Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • Catch Anger Before It Catches You

    Catch Anger Before It Catches You

    “For every moment you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    I’m not an angel. In fact, my husband used to lovingly call me a “fierce creature.” This fiery inclination can be due to inborn temperament, but it can also be a result of post-traumatic stress or similar brain-impacting life events.

    It’s taken a concerted effort, over many years, for me to become more loving, tolerant, and peaceful.

    But I still lose it from time to time. Like today, for example, it must have been a triple critical day because I lost it three times in a row. 

    It started with an unusually frustrated phone call with a relative. Then, an empty granola bar box made me furious enough to fling it across the room.

    Lastly, a well-meaning guardian at the visitors’ center of a private yoga resort challenged me. Yes, heaven forbid, I walked up the driveway, but honestly I didn’t cross the gate.

    In fact, I was in my car, about to leave, when she came flying over to warn me the resort property is off limits without a guest pass. I became curt and defensive, cold anger seeping through. After all, I’ve already been on the grounds at least a million times.

    Indulging in Anger Harms Your Health and Happiness

    In each case, I was caught in an almost automatic response. But I quickly recognized the error of my ways. Why? Because, in addition to harming others, I know that indulging in anger harms my own health and detracts from my own happiness too.

    Take a moment to tune in to yourself the next time you get angry. By doing so, you can discover anger’s harmful impact for yourself.

    When I’m triggered by anger, I feel an upsurge of energy at first—almost a high—as adrenalin surges through my body. But this feisty response quickly dissolves into feeling all churned up. If I start replaying the scene in my mind, easy to do, the emotional turmoil can keep on for days.

    On the other hand, genuine regret might pop up. Then I feel bad about myself. I get caught up in how to fix the mess, pulled between my self-righteousness and an ardent wish to let go. 

    Almost always, healing the wound I’ve imposed takes considerable time—time that could have been used for better purposes if I had only held my tongue. (more…)

  • Body Betrayal: How to Cope with Chronic Pain and Illness

    Body Betrayal: How to Cope with Chronic Pain and Illness

    “As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Up until fairly recently, I often felt betrayed by my body. It was always breaking down, leaving me frustrated and bitter.

    No one else seemed to have as many problems.

    I’ve had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, an inflamed gall bladder riddled with stones that ended in surgery. Chronic migraines, chronic hives, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

    Whenever I get sick, it never seems to be something trivial. A cold becomes bronchitis. Hayfever leads to a sinus infection.

    One year after holidaying in Thailand, my partner returned home fit as a fiddle, whereas I got scabies, salmonella poisoning, and acute facet lock (or rye neck, which I did in my sleep!).

    Gah!

    The thing is, I’ve done a lot of healing over the years. I’ve consulted with counselors, acupuncturists, physios, osteos, hypnotherapists, and more. In a lot of ways, I’ve become more in tune and aware of my body and healthier than ever. I feel like I’ve grown as a person, have more resilience, and am able to celebrate the positive side of life.

    So when I found myself trying to heal my chronic lower back pain, I was disapointed to hear the old “poor me, why me?” tape start running again. One day I was lying down, feeling very sorry for myself when something occurred to me:

    What was the lesson that I hadn’t learned yet? What was my body trying to tell me?

    So I asked it.

    Yep, I said, “Excuse me body, I feel really betrayed by you. You always seem to be sick, sad, or sore. What are you trying to tell me?”

    And here was my body’s soft, small answer.

    “I’m not trying to betray you. But I have needs too. I try to let you know but you’re too busy hanging out with your mind. When you two get together, you get lost and sometimes I have to scream at you for you to hear me.”

    Woah. For me, this was an epiphany.

    I had an immense insight with images flashing in my mind from my past. (more…)

  • 5 Powerful Things to Do for Yourself When You’re Sick

    5 Powerful Things to Do for Yourself When You’re Sick

    “Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

    Getting sick is rarely, if ever fun for anyone, but we all get sick. You can cheat on your taxes, but you can’t cheat on sickness.

    When we get sick, we all have a choice of how to work with illness. We can choose to be miserable or we can choose to learn about ourselves and grow from the experience. Since I have had such a hard time with the latter, I’ve investigated 5 ways to practice with illness.

    1. Reflect on the benefit of health.

    Often illness brings into focus what we wish we could be doing when we feel healthy.

    Once, back when I was a pack-a-day smoker, I got food poisoning, and I remember the smell or thought of cigarettes made me feel so much worse. At that time I vowed not to smoke anymore. I felt the frailty of my body and I didn’t want to live a life that hurt my body. I saw how much I needed my body, how bad it felt to not be able to rely on it.

    Unfortunately as soon as I felt better I forgot what I knew when I was really sick. Being sick gives us the chance to reflect on the value of health and what you want to do with your life energy when you do feel better. People who are in hospitals only have time to sit around and watch TV; is that what you want to do with your free time?

    We only have so many hours and days of health. How can we use each hour of our lives to benefit the people we love the most? (more…)

  • The Illusion of Waiting for the Future to Be Happy

    The Illusion of Waiting for the Future to Be Happy

    “The future is always beginning now.” ~Mark Strand

    Do you ever feel like there’s something missing in your life? It feels like you’re always waiting for something to arrive. You want the future to come, because it’s better there.

    But that’s all wrong.

    The future is an illusion. It’s just a concept in your head. This is what I’ve realized in the past few months.

    I’ve suddenly become acutely aware of what’s going on. I’ve entered the present moment more powerfully than ever before.

    If you go and read my previous articles here at Tiny Buddha, I talk about how I’m going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.

    I’m learning more and more, and that’s exactly what happens each year.

    As I’m writing this, I am completely present in my body. I feel my fingers write the words. It almost feels like I’m not the one typing, typing is just happening.

    I don’t claim to be perfect, but I do want to share what’s happened, and how you can tap into the same peace and joy that I have.

    But before we do that, let’s look at the problem.

    The Problem: Future-Think

    In the past, I tended to live in the future. I daydreamed of a better life.

    I wanted more money, more adventure, and more time so I could be in the present moment. When I put it like that, it almost seems crazy, doesn’t it?

    (more…)

  • 7 Tips To Help You Slow Down and Enjoy Your Life As It Is

    7 Tips To Help You Slow Down and Enjoy Your Life As It Is

    “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” ~Gandhi

    I have always been a person who wants to be one step ahead. I think my parents would say that I liked to push the boundaries. I wanted to experience many things, and I wanted to experience them quickly.

    When my brother went to sleep-away camp, I had to go the next year despite being three years younger than him.

    At age thirteen I had to ski with the older kids, racing faster and harder than I was ready for.

    When I was fifteen I pushed to take a trip to Mexico with a friend despite my parents’ better judgment (and when I look back on this I realize I really was too young).

    In college I continued to push the limits. This seemed okay at the time because everyone was doing it.

    By the age of twenty-four I had broken away from the safety of my home state and moved myself out west and back again, living in some of the country’s most exciting places.

    I wouldn’t’ stay long though—two years here, one year there.

    I rushed through each amazing place, taking in as much as I could. I landed great jobs but didn’t stay long. I wanted more and I wanted change. What was I seeking?

    Two years ago life shifted for me, and I was forced to slow down a bit.

    I found myself in pursuit of a life-changing career. I became a teacher. I spend my days with nine year olds. Nothing makes you live in the moment like being surrounded my children. They require your complete presence and attention.

    I don’t think many would call the teaching profession a stress reliever, but I find it makes me slow down and appreciate every day.

    I also met a man who completely changed how I saw the world. He is older, and has experienced more of life than I have (not just in years, but in challenges and experiences I cannot imagine).

    He provides me with unconditional love. He loves my best and accepts my worst. He challenges me to look at the most difficult aspects of myself. I love him and cannot imagine life without him. 

    At times I still find myself speeding ahead through life. I see friends getting married and having children, and I know I want that too. I struggle to not want that immediately. 

    Here I am at age twenty-nine, two semesters away from a master’s degree, working at my dream job, living in a wonderful city, in a wonderful and loving relationship, and yet I am constantly seeking the next thing. When will I get married? Buy a house? Have kids?

    Why can’t I just live in the moment? Appreciate my life for what I have now?

    This is something I have been working on over the past six months and I have found a few steps that are helpful when I have that particular “rushed” feeling.

    1. Notice the small things.

    I live in a small but urban city on the coast. The other night my boyfriend and I came back to my parked car after dinner to find a praying mantis sitting in the middle my windshield. We both just stared in awe and surprise—where did it come from?

    I consider myself to be an open-minded skeptic when it comes to things like spirit animals, but I was not surprised to learn that praying mantis’ bring with them the idea of mindfulness and a reminder to slow down.

    2. Count your blessings and keep perspective.

    Chances are your life is pretty great. Yes, we all have struggles. But my “first world” problems are not life threatening, are they? Do I have an unsafe living situation? No. Do I struggle to find clean drinking water? Do I have a life-threatening illness? No and no.

    I have everything I need to survive (and more)—and I bet you do too.

    3. Do not compare.

    Things aren’t always what they seem. That friend who just got married may not be totally happy in her career. That couple that just bought a house might be feeling strapped financially. There are ups and downs to every situation.

    Trust that you are where you are supposed to be and that everything happens for a reason.

    4. Find joy.

    There is a lot of joy in each day; you just need to look for it. That toothless grin from a nine-year-old? Joy. Your cat pouncing on the nearest moving target? Joy. Leaves beginning to get their golden hue? Amazing. Pasta with homemade pesto? Awesome.

    There are simply amazing things that happen every single day. Just open your eyes.

    5. Control the controllables.

    This is something my boyfriend always says, and I really like it. Change what you can and don’t stress about the rest. You cannot change traffic but you can change how you react to it. So you have an extra ten minutes in the car? See it as down time.

    You cannot change others but you can change how you react to them. Your friend is late for dinner plans? Grab a beer and relax. Chances are it isn’t on purpose, and what is wrong with a little extra me-time?

    6. Live in the moment.

    I am a planner. I like to know when and where for pretty much everything that happens in my life. It is limiting, to say the least.

    For some reason I seem to think that making plans will decrease my anxiety. But you know what makes me really anxious? When plans change. The thing is, plans change all the time! Life happens and you cannot control it.

    Go with the flow. Plan only what you need to, and learn to take the day as it comes.

    7. Trust the universe.

    You don’t have to believe in a higher power for this one. You just have to notice all the good around you. There is proof right in front of you that things do turn out how they are supposed to. Find inspiration and hope in the happiness that surrounds you everyday.

  • Does Your Day Start Out Perfect and Then Fall Apart?

    Does Your Day Start Out Perfect and Then Fall Apart?

    “He is able who thinks he is able.” ~Buddha

    I really needed to finish up a task. I’d already spent five more days than the one I’d estimated it would take. My boss was getting edgy; my co-workers were looking at me funny.

    Every day I’d come in, have my plan-of-attack all thought out. It should have progressed well—quickly even. And then something would happen.

    One day, the computer hardware I was using for months suddenly stopped and wouldn’t turn on. (Motherboard bad—two days.)

    Another day, the software I installed, which runs flawlessly on several other systems, randomly crashed with no strong indication of why. Google revealed that others had encountered this same problem, but with no resolution. (Rebuild entire server from scratch and pray that somehow fixes things—two days and counting.)

    And that’s ignoring the myriad interruptions from co-workers needing help, the meetings, the doctor appointments, the sick kids—it just goes on and on.

    And, seriously, it always seems like none of my co-workers encounter these kinds of issues (as many, as thorny, as perfect-storm-like as me). It must be that if I were a better employee/parent/human being, I wouldn’t encounter them either.

    Seriously. That’s what it feels like. I am somehow flawed in this cosmic way. I am somehow causing, or at least not preventing, this stuff from happening.

    I’m in a weekly men’s group. One guy there is the poster child for this issue, even more than me. He seems to encounter this type of “opposition” (from circumstances and co-workers) so much that it can actually make him unwilling to get out of bed in the morning to face the onslaught.

    He’s been this way ever since he entered the group a couple years ago. Until three weeks ago. (more…)

  • The Zen of Writing: 7 Lessons About Living Wisely

    The Zen of Writing: 7 Lessons About Living Wisely

    “Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” ~Albert Einstein

    I feel grateful to be a writer not only because I love to write, but also because writing has been one of my greatest spiritual teachers. Challenges I face as a writer teach me important life lessons, just as life teaches me lessons I can apply to my writing.

    Here are seven spiritual lessons I’ve learned—some the hard way—that can apply to writing and to life in general.

    1. Be mindful.

    Showing up—really showing up with all your attention—is the first and most important step to writing well. The same might be said of living well—that is, living deeply and fully. Before all else, it’s a matter of showing up and being in the moment.

    You can’t expect to write well if you interrupt your writing process to surf the Internet or if your mind wanders to any number of things—usually thoughts that have to do with the past or the future, not the present.

    Just as you can’t expect to write well unless you bring your attention to the task at hand—the one sentence you’re writing—you can’t expect to be fully alive if your mind wanders away from the present moment.

    When you’re folding laundry, when you’re reading to your child, when you’re walking the dog, when you’re writing a sentence, that should be the only thing that matters.

    2. Take things one day at a time.

    You can’t write a novel in one day. You put in one day of mindful work, then another, then another, and the result—sometimes years later—might be a novel.

    While it’s useful to keep long-term goals in mind, getting too far ahead of yourself can stifle you in the present. I used to keep “to do” lists that included things I wouldn’t need to do for weeks and months, until I realized that I was much more peaceful—and productive—when my “to do” list was limited to just one day—the day I was living. (more…)

  • How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship When You’re Depressed

    How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship When You’re Depressed

    “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun, like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”  ~Fred Rogers

    When you’re depressed, your perception about many things changes—so how does this affect your relationships?

    I’m thinking about this today, because—drum roll, please—I’m a little depressed.

    Now, I’m not depressed in the suicidal “I want to drive off the road” kind of way, but in the far less dramatic but still deeply unpleasant “mild to moderate” kind of way.  

    For me, one of the most challenging aspects to feeling like this is that I don’t feel as connected as I normally do—with my friends, the world in general, and with my beautiful, kind, sweet, smart, sexy husband.

    And this isn’t specific to me; this is what depression is, a lack of feeling.

    When you’re depressed, you can’t access feelings of self-love. And since the love you feel for others is a reflection of the love you feel for yourself, this is why you feel disconnected.

    You have an intellectual understanding of the love you have for your girlfriend/mother/sister/boyfriend, but you can’t feel it as much as you normally do.

    Years ago, during a time when I was depressed, crying, and unhappy, a friend told me, “I can see you’re still feeling something, so you can’t be too depressed.”

    And it’s true. The more depressed you are, the quieter your heart is. It’s like a continuum.

    It’s not like you don’t have all the feelings in you; you just can’t feel them right now. Just in case you’re tempted to worry about not having feelings.

    And this can be a problem in a relationship. One day you’re connected to yourself, and therefore your partner too, and the next day you don’t feel connected to anything.

    When you’re depressed, you misread situations; you perceive others as being critical of you. (more…)

  • Buy Less: Take the Fear and Compulsion Out of Shopping

    Buy Less: Take the Fear and Compulsion Out of Shopping

    by Lori Deschene

    “Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.” ~Democritus

    Around the holidays we tend to talk more about consumerism. Especially knowing that Black Friday started even earlier than usual this year (on Thursday night), a lot of us feel that our consumption has gotten out of hand.

    Many people I know have suggested we should curb our impulse to buy and only purchase necessities, but I can’t help but wonder if perhaps the solution is less about extremism and more about moderation.

    Making a drastic change can seem appealing when we’re frustrated or overwhelmed with the way things are, but going from one extreme to another rarely provides a viable long-term solution.

    The problem isn’t that we buy things we don’t need; it’s that we buy lots of things we don’t need to fill our assorted emotional voids.

    Does anyone need a piece of jewelry? Or a painting? Or an app?

    No—but good, talented people create these things. So long as we don’t mistakenly attach our happiness to them, we can both support those people and enjoy the fruits of their labor by purchasing their creations, when we’re financially able.

    No one goes into debt for occasionally treating themselves to something they would appreciate wearing, displaying, or using. We only run into issues when we spend compulsively and beyond our means.

    And buying gifts for other people—this can provide a lot of joy for the buyer and the giver, if we don’t pressure ourselves to spend extravagantly.

    Every year, each of my family members spend five dollars on stocking stuffers for the other four, so that we each end up with twenty dollars of stuff. None of us need the gum, combs, and magazines we get, but it’s fun and easily doable.

    The problem isn’t that we live in a consumer culture. It’s that we’re not always mindful of how and why we each consume.

    In much the same way, advertising itself isn’t fundamentally bad; everyone who supports themselves sells something, whether it’s a product, a course, or a service; that requires them to promote it. (more…)

  • Finding Your Special Thing: Connect with Your Passion

    Finding Your Special Thing: Connect with Your Passion

    “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.” ~Rumi

    You know what it is; you’ve always known. Maybe it’s been just a shadow in the fog, or it’s crystal clear in amazing Technicolor before your eyes. Either way, it’s there, sometimes stinging you with a numb sense of denial, sometimes scratching at your skin like a bad case of poison sumac.

    It’s existed since the day you arrived on earth with a cry and a gasp.You knew it already when you were small, when you drew pictures with crayons and finger paint, when you learned what a ruler was and how to multiply by three. When you found out that nouns were followed by verbs and that seeds, planted right below the surface of the dirt and given water to drink, would sprout green just days later.

    You knew it then, and you know it now.

    So many things vie for your attention. Job, kids, house, yard. Family, friends, the blessed computer. But your special thing sits right under the veneer of frenetic busy me, counting the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds for you to finally take notice and accept its sacred presence.

    When you see someone else doing something that remotely resembles your special thing, you might react in a panic.“Wait. Her. She’s living my dream!!” But it’s not someone else living your dream that brings on the racing heartbeat; it’s that you are not living your dream yourself.

    Your special thing is your work. It’s your purpose. It’s the goodness that you produce from the center of your heart. You might already be doing it without completely realizing it. You’d do it without having to be paid for it but if you could make your living from it, what joy it would bring.

    When I first started to heed the call of my special thing, my husband and I were working as hard as we could, thinking there would never be another way, wondering how long it would take for us to just burn out and disappear.

    There was something in the distance, though, a chance thought. It was engulfed in mist at first, but emerged into the light as an opportunity.

    In a short span of time, my husband’s and my professional situations changed, and the possibility to buy an abandoned farm in Italy presented itself. We sprang on it, knowing it was the right thing to do at some deep level. (more…)

  • 5 Tips to Help You Embrace Extreme Change

    5 Tips to Help You Embrace Extreme Change

    “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance” ~Alan Watts

    My obsession at an early age became to follow my heart—a life’s search for meaning, adventure, and enlightenment.

    This search has been remarkable, a journey that has brought me to fascinating places for extended stays (Japan, the UK, Australia, you name the place) and has led me to relationships with some of the most interesting, loving people from around the globe.

    As exhilarating the feeling of following your heart can be, it’s not always the yellow brick road we envision. The journey can be ambiguous, and it can toss us around like in an airplane cabin during times of heavy turbulence.

    In the midst of my latest adventure of working for a small marketing agency in Sydney, Australia, I received word from my general manager that my position would be eliminated.

    This forfeited my visa rights to stay in the country. Instead of being overcome by the drama-loving ego, I felt a strong sense of inner peace, as if a path to an important journey lay ahead.

    Sometimes spiritual journeys are not the fuzzy-feely ones we see all too often in modern pop culture, Eat, Pray, Love being one of them. Spiritual journeys can be physically challenging, emotionally daunting, and can require deep inner strength.  

    I received word that my best friend passed away shortly after arriving back in the States from Australia. Kari Bowerman had been pursing her passion for travel and passed away while vacationing in Vietnam. Her young travel companion (Cathy Huynh) passed away two days later.

    We live in an ever-changing world, and we need to fine-tune our souls to release inner resistance and fully open to the journey—good, bad, or horrific. Here are five things I’ve learned that help in embracing extreme change:

    1. Open your heart to divine guidance.

    I craved a coffee immediately following the meeting with my general manager about my non-existent work visa. I had been on my latest health kick and had been caffeine-free for 65 days at the time.

    I simply could not fight the compulsive urge at that moment and made a firm decision to make the 20-minute walk to my favorite quaint coffee shop in Sydney.

    The exact minute I set foot in the coffee shop I was overcome with an extremely positive feeling. A song I hadn’t heard in years came over the airwaves by a famous one-hit wonder of his time. The lyrics were so comforting, and in that moment I knew everything was as it should be. (more…)

  • How to Choose Peace Instead of Stressing About the Future

    How to Choose Peace Instead of Stressing About the Future

    “If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” ~Unknown

    I was entering a completely new stage in my life. It could have been the beginning of something great, but it was entirely foreign to me. I could handle being productive, I could handle struggling to survive, but what was hard to handle was wading through the unknown.

    After working for six months in Italy and six months in Brazil I was back in the US—floating. I didn’t feel any closer to having a career. I was without a car, job, and permanent housing. My boyfriend still lived in Brazil, and my friends were scattered around the globe.

    I didn’t yet have the answer for who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do.

    I had such high expectations for my return to the US. I had spent the last year working small jobs in Italy and Brazil like teaching English, being a personal assistant, and whatever freelance crumbs I could gather.

    I was sure coming back to my home country would give me the luxury of landing a job I would love with an international company. No such luck.

    So, for the first month I was helping my mom settle in her new apartment, and then I was on the other side of the country for two weeks to give some emotional support to my sister while she finished up her last semester of college.

    I was helping people make it through their daily processes. So far, that’s all the direction and answers I had.

    I was happy to be helpful and supportive of my loved ones, but to my goal-oriented mind, I felt like a failure.

    I was having trouble sleeping at night. I found myself awake in the wee hours of the morning, with thirteen tabs open, trying to research and apply for jobs while emailing contacts and just generally having a panic attack.

    The days were passing rapidly as I sat numbly pecking at my computer from dawn to dusk, without significant results and definitely no peace of mind. I was busy, but not productive.

    My mind was divided between trying to solidify my future and beating myself up for not having made a solid plan sooner. Would I ever be successful? What if I never found a job I liked? How could I live around the world and make money at the same time?

    I didn’t have answers and it was driving me crazy. I was in uncharted waters and I felt totally lost.  (more…)

  • Transcending Your Fear Using Courage and Boldness

    Transcending Your Fear Using Courage and Boldness

    “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear” ~Ambrose Redmoon

    I hear the words courage and boldness thrown around a lot in the self-growth world, often as the same thing.

    Or that the notion of true courage and boldness only looks like this big, huge, daring action, like a hero out of a movie lunging into a fearful situation.

    Courage and boldness always confused me and I thought they were pretty much the same thing.

    But once I learned the difference between them, I was able to have this warrior team to help me create better life for myself, on my journey to becoming a more fulfilled, self-actualized human being.

    After many years of trial and error, I realized the use of boldness and courage doesn’t need to look like some action movie hero. Though the great thing is, it can feel like I am a superhero on the inside. 

    I believe the same goes for you, if you want to access more boldness and courage in your life.

    First, Fear

    Let’s begin with fear, because without the concept of fear there would be no need for boldness or courage.

    I discovered that fear can be an enemy or an ally, and it’s our choice. A common interpretation of fear is that it is bad, that we must make it go away, because we blame it for stopping us.

    I’m with the Buddhists on this one in that if we resist fear then we make it our enemy, and that’s a battle we’ll never win.

    We will never be able to access courage and boldness in a powerful way, so we can win the war on fear by not trying to battle it directly.

    For many years I tried very hard to defeat fear, to purge my body of it, to cleanse my mind of it, all to no avail. Fear of more responsibility, fear of getting hurt in relationships, fear of just about anything.

    I’ve used guided meditations to attempt to eliminate fear, worked with NLP specialists and hypnotherapists to kill my fear, tried telling myself with affirmations that I am fearless and totally confident, used emotional freedom technique—the list goes on and on.

    And guess what? Fear is still there. It’s not going anywhere for me.

    Maybe you can find a way to remove fear, but I’ve given up on that route.

    So what can we do if we can’t kill fear itself, knowing that fear gets in the way, and can stop us from being or having what we want to be?

    It’s a strange paradox, but by being more accepting of fear, I’ve found it makes our access to courage and boldness stronger.  (more…)

  • Courting Chaos: Embrace the Unexpected and Grow Into Yourself

    Courting Chaos: Embrace the Unexpected and Grow Into Yourself

     

    “In chaos, there is fertility.” ~Anais Nin

    “You know you’re eating tongue tacos, right?” asked the slight Mexican hipster beside me. I choked, wide-eyed.

    “I thought it was just beef,” I stuttered, surveying the thick slabs of juicy meat I’d just been scarfing down. He subtly rolled his wide brown eyes. What a gringa, I’m sure he was thinking.

    It was an inauspicious start, but this unexpected event ended up setting off a chain reaction of positive events in my life.

    My new friend Juan invited me back to a studio where his friend’s rock band was recording. I’d recently quit my job to travel and had been in Mexico City for less than a week so I was hungry to meet new people and dive into new experiences.

    I ended up spending the evening in a dilapidated old mustard-colored house in the Roma Sur neighborhood. I met many artistic types, including a Brooklyn-born man named Mark who had a substantial mustache and an equally significant swagger.

    Mark ended up being the recruiter who interviewed me less than a week later for an English teaching job. “I know you!” he exclaimed as soon as he saw me. The interview led to my first teaching contract in Mexico City.

    Meanwhile, Juan took me on a series of adventures. I accompanied him and a friend on a late-night street art project in the downtown. We lingered on a disintegrating stone rooftop, watching the stars glistening faintly above the teeming city.

    We sat talking about the impossibility of atheism in an apartment cluttered with plants and lit with the sounds of Bob Dylan and Joy Division.

    I felt like I’d discovered a whole new world of creativity and spontaneity. It was as if I was underwater, only I felt like I had much more oxygen to breathe in.

    I had wanted to live in another country since college, but events had always conspired to keep me in my hometown of Toronto. A long-term relationship, a steady job, or tenuous finances were my usual excuses.

    Certainly, I didn’t think I could bear the emotional cost. I had struggled with depression since college and had been on and off medications, and in and out of therapy, for years.

    I simply did not think I was resilient enough for such a massive change. (more…)

  • 10 Ways to Be Who You Really Are

    10 Ways to Be Who You Really Are

    Girl Hiding Face

    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E Cummings

    I was a pretty shy and very quiet kid, so going to school for the first time in kindergarten was a terrifying experience for me.

    After a short time, though, life brightened for me in my little elementary school. As it turned out, I loved learning and was a natural student. It was my bliss and often a respite from tumultuous home circumstances, the first place that I spoke out loud with confidence.

    Unfortunately, in the urban neighborhood where I lived, being smart meant being very low on the social hierarchy.

    For years I was oblivious to this, but as I moved in to pre-adolescence, I became acutely aware of how my peers viewed me and felt increasingly embarrassed about standing out as a stellar student.

    In one particularly memorable experience, I left the stage of a successful debate speech humiliated because I spied several of my peers mocking me in the audience during my delivery. This was a turning point.

    Because of an intense desire to win the approval of my peers, I began to actively make decisions to fit in rather than finding my joy by expressing who I really was. Although uncanny to me now, at times, I even would intentionally give the wrong answers on exams to bring my scores down.

    An occasional wrong answer didn’t change who I really was, but each decision I made to choose the approval of others, buried my true self deeper.

    The momentary gratification of being liked or winning approval could have had profound consequences. It certainly left me feeling empty.

    Every time we make small decisions to fit in, whether as a child or as an adult, we are burying a little part of ourselves down deep. This is really serious business, this denying of who we are.

    Make it a habit, and you risk becoming confused about who you really are. Just search online for books on topics like finding your true passion or how to get back to your true self to get a sense of the energy it takes to find pieces that are lost.

    In high school, I made a dramatic internal shift. Because of a newfound faith, I started to think about my future and felt that I had a responsibility to begin living my life in a way that reflected who I really was.

    This, rather than the approval of others became a driving force for me. Small decision by small decision, I began to act with the courage to be me. (more…)

  • Marry Yourself: How to Commit to Self-Love and Say “I Do” to You

    Marry Yourself: How to Commit to Self-Love and Say “I Do” to You

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    I married myself at the age of thirty-seven in a quiet ceremony of one near a waterfall in Big Sur, California.

    I had prepared my “soul vows.” These vows were my deepest commitment to love, cherish, and deeply care for all parts of myself, in sickness and in health, until my time on the planet comes to an end.

    My soul vows became an ode to honoring my highest self always, and remembering that seeking love outside myself will never bring fulfillment unless I possess radical, unshakable love for myself.

    With that knowing, these are some of my soul vows:

    I vow to comfort myself during times of hopelessness, despair, depression, disillusionment, or any difficulty that arises.

    I vow to be my beloved always and in all ways.

    I vow to never settle or abandon myself in romantic partnerships again.

    I vow to live in the faith my life unfolds in mysterious divine perfection.

    I vow to honor my spiritual path and create an amazing life whether I am ever legally married or not.

    I vow to honor my calling and live my life as a work of art.

    Some vows were tender and some fierce, some private, and some to be shared with the world.

    All vows were an expression of my soul’s calling and a deep desire to love myself and care for myself at the deepest possible level in all areas of my life.

    These vows were the gateway into a life that was deeper, richer, and more connected to my soul’s guidance.

    Nearly nine months later, I have a birthed a new life. Many of the visions I had for a decade are starting to come true.

    These visions include attracting a loving partner, spending time in my beloved Bali, and feeling a deeper sense of purpose and passion for my work. (more…)

  • Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?

    Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?

    “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” ~Benjamin Spock

    I used to believe that I was my thoughts. I really believed that everything happened well because I had analyzed and planned and prepared. I didn’t even know that I was doing this. I didn’t know there was any more to me than my thoughts.

    I also used to believe that there was something seriously wrong with me, so thinking about how to fix myself was my main pastime.

    All my life people told me, “You’re too sensitive,” “so intense,” “you’re just so emotional.”

    I told this to myself, and plenty of other people told it to me too, both directly and indirectly.

    I didn’t know how to live. I had an analysis of life rather than an experience of life when I was with others. When alone, my life was deep and vivid and rich. I felt it all. Little did I know then, no one knows how to live. We do it.

    It only felt safe to feel it all alone. I’d get sideswiped by inexplicable emotion at inconvenient times. So, I just tried to keep it all under wraps, keep it all under conscious control.

    I didn’t trust myself at all. I didn’t trust my body. I didn’t trust anything other than my thoughts. My body was so unpredictable and confusing, this sensitivity was so out of control.

    Then, when I was twenty-five and married, after just graduating with my Master’s degree as a marriage and family therapist, I couldn’t do it anymore. It all fell apart. I realized that there was more to me, and the life I was living was a fake, a construction based on my thoughts.

    I got divorced. I quit my job. I moved. I dropped it all. Realizing how much of my life was a lie and how directly I could connect with and trust my body made me see that I couldn’t keep living that life. It was a beautiful break down.

    It was then that I started studying hypnosis in depth and I came in direct contact with my subconscious.

    It was a funny paradox that it was so hard for me to relax because it was hard for me to let things be easy. I thought that every thing took a lot of effort.

    I couldn’t believe that I could have such immediate and powerful results from a seemingly simple process of listening to my sensations and using them to give my body what it wanted. (more…)

  • 3 Things Panic Attacks Don’t Want You To Know

    3 Things Panic Attacks Don’t Want You To Know

    “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle 

    Sunday started out with a panic attack.

    It wasn’t little butterflies in the stomach like right before a first kiss. It wasn’t the feeling of anticipation as a rollercoaster slowly climbs the big hill before the drop.

    This panic attack felt like I was about to jump off a cliff, while being chased by clowns. Not cute clowns—scary ones. The kind of clowns that were in the paintings at my pediatrician’s office when I was a kid. The clowns that smiled at me smugly when I was getting emergency asthma shots, unable to breathe.

    Panic attacks are my suffering at its most profound. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on them.

    I was twenty-nine when I had my first major panic attack. I was sitting in a hotel room in Sunnyvale, California, getting ready to drive to the beach, and I couldn’t decide whether to eat at a local restaurant or wait until I got to Santa Cruz.

    Bang! It hit me out of nowhere.

    That’s how it happens for me. I can handle a major crisis like a medical emergency or aiding in a car accident with unthinking grace. It’s the day-to-day living that sometimes gets me.

    Suffering the break-up of a romantic relationship a few months ago brought the panic attacks back out of hiding. Instead of going through a depression, I felt riddled by anxiety.

    A lot of the anxiety had to do with the fact that I was going to have to deal with my ex in a working situation. It was compounded with the awful things I was telling myself over and over again in my head. It was extremely painful and maddening.

    At least I have some skills and resources for dealing with panic and anxiety, and I’ve gotten a lot better at using them.

    I’ve found meditation and present moment awareness to be effective in dealing with panic attacks. (more…)

  • Interview and Giveaway: A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life

    Interview and Giveaway: A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life

    Note: 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:

    Though we may all have varied goals and paths, ultimately, we all have the same objective: happiness. It’s with this in mind that Buddhist monk Lama Marut wrote A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life.

    Through a series of meditations, exercises, and insights, he helps us overcome suffering and create contentment—two essential prerequisites to happiness.

    Playful and entertaining, A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life distills complex ideas into a light-hearted, easy-to-read manual for happiness and fulfillment.

    I’m grateful that Lama Marut took the time to answer some questions about the book, and also offered 5 books for Tiny Buddha readers.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win 1 of 5 free copies of A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life:

    • Leave a comment below
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life http://bit.ly/TuAGfP

    If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still enter by completing the first step. You can enter until midnight PST on Tuesday, December 4th.

    The Interview

    1. What inspired you to write A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life?

    I wanted to try to summarize—in ordinary, non-technical language—what I had learned over the years about living a life conducive to happiness. We are all driven by the desire to be happy, but I know in my own case that I spent a lot of time barking up many wrong trees before I found a method that really worked! (more…)

  • When Your Dreams Change: Let Your Values Guide You

    When Your Dreams Change: Let Your Values Guide You

    “It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” ~Roy Disney

    It has been four months now since I made the hardest decision of my life.

    In the fourth grade, I made a pledge to work as much I had to until I became successful and moved the heck out of Ohio!

    That commitment led me to graduate as valedictorian in high school and summa cum laude in college. However, it also resulted in missed recess (to do homework), missed parties (to research), and missed relationships (to study). Of course, I am not upset, for my accomplishments make me proud, but I do regret some of the things they’ve cost me.

    At the end of this 14-year journey, my dreams came to fruition: I was offered the job I had worked my entire life to get, in the perfect location!

    That’s right—the best private school in Florida offered me a job as Physical Education teacher living just minutes away from the gulf, in a city known for its sunshine, St. Petersburg.

    I should have chomped at the bit! Jumped up and down! Ran circles around the house! But I didn’t…

    Something was wrong. How could arriving at the destination I had worked so diligently to reach not bring me all of the happiness I had lost in the journey to get there? How could reaching my life’s goal not bring me to tears—not make my heart sing?

    It took a while but I finally figured it out: It’s because I’m not the same person who chose my path in the beginning. I have changed.

    At one point between now and the fourth grade, I evolved. My life understanding grew and adapted, but my tunnel vision on a preset goal kept me from realizing it.

    It’s good to have ambition, but can too much be harmful?

    Still, what’s to think about right? (more…)