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How to Redefine Yourself by Letting Go of the Past

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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

When I was eight years old, my mom had her first mental breakdown. The illusion of a typical suburban family shattered as the household descended into chaos. When the counselors and child protective services stepped in, I knew: I was undeniably different.

When you’re a child, family life is the classroom through which you learn how the world works. Once my mom was hospitalized, I realized how very different my lessons were.

Mortified, I retreated into a …

How Self-Acceptance Enables Us to Connect with Others and the Moment

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“By accepting yourself and being fully what you are, your presence can make others happy.” ~Jane Roberts

I recently received one of the nicest compliments from a co-worker.

As nice as it was to hear someone validate all of the hard work I do and recognize my passionate desire to use music as a way empower people, I found that the compliment was just one, all-too-brief moment in a day dominated by schedules, meetings, and not nearly enough time for me to enjoy what was happening around me.

I should have felt great, but I was so distracted by my …

4 Toxic Habits That Can Control Our Lives and Keep Us Unhappy

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“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” ~Charles C. Noble

Until recently, I firmly believed that a classic set of toxic habits consisted of nail biting, smoking cigarettes, and abusing alcohol and drugs.

I completely forgot that there are some behavior patterns that can do equally bad damage to our vital and creative energy, claiming control over our lives and holding us back.

Ignorance is bliss, someone once said. I overstayed my welcome in that state of mind more than once. I thought my bad habits were actually making my life easier, and following the path to …

Trusting Yourself to Make Decisions Instead of Always Seeking Advice

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“To thine own self be true.” ~William Shakespeare

No one knows the real you but you. Sometimes it is true that we don’t know ourselves. That’s because we’ve lost ourselves, or maybe because we never knew ourselves to begin with.

I grew up a long time ago on a hill on Bentley road in Puyallup, Washington. I was a very quiet, shy, and reserved little girl. Today, I am a forty-two-year-old woman. I am still introverted, but I am learning to be more assertive.

As a co-dependent people pleaser, I grew up with a lot of self-doubt and …

How to Be Okay When You Have More Questions Than Answers

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“Sometimes questions are more important than answers.” ~Nancy Willard

I love the color orange. It makes me think of a beautiful ripe papaya, the calming shade of a monk’s robe, and the tapered candles my grandfather held in his hands to pray.

I don’t know if it’s simply this or the prayer chants that rose from temples along the rural Lao countryside, but when I think on these things from my childhood, I feel peace.

Do we romanticize our past? Do we sandpaper out the rough, dark spaces in our memories and label them “the good ‘ole days?” Is …

Dealing with Difficult People: 5 Effective, Compassionate Practices

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“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle

It’s morning; you’re in a great mood. You’re relaxed and have plenty of time to practice your morning routine. After a delicious breakfast, you head out to start your day. Then it happens: You encounter a difficult person, and your calm turns to calamity.

We all have encounters with people who prefer to stay miserable, making everything difficult. They exist, and perhaps there was a time in your past when you once where one of those negative people. Perhaps you still can be at times.

As a …

How to Love More and Hurt Less in Relationships

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“Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.” ~Ram Dass

In my personal experience, I’ve learned that it is sometimes easier to dance this journey of life solo rather than in partnership. Many of us have experienced life both in relationships and outside of them. Both are just as sweet.

I’d like to offer up some lessons I have learned in my dance in and out of relationships:

1. They are not meant to last forever.

Our society seems to put a lot of pressure on the idea that things will last forever. But the truth …

Tending to Your Garden of Thoughts and Keeping Your Mind Weed-Free

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“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” ~Buddha

Imagine your mind as a garden. Positive thoughts are the beautiful flowers that brighten your life. Negative thoughts are the ugly weeds that spread and suffocate the flowers.

Tending to my garden is an ongoing process.

I’m not into chemical pesticides, but my natural weed killers are yoga, meditation, inspirational reading, and hanging out with positive people.

Sure-fire weed food is worrying about what other people think, taking things personally, and stressing out about situations that don’t …

How to Keep Our Thoughts from Making Us Miserable

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

I thought I knew what happiness was. I experienced it, and did so for a while—that is, what I thought was happiness.

What I was calling happiness was merely an emotion. Emotions, feelings that arise in the body, come into existence when we have thoughts related to them.

When I have certain thoughts having to do with anger, then I will feel, actually physically feel, angry. When I have thoughts that are positive, then I will feel the feeling, or emotion, that we call happiness.

In …

Learning to Forgive Our Imperfect Parents for Their Mistakes

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” ~Oscar Wilde

I couldn’t tell you if Oscar Wilde’s quote is entirely accurate. You see, my biological parents abandoned me and left me with my grandparents at birth.

Growing up with grandma and grandpa was the best childhood I could have ever imagined, and I didn’t miss my biological parents at all. I guess in that sense they were my parents, and perhaps Oscar Wilde’s …

The Blessing of a Broken Heart: How Pain Can Lead to Healing

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“Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~Ruth E. Renkel

My last breakup was on April 16th, 2012.

I remember the date because on the evening of April 17th, as I sat with a blotchy red face and tears in my eyes, my dad told me I soon would remember that day and be glad I was no longer sad. “Men are like buses,” he said. “If one leaves you behind, rest assured another will come.”

I found his support very touching, but it did little to console me. If …

7 Steps to Move Through Sadness (and What We Can Learn from It)

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“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha 

He had been ignoring the symptoms for months, possibly even a year. When my husband came home from the doctors, he told me his PSA score was high, and he needed to have a biopsy. That date came and went, and we were waiting for the pathology report.

The doctor assured us it was nothing.

The image of standing in the car dealership parking lot, talking with my son and son-in-law will be forever etched in my memory. When the phone rang, I saw that it …

We’re Not Against Each Other: Choosing Cooperation Over Competition

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“If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path.” ~Buddha

It’s long been declared that the nature of life is based on survival of the fittest; that we all must constantly compete to survive.

And maybe, in some ways this is true.

But what if there were another truth, something that is even more powerful than competition?

What if cooperation is our true natural state?

Consider this: love is more powerful than hate.

Hope is more powerful than fear.

And if we believe in love and hope, then we believe in the power of unity. …

How to Tackle the Top 6 Fears That Keep Us Stuck

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“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” ~Isabel Allende

When you think of a fearless person, you might imagine a real-life James Bond who performs death-defying stunts knowing he could die at any second.

But for most of us living “normal” lives, fear operates at a subconscious level and prevents us from being the best we can be.

For a long time, I struggled with these fears. I could not get myself to speak in front of people without experiencing extreme nervousness. When it came to talking to girls I liked, …

Let Go of Shoulds and Stress and Let Yourself Do Nothing

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“When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing. Sometimes you just need to relax, breathe, let go and live in the moment.” ~Unknown

I am a recovering doing addict. My whole life I have been committed to getting things done. I do, do, do until I can’t do no more.

I have a very clear memory of myself in college, sitting at an evening lecture. I am not paying attention at all. I am writing a huge, long to-do list on the back of a blue folder.

Things keep popping into my mind, things that must get done right …

8 Things I Learned from a Phone-Free Month

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“Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.” ~Jose Ortega y Gasset

I used to live in San Francisco, a city celebrated for its carnivals, free music festivals, thriving bar culture, Mexican food markets, beautiful parks, fantastic literary events, thrift stores, and… (Can you tell I miss it?]

The effect of having all this culture available is that quite often, we spend more time around the doing of an event than the doing itself. I’ll elaborate.

I would spend x amount of time on my phone searching for cool events to go to. …

Why Forgiveness Is a Gift to Yourself and How to Release the Past

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“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

On a snowy winter day in the dark month of January, I got hit by a car. My left leg was immediately amputated. A darkness started growing in my seventeen-year-old heart that day.

Harvey was the man driving the car that hit me.

Because of Harvey’s decisions, I didn’t have my leg. Because of Harvey, I walked in pain. Because of Harvey, I lost my confidence as an attractive woman.

At the trial two years later, Harvey and I weren’t allowed to talk to each other. …

3 Things You Can Do To Feel Happier, Right Now

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“The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

In The Four Noble Truths, the Dalai Lama wrote, “It is a fact—a natural fact of life—that each one of us has an innate desire to seek happiness and to overcome suffering.”

Regardless of religion or creed or upbringing, I think we can all agree on this most universal of statements. Underneath whatever personalities we project and whatever lives we lead lies a foundational truth that applies to all of us: We want to be happy; we don’t want to suffer.

So …

Why Self-Love Is The Key To Finding True Love

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“The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” ~Sonya Friedman

The moon was shining brightly that balmy summer’s night in the park. He’d arranged a meeting to “sort things out.” Little did he know I’d finally built the courage to walk away. And that’s exactly what I did.

I was devastated but mostly relieved. Finally, I was free.

For the longest time I’d craved his love. I needed his approval. I wanted the happy ending so badly.

Why? I meant something when I was with him. I felt worthy and kind of secure.

But I wasn’t. I’d given …

How to Take Responsibility for Your Life Without Blaming Yourself

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“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.” ~Robert M. Pirsig

Many of us are exploring what it means to be responsible for ourselves, to be creating our own reality. These are concepts that in some situations are easy to grab ahold of; at other times, the meanings are far more elusive.

I’ve seen, in myself and in others, the tendency to beat ourselves up while we are learning what self-empowerment really means. I think this is a natural result of our cultural programming, and it’s understandable that we’d …