- By Julia Manuel
Growing up in Appalachia, many women abided by two rules: it’s impolite to say no, and be as nice as you possibly can be, and everyone will realize you’re the better person. For me, this translated as always say yes and play nice.
Innocence is what we find within ourselves when we stop being suspicious and fearful. When we let go of our socially conditioned caution we discover we have a core of innocence and playfulness. Innocence is a state of self-love and self-acceptance that has almost nothing...
Growing older is inevitable and, as has been said, better than the alternative. Limiting ourselves by age, though, is a state of mind. But often we accept stereotypical statements about age, aging, and what is supposed to happen at certain ages. We don’t need to accept any of these thoughts!
- By Sarah McLean
If you find yourself time and again in relationships that make you feel unlovable, then you’re probably short on self-love. I had relationships like this. Wanting love from someone else led me to do crazy things like elope with a man I’d casually met on the beach...
The idealized self — the mask you put on for appearance’s sake — reaches the breaking point during burnout. All that work to maintain the facade, and it couldn’t even deliver the goods. You still don’t feel happy and fulfilled. As a result, the false self finally...
- By David Wygant
Are you — right now — living a life completely by your own rules? I’m not talking about your parents’ rules, your boss’s rules, or your partner’s rules... Here's how to make your own rule book so that you’re not living their lives, dreams, frustrations, and visions for you...
- By Alan Cohen
When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration...
If we are to love humanity as a whole, we must first love humanity in a unit of one -- our own self. I started looking at what loving someone really meant, and...
- By Lisa McCourt
One of the qualities Buddhists strive for on the path to enlightenment is called “sameness of being.” It means being exactly who you authentically are, no matter who you are interacting with. To be your most authentic self, you must get over your habits of worrying about....
- By Osho
Sadness can become a very enriching experience. You have to work on it. It is easy to escape from your sadness — and all relationships ordinarily are escapes; one simply goes on avoiding it. And it is always there underneath... the current continues...
Did you ever wonder what characterizes a psychologically mature person? I’ve thought about it a lot – both on my own personal inner journey of awakening and because I work as a therapist and coach on a daily basis, helping other people with their issues. Here are some of the things I’ve discovered.
- By Itai Ivtzan
How can you free yourself from being lost in your thoughts? To understand the answer we must examine the chain reaction of thought. Every thought that passes through your mind sets the background for the next one. Your attention keeps reacting to each thought in a way that makes way for the next. For example...
You can only take care of yourself if you know yourself. You can only make good choices for yourself if you know yourself. You can only set limits if you know yourself. But to know yourself you have to be able to answer basic questions like...
Malia Obama recently announced that she will take a gap year before attending Harvard University. Historically, American high school graduates have been less likely to take a gap year as compared to their European and Australian counterparts.
I am writing about you. You; wonderfully flawed, perfectly nutty, beautiful, broken-hearted, powerful you. Would you like to impact the planet and be a part of a positive change? Would you like to feel more at peace with yourself and be a happier human being?
Every single person is different. We all have different backgrounds, views, values and interests. And yet there is one universal feeling that we all experience at every single moment...
When it comes to dealing with stress, everyone has an elemental style of dealing with it, and everyone has an ego. Our reactions are often as predictable as the sun coming up every day and going down each night. Whatever the cause -- we react.
It’s not uncommon to hear people wishing that they had a better memory. “If only I weren’t so forgetful”, they complain. “If only I could reliably remember my computer password, and that my neighbour’s name is Sarah, not Sandra.” If this sounds familiar then I know how you feel.
Renewal is well described by Beat novelist and poet Jack Kerouac in his line, ‘I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.’ After a smooth transition, renewal brings a gradual sense of stability and certainty after a time of rapid change. As we step towards our dreams...
Happy February! It is the month of L-O-V-E! Which (let's be honest here) can mean you're either feelin' it or you're not. There's no in-between when we're talking about Valentine's Day, am I right?
When the six-year-old showed his drawing to the grownups in his life, instead of seeing a boa constrictor digesting an elephant, they thought it was a drawing of a hat. Whenever he showed it to adults, he received the same response. The youngster concluded that none of the grownups had any imagination at all!
- By Sonja Grace
As you experience being an earth angel, you will discover that the path of service is riddled with deep feelings. We are in service at all times, and we need to set an example to other earth angels. If you are living with dysfunction, and your life is not in balance, you need to seek out a teacher and heal within. We cannot serve others when we are ourselves are out of balance.
Core values are the things in our lives that we live from that are nonnegotiable. They are at the heart of who we are, and they need to resonate with our heart’s energy. If they don’t, they are not our values but belong to someone else.