fbpx
Menu

Posts tagged with “self love”

How to Love Yourself into Speaking Up When You’re Frozen in Fear

By

“Always speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.” ~Unknown

You may not want to admit this to others, but I know the truth about you.

You freeze, clam up, and shut down when tensions rise and your spidey-sense detects a hint of conflict in the air. You run for cover during the storm, and when it’s over, you judge yourself for not having delivered the perfect soliloquy in the heat of the moment to convey your point and get what you need and deserve.

And then you collapse into a hot mess of blame and shame.

I get it. …

How to Love Yourself Through Cancer or Any Other Terrifying Diagnosis

By

“If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm.” ~Frank Lane

One minute your life is just humming along, and out of nowhere you’re hit with a devastating diagnosis. Cancer.

Believe me, I know what it’s like to get the news you have cancer and to live with the trauma that follows, because I’m not only a licensed psychotherapist, I’ve been treated for both breast cancer and leukemia.

I know how that diagnosis changes everything. I know how the world around you can still look the same, but suddenly you feel like a stranger in your …

When I Stopped Competing, I Set Myself Free

By

“With nothing to compare yourself to, aren’t you perfect?” ~Byron Katie

I have never liked competition. Every time I compete, I feel pressured and disconnected from others. I love harmony, peace, collaboration, and win-win situations, kind of like “me happy, you happy.” I don’t need to watch another person lose the game to feel good about myself. I don’t need to dominate or put someone else down in order to feel superior and worthy.

In some cultures, competing is perceived as a sign of ambition, power, and strength. Most of us grew up hearing constant comparisons, which turned into …

Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

By

“Whatever purifies you is the right path.” ~Rumi  

I’m tired of being good. It’s time to be deliciously free.

How I wish I could say that without rushing in to assure you that I promise I’ll still be good.

The truth is, I worry. Less than I used to, but still, I do.

I’ve probably had every kind of worry you could imagine. There’s the kind about things that haven’t happened yet, things that didn’t but very nearly could have, things that are highly unlikely if not impossible, things that are commonplace; I’ve worried about the things I want and …

How to Start Dating from a Place of Self-Love

By

“You must learn to love yourself before you can love someone else.” ~Sonja Mylin

It’s tough being out there.

I remember myself some years ago embracing the world of online dating. Everyone kept telling me “be yourself” (and I kept telling myself that), but when I was actually on a date, “myself” would fly out the window.

I’d go hard on the impressing, second-guess myself, drink too much, look for every little thing we had in common (even if the person did not feel right), feel devastated if I was rejected, and utterly lose sight of what I was …

A Simple Practice to Help You Appreciate How Wonderful You Are

By

“Stop criticizing yourself for everything you aren’t and start appreciating yourself for everything you are.” ~Unknown

Are you your own best friend, your own worst critic, or somewhere in between? Do you tend to focus on what you see as your flaws, mistakes, and imperfections, comparing yourself to others you think are better than you? Sometimes, do you even wish you were someone else?

It’s easy to get trapped in that way of thinking, especially in today’s consumer culture. From magazine ads to TV commercials, we are trained to compare ourselves to others and are subtly told we are not …

I’ve Learned That I Deserve


By

When I was growing up, my parents never spoke to me about what I “deserved.” They spoke to me a lot about what was “expected.” They were very clear about that.

They expected me to be tough, hard-working, well-read, and smart. They expected me to help others, especially those struggling on the margins. They sent me to work in impoverished parts of the world, so I would realize I was very lucky and really had nothing to complain about. They expected me to go to church every week, to be honest, to help my brothers, my cousins, my community. …

The Wounds of Rejection Heal With Self-Love and Self-Awareness

By

“There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn’t matter anymore.” ~Laurie Halse Anderson

It began in elementary school. I was a chubby immigrant with a thick accent and hand-me-down clothes. I so badly wanted the other kids to like me, and I had no idea why everything I said and did seemed to push them away.

My jokes and comments would trigger awkward silences or ridicule—especially in groups. Those moments were traumatizing, but they were also confusing. How could I …

7 Self-Love Practices That Helped Me Heal from a Devastating Divorce

By

“Unlike self-criticism, which asks if you’re good enough, self-compassion asks what’s good for you?” ~Kristin Neff

My husband and family were my world. Although I’d found joy in my passion of writing, my heart revolved around my marriage. I thought we were happy. Then one day, he dropped the bomb: “I don’t love you anymore.”

Two weeks later, I found out he’d fallen in love with another woman who lived across the world. He didn’t want me anymore.

Sure, I’d known for a while something was wrong—that knowing deep in your gut that you can’t put your finger on, …

Be Good to Yourself: 10 Powerful Ways to Practice Self-Love

By

“Self-love, self-respect, self-worth: There’s a reason they all start with ‘self.’ You can’t find them in anyone else.” ~Unknown

It was one of those nights.

I was in a busy New York bar, having fun and enjoying myself. That was, until someone asked me: “So, what do you do?”

Within a few seconds my fun, happy, playful side vanished and in entered a girl full of doubts and insecurity.

The truth was… I had no freaking idea about what I was doing! I had just left my corporate job and now I was on a journey to …

Twisted Love: What I Learned from Being in an Abusive Relationship

By

“Never wish them pain. That’s not who you are. If they caused you pain, they must have pain inside. Wish them healing. That’s what they need.” ~Najwa Zebian

Most of us don’t grow up and say we’re going to be killers.

Most of us don’t grow up and say we’re going to hurt people.

We don’t grow up thinking and planning to hurt ourselves.

But there are moments in our lives in which we’ve stepped outside of ourselves and made decisions that impair our lives. Decisions that remain with us for a lifetime.

Then we have difficulty forgiving ourselves …

5 Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Start Looking For Love

By

“Don’t rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.” ~Russ Von Hoelscher

Being in love is awesome. Sharing your life with someone special who gets you, adores you, and loves you for who you are is amazing. Sometimes, though, we need to work on ourselves before we are ready to attract a true love like that.

Rather than jumping into yet another romantic adventure without thinking, I encourage you to answer these few questions. I know, at the time of …

How I Stopped Chasing Happiness and Started Enjoying My Imperfect Life

By

“I want to live my life without stress and worries. I don’t need to be rich or famous. I just want to be happy.” ~Unknown

Have you ever set a goal and then become obsessed with it, making it the center of your life and arranging everything else around it? Did you think that only after you achieved your goal would you be totally relaxed and happy?

I’ve done this many times before.

Throughout my life, I’ve measured my happiness by my achievements. I pushed to get good grades in school, then focused on going to a good college, then …

Highs and Lows Are Part of Growth and It All Makes Us Stronger

By

“Just like a muscle needs to tear to grow stronger, sometimes we need to wade into our own darkness to find a brighter light.” ~Lori Deschene

Sometimes we need to journey into the deepest, darkest, scariest, most painful places inside in order to reach the next level.

This is what happened to me earlier this year.

When I was younger, I was in an abusive relationship that created a lot of stories in my head. These stories became beliefs that I carried around for a long time. Beliefs like, “I’m not good enough,” “Relationships are painful,” “I don’t …

Self-Love Means Never Saying “You Complete Me”

By

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

A popular topic in the glossy magazines, learning to “love yourself” always seemed to me to be a self-indulgent first-world pastime.

It seemed obvious that the commonly-repeated mantra “love yourself first” was just a sign of the times in a world where something like half of all marriages end in divorce. …

Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself On Sale for 99 Cents

By

 

Hi friends! I’m pleased to announce that the eBook version of Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself has been selected for The Great Autumn eBook Sale, which is offering twelve powerful eBooks for just 99 cents each, from now until October 19th.

About Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself

Tiny Buddha’s Guide to Loving Yourself  shares forty unique perspectives and insights on topics related to loving yourself, including:

  • Realizing you’re not broken
  • Accepting your flaws
  • Releasing the need for approval
  • Forgiving yourself
  • Letting go of comparisons
  • Learning to be authentic

Featuring stories selected from hundreds of Tiny Buddha …

Book Giveaway: Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and The Self-Love Experiment

By

UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway are Alexandra Martinez and Kathy Kortegaard.

Happy October, friends! Over the past several months since I launched Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal, I’ve been excited to receive some wonderful feedback on the thought-provoking prompts and questions, and the coloring pages.

I decided to create this journal because adopting a gratitude practice has been life changing for me; it’s shifted my perspective, boosted my mood, and enabled me to hold on to optimism during some of the darkest times of my life.

And I chose to include coloring pages because I’ve been obsessed with adult …

Why I Drank, How It Destroyed Me, and How I’m Healing My Self-Hatred

By

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual assault and self-harm and may be triggering to some people.

Hi, I’m Adriana and I’m an alcoholic.

When I look back at my life, I realize it was inevitable that I’d end up here.

By the time I was nineteen, I’d already had a history of self-harm through cutting, a bi-product of my depression and anxiety. I was anorexic. I’d had a near cervical-cancer scare not once, but twice within a six-month period, leaving my gynecologist back in Sydney speechless. “I have never had a case like yours.”…

Why I No Longer Need to Be the Best at Everything I Do

By

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.‹” ~Abraham Lincoln

As a child, my father always told me, “At everything you do, you have to be number one.” I tried. In some ways, I succeeded. I got high grades. Sometimes, the highest. Sometimes, I got awards.

I became an expert at figuring out other people’s expectations and meeting them. This got me approval, but it never made me happy. I wasn’t passionate about grades, awards, or …

How to Boost Your Self-Worth: 7 Tips to Feel Better About Yourself

By

“The more we see ourselves as a vibrant, successful, inspiring person who boldly declares and manifests her vision, the more we become just that.” ~Kristi Bowman

I was kind of a chunky kid growing up.

In my own little world of trolls and playwriting, I didn’t notice the chunk. I genuinely liked me. But when I entered the “real world” of opinions, people, and comparison, I began to realize or rather feel that perhaps my body wasn’t good enough.

This thought was like a seed that was then planted in my brain. And every time I thought about it, …