Tag: wisdom

More Peace and Connection: Recreating a Simpler Time

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

Yesterday, as my boyfriend and I were driving home from a quick trip to Vegas, we saw a sign for a ghost town and decided to do some exploring.

I’ve always loved the idea of a ghost town—a place left untouched for years, still reflecting the people who once inhabited it, as if they’d just picked up and left mere moments ago.

Though aged with cobwebs, marred by neglect, and long since deprived of life and laughter, it would seem like time had stood still. I imagined it would feel a lot like Thoreau’s cabin in the woods: minimal, modest, and quaint.

In our high-tech, fast-paced world, very little feels simple. And while I love my home and environment in Los Angeles, I often long to find places that feel charming and uncomplicated.

We quickly found it wasn’t a village left untouched for exploring, though much of it looked how it once did; it was a small slice of the land commercialized with little tiny shops, as is the American way.

Still, I enjoyed roaming through the surrounding mountains and seeing nostalgic pieces within and outside the cottages—a few wooden carriages, an oil burning stove, and a deep claw foot tub.

While walking around, I asked my boyfriend if he’d ever fantasized about living in a small village, with a self-contained community of people who all knew and supported each other.

It’s something I’ve always romanticized. Instead of living in the hustle and bustle of our modern world, always consuming and pushing for the next big thing, we’d create with our hands and spend more time enjoying life’s simple pleasures together.

We’d have access to everything we need within close proximity, and the vast world made seemingly larger through the web would shrink in feel and yet expand in possibilities.

Not possibilities for earning money and succeeding professionally; possibilities for childlike joy and meaningful connection—the human wealth our tribal ancestors once enjoyed, before everything got bigger, faster, and automated. (more…)

September 25, 2012
Strength in Times of Doubt: 11 Tips for Tough Times

“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.” ~Unknown

There is no question that we are living in a time of doubt, fear, uncertainty, and economic frustration. Only recently have I experienced this doubt on a gut level, the kind that can punch hard and make you sick.

I am writing because I want this to change, but also because I know other people are dealing with this same thing.

After spending nine years in school, four degrees later, I found myself unemployed and overqualified. My passion for social work and education loomed far in the distance as employment prospects appeared to be minimal.

At times, it felt like the news reports were telling me that there was no future for me.

That is an extreme perception, but at the time I believed it.

During interviews, I was either under-qualified or overqualified. Time after time, when people and family asked me what I was doing, I would respond, “Looking for a job,” only to have them look at me with pity and say, “Good luck; it’s so hard out there.”

Every time, it hurt more than the first.

In addition to this lovely transition, my grandmother died rather suddenly.

She was the rock of my youth and a source of timeless happiness. For her to go and not ever see me as something more than a permanent student, living from one retail job to another, ate away at me and ultimately led to a depressed state.

She loved me greatly and thought the world of me, but I feared that this label of being “unemployed” took over and disqualified any belief or hope she ever had in me. (more…)

September 25, 2012
Live the Beach Lifestyle Everyday

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney J. Harris

I live on a beach, and I don’t mean in a box under the boardwalk. Rather, my home is just about 60 seconds away. People tell me I’m lucky when they find out that the beach is basically my backyard.

This implies that we all randomly end up living in places strictly by chance, and that my being here is purely accidental. I obviously chose to live here. But beyond that, the beach life can be a choice, even if you don’t live near one.

I was walking on the boardwalk the other day and realized that I felt as if I were on vacation. Not because I was at the beach, but because of the attitude behind my thoughts. Even though I have lived here for five years, there are always new people to meet and new things to do, so every day can be a vacation.

When was the last time you explored the town you live in or a neighboring town? That could be a fun journey and an escape from the everyday grind, couldn’t it?

“My life is like a stroll on the beach…as near to the edge as I can go.” ~Thoreau

Perspective Buster

Why is it that we can wait in line at Disney World for an up to an hour for a ride that will last (maybe) three minutes without complaining, but we cannot endure waiting five minutes at the bank or post office? What’s the difference?

Is it our first time in one of these waiting stations? Did we really expect to go right in and out of the bank? Or the doctor?

That’s unrealistic isn’t it? So why the impatience? It’s our attitude that makes the difference.

Yes, there were times when we have quickly gone in and out of the post office or bank, but that is not the norm. Instead it’s a pleasant surprise.

My thinking is this: If you don’t have enough time allotted to go on your errands or you can’t stand to wait for a few minutes, then don’t go.

Save yourself (and others) the aggravation. Now, it’s likely that you will eventually have to go, and there will be times you will have to wait, so it may be best to change your attitude and your thoughts. Let your dreams take you away. (more…)

September 24, 2012
5 Ways To Reclaim The Human Wealth That Is Your Right

“An unhurried sense of time is in itself a sort of wealth.” ~Bonnie Friedman

We live in a society that favors material wealth over human wealth. Fame, fortune, and glamorous toys are what we are told to strive for with no thought to time, freedom, spirituality, and love. Even if you are just struggling to make ends meet, magazines and television will tell you to keep chasing the material dream.

Philosopher Daniel Quinn describes our economy in comparison to the economies of tribal people. He argues our economy is based on an exchange of products. You make products and sell products in order to get other people’s products.

The tribal economy, he explains, is based on the exchange of support. You give support to other people in order to get support back.

Because we only see economies as exchanges of goods and services, we miss the fact that tribal people had an economy at all. But they did. What it gave them was human wealth.

There were always people there to count on in times of need. Abundance was shared, but so were lean times.

There was no one class of people that were expected to do the suffering. Work was carried out to provide for people’s needs, but nobody wasted time creating products just for the sake of it. There was no quota of spears or canoes that needed to be produced.

Contrary to what our culture has told us to believe, tribal people actually did not spend all day scampering through the bush for food, in constant fear of their lives. Anthropologists have told us that they lived content and happy lives, often only working two or three hours a day.

They had freedom, time for leisure, and time for spiritual contemplation.

I always thought there had to be more to life than school, college, work, retire, die.

When you think about your goals in terms of human wealth, then there is more to life than this. When your focus becomes family, freedom, time, and spirituality rather than status, power, and material wealth, life becomes much richer and more meaningful. (more…)

September 24, 2012
When Giving Up Really Isn’t: Taking a Step Back

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.” ~Unknown

A year ago this week I was lying on a pile of laundry on my bathroom floor, sobbing, blowing my nose into a dirty t-shirt. I was in the last stages of packing up my apartment, selling my furniture, putting a few belongings into storage, and at 34 I was moving home to my parents’ house.

It was not a good month, in a less-than-stellar year.

It was a year filled with difficult circumstances. Two years earlier I’d given up a steady career as a librarian to pursue my dream of writing a book and becoming a freelance writer. I was accepted into an excellent MFA program in Boston and had spent those two years working day and night to finish the manuscript, which I did.

But by the end of those two years I had gone through my entire savings. The jobs I had applied to and even interviewed for hadn’t materialized, and my part-time work as a web writer didn’t help much with my astronomical living expenses. I didn’t yet have an agent or publisher, I was out of money, and I was facing the unknown.

I blamed myself for not being more successful and I was afraid this had been a waste of time.

On top of that I’d been chasing a relationship with a man who left me hanging when I needed him most. I felt like a failure on every possible level. I had followed a dream, given up a career, wasted time on a guy who flaked, and I had nothing to show for it.

So I found myself on my bathroom floor, on top of a huge pile of laundry, disappointed in myself and terrified about what to do next.

I was wrong about having “nothing to show for it,” of course. I just needed to backtrack and figure out the next step.

Flash-forward a year and I’m doing well as a freelance writer and a section of my book is appearing in an anthology. The last year hasn’t been easy, but these are some of the lessons I picked up along the way: (more…)

September 23, 2012
A Couple of Simple Strategies to Let Others Be Happier

“Make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely.” ~Dale Carnegie

About 20 years ago, I read Dale Carnegie’s classic book, How to Win Friends & Influence People. I loved the book and passed it along to my wife, Marcie. She read a bit of it and returned it to me saying, “This is all common sense. I don’t need to read this.”

Marcie is naturally nice, no doubt one of the things that attracted me to her when we met 30 years ago. And indeed, Carnegie’s strategies, which largely revolve around being nice, were “normal, everyday behavior” for her.

I’ve always prided myself on being a nice person, but I learned a tremendous amount from Carnegie’s 1936 classic.

The first Carnegie suggestion that I recall applying is what I thought of as “Let others be right.” Carnegie tells a story of a dinner party he attended. The man sitting next to Carnegie told a humorous story, which included a quotation the gentleman attributed to the Bible. Carnegie knew that the quotation was from Shakespeare and said so.

They argued the point until a third party, a friend of Carnegie’s, was asked to settle the argument. The third party kicked Carnegie under the table and then agreed with the other man. After dinner, Carnegie’s friend explained that while Carnegie was right, making the other gentleman look bad served no good purpose.

I knew that I could apply that good advice. I had a habit of getting hung up on being precise, correcting other people because I didn’t like to let wrong information hang out there.

Carnegie’s story helped me to realize, to paraphrase the title of another favorite book, that I had a bad habit of “sweating the small stuff” regarding precise information that was not important—a habit I then set out to change.

Being precise is big stuff when you are building something—as the saying goes, “measure twice, cut once.” And it’s important to try to be precise if you are giving someone driving directions (make a left vs. make a right).

But precision is not important in so many other situations, and correcting friends, your spouse, your kids, or anyone else, is often not necessary, and something that’s much nicer to hold back from doing.

The first person with whom I had frequent opportunities to practice my new habit was my dad. He and I had started a company together about five years before I read Carnegie’s book. It had become a pet peeve of mine that he was never precise about dates. (more…)

September 23, 2012
Why Forgiveness Doesn’t Work and How to Change That

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese

Have you ever wondered why it’s so difficult to forgive others?

We all know it feels better emotionally to let go of resentment and anger. We know that our minds are clearer and we function better when we’re not constantly yammering about that story of pain, betrayal, hurt, and humiliation. We even know that releasing all that junk is good for our physical health.

But it’s still hard, isn’t it?

As a doctor of psychology, I’ve learned that the amygdala, that part of our brains always on alert for threats to our survival, plays a large part in our resistance to letting go of negative feelings toward someone who has harmed us. But I think it’s more than that.

I think that the traditional method of “forgiveness” we’ve been using just doesn’t work. It’s flawed.

When I was younger and in my first marriage, my wife and I ran the typical “I’m sorry” process. We’d bicker and fight until one or the other of us would say, “I’m sorry.” Then the other of us would say, “I’m sorry, too”—and we really, really meant it!

But within 10 days or 10 hours (or sometimes 10 minutes), we’d be back at it.

What’s up with that? Our apologies were heartfelt. Neither of us enjoyed fighting. Yet…

It wasn’t until I was more fully immersed in Huna, the indigenous spiritual path of the Hawaiian Islands, that I understood what true forgiveness is—and what was missing from those mutual, though very sincere, apologies.

I learned the forgiveness process the ancient Hawaiians used, which is called ho`oponopono.

The word pono has no good translation in English but it’s that feeling of congruency and calmness that we’ve all experienced at some point—that sense that everything feels right, like feeling so at peace with a person or situation that nothing needs to be said. That’s pono.

Ho`oponopono means to become right with yourself and others, to become pono inside as well as outside. It implies a deeper level of connectedness.

In other words, when you forgive others using ho`oponopono, you feel calm and clear about them. You are free to re-establish a relationship with them, or not, as your own discernment dictates. And you are totally cleansed of the junk—the resentment, anger, hurt—that previously clogged your system.

Not the tight-lipped, “Okay, I can stand to be in the same room with you” type of forgiveness. Totally cleansed. Calm and clear. Free. (more…)

September 20, 2012
Take Back Your Power and Start Loving Your Life

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution by Lindsey Kasch

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” ~George Bernard Shaw

Excuses. We all make them.

We make them for everything all the time without even realizing it, pointing the finger at someone or something else, anything or anyone but ourselves.

I didn’t think I made excuses. Blaming people? Who me? No way!

Once I took a real, hard look at my life I realized I was full of excuses and blame—excuses for why I was always running late, why I couldn’t start living a healthier life, do the dishes, go out on a Friday night, or call someone back.

Excuses for why I couldn’t do this or that, why I wasn’t good enough, why my life wasn’t what I wished it was, why my financial situation wasn’t the best, why I was upset at someone.

You name it, I had an excuse. I blamed everything and everyone under the sun for why I couldn’t do this or have that, why I felt a certain way, why I wasn’t fulfilled or happy. Nothing was my fault or my responsibility. This was hard to see and even harder to finally admit.

What increased my self-awareness about the excuses I made was a cold, hard dose of reality when I broke up with my fiancé and boyfriend of five years. I chose to leave because it didn’t feel right, but it left me shattered and heartbroken. It became painfully clear that I really had no idea who I was.

I was forced to figure myself out. For the first time ever I was being honest with myself. Brutally honest—honest about everything! Before this happened I had never once stopped to think about my choices and how they had affected my life and the people around me.

I used to think that life happened and I had no control over it. Things happened to me. Life was hard and unfair. It wasn’t my fault that I wasn’t happy or didn’t have what I thought I wanted or needed. It was the fault of those around me. (more…)

September 20, 2012
Create a Positive Space and Break the Cycle of Negativity

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

I’m a sensitive, emotional person with a lot of empathy for others. I’ve recently found myself feeling torn apart by negativity and the world outside of me. I’m often bogged down by cyclical negativity, and I sometimes focus on others’ effects on me instead of my own effect on myself.

In my depressive cycling, I was always the victim. The more I thought about how terrible someone was toward me, the deeper I spiraled into a negative space that couldn’t be replenished.

Deep in despair, I called upon a beloved friend for some spiritual guidance.

He said, “Stand in your space. If you want to have the truest, most positive interactions with others and, in turn, be your most beautiful, authentic self, the work has to start with you.”

It wasn’t enough to cut someone negative out of my life, and it was counterproductive to complain about how they weighed me down. Instead, I needed to build the space I wanted and then stand in it.

Space is a culmination of you, your aura, and your energy.

It’s beyond just who you are in a tangible sense; it’s everything you are: your intentions, your mental processes, your actions, and your presence. We attract positivity by creating positivity.

After spending years trying to heal broken hearts and souls, I had allowed myself to be drained of positive energy and, in turn, I drained the energy of people who interacted with me.

So, was I doing more harm than good, despite my intentions?

In my efforts to heal a handful of people, I had internalized every piece of negativity and emoted my own. I had this mentality that you can let love flow freely from your heart and understand that it will always self-replenish. This is true. But energy is different, and I kept treating love and positive energy the same.

Being low on positive energy doesn’t mean you are low on love. You can still have a lot of love, yet feel drained and not manifest that love well.

For this reason, you need to protect your space, which encompasses your energy.

Energy is valuable, and it should flow freely toward places where it will do the most good. (more…)

September 19, 2012
5 Simple Ways to Help Make Someone’s Life Better

“We choose our destiny in the way we treat others.” ~Wit

Growing up as a high-level swimmer, I used to be a very self-centered individual. Just about everything in my life revolved around becoming the best swimmer I could be.

I spent countless hours training, getting ready for workouts, and visualizing my future success. Helping others wasn’t on my radar. The idea of contribution was still foreign to me.

Fortunately, I was passionate about swimming and I had a purpose to my life, so I was happy.

But eventually my swimming career ended, and all of a sudden I started feeling a profound lack of fulfillment in my life.

I did what most college students do to fill the void: I turned to alcohol and constant partying. I was having fun, sure, but deep down I knew something was missing.

I started diving into Buddhist philosophy, and the concepts of compassion, contribution, and oneness started making their way into my consciousness.

When I graduated college, I landed a “prestigious” corporate job, and although I was making good money, something was still missing.

I had this lingering feeling that my work wasn’t truly serving others and didn’t have a real impact on the world.

I quickly realized that this job wasn’t my dharma, so against everyone’s advice I just said, “Screw it” and I quit.

After a few months of confusion about what to do next, I decided to move to the other side of the world. I packed up my bags and relocated to Perth, Australia.

My intention? Discover my true self and my life’s purpose.

As I started going further down the rabbit hole of personal development and spirituality, I realized that the best way to achieve happiness and success is through helping others in meaningful ways.

As Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is in the service to others.”

I decided it was time to start contributing on a bigger scale, and to share all this wonderful wisdom I was discovering through a blog. Eventually, I decided to “go pro” and become a Peak Performance Coach. (more…)

September 19, 2012
The Top 25 Excuses to Wait on Your Dreams and How to Overcome Them

“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses…The gift is yours—it is an amazing journey—and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.” ~Bob Moawad

If we try, we can always find a reason not to do what we want to do, and it can seem perfectly valid. We can convince ourselves that we’re being smart, realistic, or safe, or that we don’t even really want it.

We’re great at justifying the status quo, because we know exactly what that’s like, even if it’s dissatisfying.

The unknown can feel terrifying. But somewhere in that same realm where anything could go wrong is everything that can go right.

So many times in my life I’ve finally pushed myself to do something and then wondered, “Why did I wait so long?” If I had known the benefits would far outweigh my fear and discomfort, I would have pushed myself sooner.

But we can’t ever know that in advance. We can only know that our reasons to do something are greater than our excuses not to.

In my efforts to keep moving beyond my comfort zone, I’ve compiled the top excuses not to go after a dream, along with a few reminders to help us overcome them.

(more…)

September 18, 2012
When Things Go Wrong: We Can Thrive, Not Just Survive

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.” ~James Thurber

Ever thought you had achieved everything you wanted to? I did.

My teens had passed in a blur of self-loathing regarding my body. (Tape measure, thighs, and many tears; need I say more?)

I stumbled through my twenties not exactly sure what I wanted to do, but never feeling quite good enough—for what, I didn’t know, but surely I should have been better.

By my thirties, though, I had settled into a career of holistic therapy and had three happy, healthy children, great friends, and a beautiful house in a village environment.

What could possibly go wrong? Um, quite a lot. Somebody crashed into the back of my car, and in seconds my seemingly perfect life unraveled.

Although I was in too much pain to stand or walk unaided, it never actually crossed my mind that I could stay in that state permanently.

After numerous tests, X-rays, and MRI scans, when my consultant uttered the words, “I am sorry, there is nothing we can do for you,” I felt such a huge, blind panic that I could literally feel myself retreating inside of myself. That’s where I intended to stay.

It isn’t hard to be invisible in a wheelchair. I felt like nobody saw me anymore, but then I didn’t know who I wanted them to see. All the words I thought defined me—like dog walker, Kinesiologist, runner, and kick boxer—no longer applied, and I didn’t know who I was.

If I was popping into a shop I could make do with crutches, but people frequently asked me, “Have you hurt your foot?” I had to reply, “No, I am disabled.”

People were embarrassed at my answer, and their response made me ashamed of myself. I became more and more insular until there was virtually nothing of me left. (more…)

September 17, 2012
The Power of Focus: Directing Your Life with Intention

“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” ~Māori Proverb

Life is about lessons, would you not agree? If we’re not learning every day, all the time, then what on earth are we doing? Often, the universe speaks to us in gentle metaphor, and if we’re completely present in the moment, we can recognize lessons, delivered in poetic images.

One of the clearest lessons of my life was a number of years ago, when I was living in a crumbling house in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. At the time, I was a single mother, raising my two children by working as a bartender at the Eastern Slope Inn. During my time there, I met and became friends with a wonderful woman, named Katy.

Katy is one of the best people on earth. She’s smart, funny, generous, and extremely kind. She also has an evil streak, which delights me. During my time in New Hampshire, one of my favorite ways to spend a summer day off was to kayak with her down the Saco River.

I’m not an outdoorsy type, but somehow or other Katy managed to talk me into kayaking. After my first experience, I was hooked. There’s something magical about observing life from the middle of a river.

One of the best things about kayaking for me was that very little effort or skill was required. It was a truly relaxing experience. The most difficult part was loading the kayaks onto the top of Katy’s car!

The plan for the day was always simple: We would take sandwiches, drinks, and towels, and pack them into “dry bags” to protect them from the water. We’d wade into the river and each one of us would climb into a kayak and set off downstream.

For the most part, the current would carry our kayaks along.

Sometimes, if things slowed down, we’d paddle a little. I’d angle my paddle this way and that, experimenting with different depths and strokes, practicing turning, and slowing down. I quickly developed a measure of confidence, piloting my little boat.

We’d navigate downriver for an hour or two and, when we got hungry, start scanning the shore for places to picnic. When we agreed on a spot, we’d hop out of our kayaks and wade onto the beach, drawing our boats high up on the sand, to make sure we didn’t lose them. (more…)

September 17, 2012
The Secret to Lighting up a Room: Find Your Inner Glow

“As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” ~Marianne Williamson

We’ve all met that person at a party or a business function who seems to “light up a room.” People are drawn to them like moths to a flame.

Maybe it’s the way she carries herself, or the easy way he laughs, or her eyes that seem totally focused and engaged in the moment. I’ve always noticed that they have sort of a “knowing” smile—a secret that maybe, just maybe, they might tell you.

I have always wanted to know that secret.

A confession: Up until a couple of years ago, I was a total happiness-faker. Yep. Even had myself fooled there for a while.

It took a couple jobs lost, one relationship ended, and a few life crises thrown in for good measure before I woke up one morning and realized that I no longer saw “me” staring back. It was that moment of clarity where I finally saw things exactly as they were—and knew that they had to change.

I was never more afraid in my entire life. But then again, the best things that happen to us in life are usually the most terrifying, no?

As I’ve evolved in this journey, I’ve slowly inched closer towards the radiant person I want to be. For me, that means finding simplicity and a sense of flow in all aspects of my life—which has been surprisingly more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Simplifying our lives can be hard because it forces us to own our values and shape our lives around them. To take responsibility for our lives and cut away what we’ve outgrown. To do something, anything, every day to move us one step closer.

Most of the time, this process requires us to step outside of the norm—perhaps our “normal” persona; our “normal” relationship habits; our “normal” place in society. It’s challenging, uncomfortable (albeit extremely rewarding) work.

Navigating the process can be even harder. How can we know what’s right when we’re stepping away from what we’ve always been told is just that?

There are six actions I actively take in my life that have made all the difference. Each time I practice, I feel my inner glow burning just the tiniest bit brighter.

(more…)

September 16, 2012
10 Powerful Benefits of Change and Why We Should Embrace It

“If you do not create change, change will create you.” ~Unknown

We are often resistant to change, and we don’t realize that change itself is constant.

Even if you resist or avoid it, it will enter your life just the same. When you initiate the change yourself, it’s pretty easy to adapt to it, since it’s a wanted one.

But are the unplanned and unexpected changes bad? What if all changes were good by default?

I have been embracing change since a young age. During my life I have lived in five countries and in over twenty-five apartments, changed five schools and about five different careers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

September 13, 2012
We Need to Be Giving: Kindness Can Be a Win-Win Situation

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give” ~Winston Churchill

When asked what his religion is, the Dalai Lama tends to respond with one word: kindness.

In the world we live in today it’s easy for us to get so caught up in our goals and commitments that we overlook the suffering or needs of those around us.

Kindness may sometimes be put to the bottom of our to-do list when we feel a desperate need to survive, which seems to be increasing with all that is going on globally at the moment.

Many of us have lost our jobs, are renting our homes from the banks, and are just about scraping by for the daily necessities.

The paradox there is that now is the very time we need to be kind to one another because we need one another more than ever.

And the old proverb “give to receive” is possibly the guiding light that we are meant to follow.

Having recently returned from India where I spent six weeks in Dharamsala, alongside my Tibetan friends, they taught me a thing or two about the benefits of giving.

My line of work takes me into the lives of Tibetan monks. These monks are my friends and really want what I am doing to succeed. As a result, they open up and welcome me and my friends without thinking twice.

For example we were celebrating the birthday of one of our friends. It is not the tradition for Tibetan monks to celebrate birthdays, only that of the Dalai Lama’s, so they were not so sure what to do.

I rounded up cakes and drinks and asked the monks if we could have our little get together in their working space, to which they readily agreed.

We did the typical happy birthday song and cut the cake while a handful of the monks watched on slightly bemused at our Western ways. Slowly the rest of the monks wandered in and each of them instantly dropped the work they were doing and sat down to take part.

Despite their lack of understanding of our unusual rituals they could see this was important to us and that seemed to be enough for them to make time for us.

As a way of saying thank you for all they had done, I donated a hot water tank for the monastery which meant no more cold bucket showers for the monks when temperatures drop below freezing, as they easily do high up in the Himalayan foothills. (more…)

September 13, 2012
Learning is a Series of Steps: 7 Tips to Master a New Skill

“The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you’re learning, you’re not old.” ~Rosalyn S. Yalow

A few weeks ago, at the age of thirty-something, I started the process of learning to drive.

To be completely honest, it has been a daunting experience, especially for an overachiever like me.

Most of the tasks I undertake I find relatively easy, but not driving.

Seeing as I’m an introspective kind of person, I‘ve been curious to identify what it is that I’ve been struggling with these past few weeks. The answer is an obvious one: fear.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of losing control. Fear of being responsible for my conduct on unknown roads in an unchartered territory.

In theory, I know that I have nothing to fear. I know that everything we have ever learned is learned through a series of steps—and driving is no different.

If you’re an experienced driver, you may be reading this wondering what all the fuss is about, but there is a lot to learn when you set out.

What I’ve learned is that these things take time.

There have been lessons where I’ve come out swearing I’ll never get in a car again, and then lessons where I’ve felt surprisingly in control and at ease with everything.

Regardless, I know that if I follow the steps, I will eventually get there.

If you’re learning a new skill, breaking a new habit, or simply trying to change yourself for the better, it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen if you commit. (more…)

September 12, 2012
Overcoming Shyness: How to Feel More Confident

“Each time we face a fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown

I’m 25 years old and I’m currently in Minsk, Belarus, but that’s not where I’m from. In my relatively short life I’ve lived in many cities and countries all around the world, including Amsterdam, Cape Town (South Africa), Prague, Budapest, and Paris, to name a few.

I went to many of these places on my own or because of a new friend or girlfriend I met.

I was only able to make these moves because I overcame my shyness and learned to be confident.

For most of my life I was incredibly shy and introverted and had minimal self-confidence. I didn’t have many friends at school, I wasn’t popular at all, and I got made fun of regularly.

I never understood why, because I’m a nice guy, smart, okay-looking. But whatever the reasons, it conditioned me to believe that there was something wrong with me and that I just didn’t make the grade of a good human being.

This had a big affect on my confidence and it caused me to become even more introverted than I naturally was because it was just easier to pull back into my world than deal with criticism.

Communities like schools, universities, and work places tend to be very “cliquey.” Groups form, and it can be difficult to associate with people from another group, but it’s not impossible.

Once you get a better understanding of social dynamics it becomes a lot easier to make friends and increase your social circles, no matter where in the world you are.

It took me years of trial and error, with countless experiments, books, seminars, and tons of failure and rejection before I overcame my shyness and built my confidence.

The good news is that it doesn’t need to take you nearly half as long to become more confident, both to make new friends and increase your odds of success.

Sometimes people can be quick to judge and label based on stereotypes and perceptions. Not everyone will take the time to reach out to you and get to know you before they label you. This brings me to my first tip: (more…)

September 12, 2012
Waking Up to Live Fully and Passionately

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Have you ever hit the snooze button? I’m guessing you have at least once. And when you hit it— if you were awake enough to even think about it—you were probably happy knowing that you’d be getting a few more minutes of sleep, right?

You may have been dreaming a really great dream or were super comfortable in your bed, and you just weren’t ready to wake up. Maybe you had a hard time getting to sleep the night before or you just didn’t get enough sleep.

In any case, waking up would be painful, right? So it makes perfect sense that you wanted to put off feeling that pain.

But what if this were a metaphor for your life? What if each time you hit the snooze button and chose to stay asleep, you pushed away precious opportunities to wake up? And what if each time you pushed the button, you were actually postponing your life? Would you still push it?

I did. For many years. For most of my life, actually. I had gotten into the habit of hearing the wake-up call and hitting the snooze button. It wasn’t a convenient time, or I was too scared to do anything about it, or I just wanted to ignore it.

I continually hit the snooze button when I said no to opportunities to stretch out of my comfort zone and soar into a new life: an acceptance into a great college, a scholarship to study in France, and an invitation to speak at my college graduation.

I hit the snooze button because I was too afraid. I wasn’t ready to wake up and start living fully.

Ignoring the wake-up calls became such a habit that I eventually didn’t want to leave my bed at all. I wanted to continue sleeping. It was safe, warm, and comfortable there. I could pull the covers over my head and pretend that the real world didn’t exist.

I could pretend that it was perfectly okay that I was sleeping my life away.

But I could only ignore the alarms and my inner voice urging me to wake up for so long. Because two years ago, I received a wake-up call that didn’t come with a snooze button: I learned that my first love had killed himself.

In one moment, my entire world changed. I felt so much pain and so much sadness, and I couldn’t push it away. I couldn’t pretend that this wasn’t happening. I tried to go to bed and pull the covers up, but the grief went with me. I couldn’t escape it. (more…)

September 11, 2012
Emotionally Closed Off No More – How I’m Healing My Pain and Learning to Love

“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” ~ Buddha

There’s only one way to survive life. Shut down, or get hurt and die.

Well, that’s what I once believed.

At some point during my childhood I decided that the only way to survive in the world was to shut down and close off my heart. I’m sure given a choice I would have chosen only to avoid the pain of life (not the pleasure), but open or shut are the only options available.

Growing up, everyone and everything around me was inconsistent, physically and emotionally. My family moved many times throughout my childhood, and my parents were busy, professionally and socially.

One minute, there—warm, light, and safe

The next, gone—cold, dark, and alone!

Every time I started to get settled, it would all disappear. I had no control, and I couldn’t trust anything. It became unbearable.

I couldn’t make people or the world go away, so instead I shut up shop and hid my true self away from them, behind a false exterior.

I put a smile on my face, and became a reflection to others’ wishes—like the princess in the tower, a prize to be admired, completely untouchable.

I had a perfect facade.

Today, years on, I am very much real.

I work as a therapist and a writer now, and I’m on a soul quest to enjoy and share with the world.

On my journey to get to this moment, I felt like an adrenaline junkie. I was always maxing out and pushing it to the edge to do anything to feel alive, through the darkest rivers of life and illuminating heights of spiritual enlightenment.

I became ensconced in the spiritual world seeking practices to elevate my soul through meditation, esoteric reading, tarot cards, alternative religions, and mediumship. I experienced moments of peace, but I was still shut down. (more…)

September 11, 2012