the occasional tiff or disagreement we sometimes had.

We discovered our favorite toys together as kids, rode bikes side by side, and conquered video games as a two-man team. Even well into our teenage years, we were an inseparable pair, always looking out for one another.

The fact that our father died of a brain tumor when we were young had forged a deep understanding …

4 Ways to Embrace Slow Change When You’re Feeling Impatient

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“Change is not a process for the impatient.” ~Barbara Reinhold

I love it when change happens quickly. Sometimes things just click, and everything shifts all at once.

When I met the man who’d become my husband, we were married only thirteen months later, and in those thirteen months we both transformed to our very cores.

The problem is that those thirteen months aren’t the entire story. They cut off the three years of intense personal work I did before I met him, all the while wishing to be in a healthy relationship.

Without those three years of work …

Finding the Courage to Let Go of the Familiar and Make a Change

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“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” ~Raymond Lindquist

I’ve been processing my beliefs on courage since I turned 31.

When I was in my 20s and teens, my idea of courage was that you fight until the death, never give up, be the one to say the last word, and always, always prove your point. And yet, I spent most of those years feeling unseen and unheard by my family and friends.

I felt completely isolated and exhausted, yet I wasn’t expressing these feelings. (Not to say I hold regret; in my journey I had …

When Your Friend’s Happy News Fills You with Envy Instead of Joy

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“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.” ~Aeschylus

It’s crazy, isn’t it?

Your best friend enthusiastically shares some big news. You say all the right things and display the right emotions. But inside you’re burning up. Instead for feeling truly happy, you’re filled with uncontrollable envy.

It’s not that you’re a bad person. You really want to feel happy for your friend. You really want to get rid of these feeling of envy. But in the moment, you just can’t.

When the Green-Eyed Monster Took Me Over

A …

Free Yourself from Regret and Transform Your Life

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

I always had a hard time accepting all of me. As early as I can remember others defined me by saying “You are so weird.” Not in a malicious way but more in a “you don’t fit into our familiar box” sort of way.

I spent most of my teens and twenties attempting to conform to others or numbing myself to a point of not caring what they thought. If someone would have told me that forgiveness and compassion would lead me to …

Why Letting Yourself Feel Broken is the Key to Feeling Whole

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“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho

I spent my twenty-fifth birthday crying alone at the foot of a mountain. While I had always found solace in spending time by myself, in that moment, I did not recognize my “self.”  Without my self, I had nothing.

I was utterly alone.

Three weeks earlier, a man was shot just feet away from my front door. My then-boyfriend and I performed CPR until an ambulance arrived, but the man had been killed on impact. The police left my home at 3 a.m.; …

Forgiving In a Situation That Feels Unjust

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“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

There I was: numb from a conclusion of a dismissal based on a finding that there was “no reasonable prospect of success.”

Harassed, bullied, victimized, stalked both in-person and online, the Human Rights Tribunal tossed me into another discarded pile of victims to be ignored by the courts because a group of goons were cleaver enough to hide the body of proof.

My assailants comprised of four individuals. One was a divorced teacher …

The Power of Patience: Let Go of Anxiety and Let Things Happen

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

Patience can be a struggle.

I know this firsthand. My experience with impatience used to be confined to overusing the microwave or skipping to the end of a long novel.

Back then, when waiting at a traffic light for more than two minutes seemed like an eternity, I didn’t know that life would teach me several advanced lessons in patience.

Shortly after finishing my morning bike ride I started feeling queasy. I wondered what was happening, but tried to ignore the …

Bounce Back from Unexpected Challenges Stronger and Happier

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“True happiness means forging a strong spirit that is undefeated, no matter how trying our circumstances.” -Daisaku Ikeda

Let’s face it, whether big or small, stressful or simple, we all face challenges every day, some easier to deal with than others. Unfortunately, life doesn’t come equipped with an instruction manual to handle these challenges.

No matter how much we try to plan in advance, calculate our every move, or predict what the future will bring, we can never prepare enough for the unexpected.

The past eight months of my life have been filled with more twists and turns than the …

How to Stop Fearing Disapproval: 3 Lessons from Accepting Judgment

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“Lean too much on the approval of people, and it becomes a bed of thorns.” ~Tehyi Hsieh

I remember reading somewhere that the best way to face a fear is through repeated exposure.

In the case of my lifelong need for approval, I have found this to be true.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted, needed everyone to like me. And not just like me, but agree with and sanction my every choice through obvious signs of validation.

I remember auditioning for a community theater production of Annie when I was twelve.

My …

Get Unstuck: Stop Believing the Negative Stories You Tell Yourself

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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou

We’ve all done it, right? Somehow, somewhere, something bad happened to us and since that moment we’ve continued to tell ourselves the story about what might and could go wrong in our future.

For me, the biggest negative pattern I’ve had to release stems from my parents’ divorce. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a positive person. When I was a kid I was happy-go-lucky, nothing much bothered me, and life was pretty awesome.…

Where True Happiness Comes From: How We Gain by Having Less

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“The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.” ~Chuck Palahniuk

Small is the new big. That is to say, minimalism and living with less is becoming a growing movement in America and it’s starting to catch on over here in the UK too.

With the global economic crisis and changes in social attitudes, people are starting to realize that the more stuff we have, the more miserable and trapped we become. After all, stuff leads to debt, stress, and even increases our carbon footprint.

Plus, living in …

How to Release Anxiety and Feel Peaceful, Calm, and Free

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“I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

For a long time I have struggled with episodes of anxiety. At times, I’ve gotten a feeling of crushing fear that occurs even in situations that most people consider to be safe.

The first episodes I remember were from my early childhood, when I was so frightened that I used to cry all the way from home to kindergarten because I didn’t want to go, although I apparently had no reason.

As I grew up I learned to hide …

Dare to be Different: Why It’s Okay to Break the Mold

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“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” ~Aristotle

Who am I? This is a question that haunts us all at some point, especially when the people around us are trying to constantly answer this question for us.

How do we remain true to ourselves in a world that is constantly trying to make us something else?

I can tell you that it isn’t easy.

I work as a full-time police officer in a busy department. In police work, everything is supposed to fit in its right place, and there is an …

The Gains in Our Losses: Growing Through the Pain

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“In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost.”  ~ Anne Sophie Swetchine

I’ve always been a “cat guy.” This was long before my Buddhist friends told me stories of how cats are true earthly masters, here on earth to show us the way. Or, to demonstrate the meditative perfection of the feline purr. Or, how the life of a cat is seen in some traditions as reward for good karma.

When I lived in rural Nova Scotia, the house was blessed with two cats named Midge and Mooch—tabby mixes, who would come …

The One Thing You Need to Know to Overcome Perfectionism

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 “You’re imperfect and you’re wired for struggle but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brene Brown

There’s nothing perfect about me, and I’m okay with that
 now. This wasn’t the case for most of my life, though. In fact, I’ve been a perfectionist for almost thirty years. I’m not counting the first five years of my life when I was free to be as messy and magical as I wanted.

In third grade I asked my mom to buy me a stack of lined notebooks and colored pens. I spent hours neatly labeling each notebook by class, date, and …

Dealing with Loneliness: Hold onto Patience, Not the Past

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“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Last night, I discovered the tiniest of creatures in my shower: a minute scorpion, no larger than the average human fingernail.

I could not for the life of me work out how it had ended up here because I live on the third floor of an apartment building in a busy South African city. Nonetheless, there it was—a little fellow in the corner of the tiles, receiving ricocheted water droplets on his tiny little carapace.

My main personal learning theme for this year …

Be the Hero of Your Story: Make Your Life Count

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“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson

Flying. I love flying.

No, I’m not some sick person who likes getting strip-searched by TSA, or waiting several hours to board a flight that should have arrived at my destination already. I hate that part, but I love the part when the plane …

Why We Don’t Always Get What We Want

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“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

It’s probably happened to you. In all likelihood, it has happened multiple times in your life thus far.

You don’t understand why it happens. And when it does, it can throw you into the deepest valleys of despair.

Perhaps you cry out to a higher power to make things better. Maybe you just stare into the cosmos, wondering what the meaning of life is and why things get tough.

I’ve been there. Many times. For all sorts of reasons.

Breakups, career problems, dealing …

You Don’t Need to Fix Yourself to Be Healed

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“Growth begins when we begin to accept our weaknesses.” -Jean Vanier

I used to believe the word “healed” had a very specific meaning. In my mind, it described a state of perfection that always looked very different from the chronic health challenges I endured.

Being born with VACTERL Association, a birth disorder that causes malformations in six of the body’s systems, meant that I entered the world needing a lot of fixes. There were surgeries, hospitalizations, treatments, and medications aimed at perfecting something inherently imperfect.

The Search

I grew up searching. To be like everyone else. For a cure. For …