Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • We Take Ourselves With Us, Wherever We Go

    We Take Ourselves With Us, Wherever We Go

    “A man is not where he lives but where he loves.” ~Proverb

    I have moved 19 times in my life. At first it was from an adventurous spirit. I lived in Alaska for a summer in college and moved to the Southwest after graduating just because I’d never been there.

    After I got married, the Navy decided my moves. My officer husband was stationed overseas, which gave me the opportunity to live in Japan for three years.

    When my husband left the Navy, work opportunities drove our moves. Naturally, I have enjoyed living in some places more than others. Every location has its plusses and minuses.

    The main lesson I have learned from my many moves is that home is wherever I live. My family is my home, and where we are located doesn’t really matter. I don’t have one location where I have spent a significant amount of time so I can’t say, “Oh my home is in _________.”

    I have had to learn to make my home wherever we end up.

    Moving can be hard. You are so new in the beginning. Just the simple things like how to drive to the grocery store from your house can be a challenge. Finding a good eye doctor or knowing where to get the best hair cut can seem like big mysteries. Realistically it can take up to a year to feel like you have made any friends.

    Everyone handles change differently. When my mother moved from sunny, warm Florida to the cold, wet northwest she was miserable. She resisted the change, refused to see the beauty around her, and chose to be angry the whole time she was there.

    Some people have the opposite thought. They think that moving will make their lives better. They are unhappy with their friends or family and think a change of location will fix their problems. They feel miserable in their job or neighborhood and long to escape. Everything will be so different if they just lived somewhere else.

    The thing is, joy is not something you find outside of yourself. Joy is something you bring with you wherever you go.

    If you are someone who responds to situations with anxiety or are shy and have a hard time making friends, moving to a new state is not going to magically make you brave and outgoing. If you can’t find a good romantic relationship in your current location, you are not going to have your phone ringing off the hook from all your potential suitors somewhere else. (more…)

  • Simple Ways to Give Back and Help Others Starting Today

    Simple Ways to Give Back and Help Others Starting Today

    Volunteering

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

    Thirty-plus years ago, when I was applying to college, one of my friends used to say regularly, “We’ve gotta get involved with more extra-currics.”

    He was talking about extracurricular activities. His (and our) interest was to build our “resumes” to enhance our attractiveness to college admissions officers.

    Today, kids are building their resumes at younger and younger ages, and that’s a good thing. Even if their parents have an eye on enhanced college applications, there is a huge benefit to involving young people in community service. For those kids, adult involvement in community service will come naturally.

    For me, community service came later in life.

    When I was starting my career, I remember hoping to one day be wealthy so that I could donate huge amounts to charitable organizations. Fortunately, rather than waiting for “someday” to come, I learned how much of a difference I could make by donating time and energy to good causes and people in need.

    I’ve gotten involved in many activities in my community, and it has been an extremely enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

    There are many benefits that come from giving of yourself.

    One of my daughters, just before she graduated from high school, was asked to answer an essay question: “What advice you give to an incoming high school freshman?”

    Among other things, she suggested that they get involved in clubs, teams, and community service activities, and among the benefits she listed was the opportunity to meet and interact with people who you would otherwise not get to know.

    The same thing applies to volunteering. You can also use volunteering time to spend more time with your family and friends if you arrange to volunteer together. (more…)

  • Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

    Letting Go and Starting Over When It’s Hard

    “Letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.” ~Unknown

    This June marked twelve years since I got divorced and moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown. It’s an anniversary that I usually remember, but not one that I tend to dwell on… until this year.

    This year, the memories of the demise of my first marriage were hovering at the forefront of my mind.

    Maybe it’s because I saw a friend who is roughly the same age I was, going through similar hard decisions. Maybe it’s because my spouse and I were struggling to make a hard decision about an external relationship that isn’t going well.

    Whatever the reason, it caused me to reflect on what I’ve learned in the last decade or so.

    My ex-husband and I met in high school, when we were seventeen, and had been dating for seven years when we got engaged.

    I think on some level we knew, even then, that we shouldn’t get married, that things weren’t that great, but people were starting to ask, and everyone (including us) assumed that we would get married. So we did what we were “supposed” to do.

    Things were okay for a little while, and outwardly we seemed happy. Inside, however, things were crumbling. We kept trying to put the pieces back together, but every time we tried to hold tighter, things dissolved into another argument, each cutting more deeply than the last.

    By the end we barely spoke, each retreating to separate rooms for the evening. Eventually, I got up the nerve to call it quits. He agreed, and for the most part, the split was amicable.

    Honestly, I think my decision to move away was harder for him to accept than the divorce. Maybe because it made things seem more final.

    So here I am, twelve years later, older and hopefully wiser, looking back at that time in my life and thinking… (more…)

  • Giveaway and Author Interview: Patience by Allan Lokos

    Giveaway and Author Interview: Patience by Allan Lokos

    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:

    Patience is one of those qualities we aspire to possess, but sometimes struggle to embody. We associate patience with goodness—and for good reason, since patience enables us to be loving and supportive to others.

    But patience is also a fundamental building block of happiness. It just plain hurts to feel harried, stressed, rushed, and eager to get there—whether it’s a physical space or a state of being.

    This is something I know all too well, as I’ve often felt pushed by this subconscious internal need to do things quickly and perfectly, which just exacerbates my anxiety, since this translates into a lack of patience with myself.

    It’s something I work at, which is why I was excited to read Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living, by Allan Lokos.

    The founder and guiding teacher of The Community Meditation Center in New York City, Allan Lokos has studied and practiced meditation for nearly two decades. In his insightful book, Lokos provides gentle encouragement and practical tools to step back, slow down, and foster a sense of equanimity.

    I highly recommend Patience to anyone who feels easily annoyed, angered, and stressed, and to those who want to deepen their existing mindfulness practice.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living:

    • Leave a comment below
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: Patience by Allan Lokos http://bit.ly/KVyQ85

    If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still enter by completing the first step. You can enter until midnight PST on Friday, July 6th.  (more…)

  • When It Feels Too Hard To Keep Trying: Rest or Push Harder?

    When It Feels Too Hard To Keep Trying: Rest or Push Harder?

    “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

    When working toward a goal becomes difficult, it’s hard to know whether to push or take a rest.

    In my early twenties, living 3,000 miles away from home as a live-in nanny in a very different lifestyle became very stressful. I quit. I felt I couldn’t adjust to it, and I also couldn’t tolerate feeling out of my element every day for months.

    It was a decision I quickly regretted. The family I worked for was amazing, and as soon as I moved home I missed them—and California. I regretted giving up so soon and in a way that impacted two very special young children.

    In hindsight, I realize that had I pushed harder and committed to just a few more months, things would likely have eased for me.

    At the time, I wasn’t aware of how resourceful I actually was, and hovering outside of my comfort zone for so long left me feeling the urgent need to feel grounded.

    Instead of finding other ways to achieve that feeling, I moved back home.

    In college, I was fixated on earning high grades. I loved school and loved learning, but I felt that it only “counted” if it was acknowledged by an “A” on my final transcript.

    I pushed too hard that first year, and I quickly became isolated and depressed.

    By the next year I had learned that if I didn’t rest periodically, my whole life and health would suffer. And all the “A”s in the world can’t buy happiness.

    I’m the world’s biggest proponent of, “Take it easy on yourself.” In my full-time work, I often advise clients to reduce their academic course load to find more balance in their lives. (more…)

  • How to Forgive When You Don’t Really Want To

    How to Forgive When You Don’t Really Want To

    “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” ~Jean Paul Sartre

    Like so many other women, I had a complicated, often fractious relationship with my mother. I had moved thousands of miles away, but an email or a phone call was enough to irritate me.

    Visits were tense, nail-biting experiences, where I couldn’t help but analyze each thing that she said to see if it contained a passive-aggressive double meaning, at which point an argument would brew.

    For years it had not mattered what anyone told me about how to forgive, and they had told me a lot:

    • Resentment is the poison you feed yourself, hoping someone else will die.
    • Forgiveness is a choice.
    • Refusing to forgive is living in the past.

    I thought I wanted to forgive her. I knew what it was costing me to carry around the resentment, the replaying of old arguments and the anticipation of future conflict.

    Yet something in me didn’t want to forgive, and this was the truth that I had resisted owning for so very long.

    We don’t like admitting to the fact that some petty part of ourselves doesn’t want to forgive people. We say we “don’t know how,” and that might be true, but the other truth is that some part of us often doesn’t want to forgive.

    We don’t want to admit that this part exists, because of all the stories it piles on top of us—stories that we’re mean, petty, judgmental people.

    Of course, we’re expressing mean, petty, judgmental behaviors when we refuse to forgive.

    It’s not intentional. It’s just that we’ve been hurt, and forgiveness feels like letting someone off the hook, or pretending that it was okay that they did what they did.

    The irrational fear is that if we forgive, someone else will do “it” again. But the truth is, whether or not we forgive has nothing to do with controlling another person’s behavior.

    People do what they do. The only person to let off the hook is ourselves, by not concerning ourselves with monitoring someone else’s behavior, or replaying the past.

    So, how can you move through the process of forgiving others?

    These aren’t “easy steps” by any means, especially because many of them are worked in tandem, but nonetheless they are pieces that make up the whole.

    First, acknowledge the parts of you that don’t want to forgive.

    The parts that want to punish by not forgiving, that derive some artificial source of power from withholding forgiveness.

    It’s a sign of health that we become aware of those places rather than pushing them away, pretending that they don’t exist.

    Secondly, if you’re aware already of the fact that you don’t want to forgive, consider the stories that go along with that.

    I’ve already mentioned a few. Perhaps the most common is that forgiveness will mean that someone is absolved from responsibility for their behavior.

    Here is what I know: When someone wrongs another, they always suffer. They might not tell you about it, or they might put on a bravado. They might not even be aware that their behavior is at the root of their suffering.

    But trust me, they suffer. If someone is unkind, they suffer from either the conscious belief that they were unkind, or they suffer from the unconscious fallout of their behavior. (“I don’t understand why people leave/I always get fired/I feel so isolated and alone.”)

    Third, find the common ground.

    Where are you just like this person that you don’t want to forgive? This is the part that people resist most.

    Perhaps your partner cheated on you, and you know for certain that you would never cheat on your partner. But, if cheating is a form of deception, can you see places in your life where you have deceived someone else? Are you 100% honest on your taxes? Did you ever shoplift as a teenager? Do you tell “little white lies” at work?

    No, I would never suggest that a cheating partner is equally as painful as stuffing a t-shirt into your purse when you were a young, reckless teenager.

    What I’m suggesting is that the two are borne of the same places. Deceit has its roots in fear—fear of being honest, fear of not getting something needed.

    When we see that we are equally as capable of acting out as the next person, and especially when we compassionately see the fear that drove them to behave the way they did, there’s the potential for release.

    Finally—and this is the big one—realize that lack of forgiveness is rooted in a lack of boundaries.

    This goes back to the fear that if forgiveness were granted, “it” might happen again because the person thought that they could “get away with” it.

    The person you know you need to forgive in your life might not even be alive anymore, but if they’re alive and real in your head, that’s enough.

    This is the moment of choice: Are you going to decide that you won’t tolerate XYZ behavior, dynamics, and beliefs in your life?

    The moment that you decide that you won’t tolerate the behaviors that led you not to forgive is the moment that things shift.

    Caution: In movies the hero or heroine “gets back” at someone and then walks off into a happy ending.

    That’s not what we’re talking about here. If your boss routinely puts you down, you don’t tell her off and that’s your “power.”

    Rather, you decide that you won’t tolerate the put-downs, you come up with a plan for how you’re going to handle it when they arise, and then you actually assert that boundary, while looking at her with pure love because you know that her put downs are causing her immense suffering (even if you can’t see the suffering).

    What happens in moments like these is that the put downs become about as believable as a drunk, homeless man who is shouting obscenities on the street. He’s clearly not altogether there, and you can have compassion for him because his suffering is so visible and his words so illogical.

    Here’s the big secret: When humans are unkind to one another, they’re not so very different than that guy. Many of us are just using different language and wearing nicer clothes.

    When you decide what boundaries to put in to place, and what you will and won’t stand for, you release the fear that “it” will happen again. What “it” can touch you when you’ve already decided that you aren’t going to let it penetrate?

    The moment came—and it was a completely innocuous moment for me, sitting in six lanes of backed up traffic, my thoughts discursive—when I realized that when it concerned forgiving my mother, I get to decide who I am.

    My life was what I said it was, and a painful relationship with her need not be a part of it any longer, if I decided that it was so. I knew that all I wanted to do was simply love this woman who had given me life and who had taught me so much about who I wanted to be.

    There was nothing but gratitude in my heart.

    Before my own experience of deep forgiveness, as I waded through years bouncing from one therapist’s couch to the next trying to “figure out” how to forgive, I would have thought this moment impossible. I would have doubted the elegance of its simplicity.

    But it really is true: “Freedom is what we do with what’s been done to us.”

    It is not the circumstances of our lives that matter. It is what we choose to do with them.

  • Why You Have 43 More Choices That Matter in Life (or Not)

    Why You Have 43 More Choices That Matter in Life (or Not)

    “Life is the sum of all your choices.” ~Albert Camus

    Ever wondered what might have been?

    Ever thought about where and who you’d be if only you’d done something differently, gone somewhere else, chosen something or someone else?

    Probably so, if you’re like most.

    But have you ever imagined where you might go and what you might still become, with the choices you yet have left?

    My friends and I were hanging out not too long ago, before I moved away from them (totally escaping their awesome grasp) to start a new life of sorts in this surface-of-sun-like heat of Austin. (I’m not used to it yet, possibly because I’m convinced one of these days I’ll walk outside and spontaneously combust.)

    Anyway, we were doing what we often do—making fun of the university we went to, when someone asked where else I could have gone. What other schools could I have chosen instead?

    The question pretty much weirded me out right away.

    I mean, it’s a reasonable question, I guess—except for the fact that I had never thought about it before. It’s like I had completely forgotten how close I was to having a very different life.

    It seems I had only ever thought of whether I should have gone to college at all—not whether I should have gone somewhere else. For this odd reason it was a little unsettling (the next day, when I actually had the time to consider it).

    It isn’t simply a question of the pros and cons of the different places I turned down and the one I ultimately chose, but of what my life would be now if I had done so.

    Where would I be?

    What would I be?

    Who would I be?

    And I didn’t like it. I realized the strange irony of it—sitting there joking with my friends about the school we went to. (more…)

  • Giveaway and Interview: Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner

    Giveaway and Interview: Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner

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

    The Winners:

    In the past decade, I have read more than my fair share of self-help books.

    Though I’ve enjoyed the ones with countless action steps and workbook sheets to change my life, I’ve felt the most moved and inspired by honest, personal stories of overcoming adversity.

    That’s how I felt in reading Priscilla Warner’s brave book, Learning to Breathe—like I was seeing straight into the heart of someone else who’d had her fair share of personal struggles, and receiving the profound gift of her experiences and insights.

    Priscilla Warner struggled with debilitating anxiety for most of her life, and formerly self-medicated with vodka, before a doctor prescribed Klonopin. After four decades of overwhelming panic attacks, Priscilla adopted the mantra, “Neurotic, Heal Thyself.”

    In her memoir, Learning to Breathe, Priscilla chronicles her journey through various healing modalities—including meditation, chanting, and other lesser-known alternative treatments—and offers readers hope for peace and lasting change from the inside out.

    Since I hold the utmost respect and admiration for Priscilla, I’m grateful that she took the time to answer some questions about her book and offered to provide two free copies for a giveaway.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Learning to Breathe:

    • Leave a comment below
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: Learning to Breathe http://bit.ly/LxzDNS

    If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still enter by completing the first step. You can enter until midnight PST on Friday, June 29th. (more…)

  • Being Honest with Ourselves and Removing Our Masks

    Being Honest with Ourselves and Removing Our Masks

    “Our lives only improve when we are willing to take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

    For almost two-and-a-half decades, I hid behind masks. I sensed as a very young child that I lived honoring my true self, like most children do, but as I got older, I started putting on masks as a way to fit in. One of my first masks was that of a juvenile delinquent.

    Over time, this mask became almost embedded in my skin. I discovered the world of alcohol, drugs, and mayhem, and I felt trapped and unable to escape from it. Shame and guilt filled me with fear and kept me from breaking free from this chaotic lifestyle. I was afraid to ask for help.

    But in the late eighties, I attended a self-help workshop. This presentation introduced me to a way of living that radically altered my life—inner journeying.

    I was intrigued by the presenter’s story and his thoughts of living a life that required him to look inside for answers. I had very little understanding or practice with looking within.

    The workshop opened up a whole new way of living for me. It focused on removing masks. As I listened to the speaker, I found myself thinking about my own life and the masks that I hid behind.

    I felt uncomfortable, so I started to question myself on how I was living.

    This new self-awareness pushed me to start looking inside of myself for answers to the problems that were plaguing me.

    I was young and self-employed, on my way to making a name for myself in my business community. I was also self-absorbed with weightlifting and exercising. I was the typical story of the “skinny kid who transformed his body.” To others, my life looked good.

    But my inner landscape told a different story. I was lost in a world of darkness, pain, and anxiety. Even though I was experiencing some modest success with my business, my past was starting to haunt me.

    I felt like a fraud, and I was starting to feel like my outer world was about to crumble.

    What had kept me going through all these years of turmoil was the fact that I had become an expert on wearing masks! I had no idea who I was, and despite all the good things going on in my life, I felt like I wasn’t being honest with myself. I wanted to be real. (more…)

  • 4 Powerful Lessons from a Life Well Lived

    4 Powerful Lessons from a Life Well Lived

    Lori and Grammy

    “We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.” ~Dalai Lama

    This year on June 4th, one of my greatest heroes passed away.

    I’d been planning to travel back to Massachusetts mid-month for my sister’s bridal shower, but I learned at the end of May that my grandmother was in the hospital.

    I knew she’d been in rehab since she’d fractured her hip, but I didn’t know she’d gained 30 pounds of water weight and her kidneys would soon fail her.

    After my family told me it didn’t look good, I came home on the red eye on the 2nd, hoping to hear her voice one last time. She was too medicated to speak when I arrived, but I was able to sit with her and more than a dozen of my family members for all of June 3rd.

    There were so many of us there, unwilling to leave her side, that the hospital staff opened the adjoining room, where we set up a table with cold cuts and sub rolls for lunch.

    It was exactly what she would have wanted, and a testament to the legacy she left behind: Her huge, loving family stayed there, together, offering her the love and strength she’d given us for years.

    My mother asked me to write and deliver her eulogy—which was both a challenge and an honor. She’d touched so many people’s lives, including mine, and in that moment no words seemed sufficient.

    I feared I wouldn’t do her justice, but I knew that if she were still around she’d be proud of me, no matter what I wrote.

    I am who I am in large part because of my Grammy, Jeanne Santoro (and her late husband Henry “Grandpa Joe” Santoro, to whom I dedicated my book).

    So now I’d like to share with you some of the lessons that have stuck with me the most. Grammy, you taught me that…. (more…)

  • When Painful Things Happen and You Can’t Stop Obsessing Over Why

    When Painful Things Happen and You Can’t Stop Obsessing Over Why

    “We all have problems. The way we solve them is what makes us different.” ~Unknown

    I used to be a “why” person. Why, you ask? Because after receiving my middle daughter Nava’s diagnosis of a neurological condition, I got really hooked into “why me” mode, and it just ate away at every fiber of my core.

    I obsessed over “why.” Why did it happen? I needed to make sense out of a senseless fluke of nature.

    I was devastated and beside myself with the raging emotions of grief—the anger, bitterness, and resentment—and the dance in my head and the ache in my heart kept circling and banging into the graffitied wall of  WHY in big black letters.

    Here is where I remained for a long year of ranting and raving in a therapist’s office.

    I sought out lectures and classes on the famous theme of “why bad things happen to good people.” (As you may know, there’s a book by the same title.) I was totally stuck in this place.

    I felt so unwound and so out of control that I thought being able to wrap my head around a “real” reason would somehow help me in coping.

    I thought if I understood the “why,” I could deal with it better.

    I often say, and truly believe, that if I can understand where someone is coming from, I can more readily and easily accept our differences and disagreements; that this breeds tolerance and respect, and sets the stage to agree to disagree.

    I somehow thought this to be similar in my acutely grief-stricken situation—that if I could understand where this came from and why this happened to my baby, I could accept it more easily and therefore, cope with it.

    I was drowning in this “why me,” in the unfairness of it and the idea of bad things happening to good people.

    Then of course I went down the path of “what did I do wrong,” looking for that dose of self-recrimination.  And oh, I had plenty of arrows with which to shoot myself. We can all become our worst enemy when we look for that scapegoat. I was it for myself. 

    My therapist became my healer.

    He held my pain for months and months until it was able to wash through me and I could actually air it out. I came to understand and grasp the idea that these are the big unanswerables. There were no answers to the “whys.” (more…)

  • Peace Is Learning the Lesson

    Peace Is Learning the Lesson

    “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

    It’s strange to feel peace while a part of your heart is being chipped away.

    I’m in the middle of a heart chipping, but the longer it goes on, the more I’m realizing that it needs to be removed before it hardens the rest of the organ. Maybe the chipping is kind of like pruning a diseased tree so the remainder grows stronger and more resilient.

    The cuts hurt like hell though.

    The last few months have been some of the most difficult of my life. I’ve been trying to stand firm while my girlfriend determines whether she will stay in our three-year relationship or return to her former life.

    Like it or not, and I really don’t, my own personal pruning must occur. I keep telling myself it will be worth it. I try to keep my highest prayer in mind, which is love, always love.

    The pruning hurts like hell.

    I’ve come to believe that love sometimes wraps itself around a process of letting go.

    I don’t let go easily or often, but love helps me loosen my grip so that when I’m finally prepared, my knuckles are not quite so white from hanging on for dear life.

    The pruning process of letting go releases the insanity in my life.

    For me, the pockets where insanity lies—where I can’t tell the difference between what’s working for me and what’s not—nearly always involves a relationship of some kind.

    Let me be clear: The process of releasing doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of the person. Sometimes, the pruning is about trimming back feelings.

    The trimming hurts like hell.

    Right now, I am totally messed up because the relationship with my girlfriend is the most significant in my life. We’re each highly invested and more than a little enmeshed. There’s certainly a lot of insanity mixed in with all the love!   (more…)

  • Living in the Now When It’s Stressful: 4 Mindfulness Tips

    Living in the Now When It’s Stressful: 4 Mindfulness Tips

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

    A few weeks ago, I learned that my beloved dog, Bella, had become ill with kidney disease—a condition that will most likely not allow her to live longer than a year. I was devastated when I heard this news.

    At only eight years old, Bella didn’t seem old enough to be so sick, let alone be a year (or less) away from dying. Coping with her condition and the impending loss has been incredibly difficult—nearly impossible at times—but amid all of the pain and anxiety, I’ve come to one powerful conclusion: Life is too unpredictable not to enjoy the moment.

    The number of moments I have left with Bella—or with anyone, for that matter—are unknown. For the past three years (ever since I launched my blog, Positively Present), I’ve tried to focus on living in the now, but nothing has made that goal clearer than Bella’s recent diagnosis. Realizing my time with her is limited makes every minute even more important.

    That being said, staying present is still a daily battle. In the throes of my constantly racing thoughts—How long will she live? Is she feeling okay? Why isn’t she eating? What does the vet’s tone really mean?—it’s been incredibly difficult to enjoy the time I have with Bella.

    And, unfortunately, more often than not I find myself living not in the moment, but in the future, worrying about what will become of Bella and my life without her.

    Worrying about the future has been severely hindering my ability to live fully in the present moment, which is what I need to do most in this limited time I have left with my precious pup.

    Knowing the importance of living in the moment is one thing; taking action is another. It can be challenging to live in the now when then now is tough, but I’ve discovered a few tactics and tips to help me stay focused on the moment—and enjoy every minute I have with Bella. (more…)

  • When Friends Fear We May Judge Them

    When Friends Fear We May Judge Them

    “When you judge another, you do not define them. You define yourself.” ~Wayne Dwyer

    One of the times I felt my lowest was when I found out a best friend didn’t tell me something important that had happened in her life. I felt about an inch tall when she said she feared I would judge her if she told me, and that’s why she kept it a secret.

    At that point, I broke down. Do all my friends feel this way? Why? I’ve always felt very protective of them and tried my best to be a great friend.

    I’m an only child. I’ve spent a lot of time with my parents. They’re wonderful and they’ve done a lot for me, but one thing they’ve passed on is a sort of judgmental, sarcastic type of humor.

    So as much as I joke around and I suppose, judge what others do, I always thought my friends knew that I would always accept them.

    I catch myself gossiping and talking about others, essentially judging them. I’ll admit there are times when I feel as if I’m better than someone. But who am I to think that? I’ve made mistakes. I don’t always do or say the right things. I’m by no means perfect or better than anyone else.

    Suddenly, I somewhat understood what my friend meant. Even though I hoped she knew that I would never judge her choices and I’d always be there for her—and as much as it pains me—I could see why she was afraid to tell me.

    I didn’t want to define myself as a judgmental person who people couldn’t trust to talk about important issues. Not even for one second. So I vowed to change. (more…)

  • 3 Keys to Staying Present under Pressure

    3 Keys to Staying Present under Pressure

    Relaxed Man

    “The only pressure I’m under is the pressure I’ve put on myself.” ~Mark Messier   

    Back when Earth was cooling, I was a broker at Shearson Lehman Brothers. I still have nightmares about the pressure there—the pressure to sell stocks and bonds, to succeed, to be the best in the office, and to forget what is really important in life.

    Now I write books and lead workshops. I live on thirty-three acres with a couple hundred blueberry plants, foxes, incredible people, sunrises, sunsets, and cold dips in a mountain pond all in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.

    While it would make sense that the Wall Street life was hectic and that these rustic acres should provide relief, peace, and relaxation, that isn’t really the case. Each day there is a temptation to put pressure on myself: to write a chapter, or get work done in the garden, or swim a mile, or do something that I consider worthwhile.

    I have discovered that it isn’t really the situation that causes pressure and stress, but the lack of familiarity and acceptance of who I am and where I am. I can be as crazy in the mountains as on Wall Street, but I can also, with these three keys relax into myself and my environment.

    How About You?

    You’re busy. You live with an amount of activity that would make your grandparents’ eyes bug out. You travel more miles in a week than they would in a year. Unfortunately, you may often lose yourself, and your priorities, in your own busyness.

    The pressure to get things done can be overwhelming. It can make you frantic and compulsive. You jump from doing the dishes to sweeping the floor to answering e-mails without celebrating those clean, shiny pans.

    You live dizzy and busy finding yourself often in a tizzy. All the while who you really are is at peace, deep, calm, and tranquil. You deserve a little dip into that peace, especially when you are under pressure. (more…)

  • Speaking Up When You’re Bullied, in School and Beyond

    Speaking Up When You’re Bullied, in School and Beyond

    “Sometimes the biggest act of courage is a small one.” ~Lauren Raffo

    During the summer of 2001, I experienced three months of torment.

    My days were filled with verbal lashings, public humiliation, and pushing my body to its physical limits. I was being broken down. I chose to accept this as my normal. I accepted my punishment like I thought I should. I was seventeen.

    Nothing made my anxiety fly away and quieted the constant chatter in my brain like dance. I may not have been the best, or most technically proficient dancer (my fouettes would never land me a Joffery Ballet scholarship), but moving to music made my heart sing.

    Naturally, I decided to try out for my high school’s dance team. I ended up securing a spot on the kick line of this infamous and exclusive group.

    Varsity dance has been an institution at my high school for nearly sixty years. Throughout that enormous chunk of time, many traditions were thought up, tweaked, and passed on. Now, these are not your average high school traditions of young girls simply making goofy matching t-shirts, wearing the same half-up-half-down hairstyle, and teepeeing new teammates.

    Most of the traditions passed on are bullying.

    My summer of new-girl hazing included performing thousands of kicks until I got bursitis in both of my worn out knees, sitting in the splits until my wrists buckled under pressure, constantly hearing how unworthy I was of being on the team, and performing hyper-sexualized dances in front of ogling male classmates. Those were just a few highlights of my experience.

    Then came the day the “old girls” decided to finally initiate me as a full-fledged member of the team.

    The veteran members drove me around with a blindfold hugging my sobbing eyes, while verbally ripping in to each and every one of my mental weaknesses. After making several stops to “practice” dances and kick to the brink of exhaustion, I arrived just after dusk at a house belonging to one of the captains. (more…)

  • Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth

    Knowing How Far You’ve Come: 8 Tips to Celebrate Your Growth

    “Always concentrate on how far you’ve come, rather than how far you have left to go.” ~Unknown

    It is laughably easy to forget to stop and take stock of how far we have come in our lives. Our world focuses so much on what we lack—be it money, beauty, prestige, or romantic success—that it is far too common for us to get trapped in the loop of needing to have, be, or do “more” before thinking that we might be good enough. I, for one, do it all the time.

    A year and a half ago I was unemployed with no idea what to do next. I’d spent my life until that point ignoring the conviction that there was something I was meant to do. Since I didn’t know what that calling might be, I played it safe by getting a library degree.

    I was pretty good at library work, but I was never passionate about it, which made me an unremarkable candidate for the few remaining library positions after the economy crashed.

    All of this left me sitting at home, miserable. Unemployment, combined with a particularly nasty winter, led to a terrible flare up of my lifelong nemesis, depression. To say that I was despondent that winter would be a gross understatement!

    Of course, I can now see that this was a blessing. That terrible winter pushed me to realize that something had to change, and fast. I was finished playing it safe and ready to figure out my dream!

    Since then, I’ve identified my true calling (to become a life coach), sought training, and now I stand on the cusp of living my ideal life. But is that always how I see the situation? Of course not.

    On many days, I find myself focusing on how far I still have to go. I see the programs I haven’t implemented yet and the website that isn’t quite perfect, rather than taking the time to marvel over the fact that I have so many ideas and a website at all.

    And you know what? Failing to acknowledge how far I’ve come robs me of a lot of joy and a lot of pride. I may not have everything figured out in my new business, but I’ve come a long way from where I was a year ago.

    I would be willing to bet that you’ve made huge progress in the last year, as well, but are too focused on what remains to be done to see it. I invite you to start giving yourself credit for a lot of hard work and achievement. (more…)

  • Giveaway and Author Interview: Choosing Me Before We

    Giveaway and Author Interview: Choosing Me Before We

    Note: This 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:

    We all have it: a voice inside our heads that tells us what we can and cannot do and undermines our self-esteem. Sometimes it’s cruel. Sometimes it’s condescending. Most of the time, it’s completely inaccurate.

    If we’re not mindful, it can limit our ability to live peaceful, purposeful lives, guided by our interests and passions. We need to love ourselves to love our lives, and in order to love ourselves, we need to be good to ourselves.

    Author and speaker Christine Arylo has made a career out of helping women develop self-love and silence their “inner mean girls.”

    In 2001, Christine’s fiancé (and boyfriend of 15 years) confessed that he no longer loved her, on the way to their engagement party—and that he’d been cheating on her. After realizing she’d never learned to love herself, she embarked on a spiritual journey, and in the process, transformed herself and her life.

    In her book Choosing ME before WE, Christine shares stories, insights, and exercises to help women come to know themselves and learn to put themselves first.

    If you’ve ever felt stuck in an unfulfilling relationship (or recognized an unhealthy pattern  in your love life), this book may help you create meaningful change from the inside out.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Choosing ME Before WE

    • Leave a comment below.
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: Choosing ME Before WE http://bit.ly/KekqLh

    If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can still enter by completing the first step. You can enter until midnight PST on Friday, June 22nd. (more…)

  • 5 Ways to Let Go of Limited Thinking and Create a Limitless Life

    5 Ways to Let Go of Limited Thinking and Create a Limitless Life

     

    “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~Albert Einstein

    As so often happens when I go on vacation, valuable insights come in unexpected ways. It happened again during a recent fly-fishing trip (through Fly Fishing for the Mind) with my adult son, Brandon, to the Sian Ka’an Biosphere, a government protected nature and wildlife reserve at the eastern tip of Mexico.

    I got in touch with a major difference in Brandon’s and my thought patterns. Brandon thinks expansively about life’s possibilities—particularly those involving fun and adventure. His typical mind-set is “Let’s do it” and “This will be a lot of fun.”

    I, on the other hand, tend to think restrictively, like “If we do this, then we can’t do that” and “That’s not what’s been planned.”

    Had I followed my limited thinking during the trip, I would have missed out on some great fun and highly rewarding experiences. Let me share two of them with you.

    An Enlightening Visit to a Remote Mayan Fishing Village and a Lobster Feast

    On the second day of the trip, twelve of us (in three small motor boats) took a half-day eco- our. We were entertained by sea turtles and dolphins during the first part of the tour. Snorkeling at the second-largest barrier reef in the world was scheduled for the last hour of the tour.

    While motoring to the barrier reef, we approached a primitive wood bridge that led to the small fishing village of Punta Allen, where our guides lived. Brandon asked our guide whether the village fishermen caught lobster. When the guide nodded yes, Brandon enthusiastically proposed, “Let’s go buy some lobsters and take them back to our lodge for dinner.”

    The first words out of my mouth were, “If we do that, we won’t be able to go snorkeling.”

    “Why?” Brandon asked.

    Before I could respond, the two others in our boat also expressed interest in visiting the village and buying lobster, and those in the other boats quickly followed suit.

    What followed was a delightful visit to Punta Allen, an unspoiled Caribbean paradise, in which we engaged with the locals and experienced their simple, uncomplicated lifestyle.

    And despite my concerns, the guides gladly extended our tour so we could also go snorkeling! (more…)

  • Eliminate Proxies for a More Authentic, Present Life

    Eliminate Proxies for a More Authentic, Present Life

    On the web, there is something called a proxy server. It often sits in between a request (for example, let me watch YouTube!) and what is requested (in this case, the YouTube video file) and “passes” the request, and the result, back and forth between two computers.

    In the early days of the Internet, it was created as a way to make easier and more efficient the incredible complexity of so much information and so many people wanting to access it. There are other benefits, too—security, speed, protecting identities and information. But, it’s still an intermediary between Thing A and Thing B.

    There is, however, another kind of proxy. Whenever I hear the word, I think of Afghanistan and the notion of a “proxy war.”

    The USA and USSR might not have faced each other in battle, but in Afghanistan and so many other places, fought a “proxy war” by taking different sides in a different conflict and letting others fight it out on their behalf.

    I’ve reflected on the notion of proxies as relates to the human experience, and wanted to share some observations from my own life.

    Let’s say work is stressful; I’m facing the reality that I am, in fact, middle age; I’m out of shape and not happy with what my lack of exercise says about my discipline or, given the history of heart disease in my family, my priorities.

    We’re late for school, and my son is slow to put on his shoes.

    “Son!” I yell. “Come ON! Put on your shoes. We’re late for school. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR!”

    Valid points. My son needs to learn responsibility, and understand the importance of commitments—in this case, the implicit contract between him and his school, as to his obligations and what he gets in return in the form of an education.

    But, he’s only 6. A clear and direct, but supportive and loving, reiteration of why he should remain mindful of the time would be more appropriate. Losing my temper makes my son an unwitting proxy for other things.

    These proxies are not productive. I try to keep an eye out for them—whether I’m the proxier or the proxied—and I try not to let people, situations, or things become transformed into something that they aren’t. (more…)