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The Benefits of High-Quality Talk: Connect, Grow, and Thrive

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

I was always disturbed and discouraged during periods in my life when I was stuck, circling in an eddy, moving—but going nowhere.

At times I was stuck in my job: I was bored and couldn’t figure out how to get excited again. Even though I was the CEO and had lots of freedom to make changes in my organization and in my personal work activities, I couldn’t see what might move me toward my potential.

At other times, I …

Start Healing the World: Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

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

We all have the fundamental desire to create an ideal world, where everyone is healthy, happy, and free of suffering. The habitual tendency we all have is to look around us, find out what’s wrong with the world, and then try to “fix” it.

While it’s true that horrible things happen around us everyday, to transform the world we all experience, we have to start with ourselves. We can only create change in the world if we first start with our own …

8 Easy Ways To Spread Happiness Around You

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“All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” ~Proverb

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to contribute to the world somehow. I’ve always dreamed of starting a charity organization. I bet that, just like me, you walk around with some sort of wish in your heart to change the world in some way, but you might not do anything about it. How come?

My excuses were time, money, fears, and not knowing how to go about it. I’m guessing you have similar hindrances.

Until recently I held on to the limiting belief…

Are You Hiding Yourself in Fear of Being Fully Seen?

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“If you learn from a loss you have not lost.” ~Austin O’Malley

Two years ago I lost my grandfather. He’d been ill the last time I saw him and I knew it was coming. And yet, I was still not prepared for the depth of my grief.

I had lost loved ones before, but while I had loved them, they weren’t him. He was special. He saw me.

If you know what it means to be seen I don’t need to say anymore.

If you’ve never felt seen, let me explain what that feels like: It is the very best …

7 Powerful Spiritual Truths: Turn Challenges into a Reawakening

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“Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.” ~Iyanla Vanzant 

Have you ever had an experience that took you to emotional rock bottom? One that left you drained, broken, and totally numb? Your life shattered, and you scrambling to pick up the pieces and put them back together?

It might sound like a clichĂ©, but sometimes it really is darkest just before dawn. Rock bottom can be a great place to start to rebuild yourself. …

Lessons from Regret: The Time is Now

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“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

“Six weeks ago the doctors told me he had six weeks to live. I don’t think he is going to survive the night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I whimpered, my voice barely above a whisper. ‘We don’t have any time left.”

I didn’t think that as a 19 year old, seeing my father die in a hospital was going to be something I would experience. Wasn’t he meant to grow old and grey, with me taking care of him?

Nevertheless, in the early hours of the …

10 Happiness Tips for People Who Have Been Hurt

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“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” ~Unknown

Maybe someone hurt you physically or emotionally. Maybe you’ve survived something else traumatic—a natural disaster, a fire, an armed robbery. Or maybe you’ve just come out of a trying situation, and though you know you’ll eventually recover, you still feel pain that seems unbearable.

Whatever the case may be, you’ve been scarred and you carry it with you through many of your days.

Most of us can relate on some level to that feeling. Even people who excel at taking personal responsibility have at least one story of having been hurt. Though some …

Live a Big Life: Shift from “Why Me?” to “Why?”

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“The journey is the reward.” ~Chinese Proverb

We’ve probably all heard this famous piece of wisdom at one time or another.

I’ll be honest, there were a few years where I just plain blew it off.

Like, “Yeah, yeah, journey, reward, I got it. Cool. Now, when’s my ship coming in?”

Not that I was greedy. Just impatient to arrive at a place called Made It. It seemed that other people were already there and I was eager to join them.

I had seen the brochure for Made It and I knew then and there, it was my kind …

Live a Life You Love: 5 Steps to Set Your Priorities Straight

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“It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?” ~Henry David Thoreau

About a month ago I decided to add more at-home exercise to my schedule.

Since I found out that sitting for multiple hours a day can increase our heart attack risk by fifty-four percent, I have figured out that the more movement I add to my life, the better for my longevity.

Being vital and living a long life are important to me, so making the decision to add more exercise was easy.

Yet, my plan did not work …

Dealing with Loss and Grief: Be Good to Yourself While You Heal

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“To be happy with yourself, you’ve got to lose yourself now and then.” ~Bob Genovesi

At a holiday party last December, I ran into a friend from college who I hadn’t seen in twenty years.

“What’s going on with you? You look great!”

“Oh, well
 My mother passed away and my husband and I divorced.”

“Oh Jeez! I’m so sorry,” he said. “That’s a lot! So, why do you look so great?”

Perhaps it wasn’t the greatest party conversation, but I did with it smile.

“It was the hardest year of my life, but I’m getting through it and that …

Making It Through Pain That Seems to Never End

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“Feelings are real and legitimate.” ~Unknown

I’ve been thinking about pain lately.

It’s come up for me more now since my sister, Susie, has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

Susie and I are close in age—just 15 months separate us—and close in friendship and love. So I worry about her.

She’s an electrician and needs to be able to use her hands on a daily basis for wiring, splicing, drilling, and all of the other myriad things electricians do.

But, of course, her hands are right where the arthritis has chosen to reside currently.

She told me that some days …

Are Your Expectations Setting You Up for Disappointment?

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“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~Alan Watts

For a long time, I felt like I was standing on a riverbank just watching the water of life go by, too scared to jump in and play. I was waiting for the perfect current to come along that I could ride all the way to the completion of my intensely detailed life goals.

I didn’t want to move until I felt like success was guaranteed and I was certain it was the “right” thing. Life was flowing, and I wasn’t …

The Blessings in Disguise We Don’t Realize We’ve Received

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“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings” ~Henry Ward Beecher

I’m a calm person by nature, but like everybody else, there are a few things that get my blood, at the very least, simmering. One of them used to be inconveniences.

Our daily lives are filled with delays, missed opportunities, setbacks, and outright nuisances. It happens to us all.

Missing a bus and being late for work. Being locked out of the house for four hours when you have an urgent exam to prepare for, with all your notes …

5 Principles to Live by When Life Doesn’t Go Your Way

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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 all have our stories, don’t we?

Some stories merely create a ripple in our lives, while others go deeper. So much so that they can change the course of our lives. Dramatically.

Mine is such a story. It’s no sadder or deeper than anyone else’s. It’s just life, and how I choose to respond to it, I have realized, is what really matters.

My story was (and still is) big enough to change the course …

Getting to the Root of Pain to Work Through It and Be Happy

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“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain” ~Anais Nin

I come from a family of runners. They run from pain, emotions, and uncomfortable feelings.

My mom was 17 when she moved to Texas to get away from her overbearing mother. She couldn’t deal with the pain of never being enough for her parents or herself. She left her parents, extended family, and friends behind in Mississippi without a second glance.

A recovering anorexic, she was looking for something, anything that would ease the pain and prove she was okay.

My father arrived in Texas in his …

How to Stop Betting Against Yourself: 7 Keys for Personal Freedom

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“Nothing reduces the odds against you like ignoring them.” ~Robert Brault

Do you ever wake up feeling like you’re battling yourself?

What’s worse is waking up in that battle and feeling like you’ve already lost before you’ve even started the day.

But think about that for a second: isn’t living this way crazy? We think it’s normal to be fighting ourselves. We’re taught we need to grind it out and make something of ourselves to be successful. We’re taught we need to become something.

And the underlying message is this: who we are right now isn’t good enough.

We’re starving …

When Your Beliefs Hold You Back: Release Them to Avoid Regret

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“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~lan Watts   

Do you hear voices?

Even when you are alone, there is usually someone talking to you. And you hear them loud and clear.

Everyone has an internal dialogue going through their heads for a large part of the day. Just because you hear these “voices” it doesn’t mean you are crazy.

On the other hand, these voices can make you believe some crazy things.

Most of what these voices tell you is negative. And when you hear these negative things often enough, …

10 Ways to Be the Person You Wanted to Be as a Kid

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“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.” ~Angela Schwindt

When you’re young, anything seems possible. Whether you want to become a school teacher, a ballerina, or an astronaut, it all feels within your reach.

And you so easily get excited by it.

You can visualize in vivid detail what it would be like to hold your roses at curtain call, or how proud you’ll feel when you save the day—as a fireman, a soldier, or maybe even a superhero. You pretend your way through different roles and stay …

3 Ways to Deal with 3 Different Forms of Negativity in the World

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“The world is full of a lot of fear and a lot of negativity, and a lot of judgment. I just think people need to start shifting into joy and happiness. As corny as it sounds, we need to make a shift.” ~Ellen DeGeneres

I’ve dealt with a lot of negativity in my life.

When I was only 20, my dad died of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Before that I had to watch him suffer from it for a couple of years as his body slowly lost its functions.

Also, when I was young I was bullied a lot…

5 Ways to Turn Simple Daily Tasks into Meaningful Rituals

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“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~ Robert Brault

“Routine” can seem like a dirty word; we can get stuck repeating the same actions over and over again and feel like slaves to our habits.

Yet there are some things we simply cannot get around—sleeping, waking, eating, working, and engaging with others. There are also repetitions that we embrace as rituals—Friday afternoon with its promise of the weekend, weekly religious observances, a favorite TV show even.

What if we could turn regular, seemingly mundane daily activities into …