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When Things Go Wrong: We Can Thrive, Not Just Survive

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“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.” ~James Thurber

Ever thought you had achieved everything you wanted to? I did.

My teens had passed in a blur of self-loathing regarding my body. (Tape measure, thighs, and many tears; need I say more?)

I stumbled through my twenties not exactly sure what I wanted to do, but never feeling quite good enough—for what, I didn’t know, but surely I should have been better.

By my thirties, though, I had settled into a career of holistic therapy and had three happy, healthy children, …

The Power of Focus: Directing Your Life with Intention

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“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” ~Māori Proverb

Life is about lessons, would you not agree? If we’re not learning every day, all the time, then what on earth are we doing? Often, the universe speaks to us in gentle metaphor, and if we’re completely present in the moment, we can recognize lessons, delivered in poetic images.

One of the clearest lessons of my life was a number of years ago, when I was living in a crumbling house in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. At the time, I was …

The Secret to Lighting up a Room: Find Your Inner Glow

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“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ~Marianne Williamson

We’ve all met that person at a party or a business function who seems to “light up a room.” People are drawn to them like moths to a flame.

Maybe it’s the way she carries herself, or the easy way he laughs, or her eyes that seem totally focused and engaged in the moment. I’ve always noticed that they have sort of a “knowing” smile—a secret that maybe, just maybe, they might tell you.

I have always wanted to know that …

Giveaway and Interview: Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

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Note: 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:

There are certain people who become part of the fabric of our culture. Their work touches something primal in all of us, and compels us to think and act differently in a way that improves life for us, and the people around us.

Gretchen Rubin created such a phenomenon with The Happiness Project, her account of the year she spent test-driving ancient wisdom, current scientific research, and lessons from …

10 Powerful Benefits of Change and Why We Should Embrace It

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“If you do not create change, change will create you.” ~Unknown

We are often resistant to change, and we don’t realize that change itself is constant.

Even if you resist or avoid it, it will enter your life just the same. When you initiate the change yourself, it’s pretty easy to adapt to it, since it’s a wanted one.

But are the unplanned and unexpected changes bad? What if all changes were good by default?

I have been embracing change since a young age. During my life I have lived in five countries and in over twenty-five apartments, changed …

We Need to Be Giving: Kindness Can Be a Win-Win Situation

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“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give” ~Winston Churchill

When asked what his religion is, the Dalai Lama tends to respond with one word: kindness.

In the world we live in today it’s easy for us to get so caught up in our goals and commitments that we overlook the suffering or needs of those around us.

Kindness may sometimes be put to the bottom of our to-do list when we feel a desperate need to survive, which seems to be increasing with all that is going on globally …

Learning is a Series of Steps: 7 Tips to Master a New Skill

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“The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you’re learning, you’re not old.” ~Rosalyn S. Yalow

A few weeks ago, at the age of thirty-something, I started the process of learning to drive.

To be completely honest, it has been a daunting experience, especially for an overachiever like me.

Most of the tasks I undertake I find relatively easy, but not driving.

Seeing as I’m an introspective kind of person, I‘ve been curious to identify what it is that I’ve been struggling with these past few weeks. The answer is an obvious one: fear.

Fear of …

Overcoming Shyness: How to Feel More Confident

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“Each time we face a fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown

I’m 25 years old and I’m currently in Minsk, Belarus, but that’s not where I’m from. In my relatively short life I’ve lived in many cities and countries all around the world, including Amsterdam, Cape Town (South Africa), Prague, Budapest, and Paris, to name a few.

I went to many of these places on my own or because of a new friend or girlfriend I met.

I was only able to make these moves because I overcame my shyness and learned to be confident.…

Waking Up to Live Fully and Passionately

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“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Have you ever hit the snooze button? I’m guessing you have at least once. And when you hit it— if you were awake enough to even think about it—you were probably happy knowing that you’d be getting a few more minutes of sleep, right?

You may have been dreaming a really great dream or were super comfortable in your bed, and you just weren’t ready to wake up. Maybe you had a hard time getting to sleep the night before or you just …

Emotionally Closed Off No More – How I’m Healing My Pain and Learning to Love

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“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” ~ Buddha

There’s only one way to survive life. Shut down, or get hurt and die.

Well, that’s what I once believed.

At some point during my childhood I decided that the only way to survive in the world was to shut down and close off my heart. I’m sure given a choice I would have chosen only to avoid the pain of life (not the pleasure), …

Changing Roles and Allowing Yourself to Evolve

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

I have worked for many years as a shelter and spay neuter veterinary technician. Earlier this year, I had the misfortune of losing the job at the shelter where I had worked for many years.

I found myself adrift. I had spent all these years caring for animals that had no one else to care for them. If I no longer had that job, I asked myself, who was I?

Who are you? It’s the most elemental question in the …

Facing the Fear of Death and Really Living Now

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“He who doesn’t fear death only dies once.” ~Giovanni Falcone

“None of us get out of here alive…” My sweet friend spoke those words, a few months before she lost her battle with Stage IV Brain Cancer at the tender age of 33.

She had a sense of humor, always, and even in the midst of her intense radiation treatments, was able to make light of a fact that is so obviously true—yet is so inherently avoided by Western culture.

Standing by my friend during her battle with cancer was the very first time in my life that I experienced …

5 Tips to Overcome a Major Setback

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“Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.” ~Unknown.

Just when I thought I was ready to get some of my ideas into motion and action, I have a setback.

Previously setbacks involved finances (unexpected bills, for example), time delays, and an unresponsive partner or friend when I wanted to make changes.

My current setback came in the form of a massive health scare.

When I’ve gotten over some fear and self-sabotage, and I feel like I’m finally ready to take action, it always brings up things for me…

At that moment of action, when all …

Embracing Our Darkness: We Don’t Always Have to Be Happy

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“It is better to be whole than to be good.” ~John Middleton Murray

Discouragement is usually an unwelcome guest. Every time it comes knocking on my door, I try to shoo it away or sweep it under the rug.

In fact, many of us want nothing more than for happiness to be our constant state of being, and have a hard time forgiving ourselves when we falter.

It happens: We can get immersed in the thick of discouragement for days, feeling mopey, downtrodden, physically, mentally, and emotionally “burnt out” and all in all “not ourselves.”

When I am …

Make It a Great Day or Not, the Choice is Yours

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“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.” ~W.M. Lewis

Throughout my high school career, I kind of wandered around the school, trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be afterward.

I was that kid you’d see walking as fast as humanly possible through the hallways with my books under my arms, trying to avoid all human contact, but I tried to stay active anyhow.

I did this through playing tennis and bowling, participating in student council, performing in school productions, and perhaps …

Develop Self-Awareness and Improve Your Relationships

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“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” -Gandhi

The other day I got upset over something silly that triggered difficult feelings with deep roots from my past.

In short, someone I love made a reasonable request that, for various reasons, I didn’t want to honor, partly because I felt this person wasn’t taking my feelings into account. But I had no good reason to suspect this.

I thought this because it’s a pattern for me.

For most of my young life, I believed my needs wouldn’t be met …

Non-Dual Thinking: There Are Things We Don’t Know

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

It is not possible to grasp the infinite from a position that is finite. Seems like a good place to start.

“Dual” thinking, as I understand it, is the idea that something has to be “either/or.” That it’s either good or bad. Right or wrong.

Here’s another way describing it: The concept of up and down seems to make sense from an earthly or gravitational perspective, but if you are somewhere out in space, it suddenly makes no sense at all. There is no up or down.

The …

Constructive Criticism Is a Sign of Your Potential

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

Like a lot of kids, I grew up watching sports. Every Sunday afternoon, our family would gather around the big screen TV to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers play.

As a result, I began to idolize some of my favorite players and wanted to play the sport that brought them such fame, but little did I know that the coaching would be so brutal.

In middle school, I went out for the football team wanting to earn the privilege of wearing the glorious hoodies that …

Extraordinary Passion: Making a Dream Come True

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“Just as much as we see in others we have in ourselves.” ~William Hazlitt

As an American living and working abroad in Barcelona with only local Spanish and Catalan television, I often look to the Internet for entertainment when I have downtime. I particularly enjoy looking up songs I’ve heard on the radio.

I recently fell in love with the song We Are Young by the band Fun. I can still relate to this youthful anthem, even as an almost 40-year-old. I am fully aware that I probably just made the band hugely unpopular by admitting this.

This is …

Amp Up Your Self-Love: 7 Tools to Feel Great about Yourself

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“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.” ~Maxwell Maltz

I’ve always been a rebel—independent, and a bit of a loner. I’ve prided myself on self-sufficiency. I like to do things my own way, and I don’t care for unrequested input (to put it mildly!).

I’ve been self-employed since I was 22 in a profession it can be tough to make a living in. In large part, I’ve been successful because of my ability to care for and emotionally support myself.

For me, this self-love has served my goal of doing what I want to do with …