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I Hear You: A Must-Read Book for Stronger, Happier Relationships

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Have you ever felt like someone was listening to you but not really hearing you—or worse, not even fully listening?

Maybe they were more looking through you than at you, just kind of zoning out, all the while nodding, as if taking in what you were saying, but not. Or even worse still, maybe they weren’t giving you any signs of engagement, but rather alternating between glances up at you and glimpses down at their phone.

It’s rare these days to get someone’s full attention, and even more difficult to end a conversation feeling truly heard and understood—as if the …

Being Shy Made Me Strong, and It Can Do the Same for You

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“Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.” ~Unknown

This quote seems counterintuitive, right?

For many years, I, too, scoffed at the idea.

Having dealt with crippling shyness throughout my life, I know firsthand what it’s like to feel weak, powerless, and trapped because of it.

As a child, I remember clinging to my mom’s leg and using her body to hide from strangers. Then, as I got older, this shy behavior manifested into a fear of speaking my mind, interacting with others, putting myself out there, and so on and so forth.

My quiet and timid nature …

I Thought It Was Love, But It Was Actually Abuse

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“Alone doesn’t always mean lonely. Relationship doesn’t always mean happy. Being alone will never cause as much loneliness as being in the wrong relationship.” ~Unknown

I don’t know if it’s the conditioning of Disney movies that makes every young girl dream of finding her Prince Charming, but that was my experience. My prince entered my life just like that, saving me from my boredom and taking me on a roller coaster of excitement. He assured me that our love was going to last forever, and the naivety of being sixteen made me believe him.

It didn’t take long for his …

Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

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“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Dedicate today to the power of choice. Your choice. You can’t choose everything that you experience in life, but what you can choose is mightier than any circumstance, outcome, or other person’s opinion.

Where you focus your mind, how you use your words, and how you treat yourself and others are all up to you. One chapter at a time, you write your own story.

We all have the power to choose what …

How to Free Yourself from Your Spiritual Drama

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“You have no friends. You have no enemies. You only have teachers.” ~Ancient Proverb

My very wise aunt, a talented psychotherapist and one of my spiritual teachers, has told me many times that the people, places, and things that trigger us are just “props in our spiritual drama.”

This phrase has stuck with me for years because it’s catchy and it rings so true to me. If we are struggling, it’s not a matter of the external force, it’s about what it provokes in us.

We don’t heal by trying to change others. We heal through breaking cycles; through knowing …

The Power of Saying No (Even to People You Love)

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“When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho

“Yes, of course.”

“Yes, that’s no trouble at all.”

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Yes, I’d love to help.”

Yes, yes, yes. “Yes” seemed to be the key word in my relationships with partners, family, friends, and colleagues.

I wanted to be helpful, kind, and thoughtful; I wanted to be there when people needed me. I didn’t want to let them down or disappoint or displease them. I spent a lot of my time devoted to my self-image as a capable, nice …

The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

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“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

We try to give our bodies value with numbers. We’re obsessed with the number on the scale and the circumference of our waist.

We also think our value lies in labels. Words like “obese,” “fat,” and “overweight” are triggers for many, and we abhor them like coffee breath, because we’ve been immersed in pocrescophobia (the fear of getting fat) from before we can remember.

But we are more than a category on a pie chart. We are …

Love Doesn’t Mean Being a Hero or Being Saved

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Most of us grow up believing that one day a handsome prince or beautiful princess will come our way and lead us into a life of “happily ever after.” No one knows what’s going to happen, but we’re certain it will be magical. We spend our childhoods desperate to grow up so that our lives can finally start when we meet “the one.”

The one who will make us happy. The one who will take all our cares away. The one who will love us, and only us, forever and ever.

Finally, we will be wanted and desired. We will …

How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

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“Changing directions in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is.”

We all have natural talents, and in some cases, we may have devoted years to honing our skills and turning them into a career. As we’re on the road to achieving our goal or fulfilling our potential, there may be this invisible weight that starts to bear down on us.

That’s because there is a burden of potential. The burden is that fear that we’ll never reach our full potential, and the obligation and pressure we feel when we don’t want to continue on the path we’re on.…

Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

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 “It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” ~Unknown

I used to be a complainer, a fault-finder, a grumbler. I would grumble a hundred times a day about mundane issues, be it the weather, the traffic, or my husband.

I complained when my husband didn’t help me around the house, and grumbled when he helped. It took me some time to realize that it was not him or his lack of housekeeping skills that made me unhappy. I was unhappy because I was turning into an ungrateful person.

I have some fond and …

My Life Will Be My Message

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“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Gautama Buddha

I have meditated for over half my life. It didn’t always look like meditation, and I didn’t always refer to it as such, but the driving need to introspectively understand my universe has been an ever-present presence,.

For a long time, there was a certain guarded nature to my practice. It was intimate for me. I didn’t have words to explain what I was doing in a way that didn’t seem crazy. …

No One Deserves to Be Abused

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“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Kahlil Gibran

You’re stupid. You’re a loser. You’re worthless. You will never amount to anything. You’re not worthy of love. These are things I’ve told myself throughout my life.

The experiences I had throughout my childhood led me to believe I was deeply unlovable. I thought that because I had been abused and ignored, there was something seriously wrong with me.

That’s what abuse and neglect does. It seeps inside you down to the deepest level. It changes you in every way.

You begin …

Being Busy Made Me Feel Important, But Now I Feel at Peace

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“You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes a day, unless you are too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” ~Ancient Zen proverb

I used to think that life was about powering through things. I’d grab a latte, write my to-do list, and proudly cram as many things as possible into my day.

At work, there was staff, payroll, invoices, customers, marketing, and the occasional cleaning of an office bathroom. At home, there was parenting, dinner, cleaning, homework, bedtime, laundry, and plans for the next day. When my eyes could no longer remain open, I’d fall into a …

How to Fight Well in Your Relationship

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“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” ~Rumi

I had one of those really intense arguments with my partner recently, and it made me realize the importance of knowing how to fight well in a relationship.

That might sound like an oxymoron, but there isn’t a relationship I know of where the couple doesn’t fall out at one point or another. Fights can make or break a relationship. That’s why it’s important you know how to fight well—because the success of any relationship isn’t based on how well you manage the good times …

Why Some Things Trigger You Emotionally and Others Don’t

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“If you’re hysterical, it’s historical.” ~Anonymous

I had been having problems with my email. I dreaded calling technical support, since my experience in the past involved sitting for a long time on hold and listening to someone reading from a script instead of thinking creatively about my problem. However, since I could not fix the problem myself and I felt I had no other options, I called my Internet service provider’s technical support line.

True to form, after thirty minutes on the phone we had barely moved past the point where I had repeated my name and account number to …

Why I’m at Peace with My Weight Gain

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“Resistance keeps you stuck. Surrender immediately opens you to the greater intelligence that is vaster than the human mind, and it can then express itself through you. So through surrender often you find circumstances changing.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I took a deep breath, feeling the recent change in my belly. I pinched at my belly rolls. They were familiar, I’d had them before, but recently I had gone through a period of over a year where I was in a smaller body. Now I was gaining weight again.

I refuse to step on the scale, so I don’t actually know …

How to Just Be: 5 Life Lessons I Learned from Watching Sunsets

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“Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” ~C. JoyBell C.

“You need to just be.”

At the time I didn’t understand my teacher’s words. My identity entwined itself with my ambition.

I fought inner emptiness by overloading my calendar.

I fought loneliness by never leaving time to be with myself.

I fought depression by trying to do more.

None of it worked.

And the answer repeated itself, quiet and strong, “You need to just be.”

Fortunately, my teacher was too wise to only …

Why My Passion Died When I Was Living the Dream

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“Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

In my twenties I achieved what many young musicians dream of. I got signed to a major label, I got to work with great people in beautiful studios, and I got to travel the world, playing my own music.

Living the dream, right?

Many things were great, but many things were eating me up, as well. The work was all-consuming, and over time my passion faded. I started to long for something else.…

Confrontation Can Be Hard, But It’s Worth It

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“When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” ~Fred Rogers

I was immediately uncomfortable when the older gentleman rode up on his bike and loudly told us that our kids shouldn’t be riding their bikes on the velodrome; it was against the rules.

If it had been just me and my daughter, I would have said no problem and left the area, maybe even apologized. But I wasn’t alone, I was with my friend and her son, and my friend doesn’t back down from confrontation like I do.

Instead of saying okay …

Why I’m Trying Harder to Be Kind to Strangers

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“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~Leo Buscaglia

From uttering unkind words to sleeping with unkind men, I’ve had many moments of shame in my life. Still, there is one particular moment of shame that stands out from the crowd. It happened at least ten years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I was strolling around downtown Toronto with a visiting friend when a rough-looking …