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Dealing with Uncertainty: 5 Tips to Create Trust and Patience

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ā€œIf you’re going to doubt something, doubt your own limits.ā€ ~Don Ward

So far Iā€™ve gone from Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Moruya, Moruya to Sydney, and Sydney to Brisbane, and my Australian adventure continues.

Iā€™m now about to depart from Brisbane and settle in on the Gold Coast in Queensland for the next few months while I get my yoga teacher certification and continue to explore this beautiful country.

Itā€™s been five months, ten days, and four hours since I landed at the Sydney International airport from Los Angeles. When I first left, I had no real expectations other …

Getting Out of a Rut and Working on a Passion

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“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.” – Charles R. Swindoll

For twenty-something me, a college drop-out utterly overwhelmed with choice and bewildered by unemployment, it can easily feel like a void of nothingness, so black and dense there is little point in considering a future beyond it.

I see friends studying Economics, English, and Engineering. Theyā€™ve joined their circus, and I havenā€™t even started yet. I’m behind, I’ll never catch-up; I’ll be the kid that got held up.

College has structure, solidity, a process, respect, certification, and a certain standing. …

Control Less, Trust More: How I Learned to Relax and Let Go

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ā€œThe closest to being in control weā€™ll ever be is in that moment when we realize weā€™re not.ā€ ~Brian Kessler

My nine-year-old son said something so profoundly right that it kept me awake. He said that in order for him to be happier I would need to let go of controlling him all the time.

Now granted he is young, and believe me, if I didn’t tell him to get dressed heā€™d run outside in PJs, but I was struck by his wisdom because this is also my obstacle to becoming happier.

In the past, the more I felt out …

Refill Your Glass: A Simple Way to Make the Most of Yourself

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“Make the most of yourself, because thatā€™s all there is of you.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Twelve years ago, my husband and I were preparing to adopt our son. As part of the process we were required to take parenting classes.

One of the classes was about taking care of ourselves so that we could take care of others. Given the difficult journey that parenting can be, the instructor encouraged us to ā€œrefill our glass.ā€

Honestly, I couldnā€™t relate to what he meant. I was young and excited about having a family. Silently I dismissed his suggestion that parenting or anything …

Feeling Love Outside of a Relationship

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“There is no Love greater than Love with no object. For then you, yourself, have become love, itself.” ~Rumi

I have spent most of my life as a professional, half of that in Asia: managing a division of a company, doing long-term meditation retreats, and establishing cottage industries for impoverished refugees.

A long-term relationship was impossible since Asian men marry Asian women; European men had European wives and Asian lovers.

Along the way I thought I could give more value to the world by remaining single than being married with children.

I met a woman working at the UN who …

Forgive Yourself and Change Your Choices

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For almost four years I held onto a feeling that I had somehow done something wrongā€”that I hadnā€™t tried hard enough, that I had somehow failed my daughter.

In May 2008 my daughterā€™s father had arrived home after staying out all night. He told me he no longer loved me, found me attractive, or even fancied me, and that at eight years younger than him I was ā€œtoo old.ā€

I was completely stunned.

While our relationship had many of the usual flaws, we had never fought, and Iā€™d believed him one month prior, after we bought a new home together, …

Join the Tiny Buddha Twitter Party on Feb 21st: Win Prizes and Tweet for Charity!

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Do you remember in December when I threw a Twitter party to celebrate the launch of my book, Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Lifeā€™s Hard Questions?

No? Youā€™re not the only one!

I didnā€™t spread the word very well, so Iā€™ve decided to do it again, with the help of Karl from Party Biz Connect and my friend Mastin from The Daily Love.

This time the party will support one of my favorite charities; and to make it even more exciting, Iā€™m going to offer the Peace and Purpose Bonus Pack (valued at more than $150) to anyone who purchases …

A Simple Prescription for Natural Healing

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ā€œPeace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life but the ability to cope with it.ā€ -Unknown

 

When my daughter, Nava, was critically ill, on a ventilator in a drug-induced coma for three months, one of the ICU doctors called me in after a couple of weeks to tell me that if she survives, it will be a long road.

He started writing out a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication to ā€œhelpā€ me through this horrific ordeal.Ā Ā I certainly donā€™t fault him here as this was an extreme acute situation and he didnā€™t know if I could …

Reclaiming Valentine’s Day: 4 Real Expressions of Love

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“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson

Valentineā€™s Day. Yes, that dayā€”the much maligned, much cherished, much hated, and much misunderstood day of the year.

I remember being traumatized in adolescence. Not only were we supposed to, according to peer-reviewed social norms, like people and get liked back on this holiday, my school made us do Valentineā€™s day card/candy exchanges.

We exchanged, in class, little pre-packaged cards and those infamous heart-shaped candies stamped with subtle expressions like ā€œbe mine.ā€

Do you recall these candy hearts that Iā€™m describing? They come in variety …

Every Great Dream Begins with a Dreamer

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“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.” ~Unknown

As a little kid I liked to dreamā€”big, whether it was believing my red-Huffy bicycle would one day turn into a Transformer or convincing myself that as an adult Iā€™d be spending much of my time in Hollywood hosting ā€œThe Price is Right.ā€ As I said, I liked to dream big. I still do sometimes.

If we think back to our childhood, we all can remember a time when our dreams didnā€™t seem that far away from us.

I remember spending countless hours in my basement …

A Small Guide to Big Changes

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ā€œIt is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.ā€ ~Proverb

I recently made a discovery that massively increased the amount of change that I have been able to take on. Good stuff, too, like my eating habits and the amount that I exercise.

By this time last year, and the year before, I would have already dropped my New Yearā€™s resolution. Maybe you have, too.

But thereā€™s still a chance. Thereā€™s still time for some big changes this year.

With this small change, Iā€™ve …

3 Lies to Eliminate to Start Living Up to Your Potential

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ā€œAnd in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” ~Abraham Lincoln

I used to think that I would motivate myself to really live up to my full potential by reminding myself how much I wasnā€™t.

Well, that didnā€™t work.

Not that I didnā€™t get any results from chanting ā€œYou are so not living up to your full potential!ā€ while getting out of bed, driving to work, doing the dishes, and combing my hair. Any time was a great time to remind myself. So I didnā€™t waste a second doing just …

Releasing the Urge to Push and Being Kind to Yourself Instead

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

Pushing has always been the way I get things done.

Actually, I should be more specific: pushing myself harder has been the way I get things done.

I grew up believing that life was hard, and that the only way to survive was to give up indulgences, buckle down, and trudge forward. Uphill. Against the wind.

In my small, suburban high school, I spent hours after my classes ended wrestling with quadratic equations.

I had the overwhelmingly generous help of my teachers, who tutored …

Why Too Much Choice is Stressful and 7 Simple Ways to Limit It

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“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

When I bought my car, I visited only one showroom. I’d made the decision that this was the car for me in around one hour, and chose not to spend more hours or days of my time going from one place to another to check other deals and different cars.

If I hadn’t have found this car, I would have gone to another dealer. However, I’ll never know if I could have saved money by haggling elsewhere, and I don’t care.

I’ve had my trusty and …

Will You Get Bitter or Better?

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“Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses.” ~Proverb

I am a member of a mercifully small subset of society. I am the mother of a dead child.

Twenty years ago, my daughter Graceā€”my first child, my only girlā€”was born prematurely and died 32-minutes later. As I write this, I am astonished that it has been twenty years since I met my daughter for the only time.

Time stopped for me when Grace took her last little breath. And I was certain that my life could never start again.Ā 

I …

Stop Focusing on Lack to Fully Enjoy Your Experiences

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“Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” ~Epicurus

Yoga retreats in rural getaways nestled in tropical mountain spaces. Exploration trips for pleasure and business on the east and west coasts. Bike riding and people watching on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Recognition and sponsorship from leaders in my professional circle. Adventures with my husband and daughters in Jamaica.

Even with all these rich life experiences, still my focus was always the same: If I could just have more money, my life could finally get good.

The past year found me deep on a journey to discover the muted …

How Our Beliefs and Expectations Hold Us Back and How to Let Them Go

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“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen

Just because youā€™ve believed something is true, even if youā€™ve believed it for a long period of time, that doesnā€™t mean that it is actually true or that it has to be true for the future.

For a long time I believed that my body was broken. I believed that I could never be super lean and ripped even though I really wanted to be. I also believed I had irreversible digestive issues that seemed to be getting worse and worse.…

3 Simple Ways to Turn Failure into Success

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“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

Iā€™ve always been an optimist, looking for the good in situations, even when they seem like the bleakest thing that could happen to me or the people around me.

But failure is a difficult one to turn on its ear.

You know when you donā€™t reach your goal. You know when you donā€™t get what you wanted.

Now I know the Rolling …

Book Giveaway and Interview: Rewire Your Brain for Love

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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:

An old friend once told me that women frequently say all the men theyā€™ve dated have been jerks; and men frequently say all the women theyā€™ve dated have been crazy.

You could chalk this up to gender differences, men being from Mars, women being from Venus and all that. But maybe thereā€™s more to it. Maybe itā€™s actually our biology that influences how we act and interactā€”and why we often …

Loving Ourselves and Each Other, Imperfections and All

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ā€œWe come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.ā€ ~Sam Keen

I heard this story the other day about the collection of homes called Favelas surrounding Rio De Janeiro.

If you arenā€™t familiar with them, they are a large collection of small run-down homes built on the side of the hills surrounding the city. They scatter and protrude across the landscape like paper litter in the tall grass along the highway.

The conditions can be poor, and unsanitary, often with raw sewage running down the side of the hill where …