Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • Discovering Peace from Within and Creating Fulfillment in Life

    Discovering Peace from Within and Creating Fulfillment in Life

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

    The feeling of inner-strength and fulfillment can be enough for us to move mountains. For the most part, we all have the desire to do and be great. It’s just a matter of finding the right pieces to put together to make it happen.

    Part of that discovery process is being able to overcome the low states of energy that hold us back from finding our inner happiness and confidence. When we feel refreshed, vibrant, and able to make the right choices for ourselves, the right actions and results follow.

    Like so many others, I once viewed the sources of happiness and fulfillment in my life as events that were few and far between. I’d have some good days here and there, but they were mostly based on what didn’t go wrong at work, at home, or with my finances. It certainly took a toll on my self-esteem and sense of worth.

    It was hard to be great when I didn’t feel great. 

    Events that I had no control over ruled my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Work-related frustration built up during the day, and nights at home were stressful and emotionally trying. I even let things like the weather and traffic on my daily commute ruin what could’ve been a perfectly productive and amazing day.

    It left me in a constant state of doubt and disarray, searching and wondering when the next positive experience would come along just so I could feel good again. It was a destructive way to live, and it continuously put stress on all the important areas of my well-being.

    In my eyes, I finally hit rock bottom: My finances were a mess, my personal relationships were suffering, and so was my emotional and physical health. 

    When my friends or family would ask how I was doing, my reply was always preceded with a long and drawn out sigh. (more…)

  • Who Owns Your Time?

    Who Owns Your Time?

    “What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” ~Unknown

    When you take cash out of your wallet to give to someone, you surely expect something of equal or greater value in return. Do you treat your time the same way?

    At one of my first jobs, I found myself spending a massive amount of time on tasks that didn’t really add value to me or my purpose.

    “Ah well, at least I got something done today,” I would often mutter to rationalize wasting time on just busy work. Or even better: “Well, that took a lot of my time, but at least I’ll have tomorrow to take care of what I really need to do.”

    I found that I didn’t truly own my time. I would arrive home from work exhausted, unwilling to do anything, and dreading that I only had an hour to sleep before waking up to do the whole thing over again.

    Why did all of this happen? Because I let my boss, my friends, and poor decisions take ownership of my time.

    Do you find yourself saying yes to too many requests, including those of your boss? Do you give away your time? I understand that you’re at a job and are getting paid for your time, but we all need to take ownership of how you spend your time.

    I found out this the hard way when I began getting sick from working too hard and depressed from a lack of balance in life.

    I realized something had to change and made it a point to respect my time, because time is the only thing I’m given for free in this life, every day that I live.

    I started by promising to myself that I would do just one activity per day that added value to my life, or planted a seed for me to have more time in my life.

    For one day, adding value meant challenging myself with a new piano piece to experience the joy of music and refresh my creative side. For another day, this meant completing an action item on my list for the startup I had been forming on the side to achieve financial freedom.

    Ultimately, what is important to you in life?

    All the time management strategies in the world won’t help you a bit if you don’t know what you really want. These need not necessarily be aspirational things, such as career achievements. They could be small things that you enjoy, but are really important to you. (more…)

  • Knowing Which Advice is Right

    Knowing Which Advice is Right

    “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.” ~Buddha

    The old cliché, “I say tomayto, you say tomahto,” has been popping up in my head recently, mainly because of a lesson I recently learned after years of trial and error.

    For the last several years, I have been closely listening to and reading the advice of “experts” on subjects related to life, love, business, and the pursuit of happiness. I have come to an astonishing (for me, anyway) conclusion: Everybody is right, and everybody is wrong.

    Confused? Allow me to explain with an example.

    About 18 months ago, I changed careers from newspaper journalism to insurance sales. When I first started in the insurance industry, my boss told me that to be successful I would have to not let “no” bother me. Just keep trucking, let that rejection roll like water off a duck’s back, he would say.

    He also told me persistence was a major key to selling life insurance. Keep calling clients, even if they blow you off a few (or in one case, many) times.

    His advice worked with one client. I literally called her a dozen or more times. She bought insurance, and then canceled.

    I scheduled a follow-up appointment to find her some more affordable insurance. She canceled. Another follow-up appointment scheduled. Another canceled. This literally went on for three months.

    Finally, we were able to get the insurance she was looking for at a price she could afford.

    After writing that application, my boss (let’s call him Jay) said, “Let this be a lesson on the power of persistence.”

    A few weeks later, my boss’s boss (let’s call him Brent) gave me some very different advice: “Never call a potential client more than five or six times. It makes you look desperate.”

    I have learned that, in many cases, this advice is also true. Calling too many times will certainly not work on a lot of clients. But, in the above-mentioned example, it did work.

    So, I asked myself, “Whose advice is right, and whose is wrong?” (more…)

  • Are You Running Away from Yourself?

    Are You Running Away from Yourself?

    “No matter where you go, there you are.” ~Confucius

    I am accustomed to not moving. To move was to feel pain—the pain of seeing how worthless I believed myself to be. Sometimes I would sit in the same place for hours, sometimes not leaving the house for days.

    By isolating myself, I avoided finding evidence in the outside world that proved how I saw myself was the absolute truth.

    My worst nightmare was that others would show me (through what they said or didn’t say, or what they did or didn’t do) that they too found me as rotten as I knew myself to be.

    And so, I was often left in the privacy of my own dreaded company. My best friends were the little pills that I could rely on to knock me unconscious. I had neither the tolerance nor strength to face myself, and I often chose the easy way out.

    Sedatives, tranquilizers, hypnotics—I lived for them. They provided me respite from the constant agony of my internal voice, which asked, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so damaged? Why do I hate myself? What have I done to deserve this?” And concluded, “I don’t want to feel again.”

    Sleeping was my only escape. And I did more and more of it. 

    Sometimes I pushed the boundary too far: Like the time when I swallowed enough hypnotics to probably kill a few buffalos. When I simply woke up a few hours later asking for coffee, I lost interest in testing myself that way again.

    But when I started realizing I was losing chunks of memory, I knew I had reached my limit. I would bump into people on the street who talked about a party I was at and I had no memory of ever being there, nor the few days surrounding the event. (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…)

  • The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

    The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

    “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough

    Even though it was 18 months ago, I still remember my climb up Kilimanjaro like it was yesterday.

    Taking those final steps toward the summit with tears in my eyes because I never believed that I—someone who grew up this sick little kid who held a deep-seated belief that she’d never be “an athlete”—would do something that thousands each year, including world-class athletes, cannot.

    Yet there I was.

    But I certainly didn’t get there alone. I had help—a lot of it.

    While training, I called on my friends who are athletes and coaches to ask their training and recovery advice.

    For example, when I got ambitious on a hike and was so sore the next day I had to crawl up and down the stairs on my hands and knees, I called my Ironman Triathlete friend Shannon to ask him how to avoid having that happen again. (His answer was twofold: He first told me not to do that again, and then patiently walked me through the wild world of sport recovery drinks.)

    As I continued preparations, I continued to turn to my friends, the climbing company, and seasoned climbing veterans for buying and renting gear, figuring out snacks on the trip, understanding the challenges of altitude sickness, and everything else that went into making Kilimanjaro a memorable and easy trip for me.

    The phrase “it takes a village” certainly applied to me and this trip.

    Then, when I got there, it was my turn to pay it back. I was climbing with some older gentlemen who were having difficulty navigating the rocks and tree roots. So, I’d patiently reach down and offer a hand—after all, we were there together, to accomplish this together. I wanted to both pay it forward and see them succeed.

    On the summit day it was my turn to get help again.

    At altitudes above 10,000 feet you feel the effects of altitude sickness, and on our summit day we were traveling between 15,000 and 19,340 feet—meaning at the summit I had half of the oxygen I would at sea level.

    Hiking up a 45-degree scree-covered slope with half the air I normally had was making the final ascent a challenge, but I had a wonderfully patient guide who would listen to my breathing as I puffed along behind him; and he and the summit team would stop for me, let me catch my breath, and then patiently move forward only once I was ready.

    Then all of the sudden there it was—the summit—both literal and metaphorical. I had put in months of physical training and a year of research and planning to make it happen, and finally it was a reality. But I never could have done it alone. (more…)

  • Are You Shut Down and Disconnected?

    Are You Shut Down and Disconnected?

    “When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield

    I had to work on Easter at my job in a coffee shop. I missed out on my family’s big holiday party, and I struggled with quite a bit of resentment about the whole deal. I could have gotten someone to cover for me, but because I’m one of the more experienced employees and we were short-staffed, I was told that I needed to work.

    I wasn’t too terribly happy. I came in to work and immediately launched into the craziness of Easter in a coffee shop, sliding Americanos to travelers across the counter with a stone face.

    I was amazed at how unforgiving people were. I thought that Easter would bring out the best in people, but it seemed to make some act grumpier and more disconnected. Many of them weren’t happy for the same reason that people are grumpy at Christmas: They hate spending extended time with family.

    So I slogged through the day, helping grumpy people stay awake on the road to a place where they didn’t want to go, when suddenly a single interaction changed the course of my day: A man came in, greeted us warmly while he ordered his coffee, and then apologized.

    “I’m sorry that you have to work so that schmucks like me can have their coffee.”

    This one sentence transformed my whole day. This guy had gone out of his way to connect with us, and made made me feel both happy and ashamed—happy that there was someone out there who didn’t get too caught up in his own troubles to connect; ashamed that I had fallen into that very trap myself. (more…)

  • I Don’t Have to Be Perfect: It’s the Leap That Counts

    I Don’t Have to Be Perfect: It’s the Leap That Counts

    “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” ~Proverb

    I’m a “recovering perfectionist.”

    I make perfect plans. At times, when I’m really working on my plans, I forget to live my actual life. Because I’m planning. Perfectly.

    I had my first strategic plan when I was ten.

    “Be a really, really good girl. Then, when you are sixteen, borrow the car and say that you are going to Drug Fair to buy hairspray. Instead, drive the fifteen minutes to your daddy’s house so that he’ll want you back.”

    A year later I had to revise my first strategic plan. My alcoholic father died.

    Here was the second plan:

    “Now you’re all alone.” (Which wasn’t true, by the way. It just felt that way. Anyway, back to the plan.) “Now you’re all alone. Be perfect.”

    In the first plan, I just had to be “good” to be rescued. In the second one, there was no rescue.

    I needed to be perfect.

    (Perfectionism Myth #1 Perfection will keep you safe.)

    That plan ‘worked’ for a while. I had started playing the flute the year my father died. My great grandmother told me not to cry and upset my mother. That was okay. Perfect people don’t cry.

    (Perfectionism Myth #2:  Perfection is a way to manage hard feelings.)

    Perfect people practice. (more…)

  • 3 Simple Ways to Follow Your Bliss

    3 Simple Ways to Follow Your Bliss

    “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”  ~Joseph Campbell

    Several years ago, I learned about a month-long silent retreat designed to incorporate extended periods of meditation, three-times-daily hatha yoga sessions, and in-depth self-inquiry practices. The moment I heard about it, my heart literally jumped out of my chest and I knew I had to be there.

    Yet, while my heart was gunning for it, I could not get my head around how to find the money for the airfare, accommodations, and registration fees. All told, the total was going to be close to three thousand dollars, something I did not have.

    Undeterred, I came to the conclusion, via my heart that I did not need to get my head around anything. If I was meant to be there, then the universe would take care of the details no matter how daunting the financial cost.

    In support of my belief, I made flight and accommodation reservations, shared my intention with several of my close friends, and trusted the universe to align everything in support of my goal. Sure enough, just four weeks before the start of the retreat, I received an unexpected call from my neighbor.

    Liz was a casting agent, searching for extras to audition for the movie My Father the Hero, which was being shot on Paradise Island. She asked, “Are you available? I am having difficulty finding people and I think you would be a perfect fit.”

    I jumped at the opportunity. She cautioned me that the shoot I would be involved in was a boat scene, probably only lasting a day, maybe two. However, on the day we started filming, on driving out to the harbor, the weather took a dramatic turn.

    High winds began whipping around the boat, affecting the ability of the professional stuntman to execute water skiing tricks. Then a power boat, meant to be driven alongside ours and intended to be a highlight of the scene, crashed into the bridge, requiring it to be sent to dry dock for repair.

    Added to that, several days passed with intermittent sunshine and long periods of cloud cover and rain.

    With these events and subsequent delays, the one or two day filming time turned into a week, then two, until three and a half weeks later we finally wrapped the scene, just hours ahead of the start of the retreat.

    Picking up my paycheck I was in awe. Calculating a rapid mental note of all the outgoings necessary, I realized my earnings covered the flight and retreat costs down to the last cent. In fact there was an additional $15 left over, which I realized would cover the Bahamas Government departure tax. (more…)

  • Getting Back Your Belief in Yourself

    Getting Back Your Belief in Yourself

    “When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it.” ~Dr. David Schwartz

    Fifteen months ago I was in a rut. A rather large rut actually. The recession was well and truly in full swing, and I was up to my eyeballs in credit card and loan debt.

    I could barely afford to live, let alone pay my mortgage, and there was the threat of losing my home hanging over my head every day.

    I had spent most of my twenties and thirties working to pay the bills and the rent as most of us do, and frankly, considering the economic climate, I was just grateful to have a job. However, every day I would wake up in a fog and go through the motions of living.

    Most of the time I felt stressed and exhausted with nothing to focus on or look forward to, and I felt as if I couldn’t do a thing about it—which made me feel worse.

    I’m used to challenges in my life, as I have cerebral palsy. My mum passed away when I was nine, my father left the UK when I was eighteen, and I have been living independently ever since.

    This is not a pity plea. When faced with difficulties, as long as there is some kind of solution or a door I can try, that keeps me motivated to keep looking for a solution.

    Fifteen months ago, I was faced with brick wall after brick wall. I wasn’t happy about it, but I couldn’t see a way out. I’m emotionally tough but my situation was making me question my whole being. I didn’t realize that I was functioning in a depressed state.

    I certainly never thought I’d be a single 37-year-old woman on the hamster-wheel of life doing the same job day in and day out, with nothing really to look forward to.

    I kept asking myself “Really? Is this it? Is this my purpose?” Something just didn’t feel right about the way I was living my life.

    I went to see a friend who specializes in reiki and yoga. She took one look at me and said, “You are at the end of your tether, aren’t you?” at which point I burst into floods of tears. It felt so good to let it all out.

    After a few moments she said, “You can change your life, and you will,” and handed me a small book. (more…)

  • Happy Is As Happy Does: Make Your Own Joy in Life

    Happy Is As Happy Does: Make Your Own Joy in Life

    “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

    I used to get paralyzed with fear in the face of any load of work.

    Suffering from crippling depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and severely low self-esteem, I’d find so many thoughts battling me, making it hard to take action:

    • What’s the point of starting if you know you won’t finish?
    • You’re just going to waste your time putting in all that effort when you get rejected at the end.
    • Think about how much time that’s going to take! What if it’s all for naught? How stupid will you feel?!

    I know many people who don’t suffer from depression and, yet, still struggle with those same thoughts. It drives them to procrastination and anxiety, and may even keep them from achieving any of their dreams!

    I have changed a lot since those voices ruled my headspace, and have since learned this:

    The key to a happy life is taking responsibility to make it.

    I started taking action to turn my life around only after being admitted to a program for suicidal adults in 2005. It took that for me to realize that what I was doing just wasn’t working and that I could never go on living the way that I was.

    Using a blend of exercise and cognitive therapy, I pulled myself out of that black hole and started making my own life.

    I began to realize that happiness isn’t served to you; it’s earned. It’s created.

    I am now a personal trainer and wellness coach, and I come across this paralyzed mentality in many new clients. (more…)

  • Quiet Your Mind and Just Play (in 20 Ways)

    Quiet Your Mind and Just Play (in 20 Ways)

    “If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right.” ~Bob Basso

    I spend a lot of time contemplating and philosophizing about life. According to my mother, I spent the first year of my life silently observing the events around me with a serious stare and a furrowed brow.

    I’ve always leaned toward reverent acts of self-discovery and introspection. In high school I studied Buddhist texts and on Sunday mornings. At age eighteen, when my college classmates were nursing hangovers, I was shopping around for a spiritual home, which I found in the form of my Unitarian-Universalist church.

    For most of my life, I’ve lived with intention and rarely with abandon.

    And I think I’m starting to feel the weight of this.

    Contemplation has its place, but sometimes life just calls for a little spontaneity—a small dose of irreverence interspersed amongst the otherwise-trying bits of living.

    I write this tonight because I have had a few uncharacteristically playful moments over the past few weeks, and I am quite sure they have prevented me from cracking up during some significant stress. Either that or, I am cracking up and my behavior has regressed to that of a four-year-old.

    In either case, it feels good.

    And I want to share those good feelings. So to encourage you to foray into the world of play, I’ve created a list of some things that have brought me unexpected and simple joy the past few weeks (along with some things I haven’t quite worked up the nerve to do just yet).

    Have fun and en-joy!

    20 Ways to Play

    1. Blow bubbles in the bathtub.

    Sometimes they bounce off the surface of the water. And when they pop, they make this satisfying “click” sound. If the lights are off and you have candles burning, the reflection in the soapy dome that hovers on your bath water is mesmerizing.

    2. Hula hoop.

    I just learned this skill. At age thirty-two. It’s addictively fun. Jump “rope” with the hula hoop, too. Just for laughs. My good friend advised me to, “Never hula hoop naked.” But I think that if you’re after laughs, this might be a good route.

    3. Make a paper “fortune-teller.”

    Then write ridiculous fortunes on the inner flaps. Present it to friends and neighbors for a range of amused smiles and baffled glances.

    4. Teach your dog a trick.

    Another hula hoop-inspired one for me, as my dog loves to leap through the hoop with the promise of a morsel of pepperoni. And her enthusiasm is contagious.

    5. Be a “surprise fairy.”

    Leave an anonymous gift or token for someone special. It could be a trinket or a poem, a hand-me-down necklace, or a handmade card.

    6. Belt out a show tune.

    Preferably in public. I won’t even tell you what’s been in my repertoire recently, but it’s a calypso tune sung by an ocean-dwelling animated crab. Catch my drift?

    7. Use stickers.

    Liberally. Just slap ‘em on notes and letters and planners. I dig Hello Kitty, but to each her own.

    8. Write silly poems on the envelopes to your bills.

    Last month’s masterpiece to my electric company expressed my relief at the rising temperatures and the lowered energy bill, and wished the reader a sunny afternoon.

    9. Leave a song on someone’s voicemail.

    Your high school best friend will be thrilled when he leaves work to check a voicemail containing the epic musical swells of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

    10. Play with clay.

    You don’t have to be a sculptor. Get some play clay and roll out some worms, construct a tiny dinosaur (even if it looks like a rabbit), or use a cookie cutter to make a row of stars.

    11. Run down a hill.

    Or roll. Get some speed and feel the abandon. You’re freeeeee!

    12. Draw on the walls.

    Use bathtub crayons and create something while you shower. Or get some sidewalk chalk and have fun making hopscotch courses outside. Tape paper to your wall and scrawl in broad strokes with markers. It’s liberating.

    13. Give in to an urge.

    It’s 11pm and you’re suddenly compelled to drive to the beach? Do it. It’s 10am and the sunshine outside your office window is luring you out to take a walk? Do it. Not all urges are irresponsible.

    I think when we feel drawn toward freedom or to do something spontaneously, it’s usually our soul’s plea for joy and levity. We can’t always ignore that or ask it to wait patiently for the weekend. If we do, it may stop speaking to us all together.

    14. Borrow a kid.

    If you already have one, borrow another for a change of pace. Go to the playground and chase them around. Let them push you on the merry-go-round. When the other adults shoot you a look, smile inside, content in the knowledge that you know a secret to happiness: play!

    15. Swing on the swings.

    With or without kids. Feel the breeze across your face and the drop in your stomach when you go just a little bit higher.

    16. Learn a new trick.

    I still can’t do a cartwheel. And I can’t quite dive. But every time I set out to do either, I feel a renewed zest for life. Try something new and have fun with it.

    17. Play an instrument.

    Bongos and kazoos are fun for the not-so-musically-inclined.

    18. Make a “faerie garden.”

    My mother did this with my son recently. She used an old wooden crate and some found objects, and let him create a beautiful little “garden” filled with ceramic turtles, tree branches, and an angel figurine. There’s no real reason. But why not?

    19. Throw a party.

    Go all out and make it a themed event for all of your friends. Or go small scale and celebrate your dog’s birthday with some balloons, a new toy and a feast of fresh beef and rice. You can celebrate anything, if you want to.

    20. Dance in public.

    At a karaoke bar or in the grocery store. And if you somehow just can’t bring yourself to do it…do it anyway.

    These moments of fun and play are what keep me feeling alive. I consider them to be my soul’s expression of joy. And my body’s expression of joy. And my heart’s expression of joy. But my mind is blissfully quiet during these times.

    In these moments, my mind is off the hook and all I have to do is just play.

    Photo by Brian Tomlinson

  • The Key to Beauty and Acceptance Is You

    The Key to Beauty and Acceptance Is You

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

    I read this quote the other day, and I have to say, nothing has shaken me to the core more.

    I was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy at the age of two, and ever since, I’ve struggled with loving myself and with having self-confidence.

    For the most part, you wouldn’t know I have a serious physical disability aside from my visible limp, my difficulty getting up and down stairs, and my tendency to fall when I get weak. I was never able to do sports growing up like my friends and often had to enroll in special Adaptive Phys Ed classes in school.

    I always felt my disability separated me from my peers growing up, so I put up an emotional wall and convinced myself that I had to wear the latest clothes, have perfect skin, and have the perfect body in order to “blend in” with everyone around me—in order to be truly loved. Then maybe I would be considered beautiful.

    Then maybe no one would notice I was different. If I just looked like those Victoria’s Secret models, then someone would accept and love me.

    So often we look to external things to define our beauty, most commonly, our physical appearance. We think that if we just fit into the mold that society has told us is “good looking” then we’ll feel good about ourselves and will gain acceptance.

    I put a lot of value in being in a relationship too. Because of my disability, I was extremely shy for a long time and very insecure. All I wanted was a guy to come along, sweep me off my feet, and fall in love with me.

    Then I thought I would truly be like everyone else, because I would have someone (other than friends and family) there all the time telling me that I was loved and valued. (more…)

  • When We Think Other People Are Better Than Us

    When We Think Other People Are Better Than Us

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt.

    I have a very bad habit.

    It pokes me when I stop to browse newspapers and magazines.

    It slaps me when I’m watching TV.

    It punches me hard at the gym.

    It knocks me down when I am walking down the street.

    I compare myself to other women.

    I’ve suffered from depression at points in my life, and I’ve suffered from low self-esteem pretty much always.

    It’s not an uncommon trait, comparing ourselves to others. But it seems to be a particularly bad habit for me. Perhaps because my brain is terrifically inventive; at my worst, I can find literally anything as proof that another woman is better than me.

    She’s beautiful. She’s slim. She has a successful career. She has money. She’s married. She has nice clothes. She has brown eyes. She has blue eyes. She has smaller hands. She has a red top. She can walk faster than me.

    I don’t always do it. If I’m feeling good about me, I can see a pretty woman while my boyfriend is with me and, although I do feel a slight pinch at my heartstrings, I’m able to disregard it fairly well.

    But when I’m feeling low in confidence, seeing that pretty woman rips into my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

    I look at her face, hair, body, success, and I think, “I can’t compare to her.” I torture myself with thoughts that if my boyfriend ever meets such a woman, I will be, as we say in Britain, yesterday’s news and today’s fish ’n’ chip paper!

    It’s not just when I’m with him. I used to work in the fashionable Soho region of London, and I couldn’t take more than a few steps before a young, pretty, slim, effortlessly cool lady would glide past.

    My thoughts would be, one: How does she have the money for those clothes? Two: How does she have the energy to make herself look so nice? I barely remember to brush my hair. Three: Thank goodness my boyfriend isn’t here to see her; he’d push me into that puddle over there and go running after her! And four: I look awful. (more…)

  • Be a Master of Where You Are Now

    Be a Master of Where You Are Now

    “Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion.  With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield

    I hadn’t taken a yoga class in a while, and in the midst of my busy schedule I finally gave myself permission to go. Needless to say it had been a few months since I found myself in a downward dog position.

    Something was different about my participation in two classes I recently took. I wish I could say I was able to go deeper into the poses, but it was actually challenging because my flexibility is not where it used to be.

    What struck me were the many great metaphors that these two women, Michelle and Debbie, were sharing in their yoga instruction.

    I confess, I’m a metaphor junky and look for them everywhere. I can probably blame my dad for that since he spoke to me in metaphors while growing up.

    What I noticed and appreciated about my instructors was that they were both very passionate about the practice of yoga. They were cognizant in educating us about position names and consistently reminded us to breathe.

    I also loved that there were so many other rich messages to be heard, metaphorically of course, being that I was paying attention to them.

    There were some gentle reminders that could be related to many different areas of life—career, relationships, wealth and finances, material purchases, and health. As I share them with you, I‘m curious as to how you would relate to them in your own unique way. (more…)

  • How to Love Without Losing Yourself

    How to Love Without Losing Yourself

    “We love because it is the only true adventure.” ~Nikki Giovanni 

    Last night I sat with an old friend who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. He’s sad. She’s sad.

    I don’t think it was time for them to give up yet; he’s exhausted and disagrees. He says he thinks that he just loves to love. When you love to love, he says, it’s impossible to separate the act of loving from the person that you’re actually supposed to love.

    He thinks that he’s too much in love with the idea of love to actually know what he wants. And so, he argues, giving her another chance would be futile.  

    I know what he means, because I love to love, too.

    When I met my boyfriend, Chase, I thought I had been in love before. In fact, I was positive of it. I had built a life out of a dating and relationship blog—of course I had been in love before.

    There was only one relationship that stood out from the masses of little flings, and for a time, he was my world. We met in college (although he wasn’t in school, a sign of different horizons that would eventually be the pitfall of our short-lived romance). And we developed our own little cocoon which quickly meant everything to me.

    I had grown up with a happy home life, two parents that met, fell in love, and then stayed together. I had an (albeit naive) perspective that when you meet the right person, you fall in love, and that’s that.

    I never doubted him for a minute; this was what was supposed to happen. I trusted it, the process of companionship, and I let myself settle into having someone.

    After only a few short months together, he said he needed to move since he could no longer afford to live Boulder, where I was going to college at the time, so we made the decision to move in together. (more…)

  • Finding Positive Ways to Express Difficult Emotions

    Finding Positive Ways to Express Difficult Emotions

    “Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

    Each day, month, or year I want to be something different when I grow up. At some point I want to open up a smoothie truck with a best friend, I want to teach yoga to cancer patients, and I want to travel to Australia and become a bartender just to support myself.

    But more so than what I want (or think I want) to be, I know what I am. I am a wife, a sister, a friend, an Egyptian, a listener, a weirdo, a poet, a marketer, a dog mom, and a wannabe yogi.

    But most of all? I am emotional.

    I am so emotional at times that my husband comes home to an inconsolable wife sitting alone on the couch crying. And what has set me off into this uncontrollable fit, you may ask? Some kid in a commercial misses his dad who is on a business trip, and (thanks to Skype services) he gets his bedtime story from 3,000 miles away. Sad? Yes, I know.

    Sad, but common. I have emotional friends. I also have completely apathetic friends. I love them. They are completely real with me when I get out of hand and help bring me back to earth.

    Something I just can’t help but get emotional over is death.

    It’s funny because I don’t have a problem with my own death. I could talk about that for days—how it’s going to happen, when I think it will happen, anything, until my husband tells me he doesn’t want to hear about it anymore and leaves the room.

    My grandparents along with many members of my family live in Egypt. I went to Egypt every other summer since I was born. I looked forward to seeing my cousins, the beaches, my aunts—everyone, but specifically my grandfather. I am my grandfather’s favorite grandchild (his words, not mine). (more…)

  • Releasing Judgment and Allowing Others to Have Their Process

    Releasing Judgment and Allowing Others to Have Their Process

     “Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.”  ~Sri Chinmoy

    We live in a world of judgment. We qualify everything in varying degrees of right and wrong, good and bad, pretty and ugly.

    We are taught from earliest childhood to judge everything and everyone. We label our days consistently, using adjectives like “beautiful” or “horrible.” Even the weather is not immune!

    The presence of judgment is pervasive in our lives, yet subtle enough in some cases to pass unnoticed. 

    I have worked for years at ridding my life of all judgment, but it’s far easier said than done! Just when I begin to think I’ve eradicated all traces of the poison, it pops up again, wearing a new disguise.

    One of the most valuable lessons of my life was witnessing the presence of judgment when I least expected it…

    Many of us on a so-called “spiritual path” find ourselves sorely challenged when we observe the suffering of those around us. This was especially true for me when my mother was dying.

    In the last days of my mother’s life, she was in severe, physical pain.  It’s hard for me to put into words the extent of my discomfort as I watched her, and the effect it had on my personal belief system.

    For years, I had lived with the belief that “all is well,” that regardless of any appearance of disharmony, there is a destiny, a plan, order in this great universe of ours. As my mother lay dying, I could not reconcile the image of her suffering with that belief system.  (more…)

  • Start the Climb: Take One Purposeful Step

    Start the Climb: Take One Purposeful Step

    “Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” ~H. Jackson Browne

    When I close my eyes and ponder the dreams that I have, the hopes and wishes that I cradle in my heart, I wonder what has prevented me from reaching for and achieving them. Oh, I come up with a whole slew of excuses, sometimes disguised as “reasons.”

    The seeker of my truth fires back with a rebuttal most of the time.

    “It is better to attempt and fail than fail to make any attempt at all,” it says in response to my ego’s ramblings about how I won’t ever succeed.

    “You make time for what is important to you,” my inner light says in response to my ego’s musings about how busy my life is, working a full-time job, while also parenting two active, small children.

    Regardless of the excuse, it can always boil down to one thing. Fear.

    I lost my dad traumatically and unexpectedly in 2003. I spent the next eight years wading through the sadness and anger, searching for some deeper meaning, some explanation for how serendipitously and “coincidentally” it all unfolded.

    Then in 2011, I made an amazing discovery that was ultimately life changing. The catalyst for this shift in my being was a referral from a friend to read a book about life after death.

    Suddenly, I realized that my soul, my intuition, my gut—it had something to say about how I should purposefully fulfill my path in this lifetime.

    I spent quite a bit of time trying to differentiate between these disparate voices and messages I was receiving. Is it my head or my gut?

    The ego is fear-driven. It relishes in success, achievement, and status. It directs you to analyze the route that leads to all of these things.  (more…)

  • How I Found Inner Peace Despite the Drama in My Life

    How I Found Inner Peace Despite the Drama in My Life

    “Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life, but the ability to cope with it.” ~Unknown

    Like many people, I lived my life for a lot of years failing to understand inner peace is a choice. I am not sure what I thought. Perhaps I didn’t believe anyone could feel a lasting peace inside. I did know that my own feelings of peace were always transitory.

    There were many ups and downs in my life, too many claims on my time and too many difficult situations to be dealt with. I think I actually believed inner peace could only be achieved by monks and saints, or anyone living a reclusive life who didn’t have to deal with everyday struggles.

    I was stuck in a world of confusion, wondering how peace could be mine when there was always something, some drama going on in my own life or the lives of those I loved.

    In fact, it seemed to me that the whole world was filled with stuff, negative stuff mostly, which I read about in the newspaper, saw on the television, or heard from someone I knew.

    It was the kind of stuff that pulls at your emotions—the breaking news story of a missing woman being found murdered, the tragedy of a child being killed by a hit and run driver, the numbers of homeless people tripling, and a devastating Tsunami killing thousands and paralyzing a country.

    Then there were the stories closer to home—my friend’s husband being diagnosed with cancer and dying three months later, my father suffering from dementia, my best friend’s marriage falling apart—all tearing at my heart and leaving me hurt and grieving.

    In my own personal life too, my emotions dipped and peaked along with how much control I felt I had over my own happiness. I literally felt like a puppet on a string, and asked myself over and over again, “How can I feel a constant inner peace in my heart and life when my emotions see-saw up and down according to what is happening in and around me?”

    Looking back I know I believed that my emotions were important. After all, wasn’t being emotional an essential part of being alive? Emotions made me feel real and allowed me to extend empathy to everyone else.

    But in the deepest part of myself, I did not feel good most of the time. I longed to not be so emotional. I wanted to be released from all the conflict in my life—to not react to other people’s words and anger, to feel serenity in my heart.

    It was an almost desperate need to alter or to stop the negative cycle of events which seemed to dominate my relationships and my life.

    I believe it was that intention which kept on surfacing in my mind and in my heart that fueled my spiritual search and led me to discover a more peaceful way to live, despite the conflict in my life. (more…)