Tag: wisdom

How to Get Past a Setback Today to Create a Better Tomorrow

“What does not kill me, makes me stronger” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

If you knew me, you’d think that I float through life without a care, that nothing fazes me, and that I don’t get stressed. For the most part this is true, but every now and then something happens that really gets to me.

We have been trying to sell our house so that we can emigrate to Australia. The house has been on the market for about two years, and we’ve had three sales fall through already. So a few weeks ago, when we had agreed on a sale price with a buyer, I felt mixed emotions.

I was excited and optimistic but I also felt stressed, hoping that this time the sale would go through but fearing that it wouldn’t.

I tried not to build my hopes up, but I also spent the week looking on the internet for jobs in Australia and checking out house rentals.

The buyers were so enthusiastic. They had worked out where their furniture would go and who would have which bedroom. The father had grown up in the village and wanted to move to be close to his mother. It was all looking good.

A week or so later, my wife texted me letting me know we received “bad news about the house.” Another sale had fallen through.

I felt low and fed up. I had absolutely no motivation. But after a few days, I decided to pull myself together and get over it.

Lately I’ve been learning to become aware of my emotions and how they can affect my actions. Knowing how I am feeling helps me to be measured in my decision making. I’ve been developing this self-awareness by reflecting on past experiences and examining my emotions and choices.

As I sit here now, looking at the “For sale” sign outside my house, I can honestly say that I am glad that another sale fell through.

It was unpleasant and it inspired all kinds of negative emotions. But it also enabled me to examine my own behavior, to become more aware of how I act when I’m stressed or feeling low, to practice being strong in tough situations, and to grow as a person. (more…)

May 8, 2011
How to Help Someone Who Won’t Help Themselves

“We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

Recently I got into a hypothetical conversation with someone who very quickly turned hostile and accusatory. Let’s call her Jane. My first instinct was to get defensive, but then I realized this subject was quite raw for Jane, and there was likely something going on below the surface.

Usually when people are combative seemingly without cause, there’s some underlying pain fueling it.

As we got to the root of things, I learned that Jane was holding onto anger toward someone she once loved, and she felt a strong, driving need to convince people that this other person was wrong.

Since she acknowledged that she’d been feeling depressed, lonely, and helpless, I felt obligated to at least try to help her see things from a different perspective. But that ultimately proved futile.

She was committed to being angry and hurt, and all she wanted from me was validation that she was justified.

I kept thinking back to how I felt at eighteen years old, reliving scenes of adolescent abuse that I refused to let go of well into my twenties. I spent years stewing in anger because I felt like a victim, and any threat to that comforting sense of righteousness only made me angrier.

Remembering how badly and unnecessarily I hurt myself, it felt imperative that I help her let go. I wanted to help her get out of her own way. I wanted her to do what I had failed to do for far too long.

Seeing that stubborn, bitter commitment to pain reminded me of how angry I was with myself when I realized I’d hurt myself far worse than anyone else—and how ashamed I felt when I realized I enjoyed being a victim, receiving pity, attention, and (what felt like) love.

Suddenly I recognized that I wasn’t just trying to help Jane; I was also judging my former self. (more…)

May 5, 2011
What It Means to Really Take Care of Yourself

“Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.” ~Max Ehrmann

Last year I realized that I lived twenty-eight years without knowing what it really means to love and take care of myself.

In 2010, I took some wonderful, worldly trips—Costa Rica, Bangkok, Taipei—trekking and exploring.

My husband and I bought a second home. I fully engaged myself in the improvements and the creativity of decorating a fresh canvas.

I ran several races, including a half-marathon, and finished well. I joined a swanky health and fitness club where I could take trendy aerobic classes. I was “taking good care of myself.”

Life was good. I worked hard, I played hard. The end. That was the story I projected.

But it was hardly that simple or fabulous.

There was a whole lot of turbulence in my life that I was trying to fix externally. (more…)

May 3, 2011
How to Grow from Mistakes and Stop Beating Yourself Up

“When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” ~Unknown

The spiral staircase has always intrigued the yogi-designer in me. The visual draw, similarity to DNA, and cosmic patterns, as well as its mathematical genius, could be enough, but the structure can also mean more.

Picture yourself tripping up in work, life, or love. You’ve made a mistake, said the wrong thing, or didn’t come through with your end of the bargain.

You think, how did I let that happen? What a (fill in the blank) I am. I can’t believe I did that, again. If only I could rewind.

These aren’t the greatest feelings, it’s true. However, we live our lives in irony. Though we dislike how we feel having just tripped up, we continue to beat ourselves up way after the fact.

We cause our own suffering. Furthermore, we seem to forget that when we make mistakes, we grow. An atmosphere of growth is integral to happiness. So create happiness by seeing mistakes as true growth opportunities.

Although yoga, psychology, and conventional wisdom scream at us to live in the moment, I say we are not just the present moment.

We are very much our past in the most rich and helpful way. We can use past mistakes to yield a shiny new perspective and, in turn, create a new outcome.

If we allow them, our mistakes can fuel our awareness. In helping us decide how to act and react in a fresh and fruitful way, they can bring us closer to happiness and further away from causing our own suffering. (more…)

April 27, 2011
3 Causes for Judging People (And How to Accept Yourself)

“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” ~Pema Chodron

Every person you meet has something special to give you—that is, if you are open to receiving it.

Each encounter offers you the gift of greater self-awareness by illustrating what you do and don’t accept about yourself. An honest look will show you that the reactions you have to others give you more information about yourself than about them.

You can never know for sure what motivates other people, but you can learn what you are accepting or judging in yourself.

For instance, if someone makes a remark about you and it’s something you also judge in yourself, it will most likely hurt. However, if they make the same remark and you don’t have that judgment about yourself, it probably won’t bother you at all.

I once visited a new friend’s house and everyone in the family was shorter than me. Since I’m the shortest person in my family, I never felt too tall.

When my friend’s mother met me at the door and said with a slightly disappointed tone, “Oh, you are so tall,” it didn’t affect me. I was aware that she had some discomfort with my height, but I didn’t take it personally.

However, had she been tall and said, “Oh, you are so short,” it probably would have pushed my buttons, since I do feel somewhat short.

This point is valid for almost any interaction imaginable: Reactions always have to do with our own self-judgments and feelings of inadequacy or strength, not the other person.

Most judgments of others stem from one of three basic causes: (more…)

April 26, 2011
How Being Vulnerable Can Expand Your World

“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.” ~Brene Brown

Vulnerability has never been my strong suit. It’s no wonder. In order to be vulnerable, you have to be okay with all of you. That’s the thing about vulnerability that no one tells you about.

Being vulnerable is not just about showing the parts of you that are shiny and pretty and fun. It’s about revealing what you deny or keep hidden from other people. We all do this to some extent. I bet you’ve never said to a friend, “Oh my god, I just love that I’m insecure.”

But that’s the point, isn’t it? You’ve got to love everything, if you want to be vulnerable by choice.

Most of us have probably experienced vulnerability through default. More often than not, we are either forced into that state through conflict, or we are surprised by it after our circumstances feel more comfortable.

Few of us consciously choose vulnerability. Why? The stakes are too high.

If we reveal our authentic selves, there is the great possibility that we will be misunderstood, labeled, or worst of all, rejected. The fear of rejection can be so powerful that some wear it like armor. (more…)

April 19, 2011
2 Things You Need to Form a Strong Friendship

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

Extreme Makeover: Friendship Edition! That would be the best phrase to describe a year in the life of a cross-cultural friendship with my best friend Marisa.

This is the first deep and meaningful relationship I’ve ever had with someone who doesn’t speak a word in my own language.

My relationship with her has exposed and challenged many of my cultural beliefs and ideas about friendship.

There is nothing wrong with being influenced by culture. We all are.

But it’s good to recognize where some of our beliefs come from. Every so often we need to do little sorting through and, if need be, have a “garage sale” to get rid of things that are not relevant to our lives.

From the day that we are born, our culture begins teaching us lessons. It shapes our social behavior, conduct, and whole value system.

Oftentimes, it’s not until we encounter another culture that we realize how our culture and upbringing shaped our value system.

Before my relationship with Marisa, I had many North American values that shaped my beliefs about friendship. For example, I believed that we needed massive amounts of time together. I also believed that we needed things in common or the relationship won’t work at all.

And yes, it is true that you do need these things, but it wasn’t to the degree that I had been brought up to believe.

You see, I’ve had relationships with people in my own language where we’ve had space, time together, and similar backgrounds.

But in the short time that I’ve known Marisa, our relationship has grown faster and gone further than some of these other relationships that have had the benefits of time and space. So what is the catch?

The catch is that it’s not about how much time Marisa and I have together, but rather what we do when we have a moment together. It’s not about how full the cup is, but rather what’s in the cup—the quality and the content.

Relationships experts say that one of the secrets to keeping a relationship healthy is engagement. (more…)

April 18, 2011
Tiny Wisdom: On Fear-Based Decisions

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson

Sometimes I look at people who appear to be confident, successful, and happy and imagine that they always feel that way—that they never feel insecure or afraid, and they always operate from a place of trusting love.

Then I remember that every person who has a pulse deals with human emotions. What confident, successful, happy people have going for them is that they feel fears, but they make decisions from a place underneath them.

They push through discomfort, fully aware that it’s impermanent, and in the process learn, grow, and expand. They realize that whatever happened in the past is over, and what happens is the future is dependent on their willingness to act now.

Some days I let my fear control me, feeling sure I know what bad thing is coming and determined to prevent it. On other days I remember that I am shaping the future, and I can create it in love or fear, but not both. Which do you choose today?

Photo by jennratonmort

March 27, 2011
6 Tips: Work/Life Balance for People with Big Dreams

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

The vast majority of people I know have two different types of work: the kind that pays the bills and the kind they wrap their heart around.

For some people, those are one and the same, but often that takes time, dedication, and a willingness to blur the traditional boundaries that separate work and social life.

Because let’s face it: It’s not always easy to make a living doing something you love.

The first challenge is to figure out what that is, and it’s often complicated by what we think we should do based on what other people think and what we’ve done up until now.

The next step is to figure out how to do it smart. It’s all good and well to decide to you want to run an online fitness, beauty, or personal development empire, but unless you have a unique value proposition and a solid idea of who needs your services and why, you could end up just spinning your wheels.

And then there’s the easiest part, which is simultaneously the hardest: the choice to work on your dream every day, knowing there are no guarantees and that it may take a long time to make the kind of progress that allows you to devote your full-time energy to your passion.

This has been my experience with Tiny Buddha, and it’s the same with people who have contacted me for help with their blogs. Everyone wants the freedom to do more of what they enjoy and less of what they don’t.

What makes this kind of complicated is that turning a passion into work can sometimes strip the joy out of it, particularly when you give up freedom now in the pursuit of freedom tomorrow.

Really, that’s what we’re doing when cram our hours full of tasks that leave little time for play and decompression: We’re deciding tomorrow’s possibilities are more important than today’s.

So, what’s the balance, then?

How do you allow yourself sufficient time to create that thing you visualize—whatever it may be—while also allowing space for relaxation, spontaneity, connection, and the simple act of being?

I recently asked on the Tiny Buddha Facebook page, “How do you create work/life balance?” I’ve chosen the responses that resonated the most strongly with me and used them in shaping this post: (more…)

February 23, 2011
Wisdom from the Sea: 3 Life Lessons Learned on the Ocean

“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination, and brings eternal joy to the soul.” ~Wyland

Growing up near, in, and on the ocean has given me a wonderful opportunity to learn by doing. My neighbors, friends, and coworkers all rely on this vast resource in one way or another.

It shapes and feeds our lives and how we view the world around us. I’ve taken these lessons with me into my working life and have been wonderfully blessed thereby. I’d like to share some with you.

1. Some things need never be said.

I’ve crewed on charter boats and fishing boats, and I’ve seen a marked contrast between those who get it and those who don’t.

A tourist comes for the experience of doing battle. They’re looking to take from the ocean some trophy, to wrestle with sun and salt spray and come away victorious. Everything they do, everything they ask, it’s all to accomplish this clear goal: a picture of them with a fish as long as they are tall. And they work hard to attain their prize.

These sometimes fishermen have many questions. “What have you been catching? Do you think we should try somewhere else? Can I use another rod (or reel, or bait)?”

They seem a bit lost when there aren’t any clear answers, and also confused by choices. When a fish is hooked and brought in, there is a flurry of excited activity, a huge rush and expenditure of energy. (more…)

February 17, 2011
Tiny Wisdom: On Being Vulnerable

“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.” ~Brené Brown

To be vulnerable is to be free.

It gives you a break from trying to pretend you’re always right and you don’t have any flaws. It gives you permission to show your authentic self and stop taking responsibility for the way other people perceive you. It allows you to try new things and take the risk of feeling awkward or uncomfortable.

It also opens you up to the possibility of pain. We never know when we let our guard down that other people won’t hurt us, unintentionally or otherwise.

We can know, however, that the pain of closing ourselves off to people and possibilities is far more dangerous than the potential risks of opening up. We’re just not meant to be isolated. We need to really connect with each other.

Today, if you feel tempted to shut down and retreat into yourself, ask yourself : What’s the best thing that could happen today if I decided instead to move outside this place that feels safe?

Photo by Thomas Euler

January 24, 2011
Tiny Wisdom: On Perfect Plans

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

Tomorrow always seems like a safe bet for action. Then you’ll be ready to get started, or get serious, or get over it, or get on with it. Tomorrow you’ll finally set your plan in motion instead of shaping it into something just right. You’ll take the offer, the plunge, or the road less taken tomorrow, when you feel sure.

Tomorrow can become a moving target while todays pile up and expire.

Sometimes we need to be patient, but oftentimes we use it as an excuse to wait for something that will likely never come. Today is our chance to act. We might not always know precisely what to do, but we can trust that we’ll figure out as we go if only we get started.

Of course that comes down to whether or not we’re willing to trust in our abilities. What do you need to start today, and if you don’t trust in yourself, what can you do to change that?

Green Buddha image via Shutterstock

January 5, 2011
Authentic Communication: 3 Tips for Receiving in Conversations

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

Have you ever heard the expression everyone loves a cheerful giver? While there’s a great deal of truth in the philosophy of offering without hopes attached, what about the flip side?

Sometimes we become so focused on providing antidotes or anticipating what we perceive to be the other person’s needs that we steamroll a conversation, taking center stage in our interactions.

In my own day-to-day life, pauses and hesitations in conversation used to make me uncomfortable or even anxious. I would rush to fill the space with chit chat that meant little, or offer to help that person with a favor—not so much to experience the joy of giving another person a break but to alleviate the unease inside me.

Coming from a place of fear, I frequently dampened the point of the conversation with my desires to keep the talk flowing and elicit the behavior I wanted from others.

As a one-time people pleaser, I knew that there had to be a more peaceful way to connect, and on a deeper level, with those around me.

After I turned thirty, I began to step back and actually give other people room to express their opinions and thoughts—even if it meant several seconds of complete silence, something that previously would have seemed impossible to me.

I found myself breathing more slowly and relaxing more into the moment. I started to feel the same happening to others I interacted with. (more…)

January 3, 2011
Cracking Your Comfort Zone: How to Face a Fear

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

I’m about to write something that’s freaky and a bit philosophical, but true. Really take this in: You become your comfort zone.

Getting out of your comfort zone is crucial to actualizing your aspirations.

If you want something that you don’t already have, there’s a good chance you’ll have to do things that you haven’t already done.

Doing those things may not feel natural to you. You may even feel uncomfortable and awkward. But ultimately, behind the frightening facade of fear is a bigger version of who you already are. That’s where the fun is.

Cracking your comfort zone involves feeling fear and befriending it. Your fear is there for a reason. Respect and embrace it.

The best of the best feel fear. So will you. The trick is to not let it immobilize you, but instead, use it as a driving force to take you where you want to go.

When we learn how to accept and embrace our fear of the unknown, we open ourselves up to an endless opportunity for pure potentiality to emerge. (more…)

December 26, 2010
Review & Giveaway: The Power of Receiving

Sometimes in the name of being good we forget to be good to ourselves. We put so much energy into meeting other people’s needs that we fail to meet our own. And yet that doesn’t change that we have needs; it just pushes us to deny them or to find manipulative ways of getting them met.

For the longest time, I felt certain that good people put everyone else first. They stretch themselves, bend over backward, and even completely exhaust themselves if it means making everyone else happy.

I also thought giving would naturally invite reciprocity. Inevitably, after months of martyrdom, I’d feel frustrated that other people weren’t returning that kindness and meeting my expectations. The truth is that it wasn’t their job. It was my job to take care of my needs.

And it’s the same for all of us: only we can make the choice to receive.

Knowing firsthand how challenging it can be to find a balance between giving and taking, I was excited to read Amanda Owen’s new book The Power of Receiving.

On the surface, it may seem like a book about putting yourself first, but it’s so much more than that.

The Power of Receiving is about being able to receive without feeling obligated or indebted. It’s about finding the courage to be your authentic self so that you can invite other people’s genuine acceptance. And it’s about identifying and receiving the dreams that will fulfill you, professionally and personally. (more…)

December 22, 2010
How to Love Your Authentic Self

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

In our personal development-focused, life coach-dependent world, it’s all too easy to think you need to change. Not just the things you do, but who you are.

It’s one thing to invite transformation for the sake of growth, improvement, and new possibilities. It’s another thing to feel so dissatisfied with yourself that no amount of change could possibly convince you that you’re worthy and lovable.

This type of intrinsic self-loathing formed the basis of my adolescence and some of my twenties. It was like I was constantly trying to gut myself so I could replace myself with someone better.

Ironically, I won a karaoke contest in the early nineties for singing The Greatest Love of All—yet I hadn’t learned to love myself. I didn’t know the greatest love of all, or any love, really, being about as closed off as a scab.

On most days, I kept a running mental tally of all the ways I messed up—all the dumb things I said, the stupid ideas I suggested, and the inevitably unsuccessful attempts I made to make people like me. How could they when I wasn’t willing to lead the way?

I tell you this not as an after picture who can’t even remember that girl from before, but as someone who has lived this past decade taking two steps forward and one step back. For my willingness to give you this honesty, I am proud.

People are more apt to share their struggles once they feel like they’re on the other side. It’s a lot less scary so say “This is who I used to be” than “This is what I struggle with sometimes.”

But this is my truth, and I give it to you, wholeheartedly and uncensored. On a primal level, I really want to be loved and accepted, but I learn a little more every day that my own self-respect is the foundation of lasting joy. (more…)

December 19, 2010
5 Tips to Accept Your Weaknesses: The First Step Toward Growth

“Growth begins when we begin to accept our weaknesses.” ~Jean Vanier

I went out with my mom this Sunday, a beautiful, sunny, fall day in San Francisco. As we sat on a bench looking out over the bay and ate our vegetarian spring rolls, she reminded me of an incident that happened when I was a teenager when she and I had traveled to the Grand Canyon.

In a nutshell, I had gotten irate over a family that was feeding the ground squirrels French fries right next to a sign that said “Don’t Feed the Squirrels.” I went up to them and, apparently, was very vehement in my request that they stop feeding the F&*$% squirrels their F&*%$ junk food.

My mom laughed as she recounted the story (and how she now tells it to others), but I froze up in shame.

I remember how badly I felt afterwards for losing my cool like that—how I felt like shrinking up and disappearing. What to my mom was a funny story of a teenage freak-out, to me was yet another reminder of how flawed I am.

The story reminded me of hundreds of other times—some as recent as a couple of weeks ago—when I lost my temper and lost control. And how each time, I’ve felt the cold fingers of shame, guilt, and regret, and wonder despairingly what is so wrong with me that I can’t seem to stop blowing up at people.

I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who forgive me my faults and flaws as I forgive theirs. I can never hold a grudge for very long because I know how it feels to make mistakes.

Always, when I’ve lost it with someone, I’ve apologized profusely, and I’ve used these incidents as opportunities to look inside myself and explore what happened, what triggered my anger, and how I can help make it less likely to happen in the future. (more…)

November 4, 2010
Baby Steps: A Simple Guide to Doing Something New

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

Two years ago, after hearing Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, talk about setting up one’s own blog, I went home and did just that. It had been something I had thought of doing, one day, when I would get over my “fear” of technology and decide I can do this.

Her talk made it sound so easy that I sat down and went for it. And I did it; I set up my own blog on blogpost. I was quite proud of myself. Within the next couple of weeks I wrote a couple of posts. And then I got stuck. I didn’t know where to go from there, what to focus on, what direction to take.

Month after month went by and I didn’t post. I had only done three postings in total. It actually felt burdensome having it up there but feeling paralyzed about continuing to post.

After about a year, I decided to get it taken down. I felt relieved that it was off. My leap into the blogging world had sent me springing backwards. I was not ready for this. It required a commitment of writing consistently and with a focus, neither of which I had at the time.

But it was definitely something I wanted to come back to again, one day. I didn’t feel like I was barking up the wrong tree but rather I needed to backtrack and take more preliminary steps towards this goal. So I started reading lots of other blogs and posting comments on them, Tiny Buddha being one of them.

I’d even get comments on my comments, which was exciting to me. That gave me a boost. I wrote a couple of online pieces for newsletters. That was a win for me. And then I noticed the submissions statement on Tiny Buddha and figured I’d give that a try. (more…)

November 2, 2010
Navigating Loss: Dealing with the Pain and Letting Go

“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

I remember when I first read the pathology report on my patient, Mr. Jackson (name changed), my stomach flip-flopped. “Adenocarncinoma of the pancreas,” it said.

A week later, a CT scan revealed the cancer had already spread to his liver. Two months after that, following six rounds of chemotherapy, around-the-clock morphine for pain, a deep vein thrombosis, and pneumococcal pneumonia, he was dead.

His wife called me to tell me he’d died at home. I told her how much I’d enjoyed taking care of him, and we shared some of our memories of him. At the end of the conversation I expressed my sympathies for her loss, as I always do in these situations.

There was a brief pause. “It just happened so fast…” she said then and sniffled, her voice breaking, and I realized she’d been crying during our entire conversation. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I told her again. She thanked me for caring for her husband and hung up.

I’d known Mr. and Mrs. Jackson for almost seven years and had always liked them both immensely. I thought the world a poorer place without Mr. Jackson in it and found myself wishing I’d done a better job of consoling his wife, thinking my attempts had been awkward and ineffective. I reflected on several things I wished I’d said when I’d had her on the phone and considered calling her back up to say them.

But then instead I wrote her a letter. (more…)

November 2, 2010
9 Ways to Cope When Bad Things Happen

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

Have you ever experienced times when you go through just one bad thing after another? When it seems like the world is out to get you? When things go wrong no matter what you do?

You are not alone. Bad things happen to all of us too, including me. I experienced a small set back recently which I want to share with you.

Not too long ago, I was working on my upcoming eBook. It was my #1 priority project at that time and I had been working on it tirelessly, day and night. After lots of hard work, I was 90% done. At that time, it was 630 pages. (The final book was almost 800 pages.)

I was happy with the progress. Cover done, foreword written, articles in place, right order, formatting done, layout completed—it was on track to launch in a week’s time. (more…)

October 31, 2010