Tiny Buddha

Tag: growth

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

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

    talking

    “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 was stuck in a marriage that wasn’t dynamic, or I was between relationships and without prospects for the love and excitement I felt I needed to be happy.

    During those periods of dormancy, I was aware that I was stuck, and I was willing to shake things up to be able to emerge. But I didn’t know exactly what needed shaking up within myself, and I didn’t know how to shake myself up. I needed to be thrown out of the nest.

    I read broadly during those periods. I meditated. I exercised.

    But I continued to circle in an eddy of my own consciousness.

    Over time, I discovered how to bring high-quality talk into my life every day, and that discovery gave me the freedom and skill I needed for the dynamic life I wanted. 

    Creating high-quality talk gave me creative control over my own emergence.

    High-quality talk is: (more…)

  • Uncover Hidden Emotions: What’s Really Pushing Your Buttons and Why?

    Uncover Hidden Emotions: What’s Really Pushing Your Buttons and Why?

    “When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.” ~Wayne Dyer

    Lately, I’ve been confronted by envy. It’s one of those negative emotions that I used to avoid taking credit for.

    “I really am happy for everyone,” I would tell potential mates and friends.” And I thought I meant it.

    Instead of feeling envious, which was impossible since I didn’t do envy, I would feel an ambiguous sense of dislike for the person. 

    My elementary school best friend who went on to become a Miss America contender? I made up a story that she was being “fake” by parading around wearing too much makeup. I wanted to be happy for her, but it was too hard.

    There’s another young woman I didn’t like, too. She’s a bestselling author and spiritual teacher who is adored by millions and actually looks cute delivering love from the universe. Why didn’t I like her?

    I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I made up another story about how something wasn’t in alignment and I didn’t trust her integrity.

    And the hardest to admit, I suddenly didn’t like an acquaintance I’d known since high school when she started hanging out with a guy I liked. You’d think I could put it all together, but my mind wouldn’t let me see the truth.

    Since this feeling of dislike was subtle and ambiguous, it slipped past my internal radar.

    There’s not doubt you see my pattern, though. What I masked with disdain was really a crown of envy.

    I was unable to admit to myself that I wanted what these women had.  (more…)

  • 7 Tips to Develop a Daily Practice for Growth, Healing, and Happiness

    7 Tips to Develop a Daily Practice for Growth, Healing, and Happiness

    Sitting

    “Our way to practice is one step at a time, one breath at a time.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

    Two years ago, I reached a breaking point. I was miserable in my job, unhappy in my marriage, disinterested in my graduate school program, and struggling with multiple medical issues.

    One night, while fighting with my husband, a deep sense of dread overcame me. Who is this person, so beaten, broken, and miserable? I’d become completely unrecognizable to myself.

    I knew I had to make a decision: continue on a downward spiral out of fear and lose myself completely, or let go, fall, and see where I landed.

    I chose to let go. In a single week I quit my high paying job, left my PhD program, filed for divorce, sold all my stuff, and bought a plane ticket to volunteer in Brazil. Completely exhausted, I left the US with only one goal in mind: to heal my life.

    The first step toward that goal was the development of a daily yoga practice. This became a key component in my healing process, serving as an anchor during a time when everything in my life was dreadfully unstable.

    My yoga mat became a safe space to reconnect with my mind, body, and spirit.

    When I arrived back home after six months, I was a completely different person. My daily practice helped me move through anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and shame. It taught me how to feel gratitude, compassion, inner strength, and happiness.

    If you’re feeling stuck in your life, developing a daily practice can be a huge catalyst toward growth and healing. Your practice doesn’t need to be yoga and meditation. It can be almost anything as long as it gives you the time and space to let go and reconnect with yourself, each and every day.

    Here are 7 steps to help you develop your own daily practice: (more…)

  • Giveaway and Interview: Turning Dead Ends into Doorways by Staci Boden

    Giveaway and Interview: Turning Dead Ends into Doorways by Staci Boden

    Editor’s Note:

    The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen:

    Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free emails once weekly or on weekdays and to learn about future giveaways!

    Especially when we’re going through challenging times, it can feel tempting to try to control the future—but this doesn’t change that much lies beyond our control. Try as we may to avoid the unknown, the future remains uncertain.

    How do we navigate change knowing that nothing is guaranteed? How can we develop inner strength to grow, heal, and evolve?

    Healer practitioner Staci Boden answers these questions in her new book, Turning Dead Ends into Doorways: How to Grow Through Whatever Life Throws Your Way.

    From the book flap:

    “With compassionate honesty and a practical sense of humor, healing practitioner Staci Boden shows her readers how to navigate change without clinging to false notions that if they just do this or think that they can determine what happens next. How to let go of false expectations and still make excellent choices. How to grow and heal no matter what life throws their way.”

    I’m grateful that Staci has offered two free copies of Turning Dead Ends into Doorways for Tiny Buddha readers!

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win one of two free copies of Turning Dead Ends into Doorways by Staci Boden:

    • Leave a comment on this post. (If you’re reading in your inbox, click here to do that.)
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha GIVEAWAY: Turning Dead Ends into Doorways http://bit.ly/SBYrFX comment and RT to enter!

    You can enter until midnight PST on Monday, November 5th. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still participate by completing only the first step. (more…)

  • How to Adopt a Growth Mindset and Stop Fearing Criticism and Failure

    How to Adopt a Growth Mindset and Stop Fearing Criticism and Failure

    “There are no failures. Just experiences and your reactions to them.” ~Tom Krause

    Ever found yourself working for a bad boss? I was shocked to learn recently that three out of every four people report that their boss is the most stressful part of their job and that it takes most of us up to twenty-two months to free ourselves of them.

    I thought it was just me!

    A few years ago I joined a large accounting firm to help them manage their employees. Though they were nice enough people outside of work, at the office, their professional pride in finding errors and vigorously pointing them out made them the worst bosses I have ever worked for!

    Every day was a battle of constant criticism and negativity. No matter what we achieved, the focus was always on what we needed to do better.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for feedback and improving what I do at work. I also need to, at least occasionally, feel my efforts are appreciated in order to maintain my sense of enthusiasm and confidence.

    After all, we all have a deep psychological need to be respected, valued, and appreciated.

    As month after month of this behavior dragged on, for the first time ever I found myself really struggling to get out of bed and go to work. Their negativity seemed to be eating me up.

    Unwilling to just quit my job, I started researching ways to deal with my whining, moaning, negative bosses to see if I could restore some joy to my job. Luckily, I quickly discovered the field of positive psychology—the science of bringing out the best in people—and the phenomenon of “growth mindsets.”

    Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has found that changing the way we perceive ourselves can dramatically improve our feelings and results.

    In particular, two beliefs can make a difference: Can we improve our abilities, or is this as good as we get?

    Reading this now, it probably seems like a no-brainer to you. Surely we’re all capable of change! The reality is, though, many of us secretly walk around with a “fixed mindset,” believing that our natural abilities are all we have and it won’t get much better than this. (more…)

  • 10 Powerful Benefits of Change and Why We Should Embrace It

    10 Powerful Benefits of Change and Why We Should Embrace It

    Old Way New Way

    “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 five schools and about five different careers.

    At first it is a bit difficult and annoying, but after a while you get used to the change so much that if it doesn’t come for a while, you end up moving the furniture at home in order to feel something changing.

    Changes connected with moving from country to country impacted my personality. Thanks to them I became more flexible and open-minded. Now I understand cultural differences and appreciate diversity.

    Each of the career shifts brought knowledge and new experiences. As a result, apart from the professional experience I learned how to resolve conflicts with difficult colleagues and how to work with unbearable bosses.

    Career related changes brought self-confidence. All those changes led me to the realization of what I wanted to do with my life.

    The biggest change in life occured when I got married. The change brought love, peace, and comfort into my life. As a result, a new me was born—me being a wife, mother, and happy woman.

    Finally, the big change I initiated by quitting a good job and embracing the passion of writing made me truly happy and satisfied.

    In general, when looking back, I realize that all the good things in my life are the results of changes that occurred in the past.

    People usually avoid changes and prefer to stay in their comfort zones, but I am true believer that once you get the courage and take the first step to change, your life will become much better.

    Below are just few benefits of change: (more…)

  • 6 Lessons Life Has Taught Me on Embracing Change and Impermanence

    6 Lessons Life Has Taught Me on Embracing Change and Impermanence

    “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

    Life can be a persistent teacher.

    When we fail to learn life’s lessons the first time around, life has a way of repeating them to foster understanding.

    Over the last few years, my life was shaken up by dramatic circumstances. I resisted the impermanence of these events in my life and struggled with embracing change. When I resisted the lessons that change brought, a roller coaster of changes continued to materialize.

    When I was seventeen years old, my immigrant parents’ small import-export business failed.  From a comfortable life in Northern California, they uprooted themselves and my two younger brothers and moved back to Asia.

    The move was sudden and unexpected, catching us all by surprise. I was in my last months of high school, so I remained in California with a family friend to finish my degree.

    I spent the summer abroad with my family and then relocated to Southern California to start college upon my return. Alone in a new environment, I found myself without many friends or family members close by.

    Life was moving much faster than I was able to handle, and I was shell-shocked by my family’s sudden move, my new surroundings, and college. Their relocation and college brought dramatic changes, along with fear, loneliness, and anxiety.

    I felt overwhelmed by my new university campus and its vastness; alone, even though I sat in classes of 300 students; and challenged by the responsibilities of independence and adulthood.

    Everything I had known had changed in a very short period of time. I tried to cope the best I could, but I resisted the changes by isolating myself even more from my new university and surroundings. It was the first and only time in my life I had contemplated suicide.

    Several years after college, having achieved my career goals in the legal field, I started a legal services business. I helped immigrants, refugees, and people escaping persecution who’d come to the U.S. to navigate the hurdles to residency and citizenship.

    I invested money, time, and my being into my law office. Not only was I preoccupied with the dire legal situations of my clients, but I also confronted the ups and downs of running a business.

    Starting and running a new company is not easy, and mine was losing more money every month. While I found the nearly three-year venture immensely gratifying because of the lives I was able to help, it was time for me to move on.

    It was a difficult decision, because I thought I’d found my career path. My life became engulfed with changes once again as I tried to close the doors to my office, close my clients’ cases, pay off my debt, and seek employment.

    In between university and my business venture, I married a beautiful, gifted girl in India after an international romance. We were married for ten years and endured many of life’s personal and professional ups and downs together. Despite our problems, we both struggled to keep our marriage together. (more…)

  • Stop Waiting for Life to Happen and Start Living It Now

    Stop Waiting for Life to Happen and Start Living It Now

    “The grass is always greener where you water it.” ~Unknown

    For a while there, I was a little peeved with the world. I’ve just recently snapped out of it, and I just want to sing and dance and share this message with everyone: Stop waiting!

    Last year, after living through some profound experiences—travelling extensively, soul searching, attending incredible life-changing events, shedding massive masks, overcoming huge obstacles, and deciding to change the course of my life completely—I came back to my life, to my home, and sat back and thought to myself, “This is what life is about!”

    I was on a snowball effect high of massive changes. It was the most intense feeling that seemed to go on endlessly, and the changes just seemed to keep on unfolding in my life naturally, organically.

    I dropped out of a program at school I wasn’t really committed to, with the intention of going to culinary college after a year off. I faced the world for the first time, trading in my signature sunglasses for an eye patch, after hiding a facial difference I sustained from a car accident almost a decade ago. I returned to my yoga practice, focused on my health and vitality, and dropped 30 pounds.

    Last year was amazing, and it just seemed to keep getting better.

    I landed an amazing job at the company I was dying to work for during my year off before returning to school. I met amazing people and seemed to attract great new friends into my life. I traveled more for personal development courses and seminars and soaked up the amazing atmosphere that is unique to Tony Robbins events.

    Around Christmas time, I began to sense a shift in myself and tried to brush it off. It wasn’t much; it’s just that it was no longer effortless to be happy, and I began to feel a little forced at times. Some challenges at work arose, and I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with me.

    After months and months of work that flowed easily, I began to realize that the wheels of my life weren’t moving all too smoothly anymore.

    At that point, I started to retreat. I had huge goals, big dreams on the horizon for the year, and it scared the crap out of me when things weren’t progressing.

    I began to take on a passenger mentality in my life, making excuses for my inactions and myself. When things got worse in any area, it was a huge blow to my self-esteem, and I let it break me down.

    Mid-winter I entered what I consider to be a “winter season” of life. I got fired from the job that I loved, despite what I thought were my best attempts. (more…)

  • Why We Need to Keep Growing: Lessons from Firewalking

    Why We Need to Keep Growing: Lessons from Firewalking

    “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

    I recently ran across a chat site called “Why Grow Up?” Their tagline reads:

    “Why Grow Up? Why be responsible? Why act mature?

    Why play by rules? Why eat healthy? Why sleep early?

    Why become a doctor? Why this? WHY ME? WHY WHY WHY?”

    I laughed aloud when I read that remembering something I had said 18 years ago to my husband, Jake: “I just want to retire and garden.”

    I was tired of pressuring myself to keep a business going. I was tired of doing anything that did not fit my ideal of just living out the rest of my life in peace with him, our pets, a lovely garden, working with wildlife rescue, and frequent walks in nature.

    Why Grow?

    This was something of a turning point in our lives. I wanted to withdraw and Jake wanted to grow—to create something meaningful, together—and he was concerned that if he continued to grow, and I didn’t, he would grow beyond me and then we would grow apart. But I was tired.

    Hadn’t I already done a lot of personal work in the years before? Weren’t my past many years of meditation retreats and remarkably good psychotherapy enough? Couldn’t I just rest on my laurels?

    To be more honest, in addition to feeling tired, I think I was afraid. I was afraid of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, letting go of the safe, familiar shore I was clinging to. What helped me get over my fear and woke up my curiosity was a ten-year-old girl who I met at a firewalk.

    Yes, of all things, a firewalk! And in anticipation of the firewalk I did not sleep much for a week. I had fantasies of lying on the couch with my burned feet in the air, bandaged, in unbearable pain, as my friends visited me to tell me how stupid I had been to even try such a thing.

    But finally the event arrived, and as they were preparing the fire, I met this little 10-year old girl who said: “There is nothing to be afraid of.” She said she had done this many times, in her (little) life.  She said, in fact, she was prone to going over the fire numerous times during each event.  (more…)

  • Life is Happening FOR Us: All Things Are Gifts

    Life is Happening FOR Us: All Things Are Gifts

    “Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi

    Up to a certain point in my life, I was always seeking approval and validation from everything outside of me. All I ever wanted was to feel loved. I longed for this feeling and wondered how the world could be so cruel as to reject me when I was so loving and available.

    I have since learned that I was not as available as I thought.

    It has been my experience that everyone that crosses our path is a mirror. They have come because we have called them into our lives to show us something—to teach us how to be more of who we truly are.

    Our higher selves crave these experiences and relationships, because ultimately, this journey we call life is all about finding everything we want within us rather than without. It’s about waking up.

    I have learned this over many years of things not turning out the way I wanted them to, feeling as though I was a victim and life was just not fair. I felt this way until I finally got it—I finally understood that life is happening for us. Yes, for us. (more…)

  • Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth

    Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth

    “Always concentrate on how far you’ve come, rather than how far you have left to go.” ~Unknown

    It is laughably easy to forget to stop and take stock of how far we have come in our lives. Our world focuses so much on what we lack—be it money, beauty, prestige, or romantic success—that it is far too common for us to get trapped in the loop of needing to have, be, or do “more” before thinking that we might be good enough. I, for one, do it all the time.

    A year and a half ago I was unemployed with no idea what to do next. I’d spent my life until that point ignoring the conviction that there was something I was meant to do. Since I didn’t know what that calling might be, I played it safe by getting a library degree.

    I was pretty good at library work, but I was never passionate about it, which made me an unremarkable candidate for the few remaining library positions after the economy crashed.

    All of this left me sitting at home, miserable. Unemployment, combined with a particularly nasty winter, led to a terrible flare up of my lifelong nemesis, depression. To say that I was despondent that winter would be a gross understatement!

    Of course, I can now see that this was a blessing. That terrible winter pushed me to realize that something had to change, and fast. I was finished playing it safe and ready to figure out my dream!

    Since then, I’ve identified my true calling (to become a life coach), sought training, and now I stand on the cusp of living my ideal life. But is that always how I see the situation? Of course not.

    On many days, I find myself focusing on how far I still have to go. I see the programs I haven’t implemented yet and the website that isn’t quite perfect, rather than taking the time to marvel over the fact that I have so many ideas and a website at all.

    And you know what? Failing to acknowledge how far I’ve come robs me of a lot of joy and a lot of pride. I may not have everything figured out in my new business, but I’ve come a long way from where I was a year ago.

    I would be willing to bet that you’ve made huge progress in the last year, as well, but are too focused on what remains to be done to see it. I invite you to start giving yourself credit for a lot of hard work and achievement. (more…)

  • Growing from Pain and Using it to Discover Who You Are

    Growing from Pain and Using it to Discover Who You Are

    “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

    At the age of 37, my beautiful young mother, who I considered my best friend, crashed her car in light rain just around the corner from our home. We will never know what really happened because she woke up from her brain injury a very different person from the one who drove away that morning.

    The experience of suddenly becoming a caregiver at the age of 16, along with my 13 year-old brother and the rest of our family, could fill the pages of a how-to manual. I could have benefited from reading something like that during those long years, when we all struggled to adjust to our new reality.

    Five years into this new life, our mother was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, something that she did not fully comprehend because of her condition. Of course it was all too real for the rest of us, and, despite her continued resistance to the cancer, it eventually took her from us.

    The ability to look back on a tragedy, a loss, a challenge of any sort and see through eyes that have healed, a heart that has been broken and patched up—this is the ability to grow and become a person who is shaped by the darkness.

    It is hard—so, so hard. At times we may want to swat the well-meaning reminders of life like an annoying little insect in our face, close our eyes and our hearts to the new possibilities, and just sit in our paralysis. It’s certainly much easier to do that.

    As we know, though, it is not the easy path that leads to the great discoveries.

    We discover our real selves on the frightening, unknown path that pushes us outside of the places that feel safe and familiar.

    It was a path that I resisted and resented for so long. Brain injury, cancer—it was all too much for me to really comprehend when all I wanted to do was fit in with everyone around me and live the life of a normal young adult.

    Looking back I can see the stages of grief so clearly. I ached to stay in the place of denial for as long as possible because I found some comfort there.

    The hospital visits, chemo, surgeries, and watching on as the person who’d taken over my mother’s fragile body was slowly fading away—it was like I was walking in a dream most of the time, watching on from far away as my family fumbled through all of this.

    I managed to resist the new reality for many years. My body was there at the appointments, in the house cooking meals, and trying to help where possible, but my mind was somewhere else. (more…)

  • How Curiosity Can Help Us Heal from Pain and Grow

    How Curiosity Can Help Us Heal from Pain and Grow

    “Curiosity is one of the great secrets of happiness.” ~Bryant H. McGil

    I don’t think I’d be alive if it weren’t for my curiosity.

    Is that a dramatized statement? Maybe.

    For me, curiosity has brought a curious kind of “fun” and “enchantment” to an otherwise bleak, painful, and seemingly hopeless period in my life.

    Diagnosed with “burn-out” (a.k.a. adrenal fatigue) in 2009, my life quickly unraveled in front of me. I lost my job, my health, and my social life.

    From what seemed like one moment to the next (but in fact was a shift happening over numerous weeks) I lost the ability to read or concentrate on pretty much anything for longer than a short instant.

    Did I have it coming? Apparently.

    Did I see it coming? Not really, no.

    So, there I was. I could only manage one task a day. Making a simple phone call was a task.

    It was difficult to accept, and it was frightening.

    I’d always assumed that, whatever happened, I could rebuild my life. I could go and get a job somewhere else and start over, I could make things work.

    Now, it seemed I couldn’t make anything work. (more…)

  • It’s Time to Make a Change: If Not Now, When?

    It’s Time to Make a Change: If Not Now, When?

    “What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.”  ~Buddha

    These words resonate for me in a deeply personal way. The importance of being in the here and now, of recognizing that every moment is an opportunity to wake up to what is happening and what is possible, saved my life.

    I was a compulsive eater out of my mother’s womb. The youngest of eight children in an abusive home, I used food to feel safe. I overate every day, hated myself for it, and yet could not stop.

    I started addicted to food, and by my teenage years I was addicted to alcohol and drugs as well. By age twenty-four, I was designing my ending and talked regularly about taking my life. I was a fat, depressed drunk who hated herself, until a major shift happened.

    I had recognized my self-harming behavior and had been in Overeaters Anonymous (OA) for months, but my patterns were the same. After meetings, I would go straight to the grocery store and then binge my brains out in the car, thinking, “Well, I’m not ready yet, and I am doing the best I can right now.”

    Part of me was seeking something better and the other part was desperate; one part wanted to live and the other did not, but still I hung on to the belief that something might change.

    Then came the day when I heard four words that rocked my world forever.

    It was February, 1988. My latest New Year’s resolution to heal had died, and I was using food like crazy and drinking like a fish. There was a daylong OA conference, and as disappointed as I was in myself yet again, I knew I needed to go.

    The very first speaker, a normal-sized woman, had a story similar to mine—a lifetime of yo-yo diets and self-hate. She talked about feeling desperate and determined at the same time, of living her life in two parts: the one who knew there was more and the one who felt defeated.

    She talked about all of her excuses and stories and lies and self-betrayals, and how they were digging her grave deeper.

    She, like me, had wanted out of the quicksand, and could never find a hand or a rod or anything to pull her out. Then, one day in a meeting, she had heard a woman share a similar story of attempts to save herself until her life was changed by four words. Those words would forever change the life of this woman and, as soon as she shared them, they changed mine too.

    “If not now, when?”

    When she shared those words, I burst into tears and experienced an actual physical release in my body, an earthquake in my cells. My world was literally rocked and my life forever changed. Just then, I got it. (more…)

  • When Struggles Keep Reappearing: How to Learn the Lesson and Move On

    When Struggles Keep Reappearing: How to Learn the Lesson and Move On

    “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

    I’ve been self-employed for many years now. This is no accident. I’ve always liked to do things my own way. I like to arrange my diary in exactly the way I want to and make my own mind up about how I do things. I like to work without having to justify anything to a manager.

    I’m not always comfortable in working relationships where the other person is “higher up” than me—when they’re in authority. You could say that I’m a teensy bit of a control-freak.

    I used to work for a big corporation, and my relationships with my managers weren’t always easy. I was very critical of the way they did things, and if they criticized me I sometimes got very defensive. I learned a great deal from a couple of good managers, but I also spent a lot of time resenting being “told what to do.”

    Recently, I decided to embark upon training to become a Buddhist minister. This involves having a “supervisor” who is responsible for my spiritual training, and who will ultimately be responsible for deciding whether or not I “make the grade” and ordain.

    Last month, my supervisor asked me a question in an email and I felt immediately attacked and defensive. I felt annoyed. I complained to my friend. I sent her a long and rambling reply, outlining all the reasons why she shouldn’t be asking the question. We exchanged a few emails, and the situation got more and more confused.

    I thought I’d managed to avoid conflict with people senior to me when I became self-employed. I didn’t have a manager anymore, so what was the problem?

    The problem is that, as Pema Chodron says, nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. (more…)

  • How to Grow from Mistakes and Stop Beating Yourself Up

    How to Grow from Mistakes and Stop Beating Yourself Up

    “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” ~Unknown

    The spiral staircase has always intrigued the yogi-designer in me. The visual draw, similarity to DNA, and cosmic patterns, as well as its mathematical genius, could be enough, but the structure can also mean more.

    Picture yourself tripping up in work, life, or love. You’ve made a mistake, said the wrong thing, or didn’t come through with your end of the bargain.

    You think, how did I let that happen? What a (fill in the blank) I am. I can’t believe I did that, again. If only I could rewind.

    These aren’t the greatest feelings, it’s true. However, we live our lives in irony. Though we dislike how we feel having just tripped up, we continue to beat ourselves up way after the fact.

    We cause our own suffering. Furthermore, we seem to forget that when we make mistakes, we grow. An atmosphere of growth is integral to happiness. So create happiness by seeing mistakes as true growth opportunities.

    Although yoga, psychology, and conventional wisdom scream at us to live in the moment, I say we are not just the present moment.

    We are very much our past in the most rich and helpful way. We can use past mistakes to yield a shiny new perspective and, in turn, create a new outcome.

    If we allow them, our mistakes can fuel our awareness. In helping us decide how to act and react in a fresh and fruitful way, they can bring us closer to happiness and further away from causing our own suffering. (more…)

  • Growing Pains: When Becoming Something New Feels Scary

    Growing Pains: When Becoming Something New Feels Scary

    Growing Pains

    “The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.” ~Barbara De Angelis

    When we were kids, my dad used to measure us as we grew taller. On the back of the door of the laundry chute, he would keep track of me and my two sisters.

    Every six months or so, he’d take out the ruler and lay it right on the top of our heads and mark the door. When we’d step away, we’d notice that we grew a few inches since the last time. Or, if we look at where we measured the previous year, we’d discover that we grew a full foot.

    When did this growing take place? We didn’t feel it? And yet we were taller.

    I think this is how it is supposed to feel. Effortless. Graceful. Easy.

    But when we are stepping out in new arenas, it seems there is so much more to consider. There are financial risks and personal risks and relationship risks and emotional risks.

    Right?

    We are in the in-between. We are becoming someone we haven’t been before. We are living larger than we dared before.

    It doesn’t feel so graceful.

    When I first started producing teleseminars, I had to call high-profile speakers and ask them to be a part of our lineup. One of the first speakers I had to call had been on CNN and all the other news channels, and she was represented by a publicist in New York.

    We were a “nobody.” But we wanted her on our line up to give us credibility. And I had to somehow project that we were bigger than we were to get her on our show. I remember looking at this publicist’s number on my computer screen and having to talk myself into making the call.

    I hadn’t done this before. What kind of questions might she ask? I didn’t know what I needed to be prepared for. I wrote myself a script of exactly my pitch, what I would say when she answered the phone.

    Projecting confidence, I made it through my first call. I got her answering machine. I left her a message and followed up with an email. (more…)

  • 5 Tips To Help You To Discover Your Maximum Potential

    5 Tips To Help You To Discover Your Maximum Potential

    “You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Don’t doubt yourself. You are more than enough.

    You are good enough. If no one else tells you that, I will reaffirm that you are good enough to do whatever you want in life. Life is too short for you to paralyze yourself with doubts.

    I used to doubt my capabilities, and I was so unhappy and frustrated with life. I tried to bury myself in self-help books to find the answers to achieve success and happiness. One book after another, I kept reading, but I had little results to show for it.

    The pain became unbearable, particularly when my friends made fun of the books that I read.

    But I didn’t give up. I kept on searching for answers by listening to audio books, reading books, and attending seminars by revered masters in the topic of personal development. One baby step at a time, I started to apply the knowledge I had gained.

    That’s when things started to change around me. Once I started applying what I learned, I: (more…)

  • 5 Tips to Accept Your Weaknesses: The First Step Toward Growth

    5 Tips to Accept Your Weaknesses: The First Step Toward Growth

    “Growth begins when we begin to accept our weaknesses.” ~Jean Vanier

    I went out with my mom this Sunday, a beautiful, sunny, fall day in San Francisco. As we sat on a bench looking out over the bay and ate our vegetarian spring rolls, she reminded me of an incident that happened when I was a teenager when she and I had traveled to the Grand Canyon.

    In a nutshell, I had gotten irate over a family that was feeding the ground squirrels French fries right next to a sign that said “Don’t Feed the Squirrels.” I went up to them and, apparently, was very vehement in my request that they stop feeding the F&*$% squirrels their F&*%$ junk food.

    My mom laughed as she recounted the story (and how she now tells it to others), but I froze up in shame.

    I remember how badly I felt afterwards for losing my cool like that—how I felt like shrinking up and disappearing. What to my mom was a funny story of a teenage freak-out, to me was yet another reminder of how flawed I am.

    The story reminded me of hundreds of other times—some as recent as a couple of weeks ago—when I lost my temper and lost control. And how each time, I’ve felt the cold fingers of shame, guilt, and regret, and wonder despairingly what is so wrong with me that I can’t seem to stop blowing up at people.

    I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who forgive me my faults and flaws as I forgive theirs. I can never hold a grudge for very long because I know how it feels to make mistakes.

    Always, when I’ve lost it with someone, I’ve apologized profusely, and I’ve used these incidents as opportunities to look inside myself and explore what happened, what triggered my anger, and how I can help make it less likely to happen in the future. (more…)

  • Learning and Unlearning: A Journey of Self-Acceptance

    Learning and Unlearning: A Journey of Self-Acceptance

    Sitting by the Water

    “What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” ~Buddha

    A teacher of mine once said, “Don’t show up as the person you think you are. Show up as the person you want to be.”

    A powerful statement, but I didn’t know who I wanted to be. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.

    I knew who I didn’t want to be: self-critical, self-conscious, and always focusing on my shortcomings. I wanted to learn how to get out of my own way.

    For a long time, I thought improving my external situation by becoming richer, thinner, and smarter meant that I was learning. Not to say that accomplishing those things isn’t learning. However, in that cycle I wasn’t learning, but repeating the same story.

    I kept trying to get from A to Z by pushing myself and always expected my results to meet my expectations. And the vicious cycle continued. I thought I’m not good enough; I’m pathetic and I’ll never get it right.

    Ironically, my desire to learn continued to work against me. (more…)