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Posts tagged with “Love”

20 Ways to Give Without Expectations

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“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” ~Samuel Johnson

Some people say there’s no such thing as a selfless actā€”that any time we do something to help another person, we get something in return, even if itā€™s just a warm fuzzy feeling.

Iā€™ve spent a lot of time playing with this idea in my head. It doesnā€™t really bother me to know it feels good to help someone else. That, to me, is a completely acceptable type of selfishness. What give me cause for concern are the underlying expectations …

The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

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ā€œRemember, we all stumble, every one of us. Thatā€™s why itā€™s a comfort to go hand in hand.ā€ ~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 Iā€”someone who grew up this sick little kid who held a deep-seated belief that sheā€™d never be ā€œan athleteā€ā€”would do something that thousands each year, including world-class athletes, cannot.

Yet there I was.

But I certainly didnā€™t get there alone. I had helpā€”a lot …

The Key to Beauty and Acceptance Is You

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ā€œTo be beautiful means to be yourself. You donā€™t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.ā€ ~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 wouldnā€™t know I have a serious physical disability aside from my visible limp, my difficulty getting up and down stairs, and my tendency to …

How to Feel More Loved: 9 Tips for Deep Connection

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ā€œIt is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves.ā€ ~John Bulwer

If thereā€™s one thing we all want, itā€™s to feel loved.

We want to feel deeply connected to other people, fully seen and appreciated by them, and secure in those relationships.

We can have a million and one acquaintances online, but if none of our connections feel intimate and meaningful, we will ultimately feel alone.

Thereā€™s actually some interesting research that shows we tend to value physical possessions less when we feel loved and accepted by others, because relationships can provide a sense of comfort, insurance, …

How to Love Without Losing Yourself

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

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. …

The Difference Between Forgiving and Forgetting

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ā€œSome people think it’s holding that makes one strong. Sometimes it’s letting go.ā€ ~Unknown

I will never forget the moment my marriage ended.

My husband and I had fought the night before, about many of the same things we’d been fighting about for the entirety of our four-month marriage.

He was dissatisfied with our sex life and my lack of respect for him. I was struggling with bipolar disorder, changing medications, going back to school, and trying to please a man who seemed to find fault with everything I did.

During that fight, he choked me twice to prevent me …

Dealing with a Break Up and Learning from the Experience

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ā€œWhy worry about things you canā€™t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?ā€ ~Unknown

Relationships end, everyone knows that. The tough part is actually dealing with suffering, accepting, letting go, moving on, and processing a whole lot of other feelings at the same time.

Six months ago my ex-boyfriend decided to end our relationship because he couldnā€™t forgive me for a mistake I’d made.

During the first weeks of our breakup I decided that it would be best if I just gave him some time to think things out. I accepted the …

50 Things to Love about Life That Are Free

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“If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

If you asked an eight-year-old version of me to list all the things I loved, it might have looked something like this:

  • Ice cream
  • Swings
  • Snow days
  • Beach days
  • More ice cream
  • Saturday morning cartoons

In fact, Iā€™m sure I could have created an inventory longer than my usual Christmas list, including a ton of things that either tasted, felt, or looked good.

It didnā€™t occur to me until later in life that some of the best things are …

No Act of Kindness is Too Small

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“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein

One of the key ways to bring about greater harmony and peace in our lives is through understandingā€”looking at a situation and taking the time to put ourselves into the minds and hearts of others.

And the key to understanding begins with the seed of compassion. Sounds so simple, right? So why donā€™t we do it?

As people living in the west, we can sometimes be in too much of a rush to …

Now is the Time to Appreciate the People Who Have Helped You

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“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.” -James Allen

Recently, my mom told me that my beloved piano teacher had passed on. She had reached a high age and died peacefully in her sleep. This news, delivered to me via Facebook, hit me harder than I could have prepared myself for.

Sitting there in front of my computer, I remembered the circumstances of my meeting her. Originally, it was because my sister wanted to learn how to play piano.

It was by pure chance that I decided to go with her for her first lesson and I …

How to Overcome Loneliness

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“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

After my ex-girlfriend and I broke up several years ago, I never felt more alone in my life. I hung up the phone with tears streaming down my face as I stepped into my new reality.

I only had one friend in the world, who happened to live fairly far away, so most of my newfound singlehood was spent alone.

It was difficult for the first few weeks due to all the painful emotions that usually come with a breakup, but after a while the pain went …

How to Come Home to Yourself

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“Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark.” ~Zen Proverb

There was once a man who loved to complain and find fault with everyone and everything. Nothing pleased him, so he moved from one town to another, declaring as he left each place:

ā€œI am going to another town, where the people are friendlier.ā€

A wise man perceived what the problem was, and as the angry man began striding along the dusty road to yet another destination, the wise man compassionately called out:

ā€œOh brother, moving from place to place does not serve you well. Wherever you …

Feeling Love Outside of a Relationship

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

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

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

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

I met a woman working at the UN who …

Reclaiming Valentine’s Day: 4 Real Expressions of Love

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

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

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

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

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

Book Giveaway and Interview: Rewire Your Brain for Love

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Update: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The winners:

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

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

Loving Ourselves and Each Other, Imperfections and All

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

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

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

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

3 Ways to Forgive and Create Peace

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“Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.” ~Buddha

It was a beautiful spring morning when I was terminated from my job. Before it happened, there were rumors, but I refused to believe that something like that could actually happen to me. I felt betrayed by the manner in which the termination occurred.

Without any substantiation, my company suggested that my ethics were compromised and I embezzled from the company funds. Soon thereafter I learned that the sole motive for the company was to replace me and my assistant with part-time employees to avoid paying full-time employee …

Remember to Breathe: How to Feel Calm, Peaceful, and Loving

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

At some point during 2005 I discovered the sense that I am connected to everything, that nothing exists outside of me. This realization came while surfing with a friend of mine. From that moment, surfing became a religion for me.

I sat on top a surf board about 100 yards off the sand, just a little north of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant in San Clemente, California, for hours on end every single day.

At some point during each …

Interview and Giveaway: Love for No Reason by Marci Shimoff

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Update: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha to receive free daily or weekly emails and to learn about future giveaways!

The winners:

You know that open-hearted, safe feeling of being in the presence of someone you love and trust? Have you ever wondered if you could bottle that and feel it later, when you were alone?

What about that connected, fulfilled feeling of loving someone else passionately and unconditionally? Have you ever wondered if you could sustain that whether you were in a relationship or not?

Bestselling author Marci Shimoff (who also …

Learning from the Relationships That Didnā€™t Work Out

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“Stay away from what might have been and look at what will be.” ~Marsha Petrie Sue

In my mere thirty years on this planet, I have had lots of boyfriends. Lotsā€”hundreds. First one: Pat McGovern, first grade. We were in different classrooms, but we each took a casual stroll to the bathrooms at the same time. He leaned his three-foot-two body against the pink tiled wall and waited for me to walk by.

Then, just at the perfect moment, he told me I looked smashing. (It was picture day, so I was slinging the old A game.) This …