Tiny Buddha

Tag: wisdom

  • Balanced Living: How to Stay on Track

    Balanced Living: How to Stay on Track

    “Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” ~Winston Churchill

    I declared myself a mess a long time ago. I lived in a constant, dull state of fear and anxiety. My emotions were more volatile than hurricane season, and not even I could predict how any given situation would affect me.

    I may not have known it at the time, but I was miserable. I was trying to be someone I wasn’t and fit into a fast-paced life that I just wasn’t made for.

    I was constantly overwhelmed by just about everything—being stuck in traffic, waiting in lines, driving long distances, folding the laundry, working a full day, even doing my hair.

    It seemed like life was a struggle and a whole lot of effort that didn’t really get me anywhere.

    Apparently over time, I had conditioned myself to react to the activity and obligations of my life with worry, anxiety, and exponential stress.

    I didn’t crave the life I was living. I craved balance. And I lacked passion. Something had to give.

    It did, almost by mistake. I found myself poking around Tiny Buddha about a year ago, and the rest was history. Over time I discovered newfound energy by changing my internal perspective on daily living.

    I challenged my toxic thoughts and actions and found peace in the present moment.  I uncovered new ways to look at emotions, relationships, and situations in my life.

    Instead of continuing to fight it, I made a decision to accept and flow with the monotony, bustle, and pressure of life. I made a list of what was truly important to me instead of living by someone else’s rules. Also, I stopped sabotaging my body with distorted eating habits.

    I realized that I was okay, that I was enough, and it was actually pretty cool to be me.

    As a result, I feel more settled. I also feel more direction and balance than ever before in my life. I still get wound up, but my lows are nowhere near as low as before. (more…)

  • 6 Commitments to Maintain Momentum with New Projects

    6 Commitments to Maintain Momentum with New Projects

    “When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless.” ~Pema Chodron

    I always wanted to travel to exotic places. When I received an all-expenses-paid invitation to Bangkok after a conference accepted a paper I wrote, I jumped at the chance to go.

    I brought my camera and lugged it around in an oversize fanny back worn backwards. Looking like a dork is a small price for the opportunity to catch the wonder of a moment.

    The conference became a yearly event, and the overseas flights provided time to reread the Canon manual for umpteenth time. My mind is a sieve for numbers and buttons that require complex mathematical equations performed in an instant. I’m lucky to catch a great shot one-tenth of the time.

    Most times I stick to photographing sumptuous statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. I am willing to wait hours for a shaft of light to strike them just so. Then I take a ridiculous numbers of shots just in case.

    I’m not a techie, but this pursuit keeps butting me up against long lists of directions on computer screens with hieroglyphics that could make decoding an Egyptian tomb look easy.

    While compiling my first photographic book I vowed to keep my cool at the computer. No ranting or raving at the keyboard; none of the usual expletives or threats to decimate the motherboard. I got more done than I ever could have imagined.

    Now the ante has been upped with my second book on Guanyin, a female deity capable of the greatest love under the direst circumstances. But has she ever faced the endless void of interminable options on the Internet without the hope of a human touch?

    In a moment’s notice, she can shift shapes to lift us out of a tough situation and firmly plant our feet on the road to enlightenment—or Kansas if necessary.

    Guanyin inspired me to make a second promise to myself: to be kind to every person I encounter—even after days of questing for a techie to solve problems that I’m incapable of describing without using phrases like “what-cha-ma-call-it” or “thing-a-ma-jig.”

    I knew that I could occasionally come across as brash when I asserted myself. That made this second commitment essential for my effectiveness. (more…)

  • 21 Ways to Build Strong Friendships

    21 Ways to Build Strong Friendships

    Friends Jumping

    “To have a friend and be a friend is what makes life worthwhile.” ~Unknown

    I lost my beloved husband from complications following a routine surgery. His sudden death changed every facet of my life and rocked me to my knees. Now, more than a year after his passing, I am openly speaking of my grief experience with others and sharing how I’ve coped being a young widow.

    I was asked recently what was one of the great lessons I learned from losing my husband, and I knew what my answer was without hesitation:  the importance of having a diversified life.

    Your financial adviser will tell you to diversify your investments, rather than putting all your “eggs in one basket.” If one investment is lost, you’ll still have others to rely upon.

    The same is true in relationships. Certainly the relationship with your spouse should be your primary focus, but it cannot, and should not, be your only relationship. Emily Dickinson said, “My friends are my estate,” and I couldn’t agree more.

    As a mother of three boys, I lived in a house full of testosterone. My husband knew that not only was time with girl friends beneficial for my mental health, but also the positive tenor of our home. He encouraged me to participate in “girls’ nights” on a regular basis and to take a yearly trip to the beach with my gal pals, a tradition for almost 20 years.

    Thus, when my husband passed away, I had a fully developed support system of ladies who, even now, are still meeting countless needs and making me feel included even though I am flying solo. They have been my lifeline during this dark time. Don’t get me wrong, my family members have been wonderful, but they don’t live close enough to me to give me the daily encouragement I need.

    Cultivating lasting, loving friendships takes time and effort; however, I cannot impress on you how important the investment in friends is, in both good times and bad. Here are some ways to create and cultivate lasting friendships: (more…)

  • What Annoying Situations Teach Us about Ourselves

    What Annoying Situations Teach Us about Ourselves

    “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” ~Carl Jung

    He was shorter than me with a mustache, and he was positioning himself in front of me, but just off to the side of the line. He was traveling with a young teen, probably his son. I knew that when the line moved, he would take one assertive step and insert himself and his kid into the line ahead of me.

    I sneaked a look at his boarding pass and it read B53. I was holding A51. It was my first time being in the A boarding group on Southwest, where your position in line is determined by when you check in online.

    I checked in exactly twenty-four hours before the flight, specifically so I could be in the A group. I deserved this. This guy didn’t.

    Not only was he butting, he wasn’t even an A. He was a B. He should have been sitting down waiting for his group to be called.

    He smiled at me. Trying to make friends? Mocking me? He knew I had seen his boarding pass. His son fidgeted nervously with an iPod.

    I was flying home to Oakland from Denver, and on the ride over something similar had happened. My number was B4, but there were at least seven people ahead of me. Three people were butting!

    On that flight, it wasn’t clear who was a butter and who wasn’t, so I didn’t say anything. I ended up feeling taken advantage of.

    Here was the choice again, and a lousy choice it was, say nothing and feel like a chump, or say something and feel like an uptight agro-jerk.

    I went for choice B.

    “Excuse me sir, what number do you have?” He gave me a stare.

    I started to waiver and began explaining, “I, ah, just want to see where I should….” I trailed off. I was trying to make nice, but there was no hiding my aggressive intent. (more…)

  • How to Sustain Happiness

    How to Sustain Happiness

    “If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy.”  ~Ajahn Chah

    After accomplishing three lists of tasks from three different buckets—professional, personal, and entrepreneurial—I felt accomplished and content.

    And then I felt bored. And then a little irritated. So, I decided to explore and check in with myself:

    I practice gratitude throughout my day. I acknowledge the abundance in my life. I am surrounded by genuine love and relationships.

    I have every reason to not wander away from happiness so easily, but I do. Why?

    Perhaps you have experienced something similar: a moment of complete happiness, bliss, peace, and then it dissipates without notice.

    I began by writing a series of questions in my journal to explore what was going on inside:

    Is it because I can’t focus that I experience a deflation in my mood?  Do I become bored too easily?  Or maybe I have lack of patience that often leads to dissatisfaction?

    Several pages later, I arrived at:

    I can focus; but I am impatient, so I involve myself in multiple projects and events to even out the pace.  When one project or event ends, I fully dive into the next to prevent boredom. During this gap of engagement, my mood shifts.

    Further, I found comfort in moving around, connecting, accomplishing, engaging, clinging.

    Clinging

    This last word, clinging, reached out from the journal page and grabbed my attention.

    After pages of self-inquiry and hours spent peeling back layers, I realized: my mood dip, this occasional creeping feeling of dissatisfaction did not result from anything I mentioned above.

    Instead—this perceived lack of focus, the boredom, the impatience—were byproducts of my constant clinging. I was clinging to accomplishment, the next stimulating thing, the next anything in the future.I suspect that many of us, at some point in our day, can find ourselves clinging: (more…)

  • 4 Simple Mantras to Help You Stay Positive and Happy

    4 Simple Mantras to Help You Stay Positive and Happy

    “The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

    Mantra, according to the dictionary:

    Any sacred word or syllable used as an object of concentration and embodying some aspect of spiritual power.

    Mantra, according to Sirena:

    Things I say to myself to help me deal.

    There are times we all go through that just straight up suck.

    During these times, it can be hard to think about anything other than what’s going on. We can become so consumed in our own misery that we often overshadow any glimmer of hope.

    And although these times can seem endless while we’re in them, it’s through these crappy times that we learn the most about ourselves and receive some of life’s greatest rewards.

    I can only say this after going through some of my own crappy times. You know, experiencing little things like breaking up from an engagement, being unemployed, questioning my sexuality, severing several friendships, wiping through my entire savings, and accumulating way too much debt.

    All within the same year.

    Yikes.

    Through my own experiences of hopelessness, confusion, and doubt, I’ve learned to establish a few simple, but very effective phrases to help me stay positive and to keep things in perspective.

    So now, whenever things cross my path that may initially seem unbearable, or if I begin to doubt myself, I just remember and repeat some of the following mantras: (more…)

  • 10 Ways to Love the People in Your Life

    10 Ways to Love the People in Your Life

    Friends hugging

    “At the end of life, our questions are very simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?” ~Jack Kornfield

    We all grow up with some healthy stories about love and some unhealthy ones. I learned some beautiful, life-giving ideas about love, ideas like these:

    • Loving people means believing in their potential.
    • Love means treating people with kindness and gentleness.
    • Loving the people in your life means celebrating their successes and cheering them on.

    But I also grew up with some stories about love that I came to see weren’t so helpful. Those ideas about love bred problems in my relationships.

    One of those stories was: Loving someone means always being available to them. (Turns out, it’s not true, and living as if it is breeds resentment.)

    Another was: Loving someone means always having space for what they want to talk to you about. (Turns out, not true either!)

    Another myth about love: If you love someone, you do what they are asking you to do, out of love, even if it feels difficult. (I can tell you, that doesn’t work so well.)

    I’ve developed my own guidelines for loving the people in my life, guidelines that express how I want to relate to the people around me.

    These are some of my guidelines for loving: (more…)

  • Leaving a Secure Job When the Risk Feels Scary

    Leaving a Secure Job When the Risk Feels Scary

    “It’s not who you are that holds you back. It’s who you think you’re not.” ~Unknown

    Over the past four years, I followed a career path that felt soulless.

    As I moved from city to city, climbing the corporate ladder, I noticed that, ironically, the bigger my paycheck, the emptier I felt. Something about advertising felt lifeless, cold, and desperate to me.

    But I ignored this feeling and worked over it, drank over it, binged, exercised, and ate over it.

    I pressed forward like a steel freight train on a mission to find my happiness. When I got to that new level, the thing I thought would make me happy was still just a few more achievements off, just a couple more dollars away. I was always looking “out there” to find my peace.

    I had convinced myself that this was the best way to live my life. It became normal to cry in the bathroom at work. It wasn’t until I got laid off one year ago, from my big marketing job in Chicago that I recognized miracles do exist.

    I picked up my depression and moved to the West Coast. I bought my dream car, adopted a dog, and landed a perfect boyfriend—and then I took another job in marketing.

    It was only a few weeks until the fear-ridden depression started to nudge up against me. The cry festivals picked up again, and I walked around like a shell of a human being.

    I would arrive to work lifeless, cold, and afraid to listen to my inner voice. I would say to myself, “I went to graduate school for a marketing degree, so I better stick to this.” But it just wasn’t what I wanted.

    I was pretending to be the corporate climber. The more achievements, awards, cities, clients, and money I could get, the more I could say I was worthy. It was all a big circus, as I quietly hid myself behind the illusion of success and fulfillment.

    I secretly longed for freedom. Every day I would sit under the fluorescent lights and cry inside.

    I felt like a caged animal that wanted nothing more then to break free. But fear, and fear alone, was holding me back. Then one day I arrived to work, and the cage doors propped open. (more…)

  • Overcoming the Power of Suggestion: Make Your Own Choices

    Overcoming the Power of Suggestion: Make Your Own Choices

    “People who urge you to be realistic generally want you to accept their version of reality.” ~Unknown

    I’m often open to suggestion. I like to gather opinions and feedback about my writing so that I can use it to improve the impact and make it a better read.

    The thing I’ve learned about listening to other people’s thoughts on my writing is that sometimes what seems like good advice is little more than personal preference; changing an image or an entire scene to suit one person isn’t always the right path, especially if my gut is saying, “You know you don’t want to do that.”

    Now that I am working on a novel, I realize how easy it’s been to sway me, not just in my decisions but also in my thoughts.

    Have you ever taken a different route to a party or family event because the person in the passenger seat told you to? How about putting those comfy, though slightly old trainers in the bottom of the closet because your partner thinks they look shabby?

    It’s a given that we’ve all spent money on something we don’t need because we’ve been lured by the suggestion of T.V. and big companies that appeal to our desire to happy. I bet some people have even given up on dreams because someone else has said they’d be better off aiming a bit lower.

    There’s a difference between valid advice and suggestions based on self-interest.

    There are times when my view of reality gets distorted, when I’m stressed or upset. Once I’ve calmed down, I often acknowledge that my perception was overblown, although a grain of truth often remains.

    It’s frustrating when someone else negates my experiences—essentially saying there is no grain of truth. (more…)

  • 6 Questions That Will Make You Feel Peaceful and Complete

    6 Questions That Will Make You Feel Peaceful and Complete

    Woman painting

    “The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

    When I was in my mid-twenties an unhealthy relationship with an unhealthy guy sent me packing off to the corner of New Mexico to find myself. In a new age, self-discovery kind of world—a hubbub of a town filled with people in transition—I was graced to meet many powerful healers, gurus, shamans, and teachers.

    I became a workshop junkie. I went on Shamanic power journeys to spiritual centers around the world, chanted with Indian gurus, and became a certified yoga instructor and Reiki master.

    I got rolfed, (and got more intense body-work by thick-boned Maoris) and rebirthed with conscious breath work. I studied parapsychology and quantum dynamics, did past-life regressions, memorized mantras, unraveled koans, and collected crystals and tarot cards.

    I went on vision quests in the desert, called leading psychics, mapped my astrological chart, figured out my Enneagram number, dreamed lucidly for nights in an upright chair, and drew down the moon in Wiccan circles.

    I had psychic surgeries, soft-tissue chiropractic work, drank herbal tinctures and elixirs, bought every kind of healing essential oil, collected a library of self-help books, and did inner-child work, gestalt dialogues, and did loads of homework with several life coaches.

    I know. It’s crazy, huh?

    I was a perpetual seeker. Because of an innate sense that there was something wrong with me and a belief I picked up as a child that I was “bad,” I constantly looked outside of myself to find respite, feel loved, and to know my worth.

    Even though my unhealthy relationship was dysfunctional, that man gave me a gift that I wouldn’t discover for years. There was something he always said to me that would have saved me from grasping to know myself for so many years, if only I could have really heard it and made it my own.

    Whether he meant it or not, he would say: What’s not to love about you?

    If I could only for one minute stop and realize this truth, I could have found my peace, and not from a man or spiritual teacher or seminar. I would have been freed from a need to find something outside of me. I would have come to know my own heart. (more…)

  • The Secret to Instant Self-Confidence

    The Secret to Instant Self-Confidence

    “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama

    Self-confidence is an interesting concept.

    You see, we all have ways of feeling good, bad, low, light, and peaceful. We all have triggers that tell us when to experience these states.

    The really interesting part is that you can challenge how you respond to those triggers and change the strategies you use.

    There have been countless times in my life where I haven’t felt absolutely confident.

    For example, I used to be very shy around people. I just didn’t believe I had anything to say, so I used to freeze. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people.

    It felt safer to be quiet, but after awhile it got really boring—and when someone is really bored, they’re often in fear because they’ve put so many restrictions on themselves.

    What helped me work through the fear and start being me was tapping into a feeling of confidence, or sometimes just another positive feeling.

    It could be as simple as thinking of something that made me feel good, or even thinking about the fact that we are all human, and we are all made of the same earth.

    It’s not going to happen overnight, but once you become aware of the triggers in your life, you can exponentially increase the amount of bliss you experience.

    You can try to resist feeling happy all you want, but sooner or later you will start experiencing that bubbly joyous feeling inside of you, because that is who you really are deep down inside.

    That is who we all are. (more…)

  • 5 Immediate and Easy Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

    5 Immediate and Easy Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

    “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare

    I love to paint. I’m not a professional artist. I have no technique, and I am not trained. But I love how the brush feels as it dips into color and moves across a white page.

    Painting allows me to be free, to have fun and play. It also does something else: It shows me how I judge myself and how I can get in my own way. It reveals what I believe about myself that stops me from creating whatever I want.

    Even as I take joy in the process of painting I still hear the inner-critic in my head:

    “This flower is not pretty enough. It should be purple, not red.”

    “Make this face look good so others can recognize what a good painter you are.”

    “You can’t paint just for the sheer joy of it—you need to be doing more productive things with your time.”

    “It’s ugly, and when people see it, they’re going to think you’re weird.”

    The judge inside me likes to tell me how bad I am. He mocks me, teases me, and pushes me around. He’s mean, insensitive, and determined to hold me back.

    When we engage in a project, whether it is the beginning, the middle, or the end, the judge loves to get involved. Although the judge is very unoriginal and speaks to each of us very much the same, his judgments take on hundreds of forms.

    The judge is most definitely a thief, robbing us of our innate goodness, worth, talent, values, and ability. He makes us believe in illusions, wreaks havoc on our spirit, and causes chaos in our mind.

    He likes to break our ego and tell us we are not enough and bad. He likes to tell us we are not loved and not cared about—that we don’t matter.

    He even likes to stroke our ego and puff us up, telling us how good we are, how special and how unique. “Look how beautiful that purple flower is. Look how very talented you are. When people see this, they’re going to find you very special.”

    He loves to break us and stroke us. He loves to seduce us and tempt us. He loves to make us doubt ourselves.

    So how do we silence this inner critic and put him in his place? (more…)

  • Set Yourself Free: 3 Ideas to Become More Conscious

    Set Yourself Free: 3 Ideas to Become More Conscious

    “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

    I’m sitting on a straw bail at an unplugged rock concert that’s being held in Barrydale, South Africa, my current home and sanctuary. It’s a big deal for this small town, because nothing much ever really happens here.

    Everyone from the area has arrived dressed to the hilt and ready to rumba—except me, that is. I’m sitting to the side (in an outfit that will scare away most normal people) staring forlornly off into the distance.

    My buddy Sean sits next to me with a smile the size of the bread roll he’s holding in his hand. He jokes around and chats away like today might be his last day on earth, while I try hard to flash some teeth at least once every twenty minutes, just so I don’t ruin the party for everyone else.

    I probably won’t remember this concert at all in a couple of years’ time. It will become an unidentifiable part of the gray mass of other lost memories that make up most of my life.

    I guess I’m somewhere in my head, sorting through what I perceive to be the missing pieces of my life. I’m here, but I’m not really here at all. I’m so absorbed in dissecting the future and the past and my perception of my life that I’m completely missing what’s happening around me. I can’t see it at all.

    If I could manage to let go of my own expectations of life—just for a second—and zoom out a little bit, I would probably see that in the context of the bigger picture, my worries do not warrant this behavior, not in the least. It takes some doing, but in the end I finally get there.

    Most of us spend our lives living in a kind of insular trance. We are essentially asleep to the world.

    The older we get, the more our lives become like the predictive text on our cell phones: we have a fairly good idea of our day, the route we’ll take, the things that will come up and the people we will see, and our minds just kind of fill in the blanks. (more…)

  • 8 Tips to Help Create a Positive Mental Attitude

    8 Tips to Help Create a Positive Mental Attitude

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

    For years I lived an uneventful existence. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t unhappy either. I was just sort of stuck.

    I had a good career, earned lots of money, and I had great friends and a loving family. You would think that this doesn’t sound too bad, but I felt unfulfilled and unmotivated. I repeatedly lived each day like the one before.

    I looked around me and saw that everybody within my own circle of friends, relatives, and immediate family were no different. They too seemed stuck. They seemed unmotivated—like they were living their lives on automatic pilot.

    I began to question why this was. Why do so many people just accept this pattern as normal, as if this is the way it is supposed to be?

    I read hundreds of books on philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. I continued with this for a couple of years until I gradually I began to see things with greater clarity. I began to wake up. Then one day, out of the blue it just hit me, like a ton of bricks.

    The key to unlocking my prison door was not contained in any books I read (although they did help me somewhat). It was in my ability to accept what “is” in this moment. So I now I make that choice.

    Here are eight tips to help you make that choice:

    1. Remember that you are powerful.

    Most of the time we have no idea what we are supposed to be doing, or who we are supposed to be imitating. I say “imitating” because this is what we do: We conform to the external environment. (more…)

  • Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

    Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

    “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” ~Denis Waitley

    I just spent the past 17 months of my life trying to find, travel to, or somehow earn happiness.

    I had just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I had a loving husband, a home, good friends, and a supportive family. I was supposed to be happy. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain why, even to myself.

    This led to more anxiety and major guilt. I felt like I had tripped into a deep, dark, cavernous hole. My family and friends threw me many ropes in various attempts to pull me out. Four months after my son’s birth, I sought help.

    The diagnosis was post-partum depression and anxiety.  For the next year, I tried both therapy and medication, though I was hesitant to ingest anything more than the lowest dosage available. Neither of them seemed to be consistently effective for me.

    Then last April I had a falling out with my boss and a co-worker on the same day. As a perfectionist and people-pleaser, this devastated me. I hit my rock-bottom of sadness. It finally dawned on me that I had spent the past year and a half isolating myself from all that I used to love.  Even my husband and closest family members felt disconnected from me.

    My head was so crowded with feelings of how the hell am I going to get through this day thatthere was no room to enjoy my life. The next morning I awoke with an epiphany—an “aha!” moment, if you will.

    I was reading a magazine article about a frazzled new mother, trying to balance a coffee, a stroller, a grumpy toddler, and a cell phone—all with a glazed-over, vacant look in her eyes.

    “Oh my God, that’s me,” I thought.

    My one-and-only messy, beautiful life was happening, and I was missing it. I needed to wake up. (more…)

  • Beat Procrastination: How to Want to Tackle Your To-Do List

    Beat Procrastination: How to Want to Tackle Your To-Do List

    “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you won’t do anything with it.” ~ M. Scott Peck

    Ten years ago, I stopped procrastinating. Lots of procrastination, then zero—overnight. Cold turkey worked for me. Now I hardly ever procrastinate.

    Why the sudden change? How did I do it?

    Lists and Procrastination

    Like many people, I make lists, including to-do lists, reminders, shopping lists, wish lists, and my what-to-do-when-bored list. I completely rely on my lists to keep my life moving along.

    My Dad purposefully decided not to make lists. He believed he could maintain his memory better if he didn’t rely on them. Could be true, because he always had a good memory.

    Not me, however. I do seem to need lists to remind me about important to-do things. When I write something on a to-do list, I can get it off my mind for now, knowing I’ll have that reminder. So why not just do that important thing now instead of writing it down? Well, sometimes that’s not practical or possible.

    But sometimes it is. Sometimes writing a to-do item on a list can actually be an act of procrastination.

    Apparently lists and procrastination go hand in hand for some of us. My reason for making lists is to ensure that things get done, yet writing something on a list can also make it easier for me to procrastinate doing it. Once the to-do item is on a list, it’s off my mind—so it might never get done.

    There’s something wrong with that picture. Making lists to remember to do things, and then avoiding those lists because of a procrastination problem? A deadly combo in terms of productivity! (more…)

  • Lose Control to Find Closeness in Your Relationships

    Lose Control to Find Closeness in Your Relationships

    “Always be mindful of the kindness and not the faults of others” ~Buddha

    In these hectic and often chaotic times, for most people (controllers included), the need for intimate, close bonds with friends and family is more important than ever for their overall well-being.

    Yet, most controllers are unaware of how much their controlling actions prevent intimacy.

    Losing Intimacy with My Son

    Twenty years ago I was a massive, obsessive controller. I firmly believed that the best way to satisfy my needs and achieve what I wanted in life was by controlling everything and everyone. At home, Father truly knew best! I knew what was best for my children—and didn’t hesitate to let them know.

    When my son Brandon was a child, I constantly offered my two cents on almost everything he did, thinking it would help him better traverse life’s many challenges. When he was young, he had no choice but to put up with my intrusions.

    In his teens, however, he became very dismissive of me—he didn’t want to hear anymore from me, and he strongly let me know it.

    Our bond remained strained until I was literally brought to my knees by a rapid-fire series of traumatic events (concluding with 5 major cancer surgeries). At that point, I no longer had the desire or energy to continue intruding upon his life.

    Because I no longer offered him my opinions or advice, Brandon began seeking my input on important challenges he faced as a young adult.

    Hence, the very thing I had sought—intimacy—came to me only after I stopped trying to seek it! (more…)

  • This Moment Does Not Define You

    This Moment Does Not Define You

    “Things and conditions can give you pleasure but they cannot give you joy—joy arises from within.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I struggled with anorexia for four years before I went to rehab. Rehab saved my life, and although I am not “completely recovered,” I am in recovery. I am coping. I am living again.

    One of the biggest sources of fuel for my eating disorder was my hyper-focus on the physical and transitory aspects of life.

    In my mind, I over-emphasized the importance of my body. I put the appearance of my body, and how I felt about my body, above my true, underlying nature.

    I would treat fleeting thoughts, feelings, and emotions as crucial, life-and-death matters.

    I did not realize or appreciate my crucial and enduring self, which (I now understand) transcends the fleeting states of the corporal realm.

    During this time, surface feelings took on a villainous and critical role. I know this sounds melodramatic and unrealistic (because it is), but “feeling bloated” literally felt like the death of me. I could not separate my true self from my passing thoughts and feelings.

    A huge part of my recovery and self-discovery has been my ability to separate my identity and the surface mental sewage that blocks my view of reality.

    I realized that I am not my body – kind of weird, but cool and life-changing. I am much more than just my physical form.

    I’m not saying that I’m really some waif-like spirit, floating on the whimsical current of an indefinable world (that would be cool though).

    What I’m saying is that my physical self—my body, my fleeting feelings and thoughts—do not define me.

    I am not just me sitting here typing this blog post. I am not me who ate apples with a whole lot of peanut butter for breakfast. I am not me who will take a sip of black iced coffee in about three seconds.

    I am a conglomeration, a whole melting pot of things and thoughts and feelings and actions and ideas and emotions. I am now and then and I am more to come. (more…)

  • Be Stress-Free: Eliminate 5 Common, Unnecessary Stressors

    Be Stress-Free: Eliminate 5 Common, Unnecessary Stressors

    “Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong – sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

    The human mind loves to find things to stress about.

    There seems to constantly be something in our lives that causes us to worry. And when the thing that caused the worry disappears, we feel happy, but only for a short period of time until we find something else to stress about.

    I’ve witnessed this pattern many times in my own life. As soon as I was able to solve one of my problems, my mind found me a new one.

    Compared to other guys, my body is very skinny. It has been that way since I was a little kid. My friends used to tease me because of it. I laughed at their jokes, but inside I always felt horrible.

    I felt like there was something wrong with me because I was different.

    As I got older I started going to the gym so I could gain weight. Progress was slow since my body naturally leans towards the skinnier side. But slowly I began seeing results in the size of my muscles.

    This is, however, where the results ended. I didn’t really get happier with my body at all, which was the main purpose of the training anyways.

    I still felt skinny and there was always something in my body that wasn’t quite right yet.

    At that point I realized that I was participating in a game that I couldn’t win. My body wasn’t the problem. The problem was what my mind was telling me about my body.

    In essence, as long as you are identified and run by your mind, it will come up with “problems” for you to focus on.

    Every single time a dilemma is solved, you can be sure of a new one arising that feels equally stressing as the previous one.

    The good news is that there is a way to break free from this endless loop of stress. It starts by realizing how pointless and harmful this useless worry actually is.

    Once you become aware of the negativity that these thought patterns create, it will be much easier to let go of your “problems” once and for all. (more…)

  • Renovate Your Life: 5 Key Truths About Creating Change

    Renovate Your Life: 5 Key Truths About Creating Change

    “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

    We are currently in the midst of home improvement—what we thought would be a small “touch-up.”  Nothing seemed too threatening on the surface, just a scratch here, a nick there. It would be a simple fix.

    But when we began the project and uncovered the areas we were going to address, we saw there was much more than met the eye, as often happens in life. We could no longer ignore what we had sealed over and painted, covered with lovely flowers, and ignored for many years.

    Isn’t it funny how often plumbing is a perfect analogy for life? Opening what seemed to be a simple clog revealed 45-year-old crumbling pipes, made from materials long obsolete. All of the unseen clogging and rusting seemed symbolic of the hidden parts deep inside myself.

    When I acknowledged a simple issue—my fear of change—it revealed old beliefs that no longer serve me. Beliefs that were behaving just like our pipes by creating major blocks. Beliefs that I had covered so well with personal landscaping that no one (including me) saw them.

    The most amazing thing was sharing this with a plumber who really got it and shared my insights.

    Who knew—enlightenment through our sewer drains!

    So as the project moves on, I want to share five of the truths about home and self improvement that I have discovered thus far: (more…)