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Posts tagged with “Change”

You Canā€™t Change or Fix People, So Listen Instead

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“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” ~Ernest Hemingway

The chances are good that at some point in your life you had to deal with a loved one who consistently frustrated you. They were caught in a destructive pattern of behavior that made life difficult for them and everyone around them. How do you cope when this happens?

Perhaps you start avoiding them. And when thatā€™s not possible, you choose to check out of any difficult conversation or interaction youā€™re having with them. You resign yourself to the belief that your loved one cannot and will not change …

Walking Through Fire: Change Can Be Scary, But Itā€™s Worth It

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ā€œWhat matters most is how well you walk through the fire.ā€ ~Charles Bukowski

I used to be scared to walk through the fire.

I was scared to do deeply unsettling, terrifying, hard things.

I was scared to face my biggest fears and struggles head on.

And for the greater part of my twenties, I did everything I could to avoid the heat.

In particular, there was one fire that scared me to my core.

As I graduated college, I was the happiest Iā€™d ever been: Iā€™d met my very best friends, traveled to small, colonial Mexican towns, studied meaningful subjects, …

Why We Resist Change

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Don’t Be Afraid of Change

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Evolve or Remain

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Embracing Impermanence: Lessons from Living with a Chronic Illness

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ā€œNothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.ā€ ~Charlie Chaplin

At thirteen, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. At first, I patiently waited for my doctor to give me medicine. When he didnā€™t, I patiently waited (for several years) for someone to find the cure.

As the years went on I wasnā€™t getting any better. Though I went to more doctors than I could count, none had any new advice for me, and the medical community wasnā€™t any closer to figuring out how to heal this illness.

Life was unpredictable. I didnā€™t know what Iā€™d be able …

You Can’t Force Them to Change

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Everything Can Change in the Blink of an Eye

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You Can’t Change How People Treat You

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4 Things I Needed to Accept When I Was in Transition and Felt Insecure

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“Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.”-Ā  Robert Tew

I want you to picture this. You are standing on a mountain, andĀ in front of you is a taller mountain with a prettier view. Between the mountains is 100,000 foot plunge to the bottom, filled with jagged rocks. You know that you need to make it to that other mountain and that the only way for you to do so is to jumpā€”but for some reason, you cannot move.

This is what transition feels like, especially when you have to make …

The Problem with Forgiveness and What I Now Do Instead

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ā€œChange is the end result of all true learning.ā€ ~Leo Buscaglia

I cringe writing this. I have eaten so much humble pie that my pants donā€™t fit. This was a really hard lesson to learn.

I had a forgiveness problem.

When I was a kid, I learned to say sorry when I messed up and forgive other people when they did. With three sisters all two years apart, I got plenty of practice in as a kid (we all did).

It was a pretty standard routine:

1. Someone would mess upā€”say something horrible, lose something, break something, or hit someone.…

A First Aid Kit for When Life Falls Apart

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ā€œWhat if painā€”like loveā€”is just a place brave people visit?ā€Ā ~Glennon Doyle

Itā€™s one of lifeā€™s greatest paradoxes: When life is easy, everything seems easy. When life is hard, everything seems hard.

This one keeps coming back to me and I keep trying to figure it out. Why do we end up in these spirals of ā€œall goodā€ or ā€œall badā€? How can we get out of the ā€œall badā€ faster next time we get trapped? How can we help ourselves get out of there?

Iā€™ve had periods in my life when all seemed lost. When I havenā€™t been able …

There Are Some People You Just Canā€™t Help

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ā€œBe there. Be open. Be honest. Be kind. Be willing to listen, understand, accept, support, and forgive. This is what it means to love.ā€ ~Lori Deschene

A few months ago, I was totally freaked out.

I was having a cup of tea with a soul-sister friend, and we were in deep conversation. I was crying.

I was explaining, between hiccupping sobs, about how there was someone in my life who was suffering deeply.

Sitting at the cafĆ© that day, I said to her, ā€œThere is this person in my life that I love so deeply, but he is suffering.ā€

I …

What to Do If Your Life Story Depresses You or Holds You Back

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ā€œThe truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.ā€ ~Pema Chodron

Too often we let stories from our past define us. We tell them over and over to ourselves and to others until it becomes our truth. What if, without deviating from actual facts, we choose to tell different stories? What if these new stories could bring us more freedom and strength?

Below are some true facts about my own life. I’ll follow each one with the stories I could be telling myself about each one, followed by the story I choose to go …

Why You Need to Embrace “Beginner’s Mind” to Live a Life of Adventure

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ā€œThe donā€™t-know mindā€¦ doesnā€™t fear, has no wish to control or foresee, steps off the cliff of the moment with absolute trust that the next step will land somewhere, and the next step somewhere else, and the feet will take us wherever we need to go.ā€ ~Byron Katie

I am fifty-five years old. Iā€™ve raised a family, been through two divorces, bought and sold four houses, and had a successful professional career. And right now Iā€™m doing one of the hardest things Iā€™ve ever done, which is learning to host in a busy restaurant.

My coworkers range from mid-twenties to …

Limited Edition Tiny Buddha ā€œBe the Changeā€ Shirts

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Hi friends! Earlier this week I sent an email about the limited edition ā€œBe the Changeā€ shirts, which will be available until November 20th.

For those of you who missed that email, hereā€™s a quick recap:

I launched this campaign both to time with the holidays and also to fund a series of mini documentaries I plan to film early next year.

These mini docs will feature inspiring people who are making a positive difference through unique, creative paths. I plan to film these in the spring, in partnership with my co-producer, Ehren Prudhel, and share them …

7 Things You Need to Know to Live Your Best Life and Make a Better World

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You know those ā€œmoments of truthsā€?

When what you hear, or come to realize, turns your world around. When one or several things turn out to be exactly what you needed to hear at the exact right time. Ba-boom.

For the past couple of years, Iā€™ve had several ah-ha moments that have made my life better. Here are seven of those realizations. Some were harsh to come to terms with (like #1), while others brought me the greatest relief and hallelujah moment (like #7).

Read them, ponder them, and let them move in with you. See if they can alter …

Letting Go of Our Past Identities: When Itā€™s Time to Move On and Evolve

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ā€œLife is the dancer and you are the dance.ā€ ~Eckhardt Tolle

The day I decided to leave acting felt like being exorcised from my own body.

I was twenty-nine and had been dreaming of being an actor from the time I first saw a regional production of Cats around the age of eight.

I spent the next twenty-one years with laser focus on making that dream a realityā€”voice lessons, dance classes, summer theater intensives, constant late night college rehearsals, and finally, top conservatory training.

Even my mother, who was initially highly uncomfortable with the idea, tossed up her hands …

Why We Need to Learn to Let Go and Adapt If We Want to Be Happy

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Charles Darwin is believed to have said that in nature, itā€™s not the strongest or most intelligent that survives but those who are most adaptable to change.

No matter what kind of life we live, we all need to learn to adapt, because everything changes. Good and bad come and go in everybodyā€™s life.Ā Itā€™s one of the reasons resilience is so critical.

We plan our lives expecting good to come our way, to get what we want, and for things to work out how we planned.Ā At the same time weā€™re chasing the good, we try to avoid …

How We Can Break the Cycle of Pain

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ā€œBe the change you wish to see in the world.ā€ ~Gandhi

Pain is and isnā€™t just like energy. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed but is merely converted from one form to another.

For example, the light energy from the sun can be harnessed by plants, which, through photosynthesis, convert it to chemical energy. Plants use this energy to grow fruit, which we eat. We store this energy for when we need to exert ourselves, when we convert it to kinetic energy. The energy never disappears, but is instead just displaced.

Pain …