Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • Embracing Uncertainty: The Future is Open, Not Empty

    Embracing Uncertainty: The Future is Open, Not Empty

    “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    A month ago, I was at a crossroads. I was unhappy with my job, I no longer wanted to be living at home, I was tired of being three states away from my boyfriend, and I was sick of feeling unfulfilled.

    I knew change was coming, but what I did not know was that I was to be the catalyst.

    I had moved back in with my parents after college, as I started the daunting task of job searching. I worked retail for most of the summer, broken only by a two-and-a-half week stint as an editor for a company that sold writing workshops to major corporations.

    I loved the job, but the people turned out to be less than willing to train and accept me, so back home I went.

    I finally found a job at a bank in the fall and set off learning a career in finance for the next year and a half. Acquiring a new skill set was intimidating at first; I was an English major and math had been an enemy of mine since grade school, but I quickly caught on and enjoyed it for a little while.

    Eventually, it became clear that it was not the career for me; sales goals and customer service grew old fast, and I longed for change.

    Along with living at home and working at a job that left me wanting more, my boyfriend was three states away. We met through a mutual friend in college, but attended separate schools. Our relationship had been long distance from the start, but when he graduated, his job took him even farther from me; meeting twice a month if we were lucky was not the relationship I had imagined.

    I felt stuck, wishing for a crossroads to appear so I could take a different path.

    I stood around waiting for change, waiting for the signs to come flashing in my direction, for a contact to call me up with a job offer, for a path to be laid out neatly in front of me.

    I think we all do that sometimes, wait for a decision to drift our way. But what I realized is that we need to come to the decision, not the other way around.

    After staying late at work one Monday, I was driving home and had the overwhelming urge to drive to the beach. I had to be there before the sun set, I had to look at the water, smell the salt and seaweed, see the scattered couples bundled up and holding hands.

    I sat on the boardwalk and just stared. I stared at the ocean far away from me as the tide pulled it out and gave up my worries, just praying that I would find happiness soon. (more…)

  • A Beautiful Thing Is Never Perfect

    A Beautiful Thing Is Never Perfect

    “A beautiful thing is never perfect.” ~Proverb

    There are so many reasons to think that we, as humanity, have far to go to reach a certain stage of happiness. Yet with every step we take toward a “golden future,” we seem to take two steps backward.

    Our demand for technological advancement causes great stress upon the Earth: Medical achievements aim to eliminate ailments, but serve as crutches for our poor health choices; and we push ourselves to reach great heights of “success,” which then fuels our self-rejection because we think we aren’t good enough.

    In this sense, our progress tricks us into always wanting something else to cure our unhappiness. I know this because I feel it and live it every day, as many of us do.

    I, too, am guilty of wanting a picture-perfect prosperous future—two dogs, a classy and purposefully minimalist apartment in the perfect area of a snazzy city, and a really awesome electric car.

    In fact, I have become so entrenched with figuring out how to become rich using my creative skills that I’ve begun to forget the very goal that fueled my original desire for success.

    I wanted to get rich and help others live—at the very least—comfortably and happily.

    I’ve forgotten my dream, the original dream, in response to my desire for “the good life.”

    I’ve forgotten that my life is already beautiful and amazing as it is. My desire for things that I thought would make me feel happier actually made me lose sight of the one thing that really would help me feel happy and fulfilled.

    In the same way, humanity thinks it needs to constantly evolve so that maybe someday, old age and sickness will be eradicated from existence. However, our folly isn’t the goal of a life without suffering; it’s our assumption that life can exist without suffering.

    In other words, we can never not suffer. (more…)

  • 9 Powerful Life Lessons from Studying with a Monk

    9 Powerful Life Lessons from Studying with a Monk

    “Doing your best means never stop trying.” ~Unknown

    When I was 18 years old, I suffered from anxiety and stomach problems. A compassionate physician and practicing Buddhist referred me to a Taoist monk who specialized in meditation and martial arts. I ended up healing myself of anxiety and stomach issues by doing meditation, and went on a great journey of self-discovery.

    Here are 9 lessons I learned while studying with a monk:

    1. Keep trying until you get it right.

    The most important life lesson I learned was trying something three times (maybe even four times) before you stop trying and move on. Also, this monk taught me that, even after multiple tries, you should work on different angles to approach things that are difficult.

    If you keep trying, you’ll eventually get where you’re going.

    2. The answer to your question is inside of you.

    As part of the original monastery training, a monk didn’t answer direct questions from a student unless it was a well thought-out question. A Chinese proverb says, “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”

    Some forms of Zen Buddhism use a very similar style of training. An old saying (by Taoist monks) goes like this: “In making a four corner table, the teacher shows the student how to make one corner. It’s the student’s job to figure out how to make the other three.”

    They did this because they were preparing a student to deal effectively with problems in the real world.

    I traveled to South Korea one time, and I found it fascinating how much you have to rely on your intuition when you don’t speak the native language of a country. I remember one instance, I had trouble explaining to the cab driver where my hotel was, and he didn’t speak English. So I had to get out of the cab and ask several people until I could find someone to tell the cab driver in Korean how to get to my hotel.

    In life, whenever we try new things, we have to go into new places with only a small amount of information. The real world doesn’t give us all the answers. The greatest teacher is inside of us. (more…)

  • Giveaway and Interview: Saying Yes to Change

    Giveaway and Interview: Saying Yes to Change

    Editor’s 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:

    Have you ever formed a friendship with someone whose beliefs differ from yours only to realize you have quite a bit in common?

    This is exactly the type of friendship I’ve formed with Alex Blackwell. We’ve had many of the same experiences, and formed many of the same insights, but we’ve found peace and comfort in different understandings of spirituality.

    Alex runs The Bridge Maker, where he shares his lessons about creating meaningful change. Though Alex’s writing often reflects his Christian faith, it always comes straight from his heart and includes lessons that anyone can apply to their circumstances.

    When Alex asked me to read his first book, Saying Yes to Change, I immediately felt intrigued. While I didn’t connect with some of the parts related to faith, I felt connected to Alex in reading his stories, and grateful for his courage in sharing himself so honestly.

    Loaded with practical tips and gentle encouragement, Saying Yes to Change is an uplifting guide to transformation. It’s my honor to share with you an interview with my friend Alex.

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win 1 of 2 free copies of Saying Yes to Change:

    • Leave a comment below.
    • Tweet: RT @tinybuddha Book GIVEAWAY & Interview: Saying Yes to Change http://bit.ly/KyH40n

    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 15th. (more…)

  • How to Release Shame and Love All of You

    How to Release Shame and Love All of You

    “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” ~African Proverb

    If you’ve had any experiences where you had to keep your truth quiet, particularly as a child, it’s time to reclaim your truth and value its power. By doing so, you will release energy, old shame, and subconscious blocks that may now be holding you back from living your life to the fullest.

    It could be that you had lots of family secrets that your parents made sure you told no one about (which creates shame), or it could be you were bullied and felt unable to confide in anyone about it.

    There are many circumstances where we have our truth kept locked in, and unintentionally we create shame around our truths. If you feel unable to speak your truth, then you feel shame. It’s nature’s law.

    When we become shameful of our truths, we end up cutting off, discrediting, and devaluing a hugely important chunk of who we are and how we show up in the world.

    This is true for me. When I was growing up, my parents had an emotionally abusive relationship, and I was sworn to secrecy about it. My parents wanted no one outside of the house to know what was going on.

    While my father had anger issues, my mother always tried to keep the peace, so I decided it was better to not speak up or voice my feelings. Living under the same roof as them, it was impossible for me to not be affected by what was happening, yet I was unable to have my experience validated.

    My parents were busy fighting, being in tension, or creating drama, and I was conditioned to not talk to anyone about “the troubles at home.” So my truth was shut down, kept only to me and my journal.

    After my parents divorced, I moved out and on to college, and started my adult life. I felt proud of myself for staying strong through all the tough times at home, for being an emotional rock for my mother, and for forgiving my father for not being the kind of dad I wanted him to be.

    Yet in my mid-late twenties, things started to shift. After a few career U-turns, I started to feel unsure of myself, and it started to bring up emotions I hadn’t felt for a long while. (more…)

  • The Freedom of Not Needing To Be Right

    The Freedom of Not Needing To Be Right

    “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

    Yesterday I drove my mother and father to the VA hospital in Albuquerque for a doctor’s appointment. I had never been to a VA hospital before. I guess I should have expected the numbers of crutches and canes, armless and legless veterans, young and weathered faces alike.

    I was personally witnessing the costs endured when humans war against each other.

    “Isn’t it odd,” I said to my mother, “that human beings war with each other?”

    Why in the world do we do that?

    Then I considered the ways in which we war on an interpersonal level. We humans war to varying degrees with our partners, our friends, our bosses, our co-workers, our siblings, our parents—pretty much all in the name of our need to be “right” or the need not to be wrong.

    We war over ideas and beliefs that we often have never questioned. These include ideas from our upbringings, our religions, our scars and wounds, and our existential need to identify ourselves in some way.

    How early did we lose our childlike wonder? When did we lose that innocent state in which we did not judge others, nor need to be “right”—when we saw the best in everything and everyone, and when it did not matter that someone was Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, republican, democrat, omnivorous, vegetarian, gay, or of a different race?

    When I observe my ten-year-old grandson, he appears to have no tendency to judge other people, not yet anyway. He has no need to diminish others, nor does he feel threatened by them.

    Would we, as children, have told lies about someone just because we wanted to win an election? Would we have been dismissive or even cruel to someone because they were of another race or religion? I don’t think so.

    As little children we only cared that we were loved. And we were still curious about everything.

    Somewhere along the way we lose our innocence and start to judge others. This becomes a primary source of our social anxiety and the undermining of our self-esteem, because if we are judging others, we fear that we are also being judged. (more…)

  • Discovering Peace from Within and Creating Fulfillment in Life

    Discovering Peace from Within and Creating Fulfillment in Life

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

    The feeling of inner-strength and fulfillment can be enough for us to move mountains. For the most part, we all have the desire to do and be great. It’s just a matter of finding the right pieces to put together to make it happen.

    Part of that discovery process is being able to overcome the low states of energy that hold us back from finding our inner happiness and confidence. When we feel refreshed, vibrant, and able to make the right choices for ourselves, the right actions and results follow.

    Like so many others, I once viewed the sources of happiness and fulfillment in my life as events that were few and far between. I’d have some good days here and there, but they were mostly based on what didn’t go wrong at work, at home, or with my finances. It certainly took a toll on my self-esteem and sense of worth.

    It was hard to be great when I didn’t feel great. 

    Events that I had no control over ruled my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Work-related frustration built up during the day, and nights at home were stressful and emotionally trying. I even let things like the weather and traffic on my daily commute ruin what could’ve been a perfectly productive and amazing day.

    It left me in a constant state of doubt and disarray, searching and wondering when the next positive experience would come along just so I could feel good again. It was a destructive way to live, and it continuously put stress on all the important areas of my well-being.

    In my eyes, I finally hit rock bottom: My finances were a mess, my personal relationships were suffering, and so was my emotional and physical health. 

    When my friends or family would ask how I was doing, my reply was always preceded with a long and drawn out sigh. (more…)

  • Who Owns Your Time?

    Who Owns Your Time?

    “What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” ~Unknown

    When you take cash out of your wallet to give to someone, you surely expect something of equal or greater value in return. Do you treat your time the same way?

    At one of my first jobs, I found myself spending a massive amount of time on tasks that didn’t really add value to me or my purpose.

    “Ah well, at least I got something done today,” I would often mutter to rationalize wasting time on just busy work. Or even better: “Well, that took a lot of my time, but at least I’ll have tomorrow to take care of what I really need to do.”

    I found that I didn’t truly own my time. I would arrive home from work exhausted, unwilling to do anything, and dreading that I only had an hour to sleep before waking up to do the whole thing over again.

    Why did all of this happen? Because I let my boss, my friends, and poor decisions take ownership of my time.

    Do you find yourself saying yes to too many requests, including those of your boss? Do you give away your time? I understand that you’re at a job and are getting paid for your time, but we all need to take ownership of how you spend your time.

    I found out this the hard way when I began getting sick from working too hard and depressed from a lack of balance in life.

    I realized something had to change and made it a point to respect my time, because time is the only thing I’m given for free in this life, every day that I live.

    I started by promising to myself that I would do just one activity per day that added value to my life, or planted a seed for me to have more time in my life.

    For one day, adding value meant challenging myself with a new piano piece to experience the joy of music and refresh my creative side. For another day, this meant completing an action item on my list for the startup I had been forming on the side to achieve financial freedom.

    Ultimately, what is important to you in life?

    All the time management strategies in the world won’t help you a bit if you don’t know what you really want. These need not necessarily be aspirational things, such as career achievements. They could be small things that you enjoy, but are really important to you. (more…)

  • Knowing Which Advice is Right

    Knowing Which Advice is Right

    “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.” ~Buddha

    The old cliché, “I say tomayto, you say tomahto,” has been popping up in my head recently, mainly because of a lesson I recently learned after years of trial and error.

    For the last several years, I have been closely listening to and reading the advice of “experts” on subjects related to life, love, business, and the pursuit of happiness. I have come to an astonishing (for me, anyway) conclusion: Everybody is right, and everybody is wrong.

    Confused? Allow me to explain with an example.

    About 18 months ago, I changed careers from newspaper journalism to insurance sales. When I first started in the insurance industry, my boss told me that to be successful I would have to not let “no” bother me. Just keep trucking, let that rejection roll like water off a duck’s back, he would say.

    He also told me persistence was a major key to selling life insurance. Keep calling clients, even if they blow you off a few (or in one case, many) times.

    His advice worked with one client. I literally called her a dozen or more times. She bought insurance, and then canceled.

    I scheduled a follow-up appointment to find her some more affordable insurance. She canceled. Another follow-up appointment scheduled. Another canceled. This literally went on for three months.

    Finally, we were able to get the insurance she was looking for at a price she could afford.

    After writing that application, my boss (let’s call him Jay) said, “Let this be a lesson on the power of persistence.”

    A few weeks later, my boss’s boss (let’s call him Brent) gave me some very different advice: “Never call a potential client more than five or six times. It makes you look desperate.”

    I have learned that, in many cases, this advice is also true. Calling too many times will certainly not work on a lot of clients. But, in the above-mentioned example, it did work.

    So, I asked myself, “Whose advice is right, and whose is wrong?” (more…)

  • Are You Running Away from Yourself?

    Are You Running Away from Yourself?

    “No matter where you go, there you are.” ~Confucius

    I am accustomed to not moving. To move was to feel pain—the pain of seeing how worthless I believed myself to be. Sometimes I would sit in the same place for hours, sometimes not leaving the house for days.

    By isolating myself, I avoided finding evidence in the outside world that proved how I saw myself was the absolute truth.

    My worst nightmare was that others would show me (through what they said or didn’t say, or what they did or didn’t do) that they too found me as rotten as I knew myself to be.

    And so, I was often left in the privacy of my own dreaded company. My best friends were the little pills that I could rely on to knock me unconscious. I had neither the tolerance nor strength to face myself, and I often chose the easy way out.

    Sedatives, tranquilizers, hypnotics—I lived for them. They provided me respite from the constant agony of my internal voice, which asked, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so damaged? Why do I hate myself? What have I done to deserve this?” And concluded, “I don’t want to feel again.”

    Sleeping was my only escape. And I did more and more of it. 

    Sometimes I pushed the boundary too far: Like the time when I swallowed enough hypnotics to probably kill a few buffalos. When I simply woke up a few hours later asking for coffee, I lost interest in testing myself that way again.

    But when I started realizing I was losing chunks of memory, I knew I had reached my limit. I would bump into people on the street who talked about a party I was at and I had no memory of ever being there, nor the few days surrounding the event. (more…)

  • Growing from Pain and Using it to Discover Who You Are

    Growing from Pain and Using it to Discover Who You Are

    “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

    At the age of 37, my beautiful young mother, who I considered my best friend, crashed her car in light rain just around the corner from our home. We will never know what really happened because she woke up from her brain injury a very different person from the one who drove away that morning.

    The experience of suddenly becoming a caregiver at the age of 16, along with my 13 year-old brother and the rest of our family, could fill the pages of a how-to manual. I could have benefited from reading something like that during those long years, when we all struggled to adjust to our new reality.

    Five years into this new life, our mother was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, something that she did not fully comprehend because of her condition. Of course it was all too real for the rest of us, and, despite her continued resistance to the cancer, it eventually took her from us.

    The ability to look back on a tragedy, a loss, a challenge of any sort and see through eyes that have healed, a heart that has been broken and patched up—this is the ability to grow and become a person who is shaped by the darkness.

    It is hard—so, so hard. At times we may want to swat the well-meaning reminders of life like an annoying little insect in our face, close our eyes and our hearts to the new possibilities, and just sit in our paralysis. It’s certainly much easier to do that.

    As we know, though, it is not the easy path that leads to the great discoveries.

    We discover our real selves on the frightening, unknown path that pushes us outside of the places that feel safe and familiar.

    It was a path that I resisted and resented for so long. Brain injury, cancer—it was all too much for me to really comprehend when all I wanted to do was fit in with everyone around me and live the life of a normal young adult.

    Looking back I can see the stages of grief so clearly. I ached to stay in the place of denial for as long as possible because I found some comfort there.

    The hospital visits, chemo, surgeries, and watching on as the person who’d taken over my mother’s fragile body was slowly fading away—it was like I was walking in a dream most of the time, watching on from far away as my family fumbled through all of this.

    I managed to resist the new reality for many years. My body was there at the appointments, in the house cooking meals, and trying to help where possible, but my mind was somewhere else. (more…)

  • The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

    The Power of Community: 6 Reasons We Need Each Other

    “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” ~Emily Kimbrough

    Even though it was 18 months ago, I still remember my climb up Kilimanjaro like it was yesterday.

    Taking those final steps toward the summit with tears in my eyes because I never believed that I—someone who grew up this sick little kid who held a deep-seated belief that she’d never be “an athlete”—would do something that thousands each year, including world-class athletes, cannot.

    Yet there I was.

    But I certainly didn’t get there alone. I had help—a lot of it.

    While training, I called on my friends who are athletes and coaches to ask their training and recovery advice.

    For example, when I got ambitious on a hike and was so sore the next day I had to crawl up and down the stairs on my hands and knees, I called my Ironman Triathlete friend Shannon to ask him how to avoid having that happen again. (His answer was twofold: He first told me not to do that again, and then patiently walked me through the wild world of sport recovery drinks.)

    As I continued preparations, I continued to turn to my friends, the climbing company, and seasoned climbing veterans for buying and renting gear, figuring out snacks on the trip, understanding the challenges of altitude sickness, and everything else that went into making Kilimanjaro a memorable and easy trip for me.

    The phrase “it takes a village” certainly applied to me and this trip.

    Then, when I got there, it was my turn to pay it back. I was climbing with some older gentlemen who were having difficulty navigating the rocks and tree roots. So, I’d patiently reach down and offer a hand—after all, we were there together, to accomplish this together. I wanted to both pay it forward and see them succeed.

    On the summit day it was my turn to get help again.

    At altitudes above 10,000 feet you feel the effects of altitude sickness, and on our summit day we were traveling between 15,000 and 19,340 feet—meaning at the summit I had half of the oxygen I would at sea level.

    Hiking up a 45-degree scree-covered slope with half the air I normally had was making the final ascent a challenge, but I had a wonderfully patient guide who would listen to my breathing as I puffed along behind him; and he and the summit team would stop for me, let me catch my breath, and then patiently move forward only once I was ready.

    Then all of the sudden there it was—the summit—both literal and metaphorical. I had put in months of physical training and a year of research and planning to make it happen, and finally it was a reality. But I never could have done it alone. (more…)

  • Are You Shut Down and Disconnected?

    Are You Shut Down and Disconnected?

    “When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another—and ourselves.” ~Jack Kornfield

    I had to work on Easter at my job in a coffee shop. I missed out on my family’s big holiday party, and I struggled with quite a bit of resentment about the whole deal. I could have gotten someone to cover for me, but because I’m one of the more experienced employees and we were short-staffed, I was told that I needed to work.

    I wasn’t too terribly happy. I came in to work and immediately launched into the craziness of Easter in a coffee shop, sliding Americanos to travelers across the counter with a stone face.

    I was amazed at how unforgiving people were. I thought that Easter would bring out the best in people, but it seemed to make some act grumpier and more disconnected. Many of them weren’t happy for the same reason that people are grumpy at Christmas: They hate spending extended time with family.

    So I slogged through the day, helping grumpy people stay awake on the road to a place where they didn’t want to go, when suddenly a single interaction changed the course of my day: A man came in, greeted us warmly while he ordered his coffee, and then apologized.

    “I’m sorry that you have to work so that schmucks like me can have their coffee.”

    This one sentence transformed my whole day. This guy had gone out of his way to connect with us, and made made me feel both happy and ashamed—happy that there was someone out there who didn’t get too caught up in his own troubles to connect; ashamed that I had fallen into that very trap myself. (more…)

  • I Don’t Have to Be Perfect: It’s the Leap That Counts

    I Don’t Have to Be Perfect: It’s the Leap That Counts

    “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” ~Proverb

    I’m a “recovering perfectionist.”

    I make perfect plans. At times, when I’m really working on my plans, I forget to live my actual life. Because I’m planning. Perfectly.

    I had my first strategic plan when I was ten.

    “Be a really, really good girl. Then, when you are sixteen, borrow the car and say that you are going to Drug Fair to buy hairspray. Instead, drive the fifteen minutes to your daddy’s house so that he’ll want you back.”

    A year later I had to revise my first strategic plan. My alcoholic father died.

    Here was the second plan:

    “Now you’re all alone.” (Which wasn’t true, by the way. It just felt that way. Anyway, back to the plan.) “Now you’re all alone. Be perfect.”

    In the first plan, I just had to be “good” to be rescued. In the second one, there was no rescue.

    I needed to be perfect.

    (Perfectionism Myth #1 Perfection will keep you safe.)

    That plan ‘worked’ for a while. I had started playing the flute the year my father died. My great grandmother told me not to cry and upset my mother. That was okay. Perfect people don’t cry.

    (Perfectionism Myth #2:  Perfection is a way to manage hard feelings.)

    Perfect people practice. (more…)

  • 3 Simple Ways to Follow Your Bliss

    3 Simple Ways to Follow Your Bliss

    “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”  ~Joseph Campbell

    Several years ago, I learned about a month-long silent retreat designed to incorporate extended periods of meditation, three-times-daily hatha yoga sessions, and in-depth self-inquiry practices. The moment I heard about it, my heart literally jumped out of my chest and I knew I had to be there.

    Yet, while my heart was gunning for it, I could not get my head around how to find the money for the airfare, accommodations, and registration fees. All told, the total was going to be close to three thousand dollars, something I did not have.

    Undeterred, I came to the conclusion, via my heart that I did not need to get my head around anything. If I was meant to be there, then the universe would take care of the details no matter how daunting the financial cost.

    In support of my belief, I made flight and accommodation reservations, shared my intention with several of my close friends, and trusted the universe to align everything in support of my goal. Sure enough, just four weeks before the start of the retreat, I received an unexpected call from my neighbor.

    Liz was a casting agent, searching for extras to audition for the movie My Father the Hero, which was being shot on Paradise Island. She asked, “Are you available? I am having difficulty finding people and I think you would be a perfect fit.”

    I jumped at the opportunity. She cautioned me that the shoot I would be involved in was a boat scene, probably only lasting a day, maybe two. However, on the day we started filming, on driving out to the harbor, the weather took a dramatic turn.

    High winds began whipping around the boat, affecting the ability of the professional stuntman to execute water skiing tricks. Then a power boat, meant to be driven alongside ours and intended to be a highlight of the scene, crashed into the bridge, requiring it to be sent to dry dock for repair.

    Added to that, several days passed with intermittent sunshine and long periods of cloud cover and rain.

    With these events and subsequent delays, the one or two day filming time turned into a week, then two, until three and a half weeks later we finally wrapped the scene, just hours ahead of the start of the retreat.

    Picking up my paycheck I was in awe. Calculating a rapid mental note of all the outgoings necessary, I realized my earnings covered the flight and retreat costs down to the last cent. In fact there was an additional $15 left over, which I realized would cover the Bahamas Government departure tax. (more…)

  • Getting Back Your Belief in Yourself

    Getting Back Your Belief in Yourself

    “When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it.” ~Dr. David Schwartz

    Fifteen months ago I was in a rut. A rather large rut actually. The recession was well and truly in full swing, and I was up to my eyeballs in credit card and loan debt.

    I could barely afford to live, let alone pay my mortgage, and there was the threat of losing my home hanging over my head every day.

    I had spent most of my twenties and thirties working to pay the bills and the rent as most of us do, and frankly, considering the economic climate, I was just grateful to have a job. However, every day I would wake up in a fog and go through the motions of living.

    Most of the time I felt stressed and exhausted with nothing to focus on or look forward to, and I felt as if I couldn’t do a thing about it—which made me feel worse.

    I’m used to challenges in my life, as I have cerebral palsy. My mum passed away when I was nine, my father left the UK when I was eighteen, and I have been living independently ever since.

    This is not a pity plea. When faced with difficulties, as long as there is some kind of solution or a door I can try, that keeps me motivated to keep looking for a solution.

    Fifteen months ago, I was faced with brick wall after brick wall. I wasn’t happy about it, but I couldn’t see a way out. I’m emotionally tough but my situation was making me question my whole being. I didn’t realize that I was functioning in a depressed state.

    I certainly never thought I’d be a single 37-year-old woman on the hamster-wheel of life doing the same job day in and day out, with nothing really to look forward to.

    I kept asking myself “Really? Is this it? Is this my purpose?” Something just didn’t feel right about the way I was living my life.

    I went to see a friend who specializes in reiki and yoga. She took one look at me and said, “You are at the end of your tether, aren’t you?” at which point I burst into floods of tears. It felt so good to let it all out.

    After a few moments she said, “You can change your life, and you will,” and handed me a small book. (more…)

  • Happy Is As Happy Does: Make Your Own Joy in Life

    Happy Is As Happy Does: Make Your Own Joy in Life

    “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

    I used to get paralyzed with fear in the face of any load of work.

    Suffering from crippling depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and severely low self-esteem, I’d find so many thoughts battling me, making it hard to take action:

    • What’s the point of starting if you know you won’t finish?
    • You’re just going to waste your time putting in all that effort when you get rejected at the end.
    • Think about how much time that’s going to take! What if it’s all for naught? How stupid will you feel?!

    I know many people who don’t suffer from depression and, yet, still struggle with those same thoughts. It drives them to procrastination and anxiety, and may even keep them from achieving any of their dreams!

    I have changed a lot since those voices ruled my headspace, and have since learned this:

    The key to a happy life is taking responsibility to make it.

    I started taking action to turn my life around only after being admitted to a program for suicidal adults in 2005. It took that for me to realize that what I was doing just wasn’t working and that I could never go on living the way that I was.

    Using a blend of exercise and cognitive therapy, I pulled myself out of that black hole and started making my own life.

    I began to realize that happiness isn’t served to you; it’s earned. It’s created.

    I am now a personal trainer and wellness coach, and I come across this paralyzed mentality in many new clients. (more…)

  • The Key to Beauty and Acceptance Is You

    The Key to Beauty and Acceptance Is You

    “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I read this quote the other day, and I have to say, nothing has shaken me to the core more.

    I was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy at the age of two, and ever since, I’ve struggled with loving myself and with having self-confidence.

    For the most part, you wouldn’t know I have a serious physical disability aside from my visible limp, my difficulty getting up and down stairs, and my tendency to fall when I get weak. I was never able to do sports growing up like my friends and often had to enroll in special Adaptive Phys Ed classes in school.

    I always felt my disability separated me from my peers growing up, so I put up an emotional wall and convinced myself that I had to wear the latest clothes, have perfect skin, and have the perfect body in order to “blend in” with everyone around me—in order to be truly loved. Then maybe I would be considered beautiful.

    Then maybe no one would notice I was different. If I just looked like those Victoria’s Secret models, then someone would accept and love me.

    So often we look to external things to define our beauty, most commonly, our physical appearance. We think that if we just fit into the mold that society has told us is “good looking” then we’ll feel good about ourselves and will gain acceptance.

    I put a lot of value in being in a relationship too. Because of my disability, I was extremely shy for a long time and very insecure. All I wanted was a guy to come along, sweep me off my feet, and fall in love with me.

    Then I thought I would truly be like everyone else, because I would have someone (other than friends and family) there all the time telling me that I was loved and valued. (more…)

  • When We Think Other People Are Better Than Us

    When We Think Other People Are Better Than Us

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt.

    I have a very bad habit.

    It pokes me when I stop to browse newspapers and magazines.

    It slaps me when I’m watching TV.

    It punches me hard at the gym.

    It knocks me down when I am walking down the street.

    I compare myself to other women.

    I’ve suffered from depression at points in my life, and I’ve suffered from low self-esteem pretty much always.

    It’s not an uncommon trait, comparing ourselves to others. But it seems to be a particularly bad habit for me. Perhaps because my brain is terrifically inventive; at my worst, I can find literally anything as proof that another woman is better than me.

    She’s beautiful. She’s slim. She has a successful career. She has money. She’s married. She has nice clothes. She has brown eyes. She has blue eyes. She has smaller hands. She has a red top. She can walk faster than me.

    I don’t always do it. If I’m feeling good about me, I can see a pretty woman while my boyfriend is with me and, although I do feel a slight pinch at my heartstrings, I’m able to disregard it fairly well.

    But when I’m feeling low in confidence, seeing that pretty woman rips into my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

    I look at her face, hair, body, success, and I think, “I can’t compare to her.” I torture myself with thoughts that if my boyfriend ever meets such a woman, I will be, as we say in Britain, yesterday’s news and today’s fish ’n’ chip paper!

    It’s not just when I’m with him. I used to work in the fashionable Soho region of London, and I couldn’t take more than a few steps before a young, pretty, slim, effortlessly cool lady would glide past.

    My thoughts would be, one: How does she have the money for those clothes? Two: How does she have the energy to make herself look so nice? I barely remember to brush my hair. Three: Thank goodness my boyfriend isn’t here to see her; he’d push me into that puddle over there and go running after her! And four: I look awful. (more…)

  • Be a Master of Where You Are Now

    Be a Master of Where You Are Now

    “Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion.  With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield

    I hadn’t taken a yoga class in a while, and in the midst of my busy schedule I finally gave myself permission to go. Needless to say it had been a few months since I found myself in a downward dog position.

    Something was different about my participation in two classes I recently took. I wish I could say I was able to go deeper into the poses, but it was actually challenging because my flexibility is not where it used to be.

    What struck me were the many great metaphors that these two women, Michelle and Debbie, were sharing in their yoga instruction.

    I confess, I’m a metaphor junky and look for them everywhere. I can probably blame my dad for that since he spoke to me in metaphors while growing up.

    What I noticed and appreciated about my instructors was that they were both very passionate about the practice of yoga. They were cognizant in educating us about position names and consistently reminded us to breathe.

    I also loved that there were so many other rich messages to be heard, metaphorically of course, being that I was paying attention to them.

    There were some gentle reminders that could be related to many different areas of life—career, relationships, wealth and finances, material purchases, and health. As I share them with you, I‘m curious as to how you would relate to them in your own unique way. (more…)